Column for Jan. 26, 2012

Before I start ranting, I wanted to rave a bit.  I want to brag on my son, John, who took first place in the Pack 95 Cub Scout annual Pinewood Derby this past weekend.  He put a lot of thought and effort into his car, as did all the boys who competed.  I am the Bear Den leader, and all of “my boys” did well.  I am very proud of the sportsmanship, creativity, and effort that went into each car.  I can honestly say that I enjoy Pinewood Derby more as an adult than I ever did when I was a scout.  It is amazing how much I get out of Cub Scouts as a parent and leader, as well as how much my boy gets out of scouting when he has an active, supporting parent to work with him.   If you have a son in elementary school that would like to learn more about Cub Scouts, feel free to contact me.  Now, in the words of M.C. Hammer, “It’s column time!” or something like that.

I hate toll roads.  Whenever I drive through the northeast corridor or some parts of Florida, I end up paying a lot of money in tolls.  Some states hit motorists at a high rate, others just nickel and dime you.  A trip to New England costs over $20 in tolls, one way.  My last trip to Miami was over $10.  Now we have a toll road in the Triangle area.  I was just reading about North Carolina wanting to have tolls on I-95.  This is nothing new and the topic comes up every once in a while.  Now that the ice has been cracked in getting an initial toll road, I knew that it would be just a matter of time until the I-95 toll idea actually took a stronghold.  

The state Department of Transportation has just issued a report suggesting that I-95 be widened significantly, some bridges be raised, and some bridges replaced.  I understand road maintenance, but widening I-95, putting up toll plazas, and spending $4.4 billion?  Johnston County has the oldest stretch of the interstate, so it also has some of the oldest and lowest bridges.  I cringed when I saw that rather than replacing bridges over the past few years, the DOT spent millions of dollars just raising the height of some bridges by a mere eighteen inches.  Why not spend the extra money, do it right, and replace the bridges rather than having to come back later and replace them, anyway?  That was a waste of taxpayer money, but it would not have given the DOT as much job security with some expensive busy work now, and some guaranteed work later.

We pay a high tax rate as it is, but a lot of money is seemingly squandered on busy work projects.  I just pulled up an article I saved from last September when the DOT was going to hold public hearings on proposed road “improvements” on Highway 70.  These so-called improvements included median closures at key intersections that will inconvenience motorists and are totally unnecessary.  It was bad enough that the DOT closed the median crossover on Highway 70 at Oak Street in Selma.  I used that crossover almost every time I drove home, but now I waste more gas and time going further down the road because some pinhead who has to justify his existence on the state payroll wants to improve a roadway at great taxpayer expense.

I used to live near where the Booker Dairy Road extension was going to cross Wilson’s Mills Road in Smithfield.  That road now runs right next to where my driveway was.  Now that the roadway is finished, I still fail to comprehend its great necessity or benefit over its cost and inconvenience with eminent domain and development processes.  Furthermore, like a lot of bypassing roadways, some local businesses will suffer.  

I have a friend in Shallotte, North Carolina whose business is suffering from a similar road “improvement”.  About every business trip to Shallotte, I stop by his restaurant for some of the best chicken wings known to mankind.  His restaurant business has dropped off considerably since a new roadway was built, bypassing a mile or two of roadway.  The road was not so busy as to be burdensome in terms of traffic.  The local residents, mayor, and town council are all baffled as to the need for the project to this day.

Even worse, these two bypassing projects were partially paid for with the so-called “stimulus package” federal spending.  The boondoggle allegedly meant to stimulate business actually has helped kill business.  Even worse still is that the DOT wants to nail us for even more money to pay for interstate improvements via toll roads all over after they continuously squander our tax money on road improvements that are unnecessary and inconvenience the very ones paying for it.  We already pay taxes, and now it looks like we are going to be taxed a second time to drive on the roads for which our tax dollars pay.

Column for Oct. 27, 2011

One of the things I have opined about since moving to North Carolina is the paradigm I found here about relative disregard for the inconvenience that people cause others. Call me a Yankee if you want, I really don’t care. I realize that I have a French surname not often found below the Mason-Dixon Line. Then again, I was born farther south than most anyone reading this column. I was raised in the state of New Hampshire and moved to Raleigh after graduating college to take a job there.

I have been in North Carolina more than half of my life now, certainly about all of my adult life. If that makes me still a Yankee in the eyes of some, so be it. I have a few news flashes for all those Southerners who readily throw around the term Yankee. First, the Civil War has been over since 1865. Second, Reconstruction is over and nobody who was considered a “Carpetbagger” is still alive today. Third, Yankees don’t consider the term a derogatory one, so try as you might, you are not going to get anywhere tossing that term around.

So why do I preface my column this way? Well, I was raised with the Yankee ethic that you should put forth a little more effort so as to not inconvenience other people if at all possible. For an area that claims “Bible Belt” status and high morals, the non-inconvenience concept does not seem to be among high on the priority list. Whether it is regard for others’ time, money, or effort, I have quite honestly found such consideration lacking in The South. Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the willingness to close roads around here.

In a small town of only 3.2 square miles (if Selma were a perfect square, that would mean that each side would only be 1.788854381999832 miles long) I find a good many street closings all allegedly in the name of safety or for the convenience of a select few. There are a bunch of streets that plain stop at railroad crossings. We have endured repeated street closings at live crossings that seem to drag on for weeks on end, and there has even been a debate about closing yet another street at a rail crossing. I wrote my opinion on that matter a few weeks back.

The Clayton Bypass was just fine the way it was for traffic entering onto Interstate 40. The problem was not design of the interchange but rather the sheer volume of commuting traffic. But some well intentioned control freak that does not mind further inconveniencing motorists thinks that it is a good idea to shut down one of the two lanes of traffic merging onto the interstate, so we have another example close to home about which to rant. Someone could not leave well enough alone.

What really cheesed me off recently was that I was driving to Research Triangle Park one morning and saw a work crew nailing down wood forms in the road at the rail crossing on North Pollock Street. I thought “To be sure, they are not going to make a traffic island there.” Sure enough, when I came home later in the day and drove southward on Pollock Street from Anderson Street, there were concrete traffic islands on either side of the tracks. Some pinhead behind a desk somewhere probably thinks that this is going to be a great safety feature. I see it as a huge inconvenience.

October 31st for many people means Halloween. For me, it marks the ninth anniversary of the day I closed on my house inside the 3.2 square miles we call Selma. I found out that there are some traffic lights that are short cycled and that there are some traffic lights that really need a protected left turn signal installed. One such light just happens to be on my regular route of travel here in town. In order to turn left onto West Anderson Street from Pollock Street, I used to wait at the traffic light on Pollock. Before 7 PM, that can be a difficult thing to do, believe it or not. I found that it is much more convenient to catch a break in traffic just after the railroad track and turn left onto Railroad Street, drive past the backside of my house, and go halfway around the block in order to get to my house. It is usually faster and more convenient that way. For the nine years that I have been living here, I have taken that shortcut, even if it is longer in distance. But no more.

Just how many reported accidents do we have at that intersection and rail crossing that would warrant the expenditure of revenue and inconvenience to drivers? I can not recall a single one that I have witnessed in my nine years of living here, not to mention several years of working in Selma previously. I am not sure if this was a governmental expenditure or a railroad expenditure. Either way, it was entirely unnecessary but probably made some bureaucrat feel good about the existence of his job.

Why the inconvenience and expense? Why the disregard for revenue expenditures and the inconvenience to motorists? I just don’t get it.

Column for August 25, 2011

Should a town be beholden to the State of North Carolina for every last decision? I say no. I was reading the article in “The Selma News” about about the Town of Selma’s desire to close the road around the railroad crossing on Preston Street by the old feed mill. I cringed when I read about how the Town Council decided to hold off on the vote until next month. I wish I still had the newspaper in front of me, but my two-year-old got to it, tore up the paper, and it got tossed in the recycle bin. I do recall that the town wanted to get input from the state Department of Transportation before taking a decision. I am all for having all the needed information before you prior to taking decisions, but that irked me a bit.

If Selma is an autonomous government agency, then it has its own jurisdiction and decision taking ability. I am told that Preston Street is a state road despite its length and termination points. It probably should be a town road, anyway. As much as I disagree with the proposed closing, I do believe that it should be Selma's decision to take, considering that the road is entirely within the town's jurisdiction.

There is a reason that each town has its own jurisdiction. I think back to when Selma was rezoning a parcel of land so that it could be used for industrial applications, specifically for an ethanol plant. I recall it vividly because I was on the town’s Planning Board at the time and was one of those who voted on that matter. I also went to the town council meeting about that decision. What irritated me about that meeting was that our neighboring town of Pine Level wanted to have a say in the matter. Speakers from Pine Level droned on for quite some time about their opposition to the ethanol plant. First, the agenda item was for a rezoning request, not for a debate over the merits of an ethanol plant. Second, this was a Selma matter within Selma planning and zoning jurisdiction, and not that of Pine Level. Selma can take its own decisions within its own jurisdiction, thank you very much.

As to the road closing request coming from a safety perspective, I do have experience in this area. Safety and risk management are part of my educational and work background. Sometimes there are acceptable levels of risk to take. Anytime you get into an automobile, there are inherent risks associated with travel of any distance. Yet we assume that risk regularly. How often are we going to shut down an intersection under the guise of safety? That railroad crossing has been decades and yet I don’t recall a single massive wreck associated with it in the news since I have been a Johnstonian. So to me, the safety issue is a non sequitur.

This safety claim reminds me of my very first column in this very newspaper about the Town of Selma spending thousands of dollars to take down an abandoned water tower for alleged safety and liability issues. The tower had been fine as it was for decades, but in a time of budget cuts and layoffs of town personnel, the town spent money needlessly at that point. It was reasonable, assumable risk at the time and could have been accomplished later in better financial times.

There are two more reasons that I personally oppose the closing of this railroad crossing. The first is freedom. I occasionally use this public road, for which I pay taxes for its upkeep. I despise the many roads that already dead end at railroad tracks in this town. How many more are we going to close? Shall we wait until only Pollock Street, Buffalo Road, Anderson Street, and Ricks Road remains as crossings?

Furthermore, I am not much for accommodating a railroad’s desire to close a road when they keep digging up our crossings almost every year, especially at Ricks Road. We have the worst crossing there now we have ever had. Another bad crossing is now near the train depot on East Anderson Street. Trenches with gravel tossed in them have been the norm now for quite a while and are simply horrendous. I can remember at least four times in as many years that the crossing at Ricks Road has been closed and torn up. Each time it’s never a quality job as was done on Peedin Road in Smithfield, on Buffalo Road, or even in the Town of Lillington.

Until all of our crossings are fixed nicely by all railroads that cross through our town and in a timely fashion, I would not be so willing to make accommodations for taking away more of our town’s access ways. As it is, I saw three signs on three different roads just this week warning of temporary crossing closures. Closing multiple crossings for construction has happened before, and I find that to be more dangerous in terms of cutting off emergency response by fire and ambulance equipment than any single crossing remaining open. It almost makes me want to see Railroad Days changed to some other type of festival. I can’t possibly be the only one who thinks that way.