Tom Warne Report, 21 September 2012
North Carolina’s Greensboro Urban Loop should be open to traffic by 2021, state transportation officials said this week. Next September, state officials will open the bidding process for a $102 million section of the loop stretching from Bryan Boulevard to Battleground Avenue, which should be finished by 2016. Next will be a $140 million section of the loop which will take motorists from U.S. 70 to U.S. 29, expected to be open for bidding in May 2014 and take three years to complete. The final section of the Greensboro loop from Lawndale Drive to U.S. 29 will be open to bid in 2018 and take three years to construct.
“By 2021, you should be able to drive around the loop,” said Michael Fox, N.C. Department of Transportation board member for District 7, who outlined several projects seen as critical to Guilford County’s economic development. Another project of high economic importance is the I-73 connector and a taxiway bridge over the road connecting Piedmont Triad International Airport with more than 1,000 acres of land needed for new economic development. Fox said the Greensboro airport needs the taxiway to provide enough room for companies that want to relocate at PTI.
“That’s the number one biggest concern that if they get another big company that comes in, they won’t have enough room,” Fox Said. The bidding process for I-73 will open in 2016 and the state is expected to have it completed within three years.