News

10-YEAR ROAD PLAN: What's in, what's out, what's delayed

A project that makes major changes in the city’s south gateway is shown in the NCDOT’s 2026-35 road plan for a contract letting in October 2028. The project extends White Street from Greenville Highway to Spartanburg Highway (bottom), adds a two-lane roundabout where South Main, Church and King streets merge, adds a new four-lane bridge over Mud Creek on South Main (top) and replaces the Mud Creek bridge on White Street. New roadway lanes are shown in yellow. [NCDOT MAP]

By Bill Moss, Published: February 26, 2025

While repair and replacement of roads and bridges damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Helene have been a visible part of the transportation scene in the mountains, the regular course of long-range planning is under way, too.

Set forth in regulations of the U.S. government, regions must forecast their major road and bridge work for years to come based on projected cost and projected revenue.

“The state has to show that the projects that it is planning for and budgeting for lines up with the amount of money that it’s expected to have,” French Broad MPO director Tristan Winkler told the county’s Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) last week. “For those of you who have been here a while, that has been a challenge.”

Much of what’s in store —or delayed or deleted —has come to light this month at meetings of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and the TAC.

Among the projects pushed out of the newly released 2026-35 State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) was the interchange improvement on I-26 at Four Seasons Boulevard, a project that the TAC had ranked as the county’s No. 1 priority. Big factor: cost escalation, from $30 million to the $143 million. Even so, Henderson County did better than neighboring counties in the MPO. Haywood County lost three major projects. In Buncombe County the draft 10-year work plan drops widening projects on Sweeten Creek, Sardis and Swannanoa River roads and most of the project to fill the missing link of I-26, which has been a top priority for Asheville since 2014.

“That project cost-escalated, and then escalated some more,” Winkler said. “There’s one small section that’s going to remain funded but the rest of it was decommitted.”

The official rollout of the STIP does not guarantee funding, even with its substantial cuts, given the competing need for road repairs post-Helene. Mark Gibbs, NCDOT’s official in charge of rebuilding and repair of roads and bridge in the mountains, told legislators on Tuesday that the work would mean deferring other projects statewide, the NC Tribune reported in its Wednesday morning update on state politics. The DOT projects Helene-related repairs in the west will cost almost $5 billion and if the federal government covers most of that, as expected, the state match comes to about $917 million.

Church Street repaving this year

 Several high profile projects in Henderson County survived the STIP cuts, though most were delayed. The construction start of the N.C. 191 widening (Mountain Road to N.C. 280 in Mills River) is pushed from 2026 to 2029 while the south gateway project from White Street to Main-Church-King — including a roundabout and new Mud Creek bridge — is delayed from 2027 to 2028. The U.S. 64 roundabouts in Laurel Park are on schedule to start this year.

Here are updates on other NCDOT projects currently under way, with construction cost, percent complete and projected finish date:

• Highland Lake Road, $6.7 million, completion delayed after Helene damaged a new culvert at the waterfall, no finish date is set.
• I-26 bridge over Green River: 77 percent complete, March 2026 finish
• I-26 widening: $271 million, 87 percent, January 2026.
• King Street repaving, $2.5 million, 88.5 percent, October 2025.

Projects planned, cost and construction contract let date:

• Clear Creek Greenway, Berkeley Mills Park to Lakewood Drive (under I-26 to Sam’s Club area), $1.8 million, July 2025.
• Ecusta Trail, U.S. 64 to Transylvania County line, $13.1 million, September 2027.
• Blythe Street sidewalk, $2.1 million, 2030.
• South Grove Street sidewalk, $2.7 million, July 2027.
• Church Street repaving, scheduled to start next month.

N.C. has ‘cleared the shelves’ of culvert pipes

Last Tuesday, NCDOT’s chief Division 14 engineer, Wanda Payne, updated county commissioners on Hurricane Helene repairs. Of 839 damaged sites — roads, bridges, culverts — 500 have been repaired at a cost of $275 million. Of 53 bridges, 27 have been repaired or replaced.

The next day, DOT engineer Troy Wilson told the TAC that the amount of work to repair the hurricane damage is causing supply shortages, particularly in concrete culvert pipes, many 10 feet in diameter.

“A lot of these pipes are huge — 120s, 90s — and unfortunately, we pretty much cleared out all the shelves across the U.S. for all these pipes,” he said. “They’re working 24/7 to produce this stuff — thousands and thousands of feet of pipe, so we’re getting them in. The big ones especially — they take time. So it may be six, eight months” before they arrive.

In all, the NCDOT says it expects to let contracts for repairs on U.S. highways 176, 64 and 74 and N.C. 9, 20 secondary roads and 41 bridges.

A replacement the bridge over South Mills Gap Road in Edneyville — damaged pre-Helene — was nearly finished when the storm struck.

“We were in the process of making that repair when Helene hit and basically destroyed it completely,” Wilson said. “So that is going to have to be a complete replacement, about double the size it was. That will have to be done by contract. We had thought we would get that open quicker with maintenance forces before Helene and we were on schedule to do that. However, Helene had other ideas.”

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Public drop-in sessions to review the 2026-35 STIP are scheduled 8 a.m.-5 p.m. through Friday, Feb. 28, at the NCDOT Division 14 office, 253 Webster Road, Sylva. Go here to submit comments on line. The deadline is April 4. The state Board of Transportation is scheduled to adopt the STIP in June with French Broad MPO adoption to follow in August.