No Route 3 In The Mountains!

Can we afford to ignore I-3?

Smokey Mountain Sentinel & Business Report
Hayesville, NC 28904
June 22, 2005

Editorial

While folks in Towns County Ga., have raised a lot of ruckus about the prospect of a proposed interstate highway coming through town, relatively little's been said here in Clay County.

The problem is, if we wait too long to make up our minds, the highway, called I-3, will be a done deal before we know what hit us.

Now, some folks may think a four-lane interstate may be a good thing for Hayesville and Clay County. We don't -- and here are a few reasons why.

First of all, an interstate is a monster; a gigantic concrete slash across the countryside. We tend to look at U.S. 69 or even the four-lane bypass in Hayesville as comparisons. But the standards for interstates are different from the ones for our bypass.

For example, if you apply the standards for Interstates to any proposed I-3 route, the State Highway Department would have to buy up land at least 400 feet wide -- and probably wider. Are you willing to basically give your land to the state for an interstate? Don't expect to get paid market value. This interstate carries the right of imminent domain. If they want your land, they can take it, and give you very little for it. And if it is built, the local folks can't just get on anywhere. Standards call for access to the highway every mile -- but it could be as far as 3 miles between on-ramps in rural areas (that's us).

Our second reason is the route. Current plans -- and by all estimates, if we don't act fast they'll be THE plans -- call for the interstate to come into Clay County following U.S. 69, turning toward Murphy on U.S. 64. Imagine everything currently on each side of 64 -- private homes, businesses and family farms -- being wiped out. Using the right-of-way figures we mentioned earlier, we reckon that means your favorite restaurant, your bank, even your church might all be moved away from their present locations on 69. And, since curving a 70-mph interstate is no small affair, a large chunk of real estate would be needed just to get I-3 pointed toward Murphy. That could take out even more small businesses.

Third on our list is the effects of the interstate: Crime, Drug Traffic and Noise, Noise, NOISE. No matter what economic arguments are made in favor of this interstate, none of them has an answer for these three. It's a well-established fact: Bring in interstates and you bring in crime and drugs. This interstate will give drug runners an expressway straight from the coast to the heartland of America. It's like Christmas for the smugglers. For burglars and hold-up gunmen, it's a quick getaway, guaranteed. And check the police report if I-3 is built. You'll see criminals from Augusta and Savannah who've come up here fro easy pickings they couldn't get in Georgia.

And think how much you'll like to sit on your back porch one spring night and hear all that traffic whizzing by at 70 mph. Not exactly the quiet place in the mountains you grew up in or dreamed of all those years.

And last -- but certainly no least -- is the cost of all this so-called progress. Look for your taxes to go up from the untold billions this 21st-Century boondoggle will cost. Locally, we'll need more deputies, more cruisers, more rescue squad equipment and more state troopers. And don't look for jobs to offset the cost. Look at Atlanta's freeways. What kind of jobs do you see there? McDonalds, Wendy's and gas stations. We don't know what your definition is, but that's not progress to us.

Well, that's our case. And while you may consider I-3 a done deal, the folks in Towns County don't think so. Neither do we.

It's time we got together in Clay County and told Washington we don't want I-3.