From an economic development standpoint, this should make Moore County even more attractive to desirable employers. Access by four-lane highways is one of the vital ingredients in the mix for many companies as they consider where to locate — especially in this day when a convenient lifestyle ranks high on the list of community attributes.
While this development might not pay immediate tangible dividends to the county, it will be a critically important asset in the long run. The $47 million, 12.5-mile stretch is the final link in a construction project that now provides Moore County with an uninterrupted four-lane highway to Raleigh, cementing our relationship with the state capital and booming Research Triangle region.
Vass is suddenly looking — well, bypassed. But it and Cameron, now more attractive as bedroom communities, will surely enjoy a boom in residential construction.
Broader, Straighter, Safer
A Saturday spin on the new stretch, which was undergoing finishing touches and was still constricted a bit with orange-and-white barrels here and there, seemed almost anticlimactic. Though the road is freighted with significance to our neck of the woods, the fact is that it offers a rather bland vista of the kind all to familiar to transcontinental travelers: utilitarian concrete overpasses, broad medians, standard green-and-white directional signs at exits, newly seeded shoulders, strategically placed guardrails. One could just as easily be cruising through Illinois.
The new thoroughfare offers a broader, straighter, safer swath of state-of-the-art highway to replace a twisting, congested two-lane blacktop. Since this is a controlled-access highway of Interstate specifications, it is unlikely to become cluttered along its flanks with undesirable development.
There is, of course, the potential for new gas stations, convenience stores and fast food joints to pop up at the major interchanges. But the municipalities of Vass and Cameron, along with the county government, can put strict zoning controls on such enterprises.
Speedup Worth the Money?
Opponents, who tried unsuccessfully to block building of the bypass in court, argued that it would harm sensitive wetlands and damage the rural countryside. The N.C. Department of Transportation was required to develop plans for mitigating the effects the highway will have on wetlands — plans that have withstood the legal test.
It is ironic that the state decided to throw in a $1 million bonus to the contractor, S.T. Wooten Corp., to get the job finished in time for the U.S. Open, which plays from June 13 through June 19 in Pinehurst. Traffic coming down U.S. 1 from the north will be diverted onto U.S. 15-501 south of Sanford to the satellite parking lot off N.C. 73 near Eastwood. Most of those people will never see the sparkling new bypass, making you wonder whether the speedup was worth that much taxpayer money.
But for many Moore County residents who have waited a long time for this — the project has been on the drawing board since the late 1980s — being able to drive this splendid new stretch provides a long-delayed sense of satisfaction.
