Wake Forest Gazette

          Update: Fireworks or a brass band, maybe both, will be in order around the Labor Day weekend – Sept. 4-6 – when the final section of the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway (N.C. 98 bypass) will be complete and open for traffic without orange and white barrels.
          “It’s pretty much complete,” Steve Edgerton, the assistant resident engineer in the state Department of Transportation’s Youngsville office, said Wednesday. Crews are working on laying the “very final layer of asphalt” as well as striping the new roads, seeding the banks and shoulders, erecting guard rails and other final touches.
          Edgerton said new signs clearly showing drivers which way to go for what are up but covered. One sign will indicate that what was a part of Falls of the Neuse Road by Wakefield Baptist Church and Jimmy Keith’s store will be renamed either the James Keith Store Road or the Keith Store Loop.
          Barnhill Contracting Company had the low bid of $11.5 million when the bids were opened in January 2008. Work on the 1.55-mile leg and the associated road relocations – Thompson Mill, Falls of the Neuse – began that spring with an estimated completion date early in 2010. That date later slipped to June 30 of this year.
          Although local leaders urged construction of the bypass beginning in the 1960s and it was always close to DOT’s radar, it was 2001 before there was funding and May of 2002 before Barnhill Contracting, the low bidder at $9.8 million, began work on the first section (Section C) from Jones Dairy Road to South Main Street. The work included a bridge over the CSX railroad tracks and raising the South Main roadway to nearly the bridge level rather than continuing the bridge. That was a cost-saving measure which has cost drivers lost time as well as losses to injuries and accidents at the intersection. That first section was complete in August 2004.
          S.T. Wooten was the low bidder at $21.2 million for the 1.4-mile section from South Main to Capital Boulevard, and work began in 2004. The work was costly because of the bridge over Richland Creek, service roads and ramps at Capital Boulevard and the directional interchange bridge over the highway. It opened in 2006.
          Back in 2008 DOT estimated the total cost of the bypass project, now named the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway, at $85 million including purchase of right-of-way, construction and an overall wetland mitigation cost of $1,512,961. The total right-of-way cost was $29,480,507.
          Update: East Owen Avenue, the short street between South White and Brooks, will be closed next week beginning Monday, Aug. 23, for town street crews to remove and replace a storm drain. It is part of the ongoing construction near the new town hall with improved sidewalks and other changes.
          Update: The repaved section of East Jones Avenue from Brooks to the new Taylor Street is complete and adds another link in downtown connectivity. Until Taylor was built, the street ended next to a parking lot behind La Foresta restaurant
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          Continue to expect sporadic delays on South Main Street (U.S. 1-A) as the contractor, Asphalt Experts, clears, installs drains and begins the grading on the east side of the street. When complete this fall, the street will have two travel lanes, two bike lanes, a turn lane, curb and gutter and new sidewalks.
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          The Elm Avenue entrance to South Taylor Street behind the new Wake Forest Town Hall and in front of the Wake Forest Police Department is closed to traffic this week while Heaton Construction repairs a waterline. You can reach the ground-floor entrance to town hall and the police department via South Taylor from Wait Avenue or by the short unnamed street between Brooks and Taylor. Also, there is ample parking for town hall in the Brooks Street parking lot in front of the new building.
          The old town hall has been razed and the triple-wide office trailer beside has been moved. Now Heaton crews are preparing a stormwater retention pond and a parking lot where they once stood.
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          On June 23 the N.C. Department of Transportation closed all of Jones Dairy Road – from Averette Road to the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway (the N.C. 98 bypass) to all but local traffic. The busy road with several subdivisions and Jones Dairy Elementary School will remain closed until June 15, 2011, or until Atwell Construction Company from Greenville completes construction on two new bridges.
          The company will first rebuild the bridge over Austin Creek, the creek nearest the intersection with Chalks Road and the entrance to Bowling Green subdivision, and then move north to rebuild the bridge over Smith Creek.
          At the same time as the work at Austin Creek, the town of Wake Forest has contracted with Triangle Paving and Grading to relocate Chalks Road to move its intersection with Jones Dairy Road farther south and meet the Bowling Green entrance. The contract was for $856,057.69, substantially lower than the engineer’s estimate of $1,296,276.05. Wetherill Engineering will provide construction oversight and testing for $95,465.19.
          Traffic on Chalks Road will not be disturbed by the relocation. Residents will be able to use Jones Dairy Road to reach Chalks Road and its residences and the Franklin Academy charter school.