|
(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.)
Maybe we should use bright red for this
tidbit.
The N.C. 98 bypass section between South
Main Street and Capital Boulevard will
open for traffic Saturday, June 10.
There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony
in the east-bound lane near the South
Main (U.S. 1-A) intersection at 9 a.m.
the day before, but that is just a
formality, not the real opening,
The hopes are this section
will reduce traffic in the downtown
area, particularly on South Main, and
reduce travel time for commuters on N.C.
98. “I’m hoping for a 75 percent
reduction, but I will be happy if there
is a 50 percent reduction” in the
traffic through the underpass and down
South Main, Deputy Town Manager Roe
O’Donnell said. The real impact of the
bypass will not be felt until the third
section is complete in 2009 or 2010, he
said.
The contractor, S.T. Wooten
of Wilson, completed the project early.
It was scheduled for completion in
October of this year.
Wooten’s contract for
$21,211,427 was let in late 2003 and
work began early in 2004.
The final section of the
bypass, which will link it back into
N.C. 98 near or at Thompson Mill Road,
will realign Falls of the Neuse Road and
close a section of N.C. 98 (Durham
Road). It is not planned to award the
contract for that construction until
August of 2007, more than a year from
now, and construction will take about
two years.
If you want to keep abreast
of road projects, you can go to the
town’s web site at
http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/
roadandconstructionprojects.aspx.
* * * *
Plans are now to begin the
repaving of South Main Street (U.S. 1-A)
the week of June 25, although weather
could cause a delay.
Andy Berry, an assistant
resident engineer in the Department of
Transportation, said Rea Contracting of
Charlotte will begin by patching and
adjusting utilities. They will then pave
and last work on the shoulders. “The
patching crew is pretty good. It will
not be as good as when it is resurfaced,
but it will be better than what you
have.” Berry said there could be a
week’s pause between the patching and
the repaving.
Berry’s directions say the
work will extend from Capital Boulevard
to Friendship Chapel Road. The repaving
for the N.C. 98 bypass extended almost
that far south, and there is a painted
note to that effect.
Berry did not know about the
town’s plans to widen and pave South
Main from Rogers Road to Forbes Road. At
one point, the town was going to ask DOT
not to pave or improve that short
section because of the town’s plans.
Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell said
earlier this year the plans were almost
complete, they were about to begin
right-of-way acquisition and
construction would be later this year.
Widening that section was a $1 million
part of the $9.5 million bond issue town
voters approved last spring.
Rea’s contract is one of
three for repaving projects all over
Wake County, and Berry said there were
17 maps (projects) ahead of South Main.
About a month ago Michael Kneis, an
engineer in the District 5 DOT office in
Durham, said the project would cost
about $362,000 and take about three
weeks.
* * * *
A subscriber posed this
question: Was it ever considered to turn
the entire two-lane road around the
seminary (Front Street, North Avenue,
North Wingate Street, South Avenue) into
a one-way road going all the way around
the seminary? This would create a giant
rotary, utilizing its wonderful benefits
at each of the five or six major roads
which feed into this group of roads
today?
Well, yes, that has been
considered, but O’Donnell said it had
been put on the back burner by a mutual
decision by the town board and DOT
“until we can see what effect taking the
traffic on the bypass has.”
DOT, in fact, had even
constructed a computer simulation with
smaller roundabouts at different points
– the underpass, Wingate and North – and
in one demonstration showed little bugs
of vehicles running round and round at
various speeds under various conditions.
That simulation, however,
only dealt with vehicles and did not
touch the way students at Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary cross North
Wingate constantly to get to and from
the parking areas and the Ledford
Student Center. “The pedestrians on
Wingate have to be accommodated,”
O’Donnell said.
* * * *
The traffic goes round and round the
center island with its stone wall and
drought-resistant plants, and local
drivers are beginning to say they like
the roundabout where South Main meets
the seminary campus.
It is even smoothing
congestion in the center of Wake Forest.
“The five o’clock traffic jam is not
there,” O’Donnell said last week,
because traffic is being spaced out by
the roundabout. Also, drivers trying to
turn left onto South Avenue (N.C. 98)
from South Main do not have to nose out,
looking for a break in two lines of
traffic.
There are still concerns the
roundabout is too small for large
trucks.
About three weeks of work
remain to be done.
* * * *
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.
* * * *
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. |
