Washington’s Planning Board wants a representative from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to discuss the proposed 15^th Street project, including any recent modifications to the project, with the City Council instead of the board.

A property owner along the proposed project corridor claims to have been notified by NCDOT that it is considering a five-lane configuration, with a middle turning lane replacing raised medians, said Glenn Moore, a city planner, to the board during its meeting Tuesday. Moore said he had not been able to confirm that claim.

“I’d really like to try to have someone from DOT come speak and make a presentation to this board so you can hear from the horse’s mouth exactly what they’re proposing, especially if this is a new option. … At next month’s meeting, my goal is to have someone from DOT given an official presentation to the board,” Moore told the board. Moore said the board might want to consider forming a subcommittee to keep watch on the project.

The property owner’s claim is not true, according to Maria Rogerson, a DOT project engineer. “No we are not considering a middle turn lane instead of a median,” she wrote in an email.

Dot Moate, the board’s vice chairwoman, said she prefers letting the City Council deal with the project. At its Sept. 12 meeting, the council — accepting the board’s recommendation to do so — voted unanimously for the city to notify those people about the proposed project and conduct a meeting concerning the project details. A date and time for that meeting has not been set. At a previous council meeting and a previous board meeting, several people expressed concerns with the project as proposed. The concerns center mainly on traffic medians, which opponents contend with hinder traffic flow to some businesses and impede economic development.

Last month, the North Carolina Department of Transportation conducted an informational meeting about the project, which calls for converting the existing multi-lane road into a four-lane, raised median divided road. The project is designed to improve overall traffic flow and traffic safety. Preliminary project designs are on the project website —

http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings — for public review and comment. The project also includes median breaks for left turns as traffic volumes warrant. U-turn locations will be provided at several locations.

At the Sept. 12 council meeting, City Manager Bobby Roberson told the council his office has received “numerous complaints” about the proposed $16 million project. Mayor Mac Hodges and council members said they’d like for DOT — in light of those complaints — to take another look at the proposed project.

Board member D. Howell Miller said he hopes DOT will replace the proposed medians with the middle turn lane along the project corridor. Miller believes the switch would help alleviate flooding in the project corridor, saying medians act as dams that slow floodwaters from receding. Fellow board member Jane Alligood concurred, saying, “I want someone to convince me that they’re going to control water before they put anymore impervious surfaces on 15^th Street.”

Moore told the board the proposed project includes drainage components.

DOT spokesmen have said the project’s goal is to reduce the number of vehicles crashes on 15^th Street. Crashes on the western section of the project corridor occur about three times more frequently than crashes on similar roads in other areas of the state, according to DOT figures.