Gribblenation

You all may remember the uproar over the lack of sound/noise barriers along parts of the recently opened Greensboro Urban Loop. Now with the opening of more miles to the Interstate 485 Charlotte Loop, it appears that concern over sound barriers (or the lack there of) is showing its ugly head again. This past week, I've received some e-mails asking me if I knew if NCDOT was going to install soundwalls or why they did not. It appears that the complaints are coming from where I-485 runs near Mount Holly-Huntersville Road. I've contacted NCDOT, and hope to have an answer.

Here you see my krautmobile(AKA My Work Van) doing a rather poor imitation of a submarine. Up in my part of the world we got sort of an ice storm last night. Actually it was mostly rain with some ice-as it stayed above freezing most of the night. Thinking we'd get ice, I decided to take my car home rather than the krautmobile(Yes, I know it has Dodge badges all over it, but it's really a Mercedes van), since the 88-88 is a better vehicle in wintry weather, despite it's lack of ABS, traction control and all that. I figured, even if I did get stuck; better it should be my car and not the work van. Yeah, right. What you're looking at is the view from the rear door of our warehouse. There's a ground drain to the left of the rear bumper, obviously nonfunctional. And for all intents and purposes, so was the van for the majority of the day. After the water receded, it was driveable; though the rear of the cargo compartment got quite wet. Things were pretty much a mess: the

Interstate 485 opened .

As promised, I'm posting some of the photos I have taken along the I-74/US 311 freeway now being constructed from Business 85 (US 29/70) to US 220 (Future I-73). The project is actually building two separate freeways. The first covers completing the High Point East Belt Freeway from Business 85 to just beyond I-85 and the other is the US 311 Bypass Freeway which runs from I-85 to US 220 and which is also broken into 2 parts. The second and final part of the Bypass was only recently started as a design/build project. The projected completion dates for the projects seen in the photos below is Spring 2011 while Fall 2012 is the completion date for the part just recently awarded for construction. The photos and commentary will cover the I-74 construction zone going west to east. 1. Business 85 The completed second section of the High Point East Belt actually runs beyond Business 85 to Baker Road so the interchange with the future I-74 freeway is largely complete. The above photo was t