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June 5, 2009
Outer Banks Scenic Byway path dedicated in Buxton By JORDAN TOMBERLIN  The pathway, which begins in front of the United Methodist Church on Highway 12 at Buxton Back Road, currently extends seven-tenths of a mile, ending at Crossway Road. When completed later this month, the path will be 1.5 miles long, will cover the entire Back Road, and will continue down Highway 12, ending in front of the entrance to Lighthouse Road the road that leads to the Cape Hatteras Light. The Buxton Back Road project is a component of the Dare County Department of Public Health’s Childhood Obesity Prevention Project. The project provided $148,000, which was used to engineer and permit the entire 1.5 miles and to actually construct the seven-tenths of a mile segment that was dedicated on Wednesday. The pathway, which came to fruition in record time, was engineered and permitted by Albemarle and Associates, Ltd. in Kill Devil Hills, and construction of the pathway was contracted out to Derek Hatchell of Hatchell Concrete, Inc. “We had four months to do eight months’ work,” said John Delucia of Albemarle and Associates, whose company had to survey, plan, permit, and coordinate the construction of the pathway before the end of May, when the Childhood Obesity Prevention Project funds expired. The remainder of the pathway, from Crossway Road to Lighthouse Road,will be constructed with funds from Dare County’s Tourism Board. Since 2004, the board has set aside $100,000 each year in restricted funds, specifically for pathways on Hatteras Island that, in order to be used, must be matched dollar for dollar. When the Back Road project was proposed, the Outer Banks Scenic Byway Committee, a six-person entity appointed by the Dare County Board of Commissioners in 2003, requested $100,000 of the restricted funds to match the money from the Childhood Obesity Prevention Project. The request was approved, and the funds will allow for the completion of the Back Road pathway, a fact that came as pleasant surprise to the Scenic Byway committee. “We had no idea we’d be able to do the whole project,” said Mary Helen Goodloe-Murphy, the committee chair. “We thought we were going to need more money.” The Buxton Back Road project is just the first of many more pathways to come. The Outer Banks Scenic Byway Committee has developed, and the Dare County Board of Commissioners has endorsed, a conceptual plan for off-road pathways through all of Hatteras Island’s villages. Currently, the committee has applied for a Safe Routes to School grant that would fund—with a $275,000 match from the Tourism Board—the planning, engineering, permitting and construction of a path in front of the secondary school that would radiate outward, possibly from Brigands’ Bay in Frisco to the Orange Blossom Bakery in Buxton. The committee has also worked with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Dare’s Soil and Water Conservation to map and assess the existing stormwater systems in Buxton and Hatteras villages. The assessment is part of a project, which, if included in the DOT’s next Transportation Improvement Plan, would fix the storm systems and install sidewalks with curbs and gutters connected to the new system in Buxton, north of the lighthouse, and in Hatteras between the Slash Creek bridges. In Avon, a private business owner has installed, at his personal expense, a pathway beginning at the Wings store and extending North 500 feet, and committee member Antoinette Mattingly has enlisted community volunteers to maintain the pathway. In Rodanthe, the committee is working with the National Park Service to secure funds for the construction of a pathway from the Salvo day use area to the Salvo village line. And with matching funds from the Tourism Board, the pathway would extend into Salvo village. CLICK TO VIEW SLIDE SHOW |
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