The North Carolina Department of Transportation said Friday that its contractor plans to start construction next week to improve the five-lane section of U.S. Highway 64 between the Melvin R. Daniels Bridge, also known as the “Little Bridge,” and the Washington Baum Bridge, both in Dare County.

Raleigh-based Fred Smith Co. is to begin the project, a milling and resurfacing operation, April 2 between the two bridges in order to allow another crew to complete its ongoing work to bore an emergency waterline adjacent to the Washington Baum Bridge. During this phase, the transportation contractor also plans to resurface the access parking lot for the Daniels bridge. Work is scheduled for completion by April 14, officials said.

Once complete, the contractor will demobilize to perform work for the town of Kill Devil Hills and allow Dare County’s boring contractor time to complete the waterline project.

The Fred Smith crews will then return and finish the remaining five-lane section of U.S. 64 from the Washington Baum Bridge to the Virginia Dare Bridge before May 9 when work is expected to be completed, officials said. The work schedules are weather-dependent. 

The upcoming work is part of ongoing project to improve several areas of U.S. 64 and nearby Dare County roads and bridges. The company was awarded the $2.4 million contract in September 2024.

Motorists should be alert to new traffic patterns in the area, slow down and drive with caution through the work zone.

Updated Jan. 3: Dare County’s culvert work has been rescheduled for the week of Jan. 13

Original post:

MANTEO – The single-lane closures currently on U.S. Highway 64 between Nags Head and Manteo in Dare County will be extended approximately three-quarters of a mile to the west next week, state transportation officials announced Thursday.

The lane closures are necessary to allow Dare County workers to perform maintenance on culvert pipes under the highway, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Officials said the work is expected to take two to three weeks to complete, if weather permits.

As the work continues, the right lanes and shoulders in both directions will be closed to allow room for the equipment and materials needed to perform the culvert work.

The speed limit in the work zone will remain 45 mph.

COLUMBIA — The only wild red wolves in the world have been thrown a lifeline for Christmas.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has been awarded $25 million to construct wildlife crossings that can provide safe passage for the critically endangered species, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration announced Dec. 20.

Only 17 to 19 of the red wolves are believed to remain within the designated 1.7 million-acre recovery area made up of public and private lands in six northeastern North Carolina counties.

Despite renewed success in recent years under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service management, the wolves’ survival has been threatened by numerous vehicle collisions on a main route to the Outer Banks, a popular beach resort area.

“Red wolves are one of the most endangered animals on the planet, and for the last four years, vehicle strikes have been their number one source of mortality,” Ron Sutherland, chief scientist at the nonprofit Wildlands Network, said in an email. “Building the first set of wildlife road crossing structures on US 64 through Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge is a vital step towards pulling the red wolves back away from the edge of extinction in the wild.”

Habitat loss and overhunting in the 20th century had decimated the population of red wolves, which had once roamed much of the Southeastern U.S. In 1980, the red wolf, which is a separate species than its cousins the gray wolf and Mexican wolf, was declared extinct in the wild under the Endangered Species Act.

Seven years later, four pairs of captive-bred red wolf pups, offspring of a few wild red wolves captured earlier in Louisiana, were released at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

Through a series of innovative management techniques, the population of red wolves in the recovery area rebounded to as many as 120 or so. But after 2010, the program lost much of its political and public support, and management measures were scaled back.

As a result, the wild population crashed to as few as seven known red wolves, as well as 20 or more un-collared red wolves. Numerous lawsuits by nonprofit conservation groups resulted in restoration of the program by 2022 and successful reintroduction of pups into the wild. Sadly, vehicles deaths have undone much of the population’s recovery momentum.

The grant from the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program will provide funds to build 11 wildlife underpasses of various sizes along sections of the highway through the refuge, according to a Dec. 20 press release from the Defenders of Wildlife.

“We know the benefits wildlife corridors can provide to species traversing our state’s roadways, and perhaps none are in more need of safe passage than Red Wolves,” Ben Prater, Defenders’ Southeast program director, said in the release. “In the face of environmental changes that are increasingly transforming and fragmenting the landscape, this funding comes at a critical time, when we have the opportunity to make our roadways safer for motorists and wildlife alike.”

As part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the five-year program included $350 million for grants awarded competitively to states, tribes and federal agencies, the release said.

For 2024, Federal Highways awarded $125 million for 16 grants to design and build new wildlife crossings around the country. NCDOT applied in September for funds to build crossings and associated fencing to guide animals to the crossings on a key stretch of U.S. 64 that for years has been a hotspot for Red Wolves, bears and other species being struck by vehicles. 

Construction of the wildlife passages will also be supported by $4 million in private donations raised by the Center for Biological Diversity, Wildlands’ Network and an anonymous donor.

NCDOT applied in September for funds to build crossings and associated fencing that would guide animals to the crossings. The agency is contributing more than $6 million in matching funds for the project. The Volgenau Foundation, the Felburn Foundation, and the Animal Welfare Institute also provided a total of $305,000.

“Marissa Cox and her team at NCDOT prepared an excellent proposal, with help from Joe Madison at US Fish and Wildlife Service and Travis Wilson at NC Wildlife Resources Commission,” said Nikki Robinson, North Carolina project manager at Wildlands Network. “We’re also really thankful that NCDOT Secretary Joey Hopkins gave this effort his strong and enlightened support.”

As Sutherland added, not only will the project save numerous other animals from vehicular demise, it will also spare many humans the injuries and damages inflicted by striking the creatures.

“The wildlife road crossings that will be built with funding from Federal Highways will benefit not just red wolves but all kinds of other wildlife too. US 64 cuts right through the top end of the immense and biologically diverse Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, and the combination of busy beach highway and high density of wildlife leads to carnage on the asphalt every year.”

As many as 22,000 collisions with large wildlife were reported annually between 2021-2023 in North Carolina, resulting in 20 human fatalities, 2,754 injuries and more than $200 million in damages.

Within the last five years, six red wolves have been struck and killed by vehicles on U.S. 64. A notably tragic loss happened in June 2024, when the death of a breeding male red wolf on the highway led to the deaths of his five young pups in the wild.

A daily roadkill survey conducted by Wildlands starting Aug. 1, 2024, counted to date more than 2,400 dead animals on U.S. 64, including bears, birds, bats, deer and, among others, more than 700 each of turtles and snakes and 600 frogs, Sutherland said.

A 2008-2011 study along U.S. 64, done for NCDOT by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, determined that 890 black bears, which can exceed 600 pounds, crossed the road from March 2009 to March 2011 in the 147,432-acre Alligator River refuge. In addition, the study found 15 GPS-collared black bears crossed the highway 99 times over three years.

“Providing wildlife with safe passage under US 64 will save thousands and thousands of animal lives each year,” Sutherland said.

Officials say a 2-year-old wild male red wolf was killed April 15 by a vehicle strike on U.S. Highway 64 in the East Lake area of Dare County.

This is the fourth death of an endangered eastern red wolf in the past 10 months, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service referred to the wolf as No. 2410, born in the Milltail pack in 2022, but the Center for Biological Diversity said its name was Muppet. The Milltail Pack, one of only two families of red wolves in the wild, is composed of a breeding male and female and nine surviving offspring.

The service said necropsy results were pending, but that prior to its death, monitoring indicated the wolf had been crossing the highway in the area and efforts were ongoing to haze him away from the highway and to capture or relocate him.

The Center for Biological Diversity noted that Muppet’s father also was killed by a vehicle strike six months earlier along the same stretch of U.S. 64, which runs through Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina.

“Muppet’s tragic death brings North Carolina’s beleaguered red wolves one step closer to extinction,” said Will Harlen, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The world’s most endangered wolves should not be roadkill, especially when we know that building wildlife crossings could save them from being hit by vehicles. We owe it to Muppet and his family to give red wolves a fighting chance.”

Fewer than 20 red wolves remain in the wild, making them the most endangered wolves on the planet. Vehicle strikes are the second leading cause of mortality for red wolves.

The center said Muppet was named for his long, thick neck and was the first-born and of his pack’s juvenile wolves. The organization said that Muppet had stepped up to fill in its father’s role, helping protect the younger pups and its mother.

The organization said wildlife crossings could benefit red wolves and other species at the Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, including river otters, bobcats and black bears.

“Wildlife crossings also protect human lives. Wildlife collisions kill more than 200 people in the U.S. every year and cause $10 billion in damages. North Carolina is considered by insurance companies to be a high-risk state for wildlife collisions, and 7% of all vehicle crashes statewide involve animal strikes,” the group said.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized $350 million in federal funds to support wildlife crossings nationally. A coalition of 15 national and regional organizations is requesting $10 million in funds from the North Carolina legislature to fund wildlife crossings across the state, including crossings along Highway 64 in red wolf territory.

“To stop cars from killing these desperately endangered animals, we need to create wildlife crossings in their last refuges,” Harlan said. “Wildlife crossings can protect human lives and save red wolves from extinction.”

A proposed $268 million project to replace the 60-year-old Alligator River Bridge on U.S. 64 between Tyrrell and Dare counties has been selected to receive a $110 million federal grant.

The state announced Tuesday its selection for the Multimodal Project Discretionary Grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“This bridge is a lifeline for the people of North Carolina both to and from the Barrier Islands. It is one of the few options residents and visitors have for accessing our far eastern counties and this bridge replacement will serve our state for decades to come,” said Gov. Roy Cooper in a statement. “This is a great example of how President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helps move along large projects that otherwise would be difficult to fund through traditional means.”

The current Lindsay B. Warren bridge completed in 1962 is a two-lane swing-span bridge. The proposed replacement project would build a new two-lane, fixed-span bridge just to the north of the old one, allowing both marine and vehicle traffic to pass unimpeded.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation is planning for construction to begin no later than 2025, according to the state.

More than 4,000 boats pass through the area every year, forcing vehicle traffic to stop while the swing-span opens and closes, according to the state. Though maintained, the structure is aging and experiences occasional technical issues, which can lead to travelers needing to take a 99-mile detour.

“This is a big boost for eastern North Carolina,” said Win Bridgers, division one rngineer for the state Department of Transportation. “A new fixed-span bridge over the Alligator River would aid everything from economic development to hurricane evacuation.”

The bridge replacement is part of the proposed plan to widen a 27.3-mile segment of U.S. 64 from Columbia in Tyrrell County to U.S. 264 near Manns Harbor in Dare County, according to NCDOT. The bridge has been deemed structurally deficient, which means the bridge is still safe but has a posted weight limit for vehicles.

NCDOT officials, who applied for the federal grant in May, named the application STERLING, which stands for Strengthening Transportation Evacuation Resilient Lifeline by Improving the Network’s Grid, in honor of former Division 1 Engineer Sterling Baker, who passed away in April.

“Sterling dedicated his life to NCDOT and the northeastern North Carolina community. He would be proud the grant project for this bridge would highlight his work ingenuity and character he showed to get the job done for citizens,” said Baker’s wife, Elizabeth Mumm Baker. “It is really special, and his family will be honored that he will forever be part of eastern North Carolina. Thank you for this tribute honoring his legacy.”

A $3.6 million contract has been awarded to a Raleigh company to improve two sections of U.S. 64 totaling almost 12 miles in Tyrrell and Washington counties.

The state Department of Transportation awarded Rose Brothers Paving Co. of Raleigh the contract to work on two sections of the highway. The project can begin as soon as June 1 and is expected to be complete by Sept. 30, 2022.

A 7-mile section just west of Columbia in Tyrrell County and a 4.75-mile section between Millpond Road and Northline Road east of Plymouth in Washington County will undergo milling, resurfacing and remarking of the roadway.

The Washington County segment also includes a layer of friction course, while the Tyrrell County segment includes replacing and upgrading 20,000 linear feet of guardrail.

For real-time travel information, visit DriveNC.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.

EAST LAKE — While many people rejoiced that the proposed Mid-Currituck Bridge was included in North Carolina’s draft 10-year transportation plan, not much griping has been heard about the U.S. 64 project being left out.

But some are worried that the 55-year old bridge over Alligator River, which is part of the now unfunded U.S. 64 road project, will continue to deteriorate.

“That bridge should be looked at as a separate project,” said David Clegg, the Tyrrell County manager.

Built in 1960, the 2.8-mile Lindsay C. Warren Bridge is a swing span that opens as much as 35 times a day for marine traffic. It is considered structurally deficient but safe to cross.

At one time, there were 19 mix-and-match alternatives in a plan to widen the highway to four lanes through miles of swampland in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and the small communities of Alligator in Tyrrell County and East Lake in Dare County. Miraculously, a suitable alternative was finally found.

But now, construction plans for the proposed 27.3-mile project – the last section of U.S 64 to be widened from Raleigh to the coast — are on hold.

Stretching between Columbia and Manns Harbor, divided in half between Tyrrell and Dare counties, the proposed project is estimated to cost $392 million. Unless the funds are allotted in the transportation plan, the project will not move forward.

With residents and environmentalists angry about the proposed project for the much of the 18 years or so it has been in the planning stages, the lack of outrage at its omission in the state plan is not surprising.

“We’re fine with them doing it when the funding is available,” said Rosemarie Doshier, a resident of East Lake. “We’re in no rush to get it done.”

In fact, until about 1½ years ago, residents had fought the initial proposal that had the highway cutting right through their community, taking out 12 homes, churches and historic cemeteries and the 1936 fire tower.

Environmental groups, including the N.C. Coastal Federation, question the need for the project, citing environmental damage to the refuge and overall lack of traffic on the existing two-lane highway. In response, the state said that U.S. 64 is important as a hurricane evacuation route, and that the bridge over Alligator River is overdue for replacement.

An unusual compromise was announced in August 2013. The refuge managers had agreed to allow the road to curve into its land in order to bypass East Lake.   Meanwhile, on the Tyrrell County side of the project, four of the five residents affected in Alligator told the N.C. Department of Transportation, or DOT, that they were willing to sell their often-flooded property.

Despite that the major conflict over placement of the road had been resolved, the U.S 64 project did not meet the state’s new prioritization formula for transportation projects, which in part is based on traffic congestion and population. Still, the State Transportation Improvement Program, or STIP, that was released in December is a draft that will go through a public comment process. And that means there will be changes.

“It’s not final,” said Ted Devens, DOT project manager. “There’s been a lot of push back from rural parts of the state.”

Devens said that all the major stakeholders in the project have agreed on how to proceed, and the final Environmental Impact Statement, which documents the decisions made throughout the planning process, is nearing completion.

“This thing has been studied since 1998. So we’ve made all this progress,” he said. “We have completed all the merger team coordination, and we have a concurrence.”

Devens said that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was enthusiastic about how the road design made allowances for the different creatures that routinely cross the highway within the 154,000-acre refuge, ranging from bears and wolves to snakes and rodents. The refuge managers agreed that a loss of some of their land in East Lake was a worthy trade-off.

“The team agreed that the benefits of the wildlife crossings to the whole region justified the taking,” he said.

So far, consultant work for the project has cost $4.2 million, Devens said. That figure does not include costs for DOT time, he added.

Skip ahead to 30 seconds to take a road trip over the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge that crosses Alligator River. We hope you don’t mind 80s rock.

Devens said that public meetings will be held in March and April to discuss the draft STIP. It will be known by June, when the STIP is finalized, whether or not the U.S. 64 project has been added to the 10-year plan.

Even if the state decides for the time being to not widen U.S. 64, it must address the aging bridge, said Clegg.

In a resolution passed on Dec. 2, the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners said that the two-lane bridge is “outdated, narrow and unsafe” and does not meet current state and federal safety standards.

The board requested that “without delay” the state “design, schedule, fund and construct” a new bridge.

“We didn’t want DOT to think that we looked at that project all having to be done simultaneously,” Clegg said, “because we don’t.”

Clegg said that the region and Tyrrell, among the poorest regions in the state, are losing out in the new transportation formula that favors factors such as urban congestion. Neighboring counties of Dare, Hyde, Washington agree, he said. “We all live and die by Highway 64,” Clegg said.

“If you look at that process, northeastern North Carolina is not garnering enough points to really have anything put on the drawing board anytime soon,” he said. “I think if you look at general improvements, we came out at the short end of the stick.”

Even the proposed Mid-Currituck Bridge — one of the northeast’s major projects in the draft STIP — that would alleviate traffic to the Outer Banks from Virginia is not scheduled to start the permitting and acquisition phase until 2019.

Clegg said that the Alligator River bridge should be viewed in light of its importance to the people who depend on it as their only route to jobs and nearby communities, as well as for the tourists coming from the west. For instance, repair of the swing span gears in 2013 resulted in a 90-minute detour for travelers.

“I don’t think a lot of these traffic counts are necessarily reflecting tourism traffic,” he said.

The most recent bridge inspection in 2014 gave the bridge a “sufficiency” rating of two out of 100, Devens said. “That does not mean the bridge is unsafe,” he explained in an email. “It means that, after studying a number of factors including bridge inspection results, traffic volumes and road widths, engineers used a standard formula to rate the bridge’s ability to remain in service. Based on those calculations, they consider the bridge ‘structurally deficient’ and in need of replacement.  A low rating places a higher priority on bridge replacement.”

Devens said that the likelihood of building the bridge as the first phase of the project – followed by the Tyrrell section, then the Dare section – has always been the case.

“This discussion of separating the bridge out is nothing new,” he said. “In fact, that’s right in character with the project all along.”

In 2013, costs for the bridge and connectors to both sides were estimated at $210 million; the Tyrrell portion of U.S. 64 was estimated at $73 million and the Dare side at $110 million.

Devens said that the bridge design is similar to that of the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge between Manteo and Manns Harbor, except it has wider outside shoulders. The old bridge, he said, is still useable.

“But again, we want to get it replaced before it gets unsafe,” he said.

ALLIGATOR — Against all odds, it appears that two small communities along the proposed U.S. 64 widening project in northeastern North Carolina will get the route they wanted, while sparing thousands of wildlife from becoming road kill.

Even more unlikely, nearly everyone is happy that the project leaves East Lake intact but curves into federal wildlife refuge land.

The news was met with joy when it was announced last week at a state Department of Transportation meeting at the community center in East Lake: the chosen alternative, instead of taking 12 homes, historic cemeteries, churches and a 1936 fire tower, would go around them.

“Everybody is thrilled about it,” said Rosemarie Doshier, a 40-year resident of East Lake. “It saves our community.”

In the draft environmental impact statement released last April, the proposed U.S. 64 expansion to four lanes between Columbia and Manns Harbor was planning to go right through East Lake, wiping out most of the historic community on the edge of the swampy Dare County mainland, and cross right over five houses in tiny Alligator, on the Tyrrell County side of the Alligator River.

As it turns out, the owners of four flood-prone homes in Alligator opted to be bought out, with only one of those affected in Tyrrell County objecting to taking by the DOT.

Scott Lanier

Dennis Stewart

But in a compromise that rarely happens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to the route that East Lake residents have wanted for years: a southern bypass that loops to the side beyond the houses and churches, crossing Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge – and leaving the pre-Civil War community where it stands.

A study done by Virginia Tech showing the shocking number of animals struck by vehicles convinced the refuge of the value of the wildlife crossings DOT planned to include in the project.  Most of the 27.3-miles of roadway in the project bisects thick forest and undeveloped swamps. There is little lighting other than vehicle headlights to spot animals in the road at night.

“This ultimately will make the highway better for people and it will make it better for wildlife,” said Scott Lanier, the refuge’s deputy manager. “I think this can be a win-win, and it’s a credit to DOT to take these measures.”

The department will also mitigate the loss of wetlands, in part with habitat enhancements. About 100 acres of refuge will be impacted, he said.

Lanier said that DOT agreed to fund the study and incorporate its recommendations to construct numerous different -sized wildlife passages that allow animals to cross safely – and drivers to avoid collisions.

“You pick up a 400- 450-pound bear carcass off the side of the road, and you see pieces of the truck that hit it,” he said, “and you realize what the impact can do.”

Lanier said that it is fortunate that there have been no human fatalities that he is aware of in the refuge from bear strikes.

The refuge is home to one of the largest populations of black bear on the East Coast, and the only wild population of red wolves in the nation.

According to the Dec. 2011 final report of the Virginia Tech study, 890 black bear crossings were identified through hair samples caught on barbed wire from March 2009 to March 2011; GPS collars on 49 bears found that 15 bears crossed 99 times. Photos also captured 170 white-tailed deer, 200 bobcats and raccoons and an additional 260 bear.

Surveys of road kill from Nov. 2008 to July 2011 found eight deer killed. With the inclusion of historical data, between Jan. 1993 to July 2011, there were 63 bear, 75 bats, 82 small mammals, 134 mid-sized mammals, 1,153 birds, 4,014 reptiles and 7,498 amphibians.

Last year, there were 11 bear struck in the 147,432-acre refuge, most of them on U.S. 64, said refuge biologist Dennis Stewart.  He said that doesn’t include an unknown number of bear that are hit by a vehicle and run off into the woods to die.

“From a human or a motorist safety view point, a bear-vehicle collision is not a pretty site,” Stewart said. “It’s just important for everyone to understand, that by moving these animals into a situation where they have to go under the highway, that makes it a lot safer for humans.”

Four wildlife crossings that were installed off U.S. 64 built between Columbia and Plymouth have been shown to be about 90 percent effective, Stewart said. The crossings are designed to stop wildlife with 6- to 8-foot fence at the edge of the road and on both sides of the opening, with the fence corralling the animal toward underpasses, culverts or a bridge above the road.

Every critter, from toads to red wolves to bear, he said, will be helped by the crossings.

“As far as which species is going to benefit the most, I’m going to say humans — and I’m not being sarcastic,” Stewart said. “Because it’s going to get animals off the highway.”

The drawing shows the design of one of the large animal crossing under the widened U.S. 64. Drawing: NCDOT

The $392 million project includes replacement of the 53-year-old Lindsey C. Warren Bridge, a three-mile swing span over the Alligator River that connects Tyrrell and Dare counties.

On the Tyrrell County side of the project, the highway by the Columbia side would be widened to the north, then transition to the south for a short distance, and then back to the north, bypassing the marina. Under that scenario, five houses — four in Alligator, one near Columbia — would be displaced and 75 to 99 acres of wetlands would be affected.

At a DOT meeting at St. John’s Baptist Church in Alligator, with the meeting room filled to capacity, project manager Ted Devens assured the 40 or so attendees that the department would work with residents to find the best access routes to the highway from driveways – usually with medians and U-turns – and around wildlife crossings.

Residents whose homes will be taken will be paid fair market value and relocation costs.

Mabel Davenport said she was very upset about the prospect of losing her house.

“You knew you were going to take my home,” she told Devens. “Did you have enough consideration to come talk to me? No! You want my land and my home and you got it.”

After the meeting, Davenport, 66, said that her husband is very ill with emphysema and Alzheimer’s disease.

“For us to pack up and find another place – it’s hard,” she said. “I am an elderly woman. I worked and paid the house off and now I have to give it up.”

Devens said that he and the department will do whatever is possible to help Davenport, but there is no way that the project can avoid her house.

But Mary Rhym, 73, is fine with relocating, as long as DOT pays her enough.  A big reason is that the area around her one-story ranch is often flooded, a condition DOT attributes to clogged drainage ditches in Alligator and sea-level rise in the last 50 years.

“Nothing works well, even the phone,” said Rhym, a native of Alligator who moved back 14 years ago. “At my age, if I’ve got to relocate, I might as well buy a condo somewhere.”

The story is different in East Lake, whose 150 residents have been fighting for the southern alternative for years. In February 2012, they sent a resolution to DOT asking the agency to choose that option because, except for a fairly new crematorium and one residence, it would avoid impacts to businesses and homes in the community.

“We said, ‘We agree with you –we think that’s a good idea’,” Devens said.  “This time we were truly able to give them what they asked for. How cool is that?”

Replacing the Lindsey C. Warren Bridge across the Alligator River is part of the U.S. 64 project. Photo: NCDOT

The chosen alternative will build a 1.5-mile stretch of highway about 200 yards to the south of the community.

Devens said that DOT had met several times with Alligator and East Lake to discuss the effects of the alternatives. When the draft EIS was released last spring, there were a total of 17 alternatives, with different combinations of north-south for each section.

Even before the EIS was completed, Devens said, the southern bridge alignments had been removed because refuge officials were opposed to a highway on the south side of East Lake. But residents kept pushing and lobbying for the southern bypass.

“They embarked as a community on trying to get the refuge to lighten up,” he said, “and they were really pleading for the refuge to be a good neighbor.”

In November, when refuge officials heard about the plans for the wildlife crossings, they softened.

“I think that was when the refuge saw that DOT was coming to them in earnest and we wanted to do the right thing,” Devens said. “I think that was the turning point.”

There are still significant unresolved issues with endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and where the project will fall in DOT’s new Strategic Mobility Formula, a funding prioritization plan that is supposed to be completed in 2015. As it is now, the design-build contract for the bridge is slated to be let in 2016, with construction completed in three to four years. Construction of both ends of the highway is targeted to start in 2018.

As the last leg of U.S. 64 from Raleigh to Manteo to be four-laned, the project is defended as necessary for hurricane evacuation and driver safety. Yet frequent travelers on the two-lane section say it never has traffic backups, even during hurricane evacuations, and some of questioned whether it’s worth millions of taxpayer dollars.

Rhett White, the town manager of Columbia, said there is a practical reason to support the widening: the opportunity may not be available when traffic is heavier.

“The day is coming. In the next decade and a half, it’ll be backed up just like Currituck County,” he said, referring to the hours-long line of traffic to Corolla. ‘The 2-lane road can easily handle the traffic now, but we’re seeing the traffic increasing through Columbia every year.”

EAST LAKE  — Sitting on worn wooden benches in the community building, their faces expressionless, members of this modest community on the mainland of Dare County quietly listened on Tuesday as a representative for the state Department of Transportation explained a road project to expand U.S. 64 that may force them off their property and out of their homes.

But it’s one thing to be moved off the land you inherited from your great grandparents. Yet, some said, it’s even worse to think about moving your great-grandparents from their final resting place.

For the first time that night, the more than 60 people — unusually polite for a meeting about such a consequential project — broke out in applause.“Would you really relocate our cemetery and dig up our bodies?” resident Rosemarie Doshier asked Jamille Robbins, the DOT moderator. “That’s not acceptable to us.”

“That’s unethical to me,” said Michelle Perrot, who moved to East Lake 12 years ago. “You can’t do that. These people have buried their loved ones once. Don’t make them do it again.”

The public hearing was held to give residents the opportunity to discuss their concerns about the 17 alternatives detailed in the draft environmental impact statement released last month for the U.S. 64 widening project — especially the one that goes right through their working-class community built in the middle of swamps and surrounded by wild lands.

The proposed 27.3-mile project between Columbia and Manns Harbor is the final section of 200 miles of the highway from Raleigh to the Outer Banks that is slated to be four-laned.  The project, estimated to cost $356 million to $400 million, includes replacing the 52-year-old Lindsey C. Warren Bridge, a three-mile swing span over the Alligator River.

The bridge replacement itself is not controversial, nor is much of the Tyrrell County half of the project. On the Dare County side, however, great conflicts exist between the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge on the road’s south side and this tiny pre-Civil War community on the north side. East Lake residents sent a resolution to DOT in February asking the agency to build the southern alternative that would bypass 12 homes and historic cemeteries, churches, buildings and the 1936 fire tower. The northern alternative is more expensive and would impact a larger portion of the refuge’s 147,432 acres.

Minnie Spruill, 89, and the community’s oldest resident, told DOT she wants the road to be built behind the village on the south side and reattached to the highway at Buffalo City.

“I can’t understand why you would tear up a neighborhood,” she said, “when all that land is right there.”

Although DOT’s main rationale for widening the road is to prevent accidents and speed hurricane evacuations, East Lake residents say neither reason is based on the reality they know. Crashes are infrequent and backups are few, even during evacuations.

“I’ve lived here since 1973, and we’ve stayed through every hurricane,” said Steve Doshier, Rosemarie’s husband. “Anybody who’s lived here for any time knows that the main evacuation point is north.”

Big sheets of paper illustrating each of the proposed alternatives lined one side of the community building, which earlier in the 20th century had been East Lake’s school house — the blackboard is still covering the rear wall.  Most of the folks who attended — nearly half of East Lake’s total population — appeared older than 50.

According to the DOT report, a total of about 140 people live in the community’s 60 or so houses, and the median household income is about $27,500.  Additional information on City-Data.com, DOT’s cited source, said that East Lake had 61 houses built between 1960 and 1989 and 16 built between 1995 and 2000. Most of the homes are 3-bedroom owner-occupied structures, and a number of them are mobile homes.

Jamille Robbins of DOT explains the route alternatives to residents of East Lake.

The 1887 East Lake Methodist Church and its cemetery, on 1.69 acres along U.S. 64, are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, the report said.  The cemetery behind the church has more than 175 head stones, some dating back to the late 1800s, and a number of graves that are capped with tablets. The church is still active, and many members are descendants of the original congregation.

Eugene Smith, a Chesapeake resident who works at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, said after the meeting that he plans to return to East Lake when he retires next year. Smith said he owns a house on six acres, and he still has a number of family members living in the community.

A 1960 graduate of Manteo High School, Smith said that his grandmother, his brother’s wife, his great-grandfather, his father and his sister are buried at the Methodist Church cemetery, and “if I died tomorrow, I would be planted there, too.”

“They’re all in the cemetery they’re talking about moving,” he said after the meeting. “I don’t like that at all. That hurts more than moving a house.”

A smaller cemetery would also be affected if the northern alternative is chosen.

Crystal Creef Basnight, an East Lake native, said in a later interview that the community hopes that DOT keeps their promise to listen to them and take their concerns seriously.

Basnight said she and her husband live on her mother’s land, which falls within the proposed northern section. If DOT chooses that route, she said it would take not only her grandfather’s old homestead, but also her mother’s house and her neighbor’s brand new house.

“It would be horrible — perfectly terrible,” she said. “It would just be devastating, because I have nowhere to go.”

Comments will be accepted through May 24. Email comments to Robbins.

• Our two-part series on the U.S. 64 project

• Todd Miller: Is this road really needed?

Last of two parts

MANNS HARBOR — Back in1995, then-Gov. Jim Hunt reiterated his earlier promise to four-lane U.S 64 from Raleigh to Manteo by 2005. All of it has been done except the last 28 miles between Columbia and this community perched on edge of mainland Dare County.

Even so, the once 6-hour slog from the beach to the state capitol now averages a breezy 3.5 hours.

The N.C. Department of Transportation plans on fulfilling Hunt’s pledge and shaving a few more minutes off the trip by completing that last section of U.S. 64. The agency says that the road must be expanded to four lanes to prevent accidents and make hurricane evacuation faster. A draft environmental impact statement was released last month.

The study includes 19 different alternatives and outlines numerous conflicts and tradeoffs.

In Tyrrell County, for instance, northern alternatives would result in fewer relocations of homes and businesses, but going to the south would avoid the Alligator community and create less impact to natural resources. Other concerns include impacts to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, J. Morgan Futch Gamelands and other managed lands, and to wetlands, Outstanding Resource Waters and other natural resources protected by federal or state laws.

“We are encountering complex and seemingly competing environmental laws,” said Ted Devens, DOT’s project manager. “I think one of our challenges is to bring all the stakeholders to the table and seek an appropriate balance that reflects the least environmentally damaging and practical alternative.”

From Columbia to the Alligator River bridge, Devens said, most of the conflicts are less complicated and more manageable. But on the Dare side of the river, it seems nearly every conflict imaginable comes into play.

There are issue pitting federal and private property rights and conflicts with historic and cultural features. In East Lake, DOT may have to contend with the Environmental Justice Act, a federal law meant to lessen a project’s environmental effects on poor and minority communities, and the National Register of Historic Places, which protect historic buildings.

There are red wolves and red-cockaded woodpeckers that are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. There are protected wetlands in nearly every direction. Depending on the alternative chosen, the widening could affect as few as 40 acres of wetlands to as many as 100 acres.

And as hard as it is to contemplate, there are deep, mucky canals that will have to be relocated. That means the canals lining the road, which are essential for drainage, will be have to be dammed, pumped out, mucked out, filled and re-dug alongside whatever new road configuration is built.

But that’s not all.

“Construction will be difficult,” Devens said, not surprisingly. “We are considering sea- level rise with this design. So the new highway will be at least four feet higher than the existing highway.”

And that means, he said, that while the new highway is being built up, largely from the muck pumped out of the canals, the still-open old highway will be four feet lower in elevation. Temporary barriers will have to be placed between the old and new roads.

New wildlife crossings, small tunnels to large openings, will be installed that allow animals to pass under the highway, rather than risk an unfortunate encounter with speeding tires.  The design has been effective in Washington County, Devens said.

Two earlier academic studies had determined animal activity along the road. Dead animals struck by vehicles numbered in the thousands every year in both counties, including deer, bear, fox, bobcat, raccoon, wild turkey, snakes, frogs, turtles and “a surprising number of birds of prey,” Devens said.  One red wolf was found dead last year. Just in Tyrrell County alone, for example, seven bear, 885 turtles and 25,000 amphibians — and many equally unlucky snakes apparently in pursuit — were killed on the 55-mph road over a 2-year period.

“Right now, the highway has no permeability for wildlife,” he said. “We feel that if we do this right, this road will represent an enhancement over the existing conditions.”

But the main purpose for the road widening is hurricane evacuation, Devens said. The project has been designed to allow 18 hours, night or day, from the first car to the last car, a timeline that is legislatively mandated.

Construction of the 3.1-mile Lindsey C. Warren Bridge over the Alligator River is targeted to begin in 2014 and be completed in about two years, Devens said. The Tyrrell County half of the road is expected to start in 2016 and the Dare County half should start in 2018.  Both ends of the highway will each take about two years to complete.

When the bridge is completed, it will look a lot like the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge, with its high span, but it will have a wider bike lane.

East Lake residents just hope their community will still be there at the foot of the new bridge.

“I tell you, my home — I don’t worship it,” said Minnie Spruill, who is just shy of 89 and East Lake’s oldest resident.  “But my home is priceless to me as long as I’m here. My home is for the family. I said, ‘They can’t give me enough money.’”

Open houses on the draft environmental study will be held April 23 at Columbia High School auditorium and on April 24 at East Lake Community Building from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., with a formal presentation at 7 p.m.

• Are those evacuation numbers for real? See Todd Miller’s blog, Sounder.