North carolina has the largest state-maintained highway system in the nation, consisting of 76, 727 mi. Of this total, 59, 310 mi (77%) is on the rural state secondary system. As of january 1989, 16, 358mi (28%) of the rural state secondary system remained unpaved. Between 1981 and 1988, the department was only able to pave 2, 293 mi of unpaved rural state secondary roads, an average of 287 mi per year. At this rate, it would have taken 55 years to pave all the remainingunpaved rural secondary roads in the state. Faced with the inadequacy of the existing revenue source--a motor fuel tax of 1 3/4 cents/gal generating about $68 million annually--for all types of secondaryroad paving, the 1989 north carolina general assembly created the north carolina highway trust fund, which is designed to provide $9.2 Billion of additional funding for new primary and secondary highway and bridge construction throughout the state over a 13 1/2-year period. The policy decisions and legislative actions behind north carolina's secondary road paving program and the manner in which candidateprojects are ordered by priority are explored. The discussion should be of interest to all state and county highway agencies responsible for low-volume road paving and maintenance. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1291, Fifth international conference on low-volume roads, may 19-23, 1991, raleigh, north carolina, volume 1.
Abstract