Bypass Battle

by Cal Bryant - November 16th, 2007 - Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald

“They (DOT) call this progress, but uprooting families and forcing them to leave their land is not progress in my opinion,” Garry Terry, one of the “No Bypass” organizers, said. “People will be forced from their homes to build a road that is not needed in the first place.”

A road that is not needed? That is the attitude of opponents of the U.S. 13 bypass for Ahoskie. Absolutely nothing of the advantages of a bypass being part of a North-South freeway ever gets through to the opponents. No matter how often it is pointed out that the anti-growth attitude of many in this area really is indicative of an underlying hatred for our state and our nation and arguably for others in our community, the message does not get through. The future is going to happen and it will include growth. We have to prepare for it, not stop it.

Where are the children of our local citizens going to work? "Not here" is the answer because growth here is not allowed. Therefore the children have to leave the area to find jobs and places to live.

The bigotry comes when the children come back to visit and the same opponents of growth talk wistfully of how they "wish there was a job for you around here so you could be close". They don't mean it. There are no jobs and homes for our children because the majority of the area stopped most growth in past years. And many still want to continue this same attitude in the future. Demanding that we "keep things the way they are" is simply a way of saying, "get my children out of here so I can live like I want without caring about what happens to them. Let someone else worry about their future. I don't."

Don't we at least have some obligation to build roads that make it easy to visit in the future? How about jobs in the future? How about places for new homes for our children's future?

Because that is what this "Bypass Battle" is about. The future. Not just the future for Ahoskie. The future for Eastern North Carolina. There are a great number of people who hate slowing down to a 35 MPH crawl through Ahoskie when they are passing by going South. Do they ever matter to local people who oppose the bypass? The NO 13 BYPASS people claim they are all going to Greenville. Not true. The explosive growth in our area is Washington and New Bern and the water areas of the Inner Banks. That is the future we need to prepare for. Greenville as a destination is all about the desires of local people, not the majority of the people who use US 13 or will use it in the future.

Another quote from this article is by Powellsville farmer Kent Williams whose farm is just below the temporary termination point of the proposed bypass. "The bypass will destroy my way of life as well as other farmers" Williams said. "And for what? A road that isn’t needed."

Destroy a way of life? All over America there are millions of farms right next to freeways and they do not "destroy a way of life". Such an exaggeration concerns me. The future is coming. The only question is whether we will be prepared for it or not? Kent complains about the amount of traffic on the road in front of his farm but is opposed to the only thing that will ever move that traffic somewhere else to a road that is better and safer for the people driving on it. Long term it will also make his road quieter and safer.

Do people in the anti-growth groups acknowledge any responsibility to society for preparing for the future? Anti-growth people have not stopped having babies. They just don't care about the future they are creating for their babies. Doesn't that mean the message they are really giving their children (and the rest of us) is "Screw you"?

Rural America is going to be the focus of growth for the next 20 years. A recent article here talks about the reasons onshoring is replacing offshoring and what that will do for America. The only question is whether anti-growth people in rural communities will ever allow the growth or continue to drive it offshore. How many more jobs do they want to send to Bangalore?