Short stack
Nowhere to pull off
What’s an easy way to add lanes to congested highways? Let vehicles use the shoulders. Whether that’s a smart way is open to question.
State transportation planners are considering the idea for parts of I-77 and I-485 in Charlotte. Federal highway officials have been encouraging. It could happen by late next year.
The proposal promises some relief for backed-up motorists. But what about the consequences of giving up the shoulder? You can’t change a flat tire in the middle of traffic.
Meanwhile, some commuters already are using the shoulders as travel lanes — possibly at considerable risk. A man piloting a scooter on the shoulder of I-40 in eastern Guilford County Friday morning seemed safely out of the path of cars and trucks, except at exit and entrance ramps where he’d have to watch over both shoulders and pray motorists could see him.
Jesse Helms lives on
Jesse Helms’ death July 4 shortened — and maybe even eliminated — many state pundits’ holidays, as they had to skip the parades and other festivities to produce commentary on the man. One can’t help but think the late senator, fond of baiting the media, would have liked this state of affairs just fine.
Whether Helms would have liked the resulting analysis is another matter. One of the more interesting commentaries to appear isprogressive Michael Lind’s, found at the online journal Salon. In “Jesse Helms Is Not Dead,” he concedes that Helms’ influence is writ large over the country’s political and economic landscapes. He sees the political fund-raising organization Moveon.org as a liberal response to Helms’ Congressional Club, and he cites MSNBC’s left-leaning commentator Keith Olbermann as owing his “hectoring” strategy to Helms.
He also thinks the United States in 2008, with its weak unions and political parties and its increasing economic inequality, resembles the South Helms fought to uphold.
The rest of the story
Not found in the news stories on the recent U.S. Census report on America’s fastest-growing cities was where Greensboro stands. The city ranks 38 in growth rate for cities of more than 100,000, right between Austin and Phoenix. It grew 2.4 percent and added 5,811 residents between 2006 and 2007, for a total population of 247,183. (Census didn’t reveal the percentage of new residents added under duress.)
Maybe even more noteworthy is the news on High Point. It made this particular Census list for the first time, as its population grew to 100,432 from 98,627 between 2006 and 2007. That gave it a 1.8 percent growth rate for the year and made it No. 54 on the list of 262 cities.
High Point’s growth rate between 2000 and 2007 was even more dramatic. During that time it grew 16.5 percent, giving it a rank of 46, while Greensboro grew 8.2 percent for a rank of 91.
A Libertarian at heart?
State Rep. Earl Jones of Greensboro is a Democrat, but sometimes he sounds more like a Libertarian.
Like last week, when he was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against banning video slot machines.
“I think people really just want to be left alone,” he explained. “If a person wants to play cards or play the lottery or participate in this activity ... it just seems to be overreaching relative to government telling people what to do.”
Democrats and Republicans approve laws all the time that tell people what to do. Maybe Jones should belong to a third party.
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