News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Roads in NC mostly controlled by DOT, not typical of other states

Published

2 months ago

May 20, 2025

carolinapublicpress.org – Lucas Thomae – 2025-05-20 08:27:00

by Lucas Thomae, Carolina Public Press
May 20, 2025

When Tropical Storm Helene tore across North Carolina in September, it left behind more than just downed trees and flooded homes. It ripped open a hidden fault line in the state’s transportation system — one that has existed for the state’s roads, largely unquestioned, for nearly a century.

North Carolina is one of just a handful of states where counties don’t own any public roads. Instead, the state’s Department of Transportation oversees nearly three quarters of its roadways, from rural stretches to urban highways. Towns and cities do own and maintain some roads within their own boundaries, but counties aren’t even allowed to do so.

This centralized system, born out of the Great Depression, was designed to relieve local governments of financial burdens they couldn’t shoulder. But with billions of dollars in storm damage, drawn out emergency repairs and mounting pressure on state resources, questions are resurfacing: Should counties have more control over their roads? And would they even want it?

A system unlike most

North Carolina boasts one of the largest state-maintained road systems in the United States, second only to Texas.

“State-maintained” is the key phrase there.

Although both North Carolina and Texas own and maintain just over 80,000 miles of highway, the Lone Star State has nearly triple the amount of public roads once you account for those owned by towns and counties.

That’s because North Carolina has no county roads, even though one third of its population lives in rural areas. The state is one of only eight in the United States that have no roads owned at the county level. (Five of those states are in New England, where municipal governments own most public roads.)

In fact, North Carolina is one of only four states that own a majority of their public roads. This system gives the state’s Department of Transportation a massive amount of control when it comes to planning, repairs and upkeep of roadways.

But it didn’t always used to be this way.

So how did we get here?

A brief history of NC roads

For 200 years, counties controlled the roads of North Carolina. (Although for much of that period the transportation of people and goods happened primarily on trails, waterways and, eventually, railroads.)

The emergence of the modern automobile challenged that system.

Cars greatly increased the mobility of North Carolinians, and with that desire for movement came a greater demand for better roads to handle that traffic. Many public roads in the state had fallen into disrepair during the economic turmoil brought on by the Civil War.

A nationwide call for good roads was born out of the Progressive era around the turn of the 20th century.

In 1899, the state’s first Good Roads Association was established by Asheville residents to call on Buncombe County to improve its roadways. Many other local chapters sprung up across the state, and in 1915 Gov. Locke Craig established a commission to build a state highway system that would connect all 100 counties.

Such a project would require more than just county-level planning, and in 1921 the State Highway Act certified that the highway system would be maintained exclusively by the state government.

Ten years later, the state assumed control of most other public roads as well as the Great Depression sunk county governments into a budgetary crisis. North Carolina counties have been absolved (or excluded) from owning and maintaining roadways ever since.

The state of our roads

North Carolina has sometimes referred to itself as “The Good Roads State,” a nickname born more out of the branding of the state’s Good Roads Association than any objective measure.

But does that title still stick, all these years later?

It depends on whom you ask.

The Reason Foundation – a libertarian think tank – declared North Carolina first in the nation for road condition and cost-effectiveness in its Annual Highway Report published in March. However, that methodology rewarded North Carolina for spending less money on its roads relative to other states.

A separate analysis published last month by Construction Coverage ranked North Carolina 24th among the states in terms of road quality. That study found that 49% of the state’s major roadways are in “good” condition, 41% are in “fair” condition and 10% are in “poor” condition.

Those classifications were determined using a metric called International Roughness Index, which is a measure of the “bumpiness” of roads, according to Construction Coverage lead data analyst Michael Stromberg.

Although useful for comparing roads across large geographic areas, the roughness index isn’t a perfect measurement.

“Roughness is the best measure we have, and it’s pretty good, but it’s not comprehensive,” Stromberg told Carolina Public Press.

It won’t pick up rutting and cracking of roads, for example.

The ambiguity of determining road condition can lead to vastly different conclusions about the quality of a state’s roads, as evidenced by North Carolina’s paradoxical placements in the two aforementioned studies.

It also raises questions about how much control states should exercise over their public roads and how much money they should be putting into that effort.

The five states who own a majority of their public roads rank no higher than 20th in Construction Coverage’s rankings of road condition. However, three of those states – North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia – were top five in the Reason Foundation’s rankings mostly because of their relatively low spending.

The states with the most powerful transportation departments have opted for centralized decision-making in pursuit of cost-efficiency and scale — but that hasn’t translated into smoother rides.

When disaster strikes

The question of whether counties could do a better job of maintaining their roads is an unanswered one. The current system has been in place for so long that not many officials on either the state or county levels have questioned whether it is truly working as intended.

Both the Department of Transportation and North Carolina Association of County Commissioners were reluctant to give an opinion on whether or not counties should have more autonomy in the process of road maintenance.

Although state governments have deeper pockets, the money they spend on road maintenance can quickly get stretched thin by a large road system.

County governments, having a more immediate and intimate knowledge of their jurisdiction, could potentially conduct repairs and maintenance quicker than the state and without having to rely on the General Assembly to allocate funding for those projects.

Some states, wanting to drop smaller roads from their highway network, have occasionally set up turnback programs to relinquish control of specific roads back to the towns and counties in which they are located.

Aaron Moody, a communications officer for the Department of Transportation, told CPP that North Carolina has not attempted such a program on a widespread level.

“We are occasionally petitioned to abandon roads from the state system on a case-by-case basis through a very formal and public process,” he said in an email.

That only happens at the municipal level. It would take an act by the state legislature to undo the 1931 law that abolished county roads and put them in control of the Department of Transportation.

But even if the time it takes to repair and maintain roads would be faster under county control, those local governments may not want to take on the financial burden of doing so.

The Great Depression showed that a strong state road system can be a safety net for when disaster strikes. Tropical Storm Helene is the latest example.

The September storm caused an estimated $6 billion in damage to state roads, $1.7 billion to municipal roads and $460 million to private roads and bridges.

Although FEMA’s Public Assistance program covered much of the state’s and local governments’ emergency repair bills, it won’t cover all of the longer term repairs and mitigation projects. The state legislature and the Federal Highway Administration have also allocated millions of dollars in emergency relief spending for both public and private roads.

Meanwhile, county governments continue to be sidelined when it comes to those spending decisions.

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Roads in NC mostly controlled by DOT, not typical of other states appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This content presents a thorough and fact-based overview of North Carolina’s road ownership and maintenance system without endorsing a specific political agenda. It discusses historical context, practical implications, and different perspectives on centralized versus local control in a balanced manner. The article includes data from various sources and highlights the complexity of funding and infrastructure management, which appeals to a broad political spectrum rather than leaning left or right.

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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

PETA sues American Kennel Club over standards for French bulldogs, other breeds

Published

10 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-07-10 12:44:35

SUMMARY: PETA is suing the American Kennel Club (AKC) over breeding standards for popular dog breeds like French bulldogs, pugs, and dachshunds. PETA argues these standards promote unhealthy traits causing lifelong suffering, such as bulldogs’ large skulls and shortened faces that impede breathing. The lawsuit cites UK research showing French bulldogs have poorer health, and notes the Netherlands banned breeding short-nosed dogs. Dachshunds’ long backs and short legs also lead to painful conditions. The AKC rejects PETA’s claims, stating it is committed to dogs’ health and well-being. This lawsuit continues a long-standing conflict between PETA and the AKC.

The animal rights group PETA sued Tuesday to try to force the American Kennel Club to abandon the standards it backs for hyper-popular French bulldogs and some other breeds, contending that the influential club is promoting unhealthy physical features.

More: https://abc11.com/post/peta-sues-american-kennel-club-breeding-standards-french-bulldogs-other-breeds/17038437/
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Cellphone use in schools to be regulated under new NC law

Published

16 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

carolinapublicpress.org – Kate Denning – 2025-07-10 07:02:00

by Kate Denning, Carolina Public Press
July 10, 2025

Public school regulation of cellphone use is now law in North Carolina after Gov. Josh Stein signed House Bill 959 last week.

The new law prompts public schools to develop a wireless device policy that will limit students’ access to their cellphones and other wireless electronic devices throughout the school day. It will require the Department of Public Instruction to submit a yearly compliance report to legislators.

This completes the legislature’s mission to effectively ban cellphones in schools. This particular legislation was once a social media literacy bill aiming to “protect students in a digital age,” but previous failed attempts at cellphone regulation this session forced lawmakers to adapt.

The signed bill calls on schools to require the regulation of students’ use of wireless communication devices during instructional time, as well as education on the dangers of social media, as was intended in the original legislation sponsored by state Rep. Hugh Blackwell, R-Burke.

Wireless communication devices are defined in the bill as “any portable wireless device that has the capability to provide voice, messaging, or other data communication between two or more parties,” and includes cellphones, tablets, laptops, gaming devices, two-way radios and pagers.

While the bill does not establish a policy itself, it requires public schools to develop their own and specifies that it shall “prohibit students from using, displaying, or having a wireless communication device turned on during instructional time.”

It allows the schools to determine the consequences for violating the cellphone policy, including confiscation and further disciplinary measures as permitted by the school’s code of conduct.

President of the North Carolina Association of Educators Tamika Walker Kelly told Carolina Public Press educators are overwhelmingly concerned about the impact of cellphones and social media on the learning environment. Students are technology consumers, and that doesn’t just stop because they are at school, she said.

“It does cause disruptions that are unrelated to the learning of our students, but more so peer-to-peer relationships in the classroom that spill over because of something that happened on social media,” Kelly said.

“Educators do welcome the level of protecting the learning environment, not only for them as the facilitators of teaching in that space, but also especially for the students, so that they have a chance to engage with one another more authentically through person-to-person relationships, but also that they are able to have that focus on the academics.”

While each school will determine its own policy, the legislation will help maintain consistency in enforcement and potential consequences, Kelly said. It also removes a burden from teachers, who have tended to be responsible for setting and enforcing device policies on a classroom-by-classroom basis.

“This actually takes one more task out of the realm of the educator, gives it to the school district to not only train and equip their school leaders, principals, assistant principals across the board, but also school district staff on how to encourage that enforcement because it allows the educator in the room to teach and not have to worry about policing cellphones in the classroom,” Kelly said.

The bill leaves room for exceptions to the cellphone law, including if a device is needed in accordance with a student’s individualized education plan or to manage a student’s health care and for educational purposes or in the event of an emergency if authorized by the teacher.

Some lawmakers raised concerns about the bill’s restrictions. Prior to the Senate’s vote, state Sen. Terence Everitt, D-Wake, said while he was generally on board with the bill, requiring students turn their phones off gave him pause.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in the last 15 years making sure that we promote the proliferation of handguns and firearms,” Everitt said.

“Now we’re waiting on a veto override so we can get guns in the hands of 18 year olds with concealed carry without a permit. We’re making this state more and more dangerous, and more and more dangerous for our kids at school, and what I don’t want is for some child — we’ve all heard the 911 calls, those last moments when they’re calling for help or wanting a kind word from their parents or some sort of comfort — I don’t want their last moments to be spent waiting for their phone to turn on.”

For that reason, it will be important for districts to engage families when crafting its cellphone policy and create it with these safety concerns in mind, Kelly said.

“Parents and caregivers do really have concerns, and one of the reasons why they give their children cellphones is because they have great concerns around school safety,” she said.

“It’s really important to establish guidelines and be overly communicative with parents around their safety concerns so that they understand why we want to have cellphone free learning environments. But it doesn’t mean that students won’t have access to ways to communicate in case there is a school safety emergency on campus.”

Kelly noted that many schools and classrooms have systems like cellphone cubbies or lockers that allow students’ phones to be nearby, but not physically on their persons during instruction time, which could alleviate some parents’ concerns.

State Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, said this very system at Union Pine High School is what gave him inspiration for House Bill 87, one of the first attempts at cellphone regulation earlier this year.

In addition to cellphone regulation, the bill maintained its initial goal of providing social media education.

All districts will be required to include instruction on social media and effects on health at least once during elementary school, once during middle school and twice during high school beginning at the start of the 2026-2027 school year.

Legislators view the instruction as related to cellphone use, as these are a key means by which students access social media.

According to the new law, the instruction must include education on the negative effects of social media on:

mental health such as addiction
the distribution of misinformation on social media, methods of manipulating behavior using social media
the permanency of information shared online, how to maintain personal security
how to identify cyberbullying
predatory behavior and human trafficking on the internet
how to report suspicious behavior encountered on the internet
personal and interpersonal skills or character education that enhances individual level protective factors and mitigates or reduces risk-taking or harmful behavior

Bipartisanship

The cellphone and social media bill passed unanimously in the House and with just one negative vote in the Senate. Both chambers have strong Republican majorities.

The governor, a Democrat, praised the bill, highlighting its bipartisanship and alignment with a report issued by the Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being, a council Stein organized earlier this year with the intention of focusing on student safety and cellphones in classrooms.

“When teachers don’t have to compete with cellphones for student attention, real learning happens,” Stein said in a press release.

“This bipartisan bill gives students a distraction-free learning environment so they can focus on their education, and it provides a seven-hour mental break from the unrelenting pressures of phones and social media.

“Earlier this month, my Advisory Council on Student Safety and Well-being released its first report recommending this step and outlining best practices for creating cellphone-free classrooms.

“It will serve as a resource for our school systems as they implement these common-sense policies. I appreciate the General Assembly’s work here. Let’s keep working together to set up North Carolina students for success.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Cellphone use in schools to be regulated under new NC law appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents the cellphone regulation law in North Carolina in a mostly factual and balanced tone, highlighting bipartisan support and quoting lawmakers from both parties. However, the inclusion of concerns raised by a Democratic senator linking cellphone restrictions with broader gun policy issues, as well as the positive framing of social media education and student mental health, reflects a subtle emphasis on progressive social concerns like student wellbeing and safety. The article’s respectful portrayal of educator and parental perspectives alongside bipartisan cooperation suggests a center-left leaning, supportive of regulatory measures aimed at improving educational environments without strong ideological rhetoric.

News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

North Carolina is hit by yet another climate wake-up call

Published

19 hours ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

ncnewsline.com – Rob Schofield – 2025-07-10 04:01:00

SUMMARY: Chantal, a tropical depression, unleashed up to 10 inches of rain in North Carolina on July 8, 2025, causing severe flooding and significant damage to roads like Camp Easter Rd. and N.C. 2 in Southern Pines. Scientists warn that climate change intensifies such storms by increasing air moisture, leading to more frequent and severe downpours. Aging infrastructure and inadequate warning systems worsen the impact. Despite this, Republican leaders in Washington and Raleigh oppose renewable energy initiatives, promoting fossil fuel use instead. Urgent public demand is needed to reverse these harmful policies and address the climate crisis.

Read the full article

The post North Carolina is hit by yet another climate wake-up call appeared first on ncnewsline.com