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GREENSBORO — Steve Gladson is an angry man, but he isn't alone in his outrage about Greensboro's new western loop.


Are the residents in Kings Mill being treated fairly? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.


Gladson lives in a neighborhood where a lot of the men — and women, too — are angered by the massive interstate that splits their Kings Mill subdivision in two.


They believe state government deceived them about the size, proximity and noise of the road, which winds from Interstate 85 near Groometown Road north to Piedmont Triad International Airport.


"If you talk to enough people, you'll hear it said you can't fight government," Gladson says. "But you have to fight. It's the only way things will change."


Kings Mill residents are among many who have complained to the state Department of Transportation about the newest section that opened Feb. 21. The $123 million segment extends 7.5 miles through densely developed suburbs.


State highway officials say they empathize with residents surprised by huge traffic volumes and unrelenting noise.


"Right now, this is a unique situation in that we are going through a heavily populated area," said Doug Galyon, chairman of the state Board of Transportation and a Greensboro resident. "We understand their problem, and we're going to do our best to reduce it as much as possible."


Galyon and Mike Mills, DOT division engineer for the Greensboro area, plan to discuss the issue this week with state noise experts and with other transportation leaders, including Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett.


But DOT officials say nobody should feel hoodwinked by the new road's size and freeway configuration. They've been telling people it would be a big road since at least 1996, when the state held hearings on the project, Mills said.


"I pulled the plan (recently) from the public hearing and it showed six-to-eight lanes," Mills said.


Any new remedies from DOT are not likely to bring much additional relief to Kings Mill; unlike many areas, it already has the huge, sound-deadening walls that are the main tool for suppressing traffic noise.


The walls help somewhat, but not enough to make life tolerable in a house right beside the massive roadway, Gladson and other residents said.


"We haven't gotten a good night's sleep since it opened," said Udell Bradshaw, whose home on Pickering Road is bordered by the noise wall. "At night, when one of those big trucks downshifts, you can feel the vibrations."


Gladson has turned his protest of the loop almost into a second job. The service-station owner has peppered state officials with questions and protests, while amassing hundreds of pages in loop documents.


Residents were led to believe the road would be far enough from their houses to be unobtrusive, something similar to Bryan Boulevard, say Gladson, Bradshaw and others in their neighborhood.


DOT bought Gladson's first house in Kings Mill because it was directly in the loop's path. But he liked the neighborhood and bought another house on Kings Mill Road from the state, next to the loop, because he was convinced it would be far enough away, Gladson said.


"If this had been a four-lane highway, 100 feet from our property, 98 percent of what we have gone through would not have occurred," Gladson said.


Gladson and Bradshaw want DOT to buy their homes and other houses in Kings Mill that sit right next to the loop. Then, DOT should remove those houses and plant trees to combat the sound, provide a visual buffer and help with air quality, they say.


Residents say the construction process during the past three years was a nightmare, with power cut off numerous times by contractor mistakes, continual vibrations from heavy construction that damaged their houses, a mud slide and boulders rolling around unpredictably, and workers littering and urinating in their backyards.


"If they can do this to us, if they get away with this here, they're going to keep doing it to other people in other places," said Marilyn Baird, another resident who lives right beside the road.


But unless a house has been physically damaged by construction, DOT's hands are tied, Mills said.


DOT is prohibited from buying land outside the right-of-way after a new road's footprint is formally established, which happened more than a decade ago for the western loop, Mills said.


But a consultant has installed meters to test for vibrations in houses nearest the road, Mills said.


In addition, the consultant inspected those houses before construction began several years ago and is now rechecking, he said.


DOT also would consider planting trees beside the loop to augment noise walls, part of the normal landscaping done after a new road is built, said Drew Joyner of DOT's human environment program.


Not everyone in Kings Mill is bothered by the new road or thinks it is much different from what they expected. Perhaps predictably, many of those living further away don't see the new road as a big problem.


But some Kings Mill residents say that even though they aren't personally bothered by the new road, DOT should have done a better job of fitting it into a fully developed neighborhood.


"I think DOT should have bought all those houses," Kings Mill resident Richard Adger said of people living nearest the loop. "The state will pay millions of dollars in cost overruns to contractors, but they won't help a few people living out here."

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com