GASTONIA, N.C. — A new road improvement project is causing a stir in a Gastonia neighborhood.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation is implementing specific designs across the state to help cut down on where drivers can make a left turn on certain roads.
It's all to make the roads more safe, but some businesses say it will be harder for their customers to access them.
Travis McKay is the owner of Byrum’s Grocery & Grill.
“We want what’s best for this area,” he said.
At the local grill, folks can get their hands on hot sandwiches, breakfast and daily specials. The family business first opened in the 1970s.
“We started as a grocery store,” McKay said. “But we have evolved with the times and we are more of a grill now. That’s really our bread and butter.”
It’s located on South New Hope Road and Armstrong Ford Road in Gastonia. That area is now part of a road improvement project by NCDOT. Plans include widening the road to four lanes and adding a multi-use path on both sides of the road.
The project covers four miles from Union New Hope Road to Redbud Drive.
Some local businesses said the biggest concern is the addition of the reduced conflict intersection, also referred to RCIs or a median U-turn.
“If you have a customer who is on their way to work or to school and they want to stop in and grab a drink or a sandwich or something quick where they can get in and out,” McKay explained. ”We feel like they are not going to want to do that because they are going to have to do two U-turns. One to get into your business and backtrack and then another to leave out.”
Stephen Carrol is the managing partner at RayNathan’s, a BBQ spot also on South New Hope Road. He is worried he will lose business.
“We know that more traffic needs to be able to move through here,” Carrol said. “We understand that two lanes are not enough but there’s just a lot of fluff in the plan, with a 24-foot median and a 10-foot wide multi-use path on each side of the road.”
NCDOT said these median U-turns make roads safer by restricting where cars can make left turns across several lanes. This ultimately helps cut down on crashes.
Carol said he is not convinced.
“Restaurants are built as most businesses in the area where the parking matches the capacity, and it matches the building size,” Carrol said. “It all works together. The drawings and maps that we have seen will take out 20% of our parking and that means we will lose 20% of our business.”
Slowdown during construction is also a concern.
“As good as our food is, nobody is going to drive 30 to 40 mins to get here. If roads are down to one lane and access to our parking is cut off,” Carrol said. “It just seems like too much for what they are trying to do, which is move traffic.”
He added there is too much uncertainty.
“It’s just tough on us,” Carrol said. “We have 54 people who depend on us to provide for them and their families. We have a lot of school kids paying their way through college.”
NCDOT said it is always looking for ways to minimize impacts and disruptions to business activity. The agency adds it performed studies on RCIs and found no difference in the revenue reported by businesses with a median and without.
McKay wants to go back to the drawing board.
“We are looking for the best project that suits this area’s needs, not what some statistics or some map created shows that it needs,” McKay said.
Several businesses plan to get a petition together and hope to get enough signatures to get the project changed.
NCDOT said it accepts and takes into consideration all comments received throughout all phases of the project development.
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.