Greensboro moved a step closer to getting another interstate highway at the Greensboro Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (GUAMPO) meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 25.

The Greensboro Urban Area Transportation Advisory Committee (GUATAC) passed a resolution in support of giving US 421 interstate designation and bringing it up to interstate standards. The resolution notes that US 421 connects I-95 with I-40 and would provide a “valuable alternate route for military and freight traffic” as well as “additional evacuation routes and relief and recovery routes to the region.”

The resolution also states that US 421 becoming an interstate would “support economic development, including the four designated megasites in the Carolina Core.”

The resolution states that the North Carolina Board of Transportation has already passed a resolution in support of the future interstate designation for US 421.

Chair of the GUAMPO board, City Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter, said that all of the MPOs and RPOs that US 421 passes through would have to pass similar resolutions before the designation could move forward. But she added that she couldn’t think of any reason any of the organizations would vote against it.

Abuzuaiter said as soon as it was official signs would go up designating it as future interstate

In a related matter, the GUATAC passed a resolution in support of the Carolina Core, which notes that the Carolina Core area had a labor force of more that one million workers, and 30 colleges and universities.

It also states that the US 421 corridor runs right through Carolina Core and the resolution asks that signage along that corridor to market it as the Carolina Core be installed.

In other business, the board passed a resolution to delay funding for the renovation of the J. Douglas Galyon Depot from 2019 to 2020 with the project to be bid in early 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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