Representatives from the NCDOT made a CPT presentation to the Bertie County Commissioners last Monday evening and the immediate take away message was Windsor and Bertie County need more sidewalks.
Eastern Piedmont Group Supervisor Scott Walston and Transportation Engineer Amanda Killian outlined the purpose and need of the N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT) Comprehensive Transportation Plan.
“The Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) is a long range needs-based plan. The goal of this is to identify solutions to transportation problems. For this one, we’re going all the way through the year 2050, and just trying to see what the needs of the community could be, and how we can address those.
“We look at a lot of the other areas and bring together everything from highway, bike and pedestrian trails and public transportation plans,” Killian said.
According to Killian, the plan is the first step in project development citing the areas that need improvement. It is also essential to project funding, she added.
The main goal of the CPT plan is to prioritize projects so they eventually do get funded.
The cost of the project is free and NCDOT representatives have been meeting with Bertie County steering committees for the past year, about once a month.
“What are some goals of the area? A lot of what we saw from that is there needs to be better access and people said they really want transportation to help with some of the economic growth,” Killian suggested. “And we also found that Windsor is an area where a lot of people spend their leisure time. You know, there’s some restaurants there and some things, and they have a lot of really good sidewalks, but there could be some need for more sidewalk improvements just to connect some areas.”
The NCDOT also has plans for a roundabout at the intersection of N.C. 11 and N.C. 308. Crashes at the intersection is the reasoning behind the roundabout.
Commissioner Ron Roberson asked about widening of N.C. 11 into a four-lane highway since the property has already been purchased making that possible.
The project has been submitted for funding, but has never achieved a high enough score to get the funding. Project scoring is based on congestion and traffic.
“It’s been submitted for scoring in the P7 process, which is going on right now. It’s been submitted multiple times, through multiple processes, but it’s still being scored, and we just have to look and see how it scores for this round,” said Killian. “We should be getting some scores in the next month or so.”
There was also discussion about widening N.C. 45 and the possibility of an exit ramp and rest stop at Bertie Beach, however, those projects may come under a different NCDOT design division. For now it appears there are sidewalks in Windsor’s future.
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