Eastern.

• Position: Stoplight-free U.S. 70 from Interstate 95 to More-head City would cost about $1 billion. - Flanders Filters Inc., will open a factory in ELIZABETHTOWN. - APG-Meridian to spend about $2.5 million to open a plant in HAMLET.

Beating the lights would cost a billion

Making U.S. 70 stoplight-free from Interstate 95 to More-head City would cost about $1 billion, says a study by Cary-based Kimley-Horn and Associates for the Highway 70 Corridor Commission. Carteret, Lenoir, Craven and Wayne counties, along with several rural planning organizations, set up the commission. It contends economic development in Eastern North Carolina, including the Global TransPark in Kinston, has lagged because the highway is outmoded, slow and dangerous. The study says about 82 miles of U.S. 70 would have to be upgraded to freeway standards. That would include several bypasses around towns and rebuilding interchanges. Kimley-Horn, an engineering and planning company, suggests toll roads and bonds be used to raise money.

MANTEO -- Cost estimates for a 17.5-mile bridge over Oregon Inlet and through Pamlico Sound to Hatteras Island soared to more than $1 billion. The bridge would replace a shorter one and bypass Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. When proposed, engineers suggested it would cost about $460 million. That rose last year to about $800 million. The N.C. Department of Transportation's...