State's paving priorities make no sense

Last week, I got stuck in a traffic jam on London Church Road and had to turn around and take a detour to avoid a long delay.

That's right: London Church Road, the rural two-lane that meanders (with a couple of cool S-curves) between N.C. 42 East and N.C. 97 near the Rocky Mount-Wilson airport. I use the road as a convenient shortcut on frequent trips to Rocky Mount. The route isn't shorter, but it is far less traveled and has fewer stoplights than U.S. 301. It's a pleasant rural course flanked by tobacco and cotton fields and rural homes.

The hold-up on London Church Road was a paving project. A contractor had milled all of the asphalt from the road, leaving a dusty bed of crushed run or gravel. A flagman had set up to stop traffic, and a pilot car would lead drivers through the maze of heavy equipment to next flag stop far down the road. After sitting idle for about 10 minutes when I needed to be back at the office, I turned around and took another lightly traveled two-lane over to N.C. 58 and back into Wilson.

But you have to wonder: Why was London Church Road, a smooth, well-maintained road, being milled and repaved when so many other state roads (take a look at Nash Street, Goldsboro Street, U.S. 301 and others in the Wilson vicinity) that are in far worse shape are left to crumble into traffic hazards? One can only assume that this is another example of the state Department of Transportation's wasteful and misguided sense of priorities. North Carolina used to proclaim itself "the good roads state," but that moniker is an embarrassing joke these days. It's not that North Carolina isn't collecting plenty of highway money. It has the highest gasoline tax in the region, but it can't seem to keep roads paved or even patched. Rebuilding a perfectly good road that relatively few people use while badly damaged and heavily traveled roads are left to serve as obstacle courses gives a hint as to why we are no longer the "good roads state."