At a meeting Monday, the Moore County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to adopt a resolution expressing intent to join the RPO with neighboring Chatham and Lee counties.
“This is a very, very exciting time for transportation in North Carolina,” said County Planning Director Nancy Roy. “We need to get in on the ground floor. We’ve never had this in North Carolina’s rural communities before.”
NCDOT is encouraging formation of these rural associations, and Roy said that in the future the state agency probably will not be holding the familiar division public hearings where individual counties present their requests for inclusion in the Transportation Improvement Plan.
“This will be our only vehicle for participation,” she said.
The RPO, if implemented as planned, will be administered through Triangle J Council of Governments, which Moore County joined last year.
Chatham and Lee county leaders have already committed their counties to the RPO, and Roy said she had just learned that rural Orange County may be added to the planning organization.
A three-county RPO is eligible for $80,000 in state funding with a local match of $20,000. In the case of a Moore-Chatham-Lee RPO, the local match is estimated at $6,700 and might be lower if rural Orange joins. In addition, the North Carolina Rural Center may contribute $5,000, which would reduce each county’s contribution by about $1,600.
“This is an investment in our transportation program,” Roy said. “This is going to be the only way for us to have any input into our transportation system.”
In 1999, the state legislature passed the Board of Transportation Reform Bill, which requires NCDOT to develop a plan to establish RPOs. In 2000, another bill authorized establishment of RPOs.
Since that time, RPOs have become a priority of NCDOT and of Secretary of Transportation Lyndo Tippitt, Roy told the commissioners.
An RPO is identified as a voluntary association of local governments to plan rural transportation systems and advise the state agency on rural transportation policy. An RPO must have at least three contiguous counties.
Deputy Transportation Secretary Roger Sheats recommended chartering an RPO at a June 18 meeting of the Countywide Surface Transportation Committee meeting in Southern Pines.
Commissioner David J. Cummings made the motion to adopt the resolution and join the RPO.
