FAYETTEVILLE – A 6-mile section of the Fayetteville Outer Loop was dedicated Thursday in honor of Lyndo Tippett, the state’s longest-serving transportation secretary.
The Fayetteville Outer Loop segment from I-95 to Ramsey Street, which opened in 2005, was dedicated as the Lyndo Tippett Highway.
Tippett led the N.C. Department of Transportation during two terms of Gov. Mike Easley from 2001-09. As secretary, Tippett oversaw the development of other urban loops in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Asheville, as well as the formation of the N.C. Turnpike Authority and the adoption of environmental policies that have won national accolades.
The request to honor Tippett, a Fayetteville certified-public accountant, came from the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners. The N.C. Board of Transportation approved the resolution in May, and on Thursday, the board chairman, Mike Fox, and the NCDOT secretary, Jim Trogdon, participated in the ceremony.
Tippett helped finalize the loop’s corridor and began funding it in the 1990s when he was on the state transportation board. Planning for the loop, which is also known as N.C. 295, began in the 1980s. The first section, from Ramsey Street to River Road, opened in 2003.
The loop will improve travel and enhance safety in the region and open new areas up to economic development, Trogdon said.
The loop is scheduled to be complete by 2024. It will be 39 miles long and is estimated to cost about $1 billion overall to develop and construct.