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The draft 2015-2025 State Transportation Improvement Program includes plans to:
1) Add lanes to 30 miles of Interstate 40: From Interstate 85 to U.S. 15-501 in Orange County; from Wade Avenue to Lake Wheeler Road in Cary and Raleigh, and from the Raleigh Beltline to N.C. 42 in Johnston County.
2) Upgrade the N.C. 54 corridor in Chapel Hill and Durham for 9.2 miles from U.S. 15-501 to N.C. 55 ($228.6 million, construction starting in 2024), and widen N.C. 54 1.3 miles from 540 Outer Loop to Perimeter Park in Morrisville ($11.8 million, 2023).
3) Make U.S. 1 a freeway from I-540 to N.C. 98 ($206.6 million, 2023).
4) Upgrade U.S. 64 with interchanges, 3 miles from Laura Duncan Road to U.S. 1 in Cary ($90.8 million, 2022).
5) Add lanes to I-440 (the Raleigh Beltline), 4.6 miles from Cary to Wade Avenue.
Also, heavily traveled roads to the beaches such as U.S. 70 and future Interstate 74 are to get upgrades as well. Completion of the loops arounds Fayetteville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem should help travelers in those directions as well.
Anyone who has ridden these roads knows how badly they are needed now. Any you think they missed, or comments about what is proposed here?
Thanks for the information. Has anyone heard or seen anything regarding the expansion of US-1 from US-64 in Cary/Apex to At least NC-540? Traffic volume in the morning and evenings has definitely grown in this area in a short period, with a lot of stop and go. With tons of new development in south and west Apex, including Veridea, which has now been approved by the Apex town council The future of Apex can be seen in Veridea) and even new single family home development going on in New Hill, I would think traffic is only going to get even worse on this section of US-1. I would hope that expansion would start within a few years, but couldn't find anything on it.
Thanks for the information. Has anyone heard or seen anything regarding the expansion of US-1 from US-64 in Cary/Apex to At least NC-540? Traffic volume in the morning and evenings has definitely grown in this area in a short period, with a lot of stop and go. With tons of new development in south and west Apex, including Veridea, which has now been approved by the Apex town council The future of Apex can be seen in Veridea) and even new single family home development going on in New Hill, I would think traffic is only going to get even worse on this section of US-1. I would hope that expansion would start within a few years, but couldn't find anything on it.
It was analyzed but it didn't score high enough to make the cut.
Pulled from a previous thread and updated. Here is a list of all the major projects on Interstate/US/NC highway routes in the triangle. This excludes projects already underway or about to start, such as the Rolesville Bypass, East End Connector, and Alston Avenue widening.
Construction starts in 2018:
I-440 widening to 6 lanes from Walnut to Wade
I-40 widening to 8 lanes from I-440/US64 in SE Raleigh to US70 Bypass in Clayton
NC540 extension from NC55 to US401
Construction starts in 2021:
I-40 widening (auxiliary lane) from NC55 to NC147
US70 Glenwood Ave freeway conversion from I-540 in Northwest Raleigh to TW Alexander Drive
NC55 widening from Bryan Drive to US1 in Apex
Construction starts in 2022:
I-40 widening to 8 lanes from I-440/US1/US64 in Cary to Lake Wheeler Road
NC540 extension from US401 to I-40 in Clayton
US64 expressway upgrades from Larua Duncan to US1
Construction starts in 2023:
US1 Capital Blvd freeway conversion from I-540 in North Raleigh to NC98 Bypass in Wake Forest
I-40 widening to 8 lanes from Wade Avenue to US1/US64 in Cary
NC54 widening from I-540 to Perimeter Park Drive in Morrisville (incl. grade separation at McCrimmon Parkway)
NC54 upgrades from US15/501 in Chapel Hill to I-40 in Durham
Construction starts in 2024:
I-40 widening to 6 lanes from I-85 to US15/US501
US70 freeway conversion from East End Connector to Miami Boulevard
US15/US501 Garrett Road intersection upgrade to interchange
10 more years until they start fixing the bottleneck on I-40 westbound at US 15-501. Ugh. I can't imagine what it's going to be like 5+ years from now as traffic continues to grow.
I'm still waiting on Light Rail. The sad part is Raleigh/Durham/CH/Cary saw this was coming back in 1990 when the first influxes of people starting coming in and especially by 2000, NCDOT is all about reactive construction instead of proactive. With the exception of I-540 by in large. I remember several years ago where a team traveled to other metros that grew at rapid paces to try to see how they dealt with the growth to see how they dealt with it.
The plan includes apparently about $1 billion to build light rail in Durham and Orange county starting in 2020, 1/2 federal, 1/4 state, and 1/4 local. The funding is phased oddly. The Orange portion gets its funding from 2020-2023, and Durham gets its funding from 2025-2027. This will not be a successful line without the Durham segment, so I doubt the Orange portion will get built several years prior to the Durham segment. So, I am not really sure what this all means as far as schedule is concerned. Perhaps they intend to start construction in 2020 and issue GARVEE bonds to bring the rest of the funding forward.
Believe it or not, $1.5 billion for light rail in Wake County starting in 2020 is listed as well, but the source is listed as 100% federal, so the listing is incomplete and it does not look like the state has really set anything aside for this project.
The plan includes apparently about $1 billion to build light rail in Durham and Orange county starting in 2020, 1/2 federal, 1/4 state, and 1/4 local. The funding is phased oddly. The Orange portion gets its funding from 2020-2023, and Durham gets its funding from 2025-2027. This will not be a successful line without the Durham segment, so I doubt the Orange portion will get built several years prior to the Durham segment. So, I am not really sure what this all means as far as schedule is concerned. Perhaps they intend to start construction in 2020 and issue GARVEE bonds to bring the rest of the funding forward.
Believe it or not, $1.5 billion for light rail in Wake County starting in 2020 is listed as well, but the source is listed as 100% federal, so the listing is incomplete and it does not look like the state has really set anything aside for this project.
Orulz, since you are more familiar with transportation stuff than I am, could you take a closer look at the STIP than I did? You might help me with some confusion--
1) I too saw what looked like a Wake segment with $1.5 billion, but when I went to the NCDOT web site, the referenced project number looked like the Durham-Orange light rail line.
2) I didn't get a calculator out, but didn't look like the Durham-Orange money (ignoring the $1.5 billion) really added up to $1b.
They have a consultant, Jarrett Walker, who is highly respected, and brings a great deal of legitimacy to the effort. One of the things that he is big on, that I agree with, is to not use a mode centric approach to transit planning. In other words, the end goal should not be to have a light rail system, but rather to have the most effective transit system. Putting light rail on the right corridor is one of many tools that can be used to achieve this, but routing buses more efficiently and increasing frequency is usually the first step.
I am hoping that if a transit sales tax passes in Wake, that it will serve to lessen the importance of municipal boundaries in transit planning. For example, several Raleigh buses serve southwest Raleigh but stop a couple miles short of somewhere really useful: Crossroads. The only bus providing rush hour service between Cary and Raleigh, the TTA 301, is a slow meandering mess. The New Bern Ave and South Saunders Street buses stop at the city line, but there are dense neighborhoods a couple miles down the road in Garner and Knightdale with lots of people who would benefit from bus service, if they had it.
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