Natalie English, president and CEO of the Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, offered an opinion piece in the Greater Wilmington Business Journal on June 4, in which she expressed support for the Eastwood Road/Military Cutoff Road overpass project. The N.C. Department of Transportation calls it U-5710.

In it, she called the project “an essential infrastructure upgrade that will transform the intersection of Eastwood Road and Military Cutoff Road into a safer, more efficient interchange.”

We disagree. We believe her opinion fails to consider a number of key points:

1. Delays drivers face today are caused by much more than this single set of traffic lights at this intersection. There are 11 traffic lights along the 4-mile length of Eastwood Road between Market Street and the drawbridge going to Wrightsville Beach. There are nine traffic lights on the 3 miles of Military Cutoff Road between Station Road and Bradley Creek. Build the overpass, and all those other traffic lights and related delays will still be there for drivers. NCDOT can’t make vehicles disappear. It’s an inefficient way to spend $81+ million in taxpayer dollars.
2. Without left-hand turns at the intersection, waiting time today could be cut in half (a.m. peak waits on Military Cutoff Road, for example, could be 42 seconds rather than the current 95 seconds) without building an overpass. The Drysdale Drive extension was designed by NCDOT to provide an alternate flow for traffic around Eastwood/Military Cutoff. It allows the elimination of left turns, resulting in Eastwood/Military Cutoff becoming a simple two-way, red/green light sequence rather than the current eight-phase sequence with the long waits. A simple two-way signal equals reduced waiting times. That is $81+ million taxpayer dollars saved for other projects.
3. “Temporary” is a relative. Construction disruptions likely will last over three to four years, maybe more. No matter how sugar-coated Ms. English wants to present it, even she admits the construction of the overpass will cause “temporary disruptions, changes in traffic patterns and reduced visibility (and) can create uncertainty and hardship.” To help local businesses (her constituents), she promises to: a) remind residents and visitors that businesses in the construction zone remain open, b) provide up-to-date information on the best routes to reach favorite shops and restaurants, and c) collaborate with NCDOT and local officials to ensure signage and communication. Even if she can accomplish all that, fewer drivers are going to be willing to battle their way through the construction chaos. Three or four years is a long time for the owners of local shops or restaurants to survive a drop in the number of customers and sales.
4. The quality of life for Wrightsville Beach residents, and the economics of rental properties, owners and businesses in the area would suffer greatly. Wrightsville Beach currently faces state-mandated replacement of its three bridges that connect Harbor Island to the beachfront. NCDOT rates one of the three among the 10 worst among all 13,725 bridges in the entire state. If NCDOT were to begin work on the Eastwood overpass concurrently with replacing any of those three bridges, it would make a bad situation on the roads of Wrightsville Beach even worse.
5. Who will it really help? Ms. English states that the overpass project “will transform the intersection of Eastwood Road and Military Cutoff Road.” Yes, it will certainly be different, but drivers in three directions will go a couple of hundred yards to wait at the next traffic light. Yes, traffic going east on Eastwood Road towards Wrightsville Beach will enjoy that one less traffic light, but of course, in just 1¼ miles between the Eastwood/Military Cutoff and the Intercoastal Waterway, there are still four traffic lights to contend with. Then there’s that drawbridge that opens at least once each hour for about five to seven minutes or more, backing traffic up in both directions. And of course, Wrightsville Beach on summer weekends is already jammed. There are already more visitors than parking spaces. The NCDOT projected jump in vehicles headed towards the beach won’t happen. So, who are we helping?
6. Those $81+ million taxpayer dollars could provide a lot bigger return on investment to drivers/taxpayers. It could be used on a Drysdale Drive extension-like solution at, say, the intersections of Eastwood Road/Market Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway/College Road, or, dare we say, applied to help fund some alternative for College Road/Oleander Drive or to contribute towards a new Cape Fear River bridge.

Please reschedule, re-evaluate or repurpose the funds from this inefficient government project.
 
Signed,
John Andrews (South Beach Grill)
Eric Korman (Craft American Hardware)
Stella Cortina (Lilies & Lace)
Gene Horne (Pioneer Leasing LLC)
Todd Schoen (European Coatings, Wrightsville Beach Board of Aldermen candidate)
Michaela and Chris Batten (Bevvy Mart)
Matty Roberts (Soundside Adventures)
William Sisson (Alternate Health Clinic)
Daniel Reddick (Redix)
Robert Ray (Mellow Mushroom)
Susan Bulluck (Wrightsville Beach Chamber of Commerce)
Residents of nearby communities: Celeste Bennett (King Arthur Drive), Mary Anne Collins (Eastport), James DeHaven (Landfall), Kevin and Karla Dolan (Wrightsville Beach),  Eloise Eller (Eastport), John Emrich (Landfall), Leslie Farinella (Landfall), Suzanne Finkeldie (Landfall), Gary Gischel (Landfall), Kendra Goheen (Lions Gate), Dianne Krantz (Landfall), Susan Kreamer (Landfall), Steve Lynch (Lions Gate), Nancy and Alex Patch (Wrightsville Beach), Sadie Price (Eastport), Doug and Janet Pruden (Landfall), Jeffrey Schrager (Wrightsville Beach), Margaret Gail Spruill (Wrightsville Beach), Fran Sulak (Landfall), Sam and Pru Toler (Landfall), Anne York (Wrightsville Beach), Thane Young (Landfall)