Road-building decisions will be based on data and North Carolina's long-term transportation goals, not whether a board member has pushed a project, new state Transportation Secretary Gene Conti said Wednesday.
Following through on Gov. Bev Perdue's demand that politics be taken out of road construction choices, Conti and his chief deputies rolled out a new process that seeks more input from the public and accountability for completing jobs and meeting goals.
Perdue ordered members in January to stop voting on individual road projects. Over the years, some members have been accused of placing too much influence on getting roads on the state's transportation funding blueprint or projects built to benefit themselves.
The board now will become primarily a policy-based panel, Conti said.
“We want people on the board who are interested in transportation policy, setting a strategy and evaluating performance,” Conti told reporters. “We're not interested in people who want to be on the board so they can get a project for their county or their region or anything else.”
The new process will revolve around 20-, 10- and 5-year transportation plans and measurements to determine whether DOT is meeting goals.
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