Why does the DOT107 project have to be done?

Crash analysis data of the road from NCDOT found that “the corridor experiences a high percentage of rear-end collisions which can be caused by congested conditions – a crash rate higher than the state average.”

The Traffic Engineering Accident Analysis System reports that “the five-year crash study from Aug. 2011 through July 2016 found 254 total crashes on N.C. 107 from N.C. 116 to U.S. 23 Business. That translates to 234 crashes per 100 million vehicle miles of travel – a rate higher than the 2013-15 statewide average for all N.C. routes (221 per 100 motor vehicle mile) but lower than the statewide average for four-lane N.C. routes with a continuous left turn lane.”

NCDOT crash analysis from the start of 2017 up to the end of September 2023 on the stretch of Highway 107 from U.S. 23 Business up to Evans Road (SR 1774) boasted a total of 707 crashes. The majority of the crashes involve property damage (85 percent) but 15 percent had injuries and three crashes were fatal injuries.

Data from the 2022 ranking of cities with populations of less than 10,000 based on all reported crashes from Jan. 1, 2020 through Dec. 31, 2022 ranked Sylva 10th out of 432 cities. Jackson County is ranked 42 for 2022, which is down from the 51st place in 2019 in the ranking of all counties in North Carolina.