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Old 03-05-2015, 10:04 PM
 
Location: Baja Virginia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mbmitche View Post
This guy does a great job on the history of many Wake County Roads:

Wake County Roads
Thanks.
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Old 03-05-2015, 10:56 PM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Francois View Post
Both of those roads were built when the population of this city was MUCH less than it is now, with no clue as to how large it would get. The part of Capital you're talking about used to be called "Downtown Blvd" (and many of us long-timers still call it that) at a time when "North Raleigh" didn't go much past where North Hills is now. I am kind of thinking that Oberlin was widened at some point; I don't believe it was always divided, and it goes way back in city history.
and outside the Beltline, it was called North Boulevard. ...good times.
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Old 03-05-2015, 11:37 PM
 
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Even I remember when 540 was brand new, and no one drove on it. Look at it today! Practically always packed, it's unbelievable. Raleigh has grown much faster than anticipated, you Yankees just won't stay put!

Just kidding, but honestly, it's hard for me to imagine North Raleigh without 540 these days.

I'm a youngster here, so can someone clarify, did people take Hwy 70 from Raleigh to Greensboro before I-40? When did they build I-40 in NC? If this was the case, it must have taken forever since 70 goes through all those towns like Hillsborough, Mebane, Burlington, Elon, etc. The interaction between Raleigh and Greensboro probably wasn't as hectic in those days. How did people get down to Charlotte and how long did that take?
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Old 03-06-2015, 08:08 AM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JayJayCB View Post
Even I remember when 540 was brand new, and no one drove on it. Look at it today! Practically always packed, it's unbelievable. Raleigh has grown much faster than anticipated, you Yankees just won't stay put!

Just kidding, but honestly, it's hard for me to imagine North Raleigh without 540 these days.

I'm a youngster here, so can someone clarify, did people take Hwy 70 from Raleigh to Greensboro before I-40? When did they build I-40 in NC? If this was the case, it must have taken forever since 70 goes through all those towns like Hillsborough, Mebane, Burlington, Elon, etc. The interaction between Raleigh and Greensboro probably wasn't as hectic in those days. How did people get down to Charlotte and how long did that take?
I-40 was connected to Chapel Hill from Raleigh in time for the 1987 US Olympic Festival that Summer (anyone remember that event?). Soon thereafter, it was connected to I-85. It was then connected to I-95 in Benson and a year or so later it was completed to Wilmington. Wikipedia says it was finished in the late 80s but I thought it was actually early 90s before it reached the coast. Maybe someone else here knows the date for sure?

I know that when my family travelled west in the pre I-40 days, we took I-40 to the Durham Freeway. It ended in DT Durham and you had to wind your way up through north Durham until you got to I-85. I was too young to remember which specific road we took. Since US70 didn't connect to I-85 either, it was sort of a "pick your poison" proposition when it came to traveling west out of Raleigh. Frankly, back in those days, you couldn't get out of Raleigh in any direction purely on a limited access highway of any sort.
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Old 03-06-2015, 08:29 AM
 
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I grew up in the Triad and then moved here in the mid-80s. We used to take I-85 to Durham and then take Highway 70 into Raleigh, but then slowly more sections of I-40 opened. I remember on one trip it ending around Page Road and having to wind around to 147. It got a lot better when it connected to the Durham Freeway, but yeah, winding through Durham to get over to I-85 was slow.

We drove to Wrightsville Beach the first weekend that 40 opened all the way to Wilmington. That was summer of 1990.
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Old 03-06-2015, 09:13 AM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dire Wolf View Post
I grew up in the Triad and then moved here in the mid-80s. We used to take I-85 to Durham and then take Highway 70 into Raleigh, but then slowly more sections of I-40 opened. I remember on one trip it ending around Page Road and having to wind around to 147. It got a lot better when it connected to the Durham Freeway, but yeah, winding through Durham to get over to I-85 was slow.

We drove to Wrightsville Beach the first weekend that 40 opened all the way to Wilmington. That was summer of 1990.
Thanks for validating that I-40 was completed in 90 instead of late 80s.
As for I-85/US-70, you could travel west to east on limited access but you couldn't do it going east to west without getting off the limited access highway.
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Old 03-06-2015, 09:21 AM
 
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So I-85 has been around for a bit longer, then? I guess people would have taken Hwy 1 up to Richmond, but those days were probably older.
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Old 03-06-2015, 10:41 AM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JayJayCB View Post
Even I remember when 540 was brand new, and no one drove on it.
I live "spitting distance" from 540, moved there before it was even cut through, though we knew it was coming. The entrance to my neighborhood was actually chopped off by 540, and we went from being in the front of the neighborhood to having to drive through two other neighborhoods to get to our house.

I distinctly remember when the path for 540 had been cut through in 2000 but wasn't paved yet, when we got that big 20" snow in January, 2000. My better half and I have pics of us walking out in 2 feet of snow on the "highway" thinking "Imagine soon, when this will be a busy highway". Ha--we had no idea HOW busy it would be, how soon.

Quote:
Wikipedia says it was finished in the late 80s but I thought it was actually early 90s before it reached the coast. Maybe someone else here knows the date for sure?
I concur with the "summer of 1990" given above. Definitely 1990. They made a big deal about it reaching coast to coast and put up that sign in Wilmington saying however many thousand miles to California.

1987, as you mentioned, was a big year for 40 in the Triangle, even without it going all the way to Wilmington yet (before that, you could take it to Newton Grove or Warsaw and then had to get off on 421 in Clinton to go the rest of the way. At that time, the Wilmington beaches were NOT the closest ones, in time, to the Triangle, so people from Raleigh generally went down 70 to the Morehead City area).

1987 was also the year that RDU expanded into two terminals and became "RDU International airport", as well as an American hub. Previously, no Int'l flights left from here. Remember how they tacked on "International" onto the sign, making it look like someone had scratched it on there by hand?

It was also around that time that Millbrook Road was cut through to Duraleigh and Leesvile remapped into parts of Lead Mine, Millbrook, and what's now "Town and Country". Before that, the road that comes out at Crabtree/Glenwood across from Blue Ridge was Leesville, and you'd go up there, along what's now "Town and Country", then onto what's now Millbrook the rest of the way out. Shelly Road used to go up to and a little past the Lead Mine intersection all the way from Six Forks (Shelly Lake used to, in fact, be on Shelly Road). You can still see where Shelly ends now and imagine where it once went. Lead Mine ended "into" Leesville somewhere around the Greek Orthodox Church. All of that has been straightened out, of course.

Big year for roads and expansion in 1987(ish) around here.
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Old 03-06-2015, 10:59 AM
 
Location: South Beach and DT Raleigh
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JayJayCB View Post
So I-85 has been around for a bit longer, then? I guess people would have taken Hwy 1 up to Richmond, but those days were probably older.
I still sometimes take US1 up to I-85 to reach Richmond. The Virginia section of I-85 was completed in 1970 while the section from Durham to the VA state line appears to have been completed in 1960 based on what I have found online. This could be wrong as the following link doesn't really address the section between western Durham and Henderson.
Interstate 85 in North Carolina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would be really cool is someone could create an animation gif showing the expansion of the interstate system in NC over time, wouldn't it?
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Old 03-06-2015, 11:14 AM
 
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You know 540 west of Cary and Apex? No one really drives on it, so I imagine that was probably the case for 540 in North Raleigh when it first opened. Keep in mind, this area wasn't as congested and suburban. I'm from the Leesville area, and even that area was apparently "out in the sticks" for the longest time. Springdale Estates is one of the oldest subdivisions in that area, apparently constructed in the 60's for the "IBM families." That was about it, though. Leesville High isn't too old, and I don't even think Brier Creek existed a good 15 years ago.

Anyway, can someone clarify regarding my earlier post about Hwy 70 between Raleigh and Greensboro? So that was how people traveled between the two for the longest time?
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