If you've driven U.S. 74 through Monroe you know what a "Hell Highway" is. So news Tuesday that the Monroe Connector-Bypass highway got final federal approval for its route was likely greeted with widespread relief.

The 19.7-mile highway will cost an estimated $824 million. It will be a toll road; toll income is expected to pay a major but still-undetermined portion of repaying bonds sold to fund its construction.

Meantime, the N.C. Department of Transportation is facing huge, unfunded transportation needs. So ponder this: Public money will go to build a Monroe Bypass to bypass a highway built as a bypass. Everyone wants a new Monroe Bypass mainly because Monroe and Union County allowed so much ugly, sprawling, commercial development along U.S. 74 that it's now a Hell Highway.

No, the condition of U.S. 74 isn't solely Monroe's fault. Metro Charlotte growth has increased traffic everywhere. Nor is Monroe the only place where bad land use decisions spawned a gut-wrenchingly ugly, congested commercial strip. Consider Shelby. Having clogged its own U.S. 74 Bypass, local leaders now want a new bypass - at state expense, of course.

And in Mecklenburg County, Pineville and Charlotte OK'd so much single-use retail and residential development - and just as important, required so little in the way of connecting street networks and mixed-use neighborhoods - that I-485's southern leg clogged soon after it opened. Now the state will spend some $75 million to add lanes from Interstate 77 to Johnston Road.

NCDOT clings to the myth that it leaves land use decisions to local governments, although building a highway can have volcanic land use effects. Meanwhile, it foots transportation costs arising from unwise local land use decisions. Low-density, cul-de-sac subdivisions which push most traffic onto nearby roads, and single-use zoning that puts residences far from stores and jobs push up traffic loads significantly.

Virginia's transportation department launched a policy last year to discourage cul-de-sacs and push developers to build connecting streets. NCDOT needs to pull its head out of the sand and consider similar moves. The public shouldn't have to pay millions to support dumb local land use decisions. We don't need to be building more bypass bypasses.