Our goal is to spread the word about the "Toll Road to No Where." Over 7,300 people signed a petition opposing this dead-end superhighway. Please use this site as a starting point to learn more about the project and how you can get involved.
JOB LOSS FIGURES COULD BE MUCH WORSE THAN REPORTED
TURNPIKE AUTHORITY APPEARS TO HAVE “FIXED” THE NUMBERS
GARDEN PARKWAY WILL COST BESSEMER CITY 1049 JOBS;
MCADENVILLE, LOWELL AND RANLO TO LOSE ANOTHER 416 JOBS
SOUTH CAROLINA WILL GAIN 650 JOBS
The Charlotte Observer reports
Gaston County’s loss of 950 jobs caused by the toll road to nowhere
could be much greater than reported in the Final Environmental Impact
Statement. In May 2010, seven months before the FEIS went final, the
Turnpike Authority’s consultant, Jill Gurak, told the report writers
that the 10 to 15 percent job shift they were predicting in their draft
wouldn’t have political support and they needed “outside of model
smoothing.”“I don’t think there would be much support for a project in NC that appears to benefit SC the most and takes away growth from the I-85 corridor on the order of 10-15 percent,” Gurak told the report writers. Then, she sent her thoughts to the Turnpike Authority’s project head, Christy Shumate and another high-up Turnpike employee, Jeff Dayton. Click here to see the email.
Right now, the FEIS shows a job shift of about 2 percent. A ten percent shift could mean
3000 jobs or more shifting out of Gaston County and into South Carolina just by building the parkway. “Outside of model smoothing” is geek-speak for putting in the numbers you think should be there.
This just makes a bad project even worse. Now it appears the project books have been cooked. Click here to read the article in the Charlotte Observer.
Take a look at Gurak's May 2010 email for yourself and see what you think. The Turnpike’s people, Steve DeWitt, says it isn’t as bad as it looks, that expert consultant Gurak with her advanced certifications just didn’t understand what she was looking at. Gurak isn’t talking.
The below cartoon is reproduced with permission of the Charlotte Observer. Click on the image to be taken to the Charlotte Observer website.
The Garden Parkway puts more kids in stressed classrooms that are about to get even more crowded and at the same time takes jobs out of Gaston County. It is worse than NAFTA.
An independent poll found 64% of Gaston County opposes construction of the Garden Parkway. This means that if no one is willing to pay the tolls, then the North Carolina taxpayer will have to make up that difference, as well as pay the $35 million per year for forty years gap funding.
Does it make sense for the state to spend $1 billion on a road project that will move jobs into South Carolina, won’t relieve congestion, will add to air pollution, will save just a couple minutes of travel, and will jeopardize North Carolina's stellar credit rating at time when we need to be tightening our belts?
Gaston County definitely has roads and bridges that need improvement. We need to see the I-85/US 321 interchange fixed. We need to replace the crumbling depression US 74 bridges over the Catawba and South Fork Rivers. We need to widen I-85 at the Belmont Abbey bottleneck.
Continue talking to our elected official, media, neighbors and coworkers and let them know that this country road will cost jobs, won’t relieve congestion at the I-85 Belmont bottleneck, it won’t improve travel times, and it for sure isn’t worth $1 billion in North Carolina taxpayer money.
THE PERFECT ROAD IS NO ROAD AT ALL
Keep talking about the Garden Parkway and why it is still a bad idea! Issues that still need answers:
- Are toll projections realistic?
- Who will use a toll road that parallels a free road (I-85)?
- Who can afford to pay a toll to use a road in these uncertain economic times?
- The NC Toll Authority document on traffic counts have shown that congestion on I-85 will go up MORE if the Garden Parkway is built and there will be LESS congestion on I-85 if it is NOT BUILT (Wow!)
- There is talk about industry coming if we build this road, but what industry will pay to drive on a back country road?
- Accountability – think about the future. If the road gets built and the toll numbers just don’t add up and there is not enough to pay the debt, where will the money be found?
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