Airport Rerouting Proceeds

BY FLORENCE GILKESON: SENIOR WRITER

Work is expected to begin in late August on an airport runway safety area improvement project that will relocate sections of N.C. 22 and Airport Road.

The new intersection of the two roads will feature a traffic-control structure that is increasingly popular with highway designers but has created controversy in Pinehurst: a roundabout.

The Moore County Airport Authority voted Tuesday to award the $6 million contract to the S.T. Wooten firm and authorized Chairman John Owen to execute the documents on behalf of the airport. Funding for the major project comes from the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We're really thrilled at the bid," Airport Manager Ron Maness said on Thursday.

several bids by the time bidding was closed in June. The winning bid came in lower than the consulting engineer's estimates, according to Maness, who added that the Wooten company has done other work for the airport and that this experience was further encouragement that the bid award is a good one.

The project is expected to take about 18 months and should be complete in late 2008.

Maness predicted that construction work will have little or no impact on traffic on N.C. 22 or at the airport. He expressed doubt that a detour or other form of rerouting will be required during construction. Nor will the work interfere with airport operations, he said.

The result will be a dramatic change in the N.C. 22-Airport Road intersection. The stop light will be eliminated, and a roundabout will be installed to route traffic with greater ease to Sandhills Community College and other points west on Airport Road.

"We think it's going to be an improvement when they move the intersection to the west," Maness said. "It will be more convenient for people trying to reach the college."

Studies conducted by N.C. Department of Transportation and other specialists indicated that at this particular intersection a roundabout would work better than a stop light. A public hearing on the issue was held at the airport a couple of years ago and attracted considerable attention at the time.

During the academic year, traffic is often piled up at the stop light early in the morning when students are trying to reach the college campus for early classes. The private O'Neal School is also located near the college on Airport Road, another cause for congestion.

Maness acknowledged that the change will have a more of an effect on travelers on N.C. 22 than on Airport Road.

"Unless you're on Airport Road, you won't see the airport at all," he said.

This is one aspect of the change that he does not favor. Maness said that it is good public relations for drivers to travel beside the airport entrance, where they can see the clean grounds, attractive terminal building and planes parked on runways.

"We like for people to see our airport," said Maness, who soon leaves his airport job for a better-paying position with US Airways.

However, the change is needed for safety reasons, he said. The intersection has been too close to the runway and the instrument approach to the runway for a number of years. He said that the airport has been operating in this location with a waiver from the FAA, which awarded the special grant for the primary purpose of alleviating safety issues at the intersection.