Leadership, Growth, and the Roads That Connect North Carolina

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] On this week’s episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. Our guest is the recently retired secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Joey Hopkins. We talked to Joey about his time growing up in Eden. North Carolina is going to NC State where he got a civil engineering degree, how he got started as a tech at DOT during an internship and then how he ended up growing his career and his different stops all the way to being the Secretary of Department of Transportation. We also talked to him a little bit about Helene and its effect on Western North Carolina and major road projects that are gonna be going on in our area over the next few years, including the complete 540 project and the expansion of Veterans Parkway, Highway 42, Highway 36 from NC 50 to Highway 70 in Clayton. So if you’re interested in any of these projects or his career, which was absolutely fascinating, listen in.

Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. [00:01:00] Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden, and on today’s episode we have the recently retired head of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Joey Hopkins, who lives right here in Clayton, North Carolina and has for like 20 years. We’re gonna talk to him a little bit about. How he, where he grew up, how he got into engineering, NC State graduate, like me, go Wolfpack.

His time is 35 years Department of Transportation. He started at the bottom, ended at the top. How he sort of went through that process and now what he’s doing with his new business, where he is doing he’s a consultant for [00:02:00] other people working on projects with the Department of Transportation.

So talking a little bit about that and of course. Why he loves Johnston County. But before we get to that, we’d like to like you to ask you to like, follow, and subscribe to this podcast wherever you see it, whether it be on Apple, Spotify, YouTube X, TikTok, LinkedIn, or any of the other social media channels of The Best of Johnston County Podcast.

The Best of Johnston County Podcast comes out every single Monday and has now for two and a half years. So go back and list some of the previous episodes. We’re well over a hundred episodes now. We’re probably by the time this one runs. Probably at 120. So we’ve had a lot of great guests interesting people that you would find interesting.

If you love Johnston County as much as I do, this is a podcast for you. We can also use some five star reviews down below. Tell us what you like or what you dislike about The Best of Johnston County Podcast. Those five star reviews help us raise our visibility on the podcast platform so more people be aware of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. Welcome, Joey.

Joey Hopkins: Thank you, John. Appreciate the invitation.

Jonathan Breeden: No problem.

Joey Hopkins: Appreciate what you do.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? This is [00:03:00] fun, right? Really is. This is a ton of fun. I appreciate you being willing to come in and, and talk to us. Probably a little easier to do it as the retired head of DOT than the actual head of DOT because of how busy you were doing that.

So anyway state your name, what you do, a little bit like that. I sort of did an intro, but you probably do it better.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, yeah. Joey Hopkins live here in Johnston County. We’ve been here since 94. Moved in with my wife, raised our kids here. Just love it. And I am retired, like you said, been retired just over two months from, after a career with North Carolina, DOT, and I am starting my own consulting business.

Jonathan Breeden: Man, that’s exciting. That’s exciting. The you go from government work to the private sector, that’s a, that’s a big change. But I think you’ll do just fine with that. So, where’d you grow up?

Joey Hopkins: So, I’m from Eden in Rockingham County.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Grew up

Joey Hopkins: north of Greensboro, got family still there. And, just matriculated down here with college and after I got married and been here for over 30 years now.

Jonathan Breeden: I gotcha. And you went to NC State?

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. Right. With NC State.

Jonathan Breeden: What degree did you [00:04:00] get?

Joey Hopkins: So I got a degree in engineering, but I started in textiles. Okay. So Eden was a big textile town at the time. A lot of my family worked in a textile business or tobacco, and so I came down here to, to go into textiles. And really liked it.

Wasn’t a very good student, but I was smart enough to realize that maybe that’s not the right future. I wanted something more steady. I was also in the reserves to get money to help pay for college. I was in the Navy Reserves. I was a cb and so that led me to the engineering side of things. Okay. So I switched to civil engineering.

Jonathan Breeden: Civil engineering. Okay. I was gonna figure out which engineering did you get so, well, that’s interesting. My father got a textile degree from NC State in 1968.

Joey Hopkins: Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: And by. 75, the jobs were evaporating as stuff had started to go off overseas and to Mexico even then before NAFTA in 92, 9 3.

Joey Hopkins: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And he realized that he probably needed to do something else.

So he went back to school. He went to [00:05:00] UNC Pembroke, it became a CPA.

Joey Hopkins: Oh, nice.

Jonathan Breeden: But, but his couple of his cousins who stayed in textiles, including my uncle and my dad’s first cousin ended up at 50 years old outta work.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And that, that has been a, an adventure. Both of them figured it out. You know, one of one of ’em ended up getting a FedEx route and, and delivered FedEx and the other got into doing training and has actually worked some with Novo and Grifols here on some, some industrial maintenance training.

He was an engineer and so, but yeah, so I’m glad my dad made that decision in 1975 at the time, you know, with a a baby on the way and, and a wife who was a nurse, right? Don’t know that that was the best idea, but it worked out in the end, so smart that you saw that textiles may have not have been where things were going in the, in the, in the late eighties.

So it switched to civil engineering.

Joey Hopkins: I, that was definitely a fear of mine and, and, you know, looking back now and I think it all worked out.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, well it did, it did all work out. So you started out with [00:06:00] DOT straight out of undergrad?

Joey Hopkins: I was actually still in college.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And I worked as a summer intern, an engineering assistant in Guilford County for a few months, and that started my career at DOT and later that year, when I went back from our senior year in college, I got a temporary job at DOT in Raleigh.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And then, so I was a temporary technician and then after I graduated, I stayed on a few months after graduation, I got a permanent job and worked my way up from there.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. So, did you start out in bridges, roads you got a lot of different divisions there. I’m just curious.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, so at my summer job I was an inspector.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: So I did miscellaneous, concrete you know, sidewalks, things like that. Resurface inspection. Did a little surveying. I worked in the asphalt plant, testing the asphalt for a while. And kind of enjoyed that. But my temporary job, I actually drew traffic control plans.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: So like for the large construction projects.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: You have to manage the traffic.

Jonathan Breeden: [00:07:00] Right, right.

Joey Hopkins: You know, as you shift traffic and try to do it safely.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: And so I did that for a while.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So how long before you became, I’m assuming you became a division engineer at some point?

Joey Hopkins: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Which division and how long did it take to get to that?

Joey Hopkins: So I was division engineer in Division 5. Which is the Triangle Area. It’s a 7 County division, starting with Wake County, Durham, Granville, Person, Franklin, Vance, and Warren and I did that probably in 20, so 20 plus years of my career.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: After I started. And, you know, through your career, I think everybody should have career goals and I’ve had a couple goals through my DOT career. One of them was a district engineer. One of my early jobs was assistant district engineer. I really loved it, and I thought at the time, if I could ever be district engineer one day, I would’ve made it.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: Well, I never was a district engineer. I never had that opportunity. I kind of bypassed that.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And then later in my career, as I got division engineer, I’m like, you know, it’d be good to be chief engineer one day. Well, I [00:08:00] never was chief engineer either.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: Okay. Didn’t make that.

Jonathan Breeden: I gotcha.

Joey Hopkins: But about five years ago, I had an opportunity, the Secretary of Transportation at the time. Eric Boyette asked me to come down to Raleigh to do some work. We were having some struggles with inflation and a lot of cost issues. And our capital plan, it’s a 10 year, we call it step state transportation improvement plan that had some issues. So I came down to Raleigh, and then from then on I just had a couple other opportunities and I was able to retire as secretary, which I’d never dreamed of or never had as a goal.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. Well, and you became secretary under Governor Cooper.

Joey Hopkins: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: And now the secretary is appointed by the Governor, serves at the pleasure of the Governor, and I don’t know if he’s on the Governor’s cabinet, but he’s close.

Joey Hopkins: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: He’s on the cabinet. Right. So, how did that come about? I mean, were you still the division engineer you went from division engineer to. No, you’d come to Raleigh to work with Boyette. So were you the assistant state director?

Joey Hopkins: So I came to Raleigh as a Deputy Chief.

Jonathan Breeden: Deputy Chief.

Joey Hopkins: And worked there for a [00:09:00] while. And our COO left at the time. So Secretary Boyette asked me to be COO.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so that was kind of the secretary’s assistant.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: You know, the professional assistant for, at the department.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so, I didn’t know this was gonna happen. I don’t know that Eric did, but then he decided to retire.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: And at Governor Cooper had about a year and a half or so left on his administration. It was in the second term. They asked me to be secretary.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well.

Joey Hopkins: And so.

Jonathan Breeden: You said yes.

Joey Hopkins: I said yes, definitely.

Jonathan Breeden: You didn’t know you were gonna get hit by Helene.

Joey Hopkins: No.

Jonathan Breeden: Six months into it or whatever it was.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. About a year later.

Jonathan Breeden: About a year later.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. Helene hit. Yeah. I don’t think anybody could have envisioned the damage that we have and had in Western North Carolina. The devastation, the loss of life, and it was. I mean, even now, today, if you go and just see the damage that storm, you know, wrecked on our state, it’s just a amazing.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, it’s a thousand year storm. Yeah. You, you know what I mean? You know, it was a perfect, the, the [00:10:00] perfect storm with have it rained a bunch before that. And then it’s basically still a hurricane when it gets all the way to the mountains. I mean, I mean, it’s just really, really terrible. You know, we’ve had a couple of those storms come up out of the panhandle of Florida there and get to North Carolina in the last 20 years, but not quite like that. It’s pretty terrible.

Joey Hopkins: Nothing with this much damage or as widespread damage.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. As big as it was with as much rain as it had.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: and it already rained. Four, five inches the week before, and then it, oh, it was just, it was just horrible. And, and I’ve been up there many times since then. And you’re right, you can just see it.

It, it’s, it’s all over the place and it is terrible. And those people are, are resilient and they’re, and they’re trying, and I know Governor Stein’s trying and everybody’s trying to, to, to do what they could do to try to fix that. I got a, one of my, one of our mutual friends told me that. He could retire from DOT, go work with private contractors and just work our lien damage for the rest of his life. [00:11:00] And that’s another 20 or 25 years and still not be done. That, that’s how long we’re talking about. It’s gonna take to fix all the damage done from that one storm, so.

Joey Hopkins: But Western North Carolina is open for business.

Jonathan Breeden: It is.

Joey Hopkins: My wife and I went out there about a month ago, spent a few days at the, it’s recovering.

The small businesses, like you said, they’re resilient. The people are resilient. And I would encourage you, if you have some time to just go out there and just enjoy that beautiful part of our state.

Jonathan Breeden: It is, it is beautiful. I did spend a couple of weeks this past summer and Banner Elk and Boone and blowing rock and I mean, you could still see some of the damage there. But they’ve done a tremendous job. I mean, all of those communities and the DOT for that matter of cleaning the debris off the side of the roads and trying to get the streams open to where they flow normally and ’cause of all the debris and the streams and stuff like that.

Well let’s road back to that plan that brought you to Raleigh initially. The 10 year rope plan. You has the name, you said it was the strategic transportation plan.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, the STIP is the acronym.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: So [00:12:00] State Transportation Improvement Plan.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Now that is the replacement for what used to be, it had another name and it was it was very political as which road you got, and it was all about who was on the DOT board. And those jobs were very political, but it had a different name.

Joey Hopkins: Well, the plan, the 10 year plan, the capital plan.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: It’s always been the step.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: So, but there’s a law that passed in 2013. It’s called the Strategic Transportation Investment Law. And you follow that law to help populate projects into the plan.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. So it’s not as political, it’s supposed to be a scoring project.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. Before that, there was a 1989 law and it was called the equity formula. Back then, and it’s interesting enough, a lot of people didn’t like the equity formula. The money was basically put out by population, but there was no math behind it. No data behind it. It was a lot of politics in there.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: But at that time, that brought new money to [00:13:00] DOT back in 1989, and that was one of the reasons I got that temporary job my senior year in college was because of that. So and I jokingly say I would not have met my wife. If not for the trust fund or equity

Jonathan Breeden: okay

Joey Hopkins: formula

Jonathan Breeden: I got you.

Joey Hopkins: And so she was already at DOT, she’s a retired DOT engineer, professional engineer for her whole career. And so I wouldn’t have been at DOT would’ve been somewhere else. So in 2012, this law passed the STI law.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so that put data into it.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. That’s what I’m thinking about.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: At some point it may be the same, but it it changed. It changed how they went about doing things.

Joey Hopkins: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: And. From what I’ve seen for the better. I know it’s, it’s helped, it’s helped this area get maybe more than it would’ve gotten otherwise. And I know some of the rural areas are complaining because maybe they’re getting less than they think they should have gotten, but I think it does try to drive the money to where the traffic is.

Right. Yeah. I mean, you [00:14:00] know, and, and that’s more determinative than just. How powerful your, the board member from your part of the state is? From what I can tell. Not that I’ve, you, I mean, you did it for a living. I’m looking at it from the outside.

Joey Hopkins: It, it’s not perfect, but it is head and shoulders above where we were with the old equity formula trust fund.

And so the funding is set into three basic categories, statewide tier, regional tier, and division tier, and the statewide tier from a highway perspective funds things like interstates and your main primary roads. The regional tier funds, the other primary roads, and then the division tier funds your secondary roads, and those monies go to different ways.

At the statewide tier, that’s 40% of the total pot, and you compete at a statewide level. So the projects in Johnston County and Wake County compete against the projects in Buncombe County or New Hanover County, or Guilford County at that tier.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so the traffic, the safety, [00:15:00] those type of things drive a lot of that.

So we compete well at that level.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: At the regional tier, that’s 30% of the pot, and those dollars are divided into seven different regions across the state. And the funding is allocated by population. Okay. So this area, this region, which there are two divisions, they get a lot of funding for this area.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. ‘

Joey Hopkins: cause of the population.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: But then you have to compete within that region for those dollars,

Jonathan Breeden: right. Is that where Campo comes in?

Joey Hopkins: Well, Campo comes in all of it.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Alright.

Joey Hopkins: So Campo is the MPO and the MPO Metropolitan Planning Organization is set up by federal law. And by federal law, the NPOs in the area, they’re, they’re set up by Metropolitan Statistical area.

They have a primary decision making authority on which projects get funded.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so the NPOs, and I think there’s 20 of them across the state working with DOT, they help develop what [00:16:00] projects get prioritized or scored. With the strategic mobility formula, which is part of that STI law.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And so working together, they submit projects into that scoring machine, and then they score in those three different tiers.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize that’s how, how it was broken down.

Joey Hopkins: It really starts in the local area.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: You know, because those, the Campo board. And that’s the western and, and northern part of Johnston County as part of Campo Capital area Metropolitan Planning Organization. The rest of Johnston County is part of an RPO, and I did not

Jonathan Breeden: know that.

I thought all of Johnston County was in Campo. Okay.

Joey Hopkins: No, it’s, it’s just the north and the western part.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: You know, so Smithfield is in an RPO.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, okay.

Joey Hopkins: And there’s 18 RPOs and they’re set up by state law. And they, they basically have a similar role as an NPO. Okay. They just don’t have federal support behind it.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh. ‘

Joey Hopkins: cause it’s a state law.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well that’s interesting.

Joey Hopkins: So all that, all that works together [00:17:00] to submit those projects to be scored or prioritized for the funding that’s available.

Jonathan Breeden: I’ve been to the meetings for the expansion of 42 called Veterans Parkway from Highway 50 to Highway 70 and Clayton, it’s been delayed.

Do you think that project’s gonna happen and if so, when?

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, definitely that project’s gonna happen.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And then the delays or something, it’s not unusual or abnormal. Because of the inflation we’ve seen the funding issues that we’ve seen, especially over the last number of years. There’ve been project delays all across the state.

And I think a growing area like this part of Johnston County is just shows that the need we have for transportation funding.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: So that project goes into right away, I think in the next year or so.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: And then goes for construction maybe in 2030.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: It’s about a $250 million project. It’s a big project.

Jonathan Breeden: It is. Well, and it’s gonna.

Joey Hopkins: And it’s needed.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and it’s basically gonna 4 lane Veterans Parkway, Highway 42, all the way [00:18:00] from Highway 36 now, they keep rechanging the name all the way to Clayton and I went to a meeting 3 or 4 years ago at Clayton about it, just looking at the drawings, you know, and at that point, I think they were gonna start construction in 2026.

I know that’s not happening now, but anyway, we also have the next big project, I guess around here is they’re gonna finish 540 loop. The other 540 opened a year and a half ago, and now they’re working. You can really see where they’re starting to cut trees and make a path for 540 to go from mile I-40 to Nightdale, which would complete the loop.

Joey Hopkins: That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: That would also be a toll road. So 75% of 540 would be a toll road 25% would be free. But that’s gonna be a big change for Johnston County. Just like I think this Southern loop has made a big change for Johnston County already as well.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, and you know, the Southern Loops made a tremendous change. We use that on a regular basis. I do it all the time, you know, if, if we’re going west of Raleigh, a lot of times we’ll get on the toll road and [00:19:00] take 64 to 4 21 to go up to Greensboro. You just bypass all the, the typical congestion you see at RTP, the construction work in Orange County with I 40 B and Widen.

You know, it’s made a big change, but that, that Eastern, when that loop is closed. Then you start giving people more choices,

Jonathan Breeden: right?

Joey Hopkins: Right. And there’s two active construction projects now to finish the loop, and they’re both about 25 or 30% done. But it’s, those are big projects, you know, it’s, it’s about 900 million or so total.

And so it’ll be 2028 before they’re done. And, and traffic is on that, that last section of the loop.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? Well, that’s ex I mean, it’s exciting. I mean, I, I remember, you know, when they did the first section. The late nineties, I guess, of five 40.

Joey Hopkins: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. You know what I mean? And my, my uncle had moved from Ebenezer Church Road to what I thought was the end of the Earth up Creedmore Road, and he was like, well, they’re gonna put five 40 here, and it’s got outta the loop.

And I mean, [00:20:00] it’s unbelievable now. I mean, I would go up there and think we have left the universe and now. He’s a mile and a half from five 40. So I mean, you know, and it’s houses everywhere. It’s

Joey Hopkins: amazing how close that seems now.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. And how many and how cremo road it and how much water and it’s really got a lot of traffic on it.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: But yeah, no, it’s, it’s, it’s absolutely amazing. Those are, those are the two biggest projects I think that people will see around here immediately, especially in Western Johnston County, you know, when they do the. When they do the 42 36 Better Parkway expansion and then the new five 40. I’m just curious because I go that, well, John, do you know when they’re supposed to be done with that project around Chapel Hill?

They’ve been doing it for a couple of years. They’re making progress. I’m just curious. I’ve, I haven’t looked it up on the website.

Joey Hopkins: I, I don’t know exactly right. It, it’s, it’s at least another year out, I would say. Okay. But it may be more than that, but I,

Jonathan Breeden: I dunno. Well, anyway, that’s gonna be nice ’cause that’s gonna add those lanes on Durham Chapel Hill and that’s gonna make it easier to get over to the 85 40 connection.

Joey Hopkins: Right.

Jonathan Breeden: [00:21:00] They’ll,

Joey Hopkins: there’ll be three lanes in each direction. Once that’s done all the way through Durham and Orange County,

Jonathan Breeden: that, that’ll be really nice.

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Jonathan Breeden: One of the things I wanted you to talk about, I know we don’t have a ton more time, is all the things DOT covers. I think people don’t understand that the Department of Transportation is has railroads, it has airports.

I used to always harass you about RDU and the new RDU runway, which they are now working on. And you know, I don’t think people realize it’s also bike paths. I mean, it’s all really mode transportation. So talk about a little bit about what you were responsible for and, ’cause that’s the part that I don’t think people see.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, and I I [00:22:00] think a lot of people, when they think of DOT, they think of potholes and traffic signal and roundabouts, right? Four way stops and, you know, things like that. The road that I want to have widened because it is congested or the road I don’t want have widened because it impacts my property, right?

Those are the typical things that people think about but DOT is so much more than that. I mean, we have the second largest highway system in the whole nation behind Texas. People don’t know that we maintain over 80,000 miles of roads that state does in North Carolina. There aren’t county roads in North Carolina.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: And there we’re one of about 10 states that have no County maintained roads that the state has from the cul-de-sac with four homes on it to I-40 with 120,000 cars a day on it. So in addition to that, we have a ferry system. We have the second largest state maintained ferry system in the country by behind Washington State.

And so that’s big for us, and that’s transportation. Those [00:23:00] ferries, in a way are moving bridges. You know, they’re transporting people to work, to home, to the doctor, to school. We have school buses that ride the ferries to get kids from where they live to their school.

We have bike and ped in transit. You mentioned the greenways, so the sidewalks and the greenways, we handle that. We have a division of aviation that we help support the public airports in the state from the big ones like RDU and Charlotte and Greensboro to the mid-size ones like Johnston County. You know, and, and Raleigh Executive Airport and the, the many, many others like that.

And we support those with projects to lengthen runways or clear obstructions or new runway lighting systems or control towers. Right. Like is under construction here in Johnston County now.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: You know, we help support that. We have a rail division, you know, and, and we support railroad projects for freight and passenger rail.

In North Carolina. So it’s, it’s the whole gamut of transportation when you can think about [00:24:00] it.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, it really is. And, and I enjoy riding the ferries and driving my car up and riding the ferry across.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And, and, and I think that’s neat. And they used to have, I guess they still do, one was NC State, one was Carolina, you, you know, they have one be red, one be had NC State logo, one have Carolina logo.

I think one had a Duke logo. So anyway, those were, those were always a lot of fun and, yeah, I mean, I, that you’re right about the schools and stuff. You think about you get out there and the, the sort of outer banks and okracoke and, and stuff like that. So yeah, and I, I think the ferries are neat.

I think they’re, there’s been some funding issues with the ferries and whether they should start charging fair and what they should charge and whether they raise more. That’s, that debate’s always gonna rage on. But I do think that that, that they’re neat. And if you’ve never ridden one. You should go out and ride ones, particularly the one to Okracoke.

I think that’s great. I think Ocracoke Oh yeah. Is the neatest place. One of the neatest places I’ve been in the entire world is Okracoke. You go to the British cemetery there and all of that stuff where they have the British flags and the little shops and stuff. [00:25:00] So, big fan of, big fan of Okracoke and, and and that part of the world.

So, yeah. So it’s a lot more common misconceptions about DOT other than one of ’em is all this other stuff that you’re responsible for other than the road, what would you say are other misconceptions the public has in general?

Joey Hopkins: So I think and We’ve talked a little bit about funding and project delays.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: And I think a big one that people don’t think about or don’t understand is how much money it takes to build these projects.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, geez. Yeah.

Joey Hopkins: And so they think, why am I paying so much for gas? The gas tax is too high. In North Carolina, the transportation budget is big. It’s about 7 or $8 billion, and that’s all in for construction maintenance operations.

It pays, most of that’s contracted out to private industry, but again, there’s 80,000 miles of roads in North Carolina. I was just reading something last week. One of our states, nearby states in the Southeast Florida, they have 12,000 miles of road that they’re responsible for at Florida, DOT. Their budget is [00:26:00] 15 billion.

And so you start comparing ourselves to others and seeing how woefully behind we are with what we put in transportation compared to a lot of our counterparts. And that’s why you look at having to potentially look at fares or tolls on ferries. That’s why we’re having a toll 540. And look at all those different tools in the toolbox.

We do look, or the state does look at public-private partnerships to help fund, to kinda overcome that shortfall, is 2030 too late to start the 40 Veterans Parkway 36 widening.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right.

Joey Hopkins: Definitely it is.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah.

Joey Hopkins: It’s probably too late to have it finished.

Jonathan Breeden: Right.

Joey Hopkins: Based on the growth and the traffic and everything, we’ve been in this area since 94. When we came here, we went to Smithfield, to outlets to shop or Raleigh to shop and eat. But now you’ve got all that here and people wanna be here. We’ve got great community, we’ve got great people here [00:27:00] in Johnston County, and we need to have that infrastructure that supports ’em but it takes money to do that.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, right. Well, I mean, is the gas tax. The answer ’cause that’s what we do in North Carolina, but cars become more efficient. Electric cars, like is it a sustainable funding source?

Joey Hopkins: So, so long term the, the answer to that’s no. I mean, in North Carolina our, our gas, gas tax revenue is still growing, but it’s growing because we’re a growing state.

If you look at the per capita numbers, it’s falling. Because the, the cars get better mileage now. There’s more electric cars out out there, you know, and so. You longer term, you’ve gotta look for ways to offset that. You’ve gotta look for ways. Is it a mileage fee? Is it a user fee? And there’s pluses and minuses for all of that.

I will say this, whatever it is, it will not be easy or as cheap to collect as the gas tax,

Jonathan Breeden: right? Right. That’s true. That’s [00:28:00] true. The gas tax is easy to collect.

Joey Hopkins: You don’t pay the gas tax. I don’t pay the gas tax at the pump. It’s paid at the at the depots. And so the wholesalers pay the tax.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh.

Joey Hopkins: And so the individual stations do not, so anything else you do is gonna move to some sort of individual payment tax, either through your annual registration fees, property taxes, or you know, a mileage fee, whatever that is.

All of a sudden it goes from getting, you know, monthly checks from a handful of businesses to getting monthly, quarterly, annual checks. From thousands and thousands of citizens and it’s gonna be expensive to collect.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you. I got you. Yeah. Well anyway, one of the things you were in charge of was the Department of Motor Vehicles, and I know things are gonna get better there.

They’re already, they better as we’re recording this at, in the middle of December of, of 2025. You know, I think the [00:29:00] new person, they’re in charge. You worked with him. I think he’s gonna do a good job. But again, that was a, I think that was largely funding. You know, I’ve been friends with Wing Goodwood a long time.

I think you had state grow a whole bunch of people and they didn’t have any extra examiners or extra offices.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. And DMV is, I mean, there’s a, there’s a TV show about A DMV now, you know, and it’s just, it’s, it’s kind of the butt of everybody’s jokes over the years. But through my career and especially these last five years.

I, I could have retired many, many times, but there are a lot of things I wanted to work on to see finished. And, and it was, it was funny, not that I gave up on DMV, but we got the right man in the job with Commissioner Paul Tyn. We were able to get some legislative changes this past year, able to get a little bit more money, and things are on the upswing.

And I finally had to make a decision and say, you know, I can’t stay here until DMV’s fixed. It’s, it’s headed in a good direction and we’ve got good leadership in [00:30:00] their, their, the morales is going up for the employees. And I’m really proud to what they’ve done over these last few months with legislative support and with support from the governor’s office, you know, and I’m looking forward to seeing the continued progress there.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. Well, good, good. Well, the last couple questions here. What are you doing now other than playing golf A little bit.

Joey Hopkins: So playing a little golf.

Jonathan Breeden: Playing a little golf.

Joey Hopkins: You need to play

Jonathan Breeden: more, you probably need to play more. But anyway. You know, but I think you’re doing something else too.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah, so I’m, I’m starting a consulting business, so it’s Hopkins Strategy and Infrastructure Advisors, and at the first of the year, I’ll, I’ll really have my first client and, and start.

Helping grow some transportation business for some other folks.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. So are you gonna work for some of the contractors that work with DOT?

Joey Hopkins: You know, that’s yet to be determined, but my, my first client will be a non-traditional transportation firm.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah. And so, more to come on that later.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’ll be interesting.

Joey Hopkins: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. I know you’re excited about that [00:31:00] after many years of stress and not sleeping during Helene and, and all of that, but you got, we got through it. I mean, you know, we did, I mean, you should, you, you had a lot to do with that and, and you know, I don’t, you’ll probably never get the credit you deserve for what you did

Joey Hopkins: well

Jonathan Breeden: in that, but you got a lot of help too.

Joey Hopkins: You mentioned our mutual friend, you know, and it, it really takes a lot of people to

Jonathan Breeden: Right

Joey Hopkins: to, but I’m really proud of what DOT’s been able to accomplish over this last 14, 15 months or so since Helene hit. That with our contracting partners and consulting partners, the utility companies, the volunteers, you know, there is really true progress out there.

There’s DOT just to kind of put a bow on it. Spent more money in the first year after Helene. Four times as much money as we did the biggest storm that we’ve ever fought. Geez. In the state or ever responded to.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s, yeah. That’s something else.

Joey Hopkins: That’s, that’s, and it’s, it’s really been amazing just to see the progress.

And, you know, the, the [00:32:00] employees that we have, they live in the communities they work in. It’s personal to them. They’re helping their families. They’re helping their friends, they’re helping their associates, and they really wanna see it through. That’s you. One thing that DOT and Johnston County have in common, it really is a family.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and and you think about the people out there, these pe, these workers, my friends, your employees, your friends left their homes where they didn’t have power. Yeah. Their families were cut off to go and help other people and worked 17, 18, 19 hours a day, 28, 30, 35, 40 straight days while. They didn’t have power, they didn’t have water, but they had this thing that they had to help their community.

I don’t think people understand how much these employees sacrificed and what they had to do to just how far they had to drive to find clean water for, for, for their employees and their community. [00:33:00] You know what I mean? Right. It was just, anyway, we could do. Five podcast on, on what happened and entire, you know, entire areas being cut off, all the interstates and anyway, but yeah, so they did it and they, and they didn’t mind doing it and saw the earth and, and it’s tremendous.

Last question we ask everybody is, what do you love most about Johnston County?

Joey Hopkins: It’s the people, you know, we, we moved out here, I was a, I was a staff engineer at DOT working downtown Raleigh. Moved out to Johnston County, you know, had great neighbors, got involved in the community, and were members at Amelia Christian Church.

I’m a member of Clayton Ctan. A few years after that I started working in Durham in the division office. My commute went from, you know, 20 minutes to an hour on a good day, and we never moved, you know, because we, we were involved and ingrained in our community and we just love it here.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that’s great.

That’s great. Well, we’d like to thank Joey Hopkins for being our guest on this week’s episode of The Best Johnston County Podcast. As we mentioned, other, please, like, follow, subscribe this podcast wherever [00:34:00] you’ve seen it. Give us a five star review down below, and tag us in your Instagram stories. Best of Johnston County.

Until next time, I’m your host. Jonathan Breeden.

That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.