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Since the U.S. 19/129 corridor is such a heavily traveled route between Cherokee County and Union County across the state line in Georgia, Cherokee Scout Staff Correspondent Michelle Bradbeer took her cameras and drones to the ongoing construction site along the highway in an attempt to give viewers a better overall look at the totality of the N.C. Department of Transportation project.
In one of the neatest things the Scout has done, Bradbeer edited her expansive video of the construction area with audio of the report on cherokee-scout.com. The images show workers with Wright Construction Co., who were easy to work with on the video, creating what will become the new route of the busy highway.
I spotted one of the workers at Hot Spot in Ranger last week and asked him, just how do you move a mountain without divine help?
“One dump truck load at a time,” the worker, who was covered with dirt, said with a smile.
There are going to be an awful lot more dump truck loads before the project is finished, which is expected in June 2029 after breaking ground in March 2024. About 30% of the work has been accomplished, according to the DOT; that math means drivers should expect a lot more delays in the days to come.
A total of nearly 1.2 million cubic yards of dirt will be moved in the project, with 340,243 cubic yards of material taken out so far. Naturally, doing such things costs money – and a lot of it – all from state taxpayers.
While the U.S. 19/129 – better known as Blairsville Highway – improvement project won’t add driving lanes to the two-lane highway, it will add 4-foot-wide shoulders, improve intersections, add left-turn lanes at intersections, fix sharp curves, and smooth out both low and high sections of roadway. The 3.8-mile, $55 million project – plus millions of dollars spent buying homes and land in the right of way – will resurface the entire stretch of highway from Ranger to the Georgia state line.
The DOT says it plans to have detours ready by spring 2026. That will especially be necessary as workers reconfigure several intersections along the route.
The goal of the project is to make U.S. 19/129 safer, which is noble cause. However, while the highway has had its share of accidents over the years, some of them as serious as it gets, many mishaps could have been prevented simply by adding shoulders to the roadway, additional passing lanes, guard rails and street lights. And for $55 million-plus, we could have made those improvements on highways all across Cherokee County.
I admit that this project affects me more than some people because I drive by it every day coming into town. There used to be thick canopy of trees as drivers turned onto Hedden Road, the limbs giving shade to the asphalt. Today, there are only wide swaths of dirt at the intersection, growing weeds while waiting to be formed into something.
Even after watching the Scout’s video, it’s difficult to take in the entire scope of the project. However, what’s obvious is we’re pretty much making a new road next to an old road that worked.
The DOT apparently hates hills because they’re trying to get rid of them, quite a trick in the mountains we call home. However, one of the things that brings people to the tri-state area is because we’re a great place to take a drive, especially if you’re on a motorcycle, and traveling on a straight line doesn’t cut it.
Straightening and leveling roads has proven to be a good thing in the past, as drivers noticed when N.C. 294 was modernized, but not every highway had the nearly 180-degree twists and turns of the one leading into Hiwassee Dam. And, to top it off, we still don’t know if Georgia is going to improve its side of the state line, so we could be looking at another Spur 60 debacle where the highways merge.
The bottom line is U.S. 19/129 could have been significantly improved for far less money. It’s difficult not to look at this project as a huge waste of resources.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. Call him with comments and questions at 828-837-5122 or email dbrown@cherokeescout.com.