Each of the speakers shared their own personal “Monroe Bypass” story, mostly centered around the near-mythical nature of the road and the belief by many that it would never actually be built. My story dates to the months just prior to my moving to North Carolina. While still living in Ohio, I had forwarded ny resume to several Charlotte-area companies over the summer and fall of 1994. Right after Thanksgiving, I was invited to interview with an Indian Trail-based company that supplied cast aluminum components to the automotive industry. During the interview, the subject of traffic and the accessibility of the fairly remote plant came up, and the owner of the company assured me that a bypass around Monroe would be opening in the next few years. I would up taking a different job and that “next few years” became two decades.
One of the speakers at the event suggested that studies have predicted the population of Wingate and Marshville will more than triple over the next 10 years as the result of the Expressway, and if the economic impact of other major new roads in the state are any example, that may be a conservative estimate. Expressway-driven growth in Anson County may not be as immediate, especially now that the failure of the alchohol referendum has placed us at a significant disadvantage for attracting retail, restaurant and residential developers to the Peachland area, but it will come. Companies like AMI, KFC and Bojangles have already invested heavily in the county in anticipation of the new traffic patterns, and it won’t take long for that first wave of adventurous suburban commuters to figure out that Peachland is a new frontier offering low land costs, an award-winning elementary school and scenic natural vistas less than an hour drive from Uptown Charlotte.
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