Triad Traffic Troubles

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — “So, the citizen called about one thing, to be clear, we’re investigating something totally different," City of Winston-Salem Field Operations Director Keith Huff said.

The erosion issues Audie Brown has been dealing with for more than a year have to take a backseat.

“That is not a huge threat to the travelling public," Huff said.

Huff said the investigation into Brown’s inquiry unearthed a larger issue; a decades-old, underground pipe that he said will more than likely need to be replaced.

“This is a development that was annexed into the city in the ‘90s, so it’s got some age on the infrastructure, it’s got some age on everything around it," Huff said. "We’re investigating all of that now.”

When the work on the pipe is done, so too will the city work on Brown’s issues within the public right of way.

“The city owns, operates and maintains, everything within the public right of way," Huff said. "Anything outside of the public right of way is of private property ownership and is the responsibility of the property owner of record.”

Meaning, for example, Huff said Brown’s problem with water draining into his daughter’s bedroom, would be a dispute with the property developers next door, not the city.

These issues aren’t unique to Brown, Lura Road, or even Winston-Salem.

“When you urbanized basically that grass area becomes rooftop and asphalt, parking lot, whatnot, the rain that was soaking into the ground and infiltrating into the ground now runs off; and it runs off into these drainage channels and networks," Huff said.

The field operations team is no different than the rest of the city. Some work groups are only 50% staffed and the drainage crew is the most impacted of them all with only one team covering 1,200 miles of city-maintained roads.

“We’ve been dealing with holes in the road that have basically prohibited ingress, egress to certain properties (and) developments," Huff said. "When you have something like that, that’s our priority. Side ditch erosion, everything, we want to take care of that, but it’s triaged accordingly.”

Huff said this is a project where, perhaps, a contractor would be used, but for now the city’s investigation on Lura Road continues.