In recent meetings of Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Commissioners, businessmen said they were tired of the traffic maelstrom just west of the city. It’s been going on for twenty years. Plans for a new highway have continually been derailed by activists, who suggest turning the I-26/I-240 area into a boulevard with a cantilever bike bridge and a paradise watercolor sunset scene. Leadership assured the public they were low-balling their request for DOT funding to keep their foot in the door this year, but the locals still preferred a $330 million multimodal plan to the $230 million plan on the table.
Today, we read:
North Carolina transportation improvement projects will stall if Congress fails to avert the expected bankruptcy this summer for the national Highway Trust Fund, Gov. Pat McCrory told state business leaders Wednesday.
and
Because people are driving [fewer] miles and more fuel-efficient cars, the [gas tax] that has been in place since 1921 is not bringing in enough money to support road projects and improvements.
The moral of the story is we could create a lot of jobs by manually hauling goods from shore to shore.
