With emergency road repairs underway on US 64 near Bridal Veil Falls, traffic has been rerouted down Buck Creek Road from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day since March 25.
While making the jaunt out to Buck Creek and then down through the mountains to Franklin may take a little bit longer, it’s a pretty drive and thus far has not led to many serious headaches for commuters taking the detour.
The use of Buck Creek Road has however highlighted a problem that the Macon County Board of Commissioners has been talking about for the better part of a decade. If Buck Creek is the most logical detour between Franklin and Highlands when work is being done along US 64, the road itself must be repaved.
In perfect driving conditions, Buck Creek Road in its current state is passable. The sections of road that have been patched over the years are “good enough” and the areas where the narrow road has no shoulder are avoidable by snuggling with the center yellow lines.
In poor driving conditions, such as the heavy rains Highlands saw the week prior to April Fool’s Day, Buck Creek can range from below average to downright dangerous – especially for drivers who do not use the road regularly.
The problems with Buck Creek Road’s surface have been clear for years. Commissioner Ronnie Beale has brought the matter up at multiple transportation planning meetings of the Rural Planning Organization often noting the Buck Creek is not just the secondary road to Highlands, but it is also a route used by school buses each day.
The problem with getting the road paved lies within the NC Department of Transportation’s State Transportation Improvement Plan, or STIP. The STIP system ranks road projects in three categories, divisional needs, regional impact and statewide mobility.
A project repaving a rural road like Buck Creek will never score highly enough to make the list statewide mobility or regional needs, thus leaving it at the mercy of the “divisional needs” category where it is scored and ranked each year alongside projects that feature higher traffic counts and more perceived bang for the transportation buck.
Buck Creek needs repaved, the road’s importance is more clear now than ever before.