bbDoes Pat McCrory want to turn NC DOT into a state-wide zoning agency? Intended or not, that is the end point of his call to add land-use planning to the things done by Raleigh. North Carolina does not need that, especially not with NC DOT’s inability to handle its most basic functions.

Here’s what we need out of our state road-builders: Roads built where the traffic goes. Not where some big donor to a political campaign wants a road. You cannot land-use plan your way out of bad road-building choices — as gridlocked rush-hour traffic in Charlotte attests. McCrory — and any candidate for governor — should be hitting hard on the cronyism that has crippled transportation choices in the state, not devise yet more things for the corrupt status quo to do to people.

More to the point, McCrory needs to understand he is not running to become mayor of North Carolina. Land-use planning is a local matter, with good reason given all the detail work. Besides, NC DOT is not exactly heedless of the local impact of road-building. Once projects are selected and funded, there is an attempt to work with local officials and residents on specifics of a project and its impact. There are always ways to communicate these things better. The major issue in need of reform, however, is the selection and funding process.

Now maybe McCrory thinks he is making some indirect play for urban votes statewide by tossing land-use planning into the state road-building matrix. Perhaps the thinking is that if the state took a greater interest in land-use planning, then those urban areas with more robust land-use plans would ipso facto end up with more state road-building dollars than rural, mostly Downeast money-pits. But that is too clever by half — especially for Pat McCrory, who has effectively told Republican primary voters that he wants to give Raleigh bureaucrats more power.

The message to NC DOT should be much clearer — build the damn roads where the people are and then clear out.