Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010

New roads have pitfalls

Like Garner leaders, we'd welcome more shopping and dining opportunities for the town's citizens. And we suspect a 1.5-mile extension of Timber Drive will bring new shops and restaurants.

Of course, roads aren't free, and beyond the dollar cost, what a new road brings to one part of town, it can take away from another.

The Triangle is full of shopping centers that withered when a newer, bigger shopping center opened elsewhere in town. In Garner, the oldest example of this might well be downtown, which was Garner's shopping center until U.S. 70 remade the retail landscape.

Garner leaders played no small part in the migration of retail to the highway. But when they backed rezoning requests and utility extensions, Garner leaders were responding to market forces, not shaping them. That is the way it should be. In any event, businesses largely succeed or fail on their own, and in Garner, that is what has transpired along U.S. 70 and in downtown.

But in downtown, Garner does have a challenge on its hands. Once upon a time, downtown was one of the largest contributors to Garner's sales and property taxes. Obviously, it is no longer among the leaders, and we wouldn't be surprised if some properties have actually fallen in value over the years.

It is so bad downtown that Garner leaders are thinking about spending millions of dollars to build a community center or some other hub to draw folks downtown. Our hope is that Garner leaders will allow their citizens to say yes or no to any borrowing for a community center or other attraction. But the point here is simply to remind town leaders that the new roads they pine for can have unintended, and perhaps costly, consequences elsewhere.