Angry rant about NCDOT and their road projects (Language adjusted)

[tolbs17]

I-40 still goes through Greensboro.

Well I mean it's not like too close to what Winston-Salem is, but it goes close to the downtown area.

They tried moving I-40 onto the loop in 2008, but there was so much bad noise made about it that they moved it back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Urban_Loop#Interstate_40_relocation

Vague. There's plenty of areas of where there's high volumes of traffic with a lot of noise. Confusion was the main reason why they did it too.

[jdunlop]

I-40 still goes through Greensboro.

Well I mean it's not like too close to what Winston-Salem is, but it goes close to the downtown area.

They tried moving I-40 onto the loop in 2008, but there was so much bad noise made about it that they moved it back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Urban_Loop#Interstate_40_relocation

Vague. There's plenty of areas of where there's high volumes of traffic with a lot of noise. Confusion was the main reason why they did it too.

It was my understanding that the old road was no longer eligible for interstate maintenance or improvement funding, so an interstate number had to be put back,  Business routes are not "official"  interstates.

However, I do remember complaints about 40 no longer running through town.  Never heard anything about noise.  I saw that the wiki article had no citations.  Ironically, I think 40 was routed on the bypass partially to get traffic off of the old route. 

(That's when we had interstate, urban, rural funding categories. I've never directly dealt with funding, so I may have the categories mislabeled, but that's why we had I, R, U, B projects.  Now that funding is not as specific, projects will be labeled by their initial prioritization number, with some exceptions.)

[Mapmikey]

noise in the posts above was in the context of "complaints" not actual noise from the roadway.

[wdcrft63]

I-40 still goes through Greensboro.

Well I mean it's not like too close to what Winston-Salem is, but it goes close to the downtown area.

They tried moving I-40 onto the loop in 2008, but there was so much bad noise made about it that they moved it back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_Urban_Loop#Interstate_40_relocation

Vague. There's plenty of areas of where there's high volumes of traffic with a lot of noise. Confusion was the main reason why they did it too.

It was my understanding that the old road was no longer eligible for interstate maintenance or improvement funding, so an interstate number had to be put back,  Business routes are not "official"  interstates.

However, I do remember complaints about 40 no longer running through town.  Never heard anything about noise.  I saw that the wiki article had no citations.  Ironically, I think 40 was routed on the bypass partially to get traffic off of the old route. 

(That's when we had interstate, urban, rural funding categories. I've never directly dealt with funding, so I may have the categories mislabeled, but that's why we had I, R, U, B projects.  Now that funding is not as specific, projects will be labeled by their initial prioritization number, with some exceptions.)

According to prss accounts at the time, NCDOT cited two reasons for moving I-40 back to Death Valley:
(1) Travelers were "confused" by the distinction between I-40 and Business 40, and
(2) People close to the bypass were complaining about excessive truck noise. (Some of these critics said they didn't know the bypass was going to be an interstate freeway; they thought it would be more like Bryan Boulevard. In other worlds, they had ignored years of published plans and public hearings.)

Now NCDOT is perfectly capable of ignoring vague public complaints like (1) and (2) if the engineers conclude their route arrangements are the most efficient available. More likely, the agency decided that moving I-40 to the bypass just wasn't working very well, because the great majority of through traffic was continuing to follow the old (and very familiar) route through town.

[CanesFan27]

If you'd like to catch up on the Greensboro Noise issue (hard to believe it was 14 years Ago!)

https://www.gribblenation.org/search?q=Greensboro+noise&m=1

[tolbs17]

But there's a HUGE difference when looking at when they rerouted I-40 on the beltway. Compare 2008 and 2009 and the traffic volumes rapidly changed when I-40 was moved onto the beltway and back onto its original route.

https://ncdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=964881960f0549de8c3583bf46ef5ed4

I-40 on the original alignment (western side) for AADT

2007: 131000

2008: 89000

2009: 103000

2010: 102000

2019: 124000

2020: 104000

I-40 on the eastern side

2007: 63000

2008: 42000

2009: 60000

2010: 61000

2019: 78000

2020: 68500

I-73 (former I-40 on the beltway) Southwestern section

2008: 41000

2009: 33000

2010: 36000

2019: 58500

2020: 51500

I-85 on the southern alignment:

2007: 50000

2008: 66000

2009: 57000

2010: 57000

2019: 73500

2020: 60000

Southeastern alignment

2007: 35000

2008: 50000

2009: 40000

2010: 39000

2019: 50000

2020: 41500

[STLmapboy]

There is no earthly reason this thread should be 8 pages long (especially considering how it originated).

[Max Rockatansky]

There is no earthly reason this thread should be 8 pages long (especially considering how it originated).

People do illogical things when they are angry.  I still think this thread needs a soap box to make the angry rant more olde tyme authentic.