news-record.com

City leaders have been chasing an Urban Loop for 61 years — as of tomorrow.

The idea was first floated on June 1, 1948, in a pamphlet distributed by what was then the city Planning and Zoning Commission.

Chairman Stark S. Dillard introduced the loop as part of “a comprehensive thoroughfare system for Greensboro, based on the existing form of the city, designed to meet present and future needs and yet flexible enough to meet any unexpected shifting.”

Back then, it was envisioned as a network of three “outer loops” involving Holden and Pisgah Church roads, Westover and Aycock streets and a new road planned just south of Lake Jeanette.

The aim was to get regional motorists out of Greensboro’s downtown. The unwanted drivers were known as “inter-regional” travelers; the term “interstate” had not been coined yet.

Five years later, prominent transportation consultant Willard F. Babcock picked up the loop concept in Greensboro’s first full-fledged “thoroughfare plan.”

Babcock urged planners to begin thinking about where they would build bridges and interchanges.

“Specific locations are not included (in the new plan) because actual construction of portions of this system will not take place for many years,” Babcock wrote in what has turned out to be quite an understatement.