NCDOT -Church St/RR Crossing/Hopson Rd (Raleigh, Durham: 2015, chapel)

[Autumn11]

I received an email from the Town of Morrisville that I wanted to pass along as ‘FYI’ … -see below.

From what I gather, it looks like NCDOT will be closing the Church Street/Chapel Hill (54) intersection and extending Church Street to Hopson and then building a bridge to go over the Hopson crossing.


Description: SR 1978 (HOPSON ROAD) AND SR 1980 (CHURCH STREET). CONSTRUCT A GRADE SEPARATION, EXTEND CHURCH STREET AND CLOSE CHURCH STREET CROSSING 734 748M OF THE NORFOLK SOUTHERN-NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD.

NCDOT Project page: https://apps.dot.state.nc.us/projects/tipsearch/TIPSearchDetail.aspx?id=1560 (broken link)



From: Town of Morrisville <information@ci.morrisville.nc.us>
Subject: NCDOT Citizen Informational Workshop
To: "Citizens Interested in Transportation"
Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2008, 1:34 PM

NOTICE OF A CITIZENS INFORMATIONAL WORKSHOP FOR THE PROPOSED SR 1978 (HOPSON ROAD) GRADE SEPARATION, THE NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD/NORFOLK SOUTHERN TRACK REALIGNMENT, AND THE CHURCH STREET RAIL CROSSING CLOSURE AND STREET EXTENSION

TIP Project No. Y-4117B / U-4716

The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will hold the above Citizens Informational Workshop on Thursday, October 30, 2008, between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Comfort Suites Hotel RTP/RDU - in the Tarheel Room, located at 5219 Page Road, Durham, 27703.

Maps depicting the proposed project will be on display and NCDOT representatives will be available in an informal setting to answer questions and receive comments regarding the proposed project. The opportunity to submit written comments or questions will also be provided. Interested citizens may attend at any time during the above mentioned hours. Please note: there will not be a formal presentation.

NCDOT proposes to convert the existing rail crossing of SR 1978 (Hopson Road) and the North Carolina Railroad/Norfolk Southern (NCRR/NS) track into a grade separated crossing. A grade separation means using a bridge to separate intersecting roads and/or railroads. The proposed grade separation is part of an effort to reduce the number of redundant and/or unsafe rail-highway at-grade crossings statewide.

In addition, the NCRR/NS track will be realigned to provide better railroad operations. Also included as part of the proposed project is the Church Street rail crossing closure and street extension.

Anyone desiring additional information may contact Mr. Marc Hamel, Environmental & Planning Branch, Rail Division at 1553 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1553, phone (919) 733-7245 ext 270, or email mhamel@ncdot.gov.

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this workshop. Anyone requiring special services should contact Mr. Hamel as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

[orulz]

Resurrecting an old thread.

NCDOT has awarded the contract for construction of the railroad bridge over Hopson Road. This will not be complete until July 2015, at which point the Church Street railroad crossing will be closed.

I'm not sure whether this contract includes widening Hopson to 4 lanes between Davis and Miami. (I hope so.) I am of the opinion that closing the Church Street crossing will make traffic at McCrimmon even more hopeless an it already is.

In an effort to solve this, lately Morrisville has been requesting that CAMPO prioritize the grade separation at McCrimmon so it can be built by 2020 - though I have no idea if they will get any traction.

Other grade separation projects are in the works too. Morrisville Parkway will be grade separated by 2016 (after a lengthy 2 year closure during construction), and Blue Ridge Road will be done by 2019.

Cary is studying building a bridge to cary Harrison Avenue over one set of tracks (the busier set) downtown. No construction date though.

After this, the worst remaining crossings in the Cary/Morrisville area will be: NE Maynard near Chatham and Morrisville Carpenter near NC54. There is a study underway called "NC 54 and more" (Cary page, Morrisville page) that will look at how to widen NC54 and how to deal with the remaining railroad crossings. Cary has nebulous plans in their transportation plan to build a bridge at NE Maynard near Chatham Square, but no date, no money, and no idea what it would look like.

I think nobody has any idea what to do at Morrisville Carpenter. On the one hand it's right in the middle of the Morrisville historic district so nobody wants to build a giant bridge on top of all that, but there's no way the railroad will allow the grade crossing to be widened with extra lanes. This is far too close to the Crabtree Creek floodplain to try to build a trench. Maybe the ideal solution would be to raise the railroad over the road, but that's horrendously expensive and would probably involve reconstruction of the railroad for a distance of a mile or more. All in all there's no easy solution.

[gwilhelm]

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the project includes the widening of Hopson, which is going to make traffic there even worse. The NCDOT release (https://apps.ncdot.gov/NewsReleases/details.aspx?r=7429) indicates that the new bridge will be built to allow for future widening of Hopson.

[Sherifftruman]

Link to the DOT Project page. Note the Hopson widening is U-4716D and is unfunded so it shows a 2030 start date. I had not checked but maybe it is in the next TIP.

http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/search...s.html#id=2592

[wizard-xyzzy]

I suspect NCDOT is gambling that as the remaining farmland along Hopson is developed into O&I, whatever city has the ETJ out there (Morrisville? Durham?) will require that the developers put in the additional lanes. That's basically how 54 was four-laned from 540 to Nelson.

[JQ Public]

So when will Church and 54 close?

[orulz]

Originally Posted by wizard-xyzzy

I suspect NCDOT is gambling that as the remaining farmland along Hopson is developed into O&I, whatever city has the ETJ out there (Morrisville? Durham?) will require that the developers put in the additional lanes. That's basically how 54 was four-laned from 540 to Nelson.

If they didn't force Office Depot to add an extra lane on Hopson, I suspect they won't force anybody else to do so either.