The N.C. Turnpike Authority's plan to start construction this year on the $725 million Monroe Connector-Bypass near Charlotte was set back Thursday when the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of environmental groups that sued over misleading information in the project's environmental impact study, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Instead of making a required evaluation of the costs and benefits of building the road by comparing this to what would happen if the road was not built, the NCDOT study incorrectly had compared building the road to ... building the road. 

The 4th Circuit ruling said NCDOT should have acknowledged its error when regulatory agencies and environmental critics raised questions, according to Steve Harrison's story today in the Charlotte Observer: ... [MORE]

View I-85 Yadkin River Bridge in a larger map

The work has taken longer than expected, but construction on a long-sought replacement for the harrowing Interstate 85 bridge near Salisbury will mark a milestone this weekend when the current two-lane northbound traffic is moved from the narrow old bridge to a new four-lane bridge.

Gov. Bev Perdue traveled to the site of the half-mile-long I-85 Yadkin River bridges project Thursday to announce the traffic shift, set to take place early Saturday morning.  That's almost two months later than the state Department of Transportation had expected to make the change, according to DOT officials and a timeline posted at the project website.

DOT had predicted that both northbound and southbound drivers would be off the old bridge -- two lanes in each direction -- by May 21.  When that happens, now scheduled for July, northbound and southbound drivers will share the new four-lane northbound bridge temporarily.

The twin four-lane bridge for southbound traffic now is expected to open in early 2013, instead of early November as scheduled earlier.

The narrow bridge, built in 1955, carries 70,000 cars and trucks every day on the main interstate highway between Richmond and Atlanta. Its replacement will give travelers a faster and less frightening trip over the Yadkin River.  DOT is spending more than $200 million to replace the bridge and add new lanes to a nearby stretch of I-85.

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View State Fairgrounds / Carter-Finley Stadium in a larger map

For tens of thousands of people who walk across Trinity Road in West Raleigh when the Wolfpack is playing football or the N.C. State Fair is in session, maybe it's time to build a tunnel.

NCDOT will air the idea and seek public comment at a public information session Monday.  It takes place from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Murphy Football Center at Carter-Finley Stadium. Details are attached below.

During busy times at the State Fair in October, a few thousand pedestrians walk across Trinity Road in a single hour.  After the UNC-NCSU football game last November, there were 4,000 in 30 minutes.

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View 540 Outer Loop in a larger map

Drivers on the 540 Outer Loop should expect to see lanes closed frequently at night to allow for work on an $8.4 million resurfacing project that will continue until early November.  (The N&O reported incorrectly Monday that the work would end this week.)

The nighttime work will cover all lanes on 17 miles of 540 between Intersate 40 near Research Triangle Park and Triangle Town Boulevard in northeast Raleigh, DOT said:

Because of the heavy volume on the interstate, which averages about 78,000 vehicles a day along that stretch, the work will be done at night to lessen the travel impact for motorists. No lane closures will be allowed between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday. Initially, work is scheduled to take place overnight Sunday through Thursday, although that could change during the project or if there are delays caused by weather during the week.

In addition to the road resurfacing work, there will also be some shoulder reconstruction and structural rehab work.Work at interchanges could result in ramp closures and detours to the next exit.

In a five-paragraph letter to a House Republican leader, the state attorney general's office offered its opinion Friday that the legislature's order for new and increased ferry tolls is still in effect, despite Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's attempt to stop it.

"We believe that an Executive Order which directly conflicts with a law enacted by the General Assembly raises substantial concerns under our Constitution," Grayson G. Kelley, chief deputy attorney general, concluded in a letter to Rep. Phillip Frye. "It is therefore our opinion that a direct conflict between a law enacted by the General Assembly and an Executive Order issued by the Governor must be resolved through implementation of the law."

The full text of Kelley's letter, dated Thursday and delivered Friday to Frye's office, is below. Check here for details on Perdue's attempt to block the ferry tolls, and here for the texts of two related documents: Perdue's Feb. 29 order and a March 8 memo on the legal issues from Gerry Cohen, one of the legislature's lawyers.

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View Watkins Road bridge replacement in a larger map

A bridge replacement project will close a one-mile section of Watkins Road in northeast Raleigh for five months, starting Monday, the state Department of Transportation says.

Dane Construction Co. of Mooresville has an $802,370 contract to replace the Watkins Road bridge over Powell Creek.  The bridge, built in 1951, is considered functionally obsolete and structurally deficient.

Watkins Road will be closed to through traffic between Mitchell Mill Road and Watkins Town Road.  Traffic will be detoured via Mitchell Mill, Forestville, Old Watkins and Watkins Town roads.  The work is to be completed by Sept. 12.

Gov. Bev Perdue argued forcefully for her right to block new state ferry tolls, but the law is against her, a top legislative staff lawyer said today.

"While the facts may be compelling one way or the other for the citizens involved, the legal issues here are black-and-white," Gerry Cohen, who heads the legislature's bill-drafting staff, told the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee. "It is my opinion that the governor's order has no force or effect." (See online story with reader comments, and a longer story with reader comments in Friday print edition, and an AP story over constitutional issues raised by Perdue's action.)

See below for the full texts of Perdue's executive order, which put a one-year moratorium on the tolls, and Cohen's memo to legislators.

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A new state audit finds "gross mismanagement" of a rural vanpool program by the state DOT public transportation division, and the findings have been referred to the State Bureau of Investigation for possible action.

The audit report says that:

DOT allowed a Raleigh-Durham area company, 2Plus Inc., to operate the vanpool program with 38 DOT-owned vans for six years without a contract. The company received $4.3 million to operate the program for 11 years.

DOT vans were used to transport South Carolina residents to jobs in North Carolina.

An Outer Banks resort used DOT vans to shuttle its nonresident alien workers between the resort property and local housing.

2Plus billed DOT for $163,272 for personal mileage fees, backup fees and insurance deductibles "that appeared excessive or unreasonable." DOT did not review 2Plus invoices to make sure it paid only for reasonable expenses.

Miriam S. Perry, who retired in December as public transportation division director, personally managed the 2Plus contract, but she did not personally manage other DOT contracts.

Beth A. Wood, the state auditor, said her findings and Perry's role in personally managing the vanpool contract would be referred to the SBI.

Gene Conti, the DOT secretary, today named Teresa Hart the new director of the public transportation division.  Hart, a 26-year DOT veteran and a registered professional engineer, recently served as unit head and project planning engineer for DOT's Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch.

State Department of Transportation officials are setting new or higher rates for tolls and commuter passes on five ferry routes, as ordered by the legislature – but they are obeying the governor’s ban on collecting the new tolls.

“We’re in a box now because the law says one thing, but the governor told us not to do it,” said Gene Conti, the transportation secretary.

Proposed rates unveiled today would introduce new charges for pedestrians and for vehicle passengers, who ride free now on ferries where tolls are collected on vehicles and their drivers.

DOT ferry officials figure they will be told eventually to start collecting these new tolls – but nobody knows when that will be. ... [MORE]

Never expected to see the words "smoothest" and "I-795" on the same sign. But, as reported today, S.T. Wooten Corp. and NCDOT have won national honors for their asphalt repair job on I-795.

The original penny-pinching asphalt specifications - ordered by NCDOT honchos in Raleigh over the warning of Wilson-based engineer Wendi Johnson - produced weak, thin pavement for a new Goldsboro-to-Wison freeway that quickly became broken and potholed under the traffic of heavy trucks.

It was saved from being NCDOT's worst blunder only by the memory of an I-40 widening project in Durham County, where NCDOT wasted $22 million when it botched a concrete paving job. The I-795 repair cost taxpayers $12 million.