Today’s Journal editorial says “American taxpayers aren’t getting what they’ve been paying for from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

I would agree, but for different reasons that the Journal editorialists. But on that subject, the N&R’s Taft Wireback reports that the widening of New Garden Road — admittedly a major Greensboro bottleneck —– won’t open until 2010 because a bridge that’s part of the widening has been held up due to environmental concerns, according to GDOT’s Ted Kallam:

The project originally was announced in 1998 as part of widening heavily traveled New Garden for 2.3 miles between Fleming and Brassfield roads, at a total cost of $6.5 million.

But the widening project came to a screeching halt at Jefferson Road because of a nearby creek and the bridge that will have to be built over it, Kallam said.

All such projects undergo extensive environmental review by both state and federal agencies to make sure water quality is protected.

In this case, part of the project involves a technically challenging plan to return the creek to its original course in places where it has been diverted, Kallam said.

The propagandists down in Raleigh have suggested that environmental impact assessments be reasonably limited in order to prevent delays (and limit costs) to projects such as the New Garden Road widening. You have to wonder if this isn’t an instance of environmental overkill that has the effect of keeping Greensboro residents bogged down in traffic. And with a possible $200 million transportation bond on the November ballot (the list of projects is mind-blowing), you really have to wonder if indeed Americans are getting their money’s worth from state and federal environmental policy.