A lack of funding will prevent a project to widen a section of 15^th Street in Washington for safety reasons from occurring in the near future, according to a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Transportation.

John Rouse, DOT’s division engineer for its Division 2 (which includes Beaufort County), told the City Council during its meeting Monday that DOT does not have the money in its spot-safety program for the project. That project, endorsed by the City Council in February 2014, now carries an estimated cost of $4.415 million. The initial amount budgeted for the project was $2.25 million. Rouse said the project’s estimated cost of rights of way acquisition alone is $2.4 million, an amount more than the initial project estimate.

The difference between the budgeted amount and estimated cost comes to $2.165 million.

The project’s roots go back to 2000, according to DOT. The project called for improvements in the section of 15^th Street from Carolina Avenue (U.S. Highway 17 Business) to the Pierce Street area. The proposed improvements called for a divided road with a median separating the travel lanes.

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

“Long story short, we’re not going to be able to fund this as a spot-safety project. The good news … there’s a project submitted by the RPO (regional planning organization) that part of our new STI transportation capital investments (plan) last year to widen 15^th Street in its entirety from Carolina Avenue all the way to Brown Street, which, basically, gets you from five-lane section to five-lane section,” Rouse told the council. “This project has a been approved at a budgeted amount of $16.2 million. It’s set for construction in 2023.”

Rouse told the council he’s confident that DOT can accelerate that project. DOT will have to work with the city in regard to relocating utilities along the project route, he said.

Council member William Pitt asked Rouse if DOT could do anything to help improve safety along the area from Carolina Avenue to Pierce Street. Councilman Doug Mercer also expressed a similar comment.

“The best thing we can do is make some intersection improvements. The real need you have out there is to improve the flow of traffic, which you’re not going to get other than with a widening project, and what I mean by widening: in its entirety. Again, the spot safety project would only widen a portion, from Carolina Avenue to Pierce. From Pierce to Brown, you’re still going to have the same situation you have now,” said Rouse, noting that funding for spot-safety projects is limited. “You’re going to eliminate a portion of the bottleneck, but you’re still going to have a bottleneck along that section, which is going to impede traffic. Yes, we can look at making some minor improvements, but it’s not going to be a fix, as a widening project would be in the future.”