NCDOT to present detailed plans for U.S. 1 freeway between Raleigh and Wake Forest

Three years ago, the N.C. Department of Transportation unveiled plans to turn Capital Boulevard into a freeway between Interstate 540 in Raleigh and Wake Forest.

But when NCDOT ran into financial trouble, the project got shelved.

Now it’s on again, and NCDOT will present refined plans for a 10-mile freeway up to eight lanes wide at a virtual public meeting Thursday evening.

The project means creating new highway interchanges where there are now intersections at Durant Road, Burlington Mills Road, South Main Street/Falls of Neuse Road and Purnell/Harris roads.

Other driveways and side roads with direct access to Capital, which is also U.S. 1, would be closed, replaced by a network of service roads that parallel the highway.

Those service roads weren’t part of the plans NCDOT presented in the fall of 2018, but they are this time, says Terry Farr, the engineer managing the project.

“People will be able to see how they will get from their residence or their business to the interchange so they can get on U.S. 1,” Farr said in an interview.

NCDOT is looking for public feedback on its plans, particularly in places where it hasn’t settled on a final design. For example, the department has four options for closing the intersection of Gresham Lake Road near I-540, including two that involve extending the road over U.S. 1 on a new bridge.

NCDOT will present two options for a new interchange at Burlington Mills Road — one that takes much of the Crossroads Ford dealership and another that consumes more than a dozen houses on Circle Drive.

Farr said it’s not easy making the freeway, interchanges and the service roads all fit.

“We’re trying to minimize impacts as much as possible,” he said. “We don’t want to go up and down the corridor and have this nice beautiful road and take out all the businesses.”

But some homes and businesses would disappear. NCDOT engineers redrew their proposed interchange at Durant Road to make it more compact, but the gas station and Baskin Robbins and Dunkin Donuts shop now on the corner still wouldn’t survive.

Freeway expected to ease rush hour travel

The impetus for the freeway is the growth of northern Wake and southern Franklin counties. The population of Wake Forest has nearly quadrupled since 2000, to about 49,000; NCDOT estimates that traffic is expected to grow by up to 37% by 2040, to as many as 75,000 cars and trucks a day.

Travel times on this 10-mile stretch of U.S. 1 can vary widely, depending on the direction and time of day. On the current road, NCDOT estimates that by 2040 it will take 23 to 38 minutes to go that distance northbound during rush hour, compared to 15 to 17 minutes on the new freeway.

The freeway would be built in phases, starting with the stretch from I-540 to Durant Road beginning in 2024. Work on the fourth and final phase, from N.C. 98 business to the north side of Wake Forest, wouldn’t begin until sometime after 2028.

Building the freeway and the service roads would cost an estimated $747.7 million, with about a third of that going to buy property.

NCDOT had hoped to begin building the freeway this year. But financial troubles, aggravated by two major hurricanes in 2016 and 2018 and aggressive spending by the department, forced delays of dozens of major projects across the state.

Many of those projects remain on hold, but Farr said in late 2020 he was told his designers could begin working on the U.S. 1 freeway again.

“We knew that this corridor is a high-priority corridor,” he said. “Our division engineers and executive leadership, they worked really hard to pull this one off of the suspension list.”

Thursday’s virtual public meeting will begin at 6 p.m. People can register to participate online at www.ncdot.gov/projects/capital-boulevard-upgrade/, where they’ll also find links to maps showing the plans.

People may also listen to the presentation by phone by calling 415-930-5321 and entering pin number 268-435-629. NCDOT will accept written comments by email at capital-boulevard-upgrade@publicinput.com or by U.S mail to Terry Farr, NCDOT Project Management Unit, 1582 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1582.