Skip to main content

NCDOT Releases Construction Project Rankings

From an WRAL.com story tonight: http://www.wral.com/traffic/story/7087906/

NCDOT, ahead of its public meetings on Monday, has released its rankings of state highway projects, both statewide, and by division, for two different categories: highway and non-highway and for highways using three different components: Safety, Mobility, and (Infrastructure) Health, and three tiers: Statewide, Regional, and Subregional. These in turn are broken down into many 'sub-modes' such as pavement rehabilitation, highway construction, etc. At this time all projects are listed even if they are not ultimately going to be paid for by the state and included in the state TIP. The document is available in the link above, and here:
http://www.ncdot.org/performance/reform/documents/

The new rankings are part of a process to remove politics from determining what highway projects are chosen. The highest ranked project according to Mobility is the paving of Secretary of Transportation Gene Conti's driveway (just kidding). Actually, the highest ranked mobility project regionally is: the widening of NC 54 in Durham from I-40 to NC 55. While Statewide its widening I-85 in Davidson County. For Safety the top ranked score Regionally is the upgrading of NC 65 from Germantown to the Virginia state line in Stokes County. Statewide the top safety project is upgrading NC 107 in Jackson County. For Infrastructure Health regionally its replacing a bridge, but not the bridge you're probably thinking of. This is the US 17 Business bridge over the Perquimans River in Perquimans County. Statewide its the widening and modernizing of NC 11 in Duplin and Lenoir County.

Breaking it down by Division, particularly Division 5 which includes Wake and Durham Counties the top regional project is, as stated before, the widening of NC 54. The repaving of I-440 also gets top ranking in the pavement subcategory. The top state highway project is the widening of US 1/64 from 6 to 8 lanes from I-40 to Lake Wheeler Road (while removing the existing concrete layer, apparently another pavement problem has cropped up?). The 'high priority' East End Connector project in Durham is not even listed, yet alone ranked. This may mean it has just been pushed back to after FY 2012 (July 2011) when this system (only listing projects that can be completed within 5 years or by 2016) is supposed to start.

Since the document is long (452 pages) I, for now, concentrated on I-73/74 projects. At the division level most are ranked high, not a similar case for all projects though at the state level. The upgrading of US 74 east of NC 41 to west of Whiteville is given a ranking of 8 in Division 6, however it's No. 200 statewide. In Division 7 and 8 the upgrading of I-73 and I-73/74 to interstate standards is ranked 3rd under infrastructure health in the modernization sub-mode. The Number 1 statewide mobility highway project in Division 7 is to reconstruct the I-74/US 311 interchange with NC 68 in High Point. Number 2 is to build the connector for I-73 between NC 68 and Bryan Blvd. by the airport interchange (3rd statewide). Number 7 is the connector between I-73 and the W-S Beltway (I-74). In Division 8 the number 2 Infrastructure project in the Highway Misc. category is to upgrade signage along I-73 from Ellerbe to Asheboro to interstate standards (this is ranked 3rd at the state level). Upgrading US 220 through Asheboro, scheduled to start this year is ranked number 2 in statewide modernization projects for Division 8, but 218th statewide. Number 3 is the long put-off shoulder widening project from Steeds to Emery. Upgrading US 52 north of Winston-Salem to Interstate standards is ranked No. 2 for Modernization in Division 9. The upgrading of US 74 between Laurinburg and Rockingham is only ranked 139th statewide. The US 74 Rockingham Bypass is 128th.

Comment: Since the document is long, and ranks many projects using different guidelines, then breaking them down into categories, then subcategories, etc., though probably necessary to determine a project rank, it is going to make it more difficult for the general public to understand what a ranking means. Feel free to browse the document on your own and see how your favorite project is ranked and whether you think its number is accurate.

Comments

John said…
The ranking system is very complicated, so much so that even the people I work with don't understand how certain projects were ranked where they were on the list. Is that deliberate so they can "hide" the political influence, or is it necessary? Again, not even my coworkers know; the specific criteria that create the rankings have not been released even to our office.
Fantastic post, project ranking is very important for contractors and your post is very beneficial for readers.

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po