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(Road
roundup is a standing feature of the
Gazette, designed to keep people
informed about the progress of the
various street and road projects in
town. New projects or updated projects
will appear at the top of each week’s
column in
blue.)
The second public meeting
about the U.S. 1 (Capital Boulevard)
Corridor Study is scheduled for Tuesday,
June 27, at Triangle Town Center. The
meetings are generally held from 4 to 7
p.m., but a time and an exact place
within the shopping center will be
announced later.
Meanwhile, the study’s
website has been updated to include
recent presentations as well as detailed
displays about possible frontage road
alternatives along the corridor from
I-540 to inside Franklin County. Find it
at
http://www.ncdot.org/~us1study.
After looking at it, you can submit
comments.
The steering committee for
the study includes representatives from
the Town of Wake Forest, the Town of
Youngsville, the City of Raleigh,
Franklin and Wake counties as well as
the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning
Organization (CAMPO), Triangle
Transportation Authority and the state
Department of Transportation.
The alternatives include 1)
doing nothing except what is already
planned, leaving the major intersections
with traffic signals; 2) or adding
interchanges at major intersections such
as Durant/Perry Creek and U.S. 1-A
(South Main Street) and New Falls of the
Neuse Road with flyovers at some minor
intersections and frontage roads for
access. The highway could be widened to
eight lanes from I-540 to N.C. 98
(Durham Road) with six lanes from there
to U.S. 1-A outside Youngsville. Some
alternatives include bicycle and
high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes and
reversible lanes for heavy traffic
times.
* * * *
Rea Contracting based in Charlotte has
the contract with the state Department
of Transportation to resurface South
Main Street (U.S. 1-A) and add marking.
The contract is one of three
DOT has let for work all over Wake
County. Michael Kneis, the division
project manager for DOT Division 5, said
DOT gets better pricing from contractors
for putting several projects into one
contract package.
It is not clear when the
Wake Forest project will be done this
summer. Kneis said the contract calls
for Rae to begin work any time between
April 15 and July 1 with 150 days to
finish all the projects. “He may do Wake
Forest first or he may do Wake Forest
last.”
Kneis said the project is
slated to cost $362,000 with inspection
and take about three weeks. Rea has had
a pre-construction meeting with the
construction manager for Division 5.
* * * *
S.T. Wooten, the contractor for the
middle section of the N.C. 98 bypass,
has closed the old entrances to Retail
Drive and Galaxy Drive from Capital
Boulevard and is working on the approach
ramps for the bypass.
Wooten has a target date of June 8 to
open the bypass to traffic with a target
completion date of July 7.
Wooten’s contract for
$21,211,427 was let in late 2003 and
work began early in 2004.
If you want to keep abreast
of road projects, you can go to the
town’s web site at
http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/road
andconstructionprojects.aspx.
* * * *
S.T. Wooten is also the
contractor and Lanier is the
subcontractor for the roundabout at
South Main (U.S. 1-A) and South Avenue
(N.C. 98). This week crews will fill in
those holes where traffic lanes divide
as they enter and leave the roundabout.
The projected completion date is June 8.
Deputy Town Manager Roe
O’Donnell said all the paving and other
construction should be done by the end
of next week, leaving only the
landscaping and some hardscaping
(concrete forms) around and in the
center of the roundabout.
* * * *
O’Donnell says the plans for the
roundabouts and median on Franklin
Street are about 70 percent complete.
Once they are 90 percent complete and
have a nod of approval from the state
Department of Transportation, he and his
staff will hold a public meeting, asking
for comments.
A third roundabout is in the
plans in addition to the ones at Elm and
Holding avenues. This would be at the
intersection of East Owen Avenue, which
currently ends between the police
station and town hall annex. O’Donnell
says the town plans to extend the street
and use some form of a bridge or culvert
to take it over two small streams.
* * * *
Work on the bridge on
Stadium Drive appears to be on schedule,
judging by the removal of the old
bridge, the piles of dirt on either side
of Richland Creek and the amount of
equipment Balfour Beatty Construction
has on site.
The new bridge – 40 feet
wide – should be complete by the end of
August. It will be wide enough for the
planned three traffic lanes to be
constructed at some future date.
Balfour Beatty’s contract
with the state Department of
Transportation is for $1.1 million.
* * * *
Wake Forest, with the help
of federal funds funneled through the
state, is building two sidewalks around
the seminary campus. The sidewalks, each
5 feet wide, will be 480 feet on the
east side of Front Street from the
Roosevelt Avenue underpass to the
intersection of Front and North Avenue,
and 1,200 feet on the south side of
Stadium Drive from North Wingate Street
to past Judson Drive.
Some trees were in the path
of the sidewalks. Town crews removed one
large oak at Front and North. They were
to remove some trees on the seminary
property, but a Raleigh landscape firm,
Realiscape, asked Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary for the seven small
maples and 13 crape myrtles to
transplant them. “It will give us a
chance to plant canopy trees,” planner
Lisa Potts said. She plans 21 shade
trees along the Durham Road sidewalk, a
mix of oaks, maples and elms. “When
you’re walking to class, you want some
shade.
The town has a $99,800 grant
through the North Carolina Department of
Transportation Enhancement Program. It
was given on a cost-reimbursement basis.
The town has to pay the full cost for
engineering, design and construction and
then can be reimbursed for up to 80
percent of the cost. The town’s share
will be $19,960. The state is then
reimbursed by the federal government.
The construction is being
done by Narron Construction Inc., who
submitted a bid of $87,900.
* * * *
Work has begun on the next section of
the Smith Creek Greenway, this one 1,500
feet from the Smith Creek Soccer Center
to Rogers Road. A 60-foot bridge will
link the new section with the existing
greenway section in the soccer center.
The Smith Creek Greenway,
which will eventually be a 7-mile
corridor from the Franklin County line
to the Neuse River, is the town’s
number-one greenway priority. Along with
the sections described above, there is
an existing paved section that runs
three-fourths of a mile from Burlington
Mills Road to the river. The town has
acquired much of the right-of-way for
other sections through negotiations with
subdivision developers.
* * * *
When the N.C. 98
bypass is complete from Jones
Dairy Road to Thompson Mill Road, there
will be nine traffic signals on the
4.8-mile limited-access road.
There will be the set at
Jones Dairy Road and business N.C. 98
(Wait Avenue); a set where Heritage Lake
Road intersects but does not cross the
bypass (and you can already see the
clearing for the road); a set at
Franklin Street but not, perhaps, until
that street is extended into Heritage;
the current signals at South Main
Street; a set at Ligon Mill Road when it
is extended; a set at Capital Boulevard;
and signals in Wakefield, at the
realigned Falls of the Neuse Road, and
at Thompson Mill.
Planning Director Chip
Russell said there is still a question
whether Siena Drive – which has sections
north and south of the bypass already –
will be connected. That could be the
tenth intersection with traffic signals.
* * * *
The traffic signal on
Rogers Road at the entrance to
Heritage Elementary and Heritage Middle
School is still slated to be installed
this spring. Mayor Vivian Jones and
other town commissioners vigorously
lobbied for the signal, and state Sen.
Neal Hunt was instrumental in getting it
approved by DOT. |
