July 12, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            There is now a drop-dead date for the repair and repaving along South Main Street (U.S. 1-A) and N.C. 98 (Durham Road and Wait Avenue).

            Rea Contracting has told Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell they will begin work on or before Aug. 10. The work, with a projected cost of $362,000, should take about three weeks, which will mean construction delays when traditional-calendar schools reopen.

            The areas on the two roads outlined in dotted white paint are those slated for patching and repair.

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            The second public meeting about the U.S. 1 (Capital Boulevard) Corridor Study has been scheduled for Thursday, July 27, from 3 to 7:30 p.m. at Living Word Family Church on Star Road in Wake Forest. There will be time to study the preferred alternatives, ask questions and provide comments and input.

            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.    

            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 and backage (their word, not mine) 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.

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            The second section of the N.C. 98 bypass between South Main Street and Capital Boulevard opened Saturday, June 10, and the jury is still out whether it is reducing traffic through the heart of town and down South Main Street. O’Donnell is hoping for a 50 percent reduction.

            Final work on the bypass section will continue through mid-July. The contractor, S.T. Wooten of Wilson, completed the major part of the project about four months ahead of schedule. The 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 also realign Falls of the Neuse Road to meet Thompson Mill 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.

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            Rea will repair and repave the section of South Main between Rogers and Forbes roads, O’Donnell said recently. The town had originally asked that the contractor leave that section untouched because the town has plans to widen that short section to five lanes. It was listed at $1 million in the $9.5-million bond issue for streets approved a year ago.

            The project has been pushed back a bit. O’Donnell said they would be letting the bids in October or November, and the widening will not take place until next spring.

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            At the same time, O’Donnell said, they will also let contracts for two or perhaps three roundabouts on Franklin Street, all part of the Renaissance Plan.

            The two with firm plans are at East Holding Avenue and East Elm Avenue, and the third would be for a not-yet-built extension of East Owen Avenue that now stops between the Wake Forest Police Station and Town Hall.

            O’Donnell said the decision to build the third roundabout would depend on how well the money holds out. Last spring town voters approved a bond issue that included $2.4 million to build the two roundabouts and a treed median on Franklin between Holding and Elm.

            The Owen Avenue roundabout would be slightly skewed to include East Jones Avenue on the other side of Franklin. Eventually, O’Donnell said, there will be a fourth roundabout on Franklin at Wait Avenue (N.C. 98).

            O’Donnell said the town’s consultants, Kimley-Horn, are still working on the geometry and other engineering aspects. There will be a public meeting about the plan, mostly about the aethetics, once it is about 90 percent complete.

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            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.

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            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.

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            The traffic signal on Rogers Road at the entrance to Heritage Elementary and Heritage Middle School is still slated to be installed. 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.