While the Washington City Council continues to weigh an NCDOT revamp of 15^th Street, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners went all in on a project that would make U.S. Highway 264 in front of Beaufort County Community College a safer place to drive.

Beaufort County Board of Commissioners voted to support the preliminary plan offered up by NCDOT division engineer Bill Kincannon at the board’s March meeting.

The revision of the five-lane highway would call for restricted movements that would cut down on drivers crossing multiple lanes of traffic turning into and out of BCCC by decreasing opportunities to make left-hand turns. Because the highway is already five lanes, no widening of the road would be expected.

“In looking at their plan the other night, it appeared to me there was going to be minimum impact, and it wouldn’t impact any structures,” said Brian Alligood, Beaufort County manager.

Alligood also said medians — combined with turnarounds — on that stretch of highway would impede the average vehicle, but emergency vehicles would not be hampered by their presence.

“Those medians are made to be mountable (by emergency vehicles),” Alligood said. “You just drive over that raised median. They’re designed to do that.”

Alligood said the area has had several bad accidents and NCDOT’s goal in reworking of roads is to reduce “conflict points,” or complex driving situations where drivers can make more mistakes and are more likely to have collisions. According to a 2009 Federal Highway Administration report, approximately 72 percent of crashes at a driveway within the physical area of an intersection involve a left-turning vehicle.

“DOT’s function is to move traffic to keep it flowing,” Alligood said. “They’re goal is to minimize conflict points.”

During Kincannon’s presentation at the board meeting, Chairman Frankie Waters said, driving west from Pantego, he makes a point of avoiding the left-hand turn into the Speedway across from BCCC because of the danger of making a left-hand turn across two lanes of traffic where the speed limit is 55 mph.

Alligood, who has worked at NCDOT in the past, said the highway design at BCCC is an outdated one.

“The days of five-lane sections of road with a center suicide lane are gone. They’re not building them anymore,” Alligood said.

The project is heading into the design phase, but Kincannon approached the board far in advance of seeking funding for the project.

“Although it is a state maintained road, they like to get the buy-ins of local governments,” Alligood said.