BY KARISSA MILLER
The Iredell County Board of Commissioners are asking county residents to participate in the public comment period for the 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan draft plan and review other related transportation documents and amendments.
These documents — which can be found online at https://2050mtp.org/home/getinvolved — are integral to how transportation is funded in the county and how it will impact the region. The comment period will close on Thursday, February 17.
The Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization (CRTPO) is responsible for transportation planning in the Charlotte region, and one of its most important tasks is to maintain an updated Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP).
CRTPO oversees how transportation funds are managed and when transportation projects are constructed. The organization serves Iredell, Mecklenburg and Union counties.
On Tuesday evening, Iredell commissioners heard from CRTPO representatives, who presented the draft 2050 MTP plan and provided commentary on transportation priorities for the next five decades.
The MTP is a 50-year plan that lays out the kind of projects that CRTPO wants to tackle. Improvements along Interstate 40 and Interstate 77 in Statesville, which are estimated to cost $197.7 million, are among the projects featured in 2025 horizon year the MTP for Iredell.
Projects are assigned to four different fiscal years: 2025, 2035, 2045 and 2050.
The types of fiscally constrained projects (for consideration of funding) in Iredell include road widening, improvements to existing interchanges and intersections, and new roadways, as well as creating new interchanges.
Most of the MTP projects in Iredell are road widening projects, where an existing roadway in some cases is two lanes undivided and the scope of the project would take it to a four-lane median divided road.
Other proposed projects include 26 bike lanes and pedestrian walkway areas.
The breakdown of Iredell County projects by jurisdiction is as follows:
♦ Troutman: 2 projects
♦ Statesville: 9 projects
♦ Mooresville: 14 projects
♦ Iredell County: 2 projects
TOTAL: 27 projects
Iredell County is classified as a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). An MPO designation is required for areas with a population of more than 50,000 to receive federal funds. It must follow certain rules, guidelines and it makes decisions about the allocation of federal transportation funds throughout its defined planning area.
Iredell County completed and approved its transportation master plan for 2021.
The Highway 64 exit from I-40 should never have been removed — especially with Loves truck stop going in. The truck traffic could have been routed away from the hospital exit. Now it is a congested mess.
I would have thought the Bethlehem Road Relocation Project would have taken place sooner. It certainly didn’t take long to close it off! Someone is very lucky it wasn’t a life and death situation as there has already been an EMT call to The Landings and EMT drivers said, “We’d have been here sooner but they closed Bethlehem Road off so we had to go around.” Yes, very lucky … this time.