North Carolina has limited dollars to spend upon transportation and it simply can’t afford to waste them on projects that bring a low bang for the buck. And when it comes to low priority road projects set to get state funding, the Garden Parkway stand out in a special way: This project is the reason we have toll roads in North Carolina. An expensive not happening any time soon idea — an outer belt in a county gaining population slowly — that jumped to the head of the class because a powerful politician wanted the road, hoping that if they built it, development would come to the county.
As Sen. Kathy Harrington, R-Gaston, a long-time opponent of the highway said to the UPoR:
It is fiscally irresponsible to hold money aside for a project that has not yet started when we have so many deficient bridges and road maintenance issues and incomplete projects in Gaston and across the state. We need to take care of what we have and finish what we’ve started before moving on to other projects.
Yup.
