The message is a good one, and hopefully Department of Transportation officials and Jackson County residents and leaders will get behind it.

The task force studying transportation issues in Jackson County made it clear last week that they want an immediate plan to resolve some of the traffic woes that plague N.C. 107. That is the main transportation and road problem in the county, so attacking that problem makes perfect sense.

The challenges for fixing the road are plentiful, and one of the primary obstacles is the system used by the DOT. Because of the high price of roads and changing populations and traffic counts, the DOT — rightly — plans for 25 or so years into the future. Once a road is put on the Transportation Improvement Plan it is usually about 10 years before construction even starts. It’s a slow, carefully-thought out process with changes and improvements occurring all along the way until a new or improved road finally opens.

Going through a traditional planning process means that Jackson County’s most pressing transportation issue will simply fester and worsen for years into the future. Traffic counts on N.C. 107 will increase, the number of businesses will increase, the number of entryways onto the road will increase, and the headaches will grow exponentially while planners study and try to come up with solutions.

It is simply unacceptable for citizens who pay for roads to have to wait so long for a solution to N.C. 107’s woes. The DOT process needs to adapt to fit the needs of the communities. In this case, the task force needs professional help from DOT to develop an access management plan for the road. Access management — the concept of reducing points of access to major roads, which reduces the number of stop and start points and forces cars to use side roads to travel to a junction where they can enter the main road — could resolve some of N.C. 107’s problems. Sylva Town Planner Jim Aust already came up with one access management plan in February, and it seems DOT officials could do the same, albeit more comprehensively.

Several DOT officials — including division engineer Ron Watson — have said access management simply won’t solve N.C. 107’s problems or those expected to crop up as Jackson County grows. Perhaps he is right.

However, developing and implementing an access management plan for N.C. 107 is what citizens and many local government officials think will provide them with some answers. Only then can it be determined whether the original DOT idea — the multimillion dollar Southern Loop from U.S. 441 to U.S. 23-74 — is absolutely necessary. Only then will DOT officials and citizens know whether access management can help.

At last week’s transportation task force meeting discussion centered on what could be accomplished at the division level and what needed to go through the TIP. The $200,000 limit on division-level projects will have to be lifted if a comprehensive access management approach is to be attempted. That’s where Board of Transportation member Conrad Burrell will have to help.

The desire to fix what’s broken before building something new is healthy. As was pointed out last week, Jackson County residents in overwhelming numbers expressed a desire during Smart Growth public meetings to keep their county rural and small-town. That’s what the people, and, apparently, the leadership, want. Since that’s the case, that is what they deserve to get.