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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.)
Please do not strain your eyes watching
for Rea Contracting to begin patching
and repaving South Main Street
(U.S. 1-A) and N.C. 98 (Durham Road and
Wait Avenue). The
crews will not appear until at least the
last of August, the first of September.
Steve Leonard, the resident
engineer for this part of the state
Department of Transportation’s Division
5, said Rea had “overextended
themselves” and had done a lot more
patching than the resurfacing crews
could cover.
Rea had a number of
contracts to repair and repave area
roads this summer.
The work in Wake Forest,
estimated
to cost $362,000, should take about
three weeks. We will have school traffic
and buses and repair.
The paint is getting faint
on the pavement of the two streets, but
the white dotted lines outline the areas
due to be patched and repaired.
* * * *
The traffic signals on
Rogers Road at the entrance to
Franklin Street and the Heritage
Elementary and Middle schools were on
blink mode over the weekend but are now
fully operational.
* * * *
The web site for the
U.S. 1 (Capital Boulevard) Corridor
study has been updated. You can
find it
http://www.ncdot..org/~us1study.
People at the July 27 public
meeting in Living Word Family Church
learned the project is estimated now at
$400 million.
Also go to
http://www.ncdot.org/doh/preconstruct/
tpb/shc/studies/US1 for information
about all the corridor studies underway
in the state. A lot of local people use
U.S. 70 from Raleigh to Morehead City,
and of course it is a hurricane or
disaster evacuation route. Although the
Clayton bypass ($179 million) is
underway and work on the Goldsboro
bypass ($234 million) is expected to
begin in 2008, none of the other bypass
projects are funded.
* * * *
As the Gazette reported last
week, the estimates now for the
Franklin Street roundabouts, median and
landscaping have risen from the
$2.4 million projected last year and
included in the $9.5-million bond issue
to $4.2 million.
Finance Director Aileen
Staples intends to sell $4.2 million in
those bonds in September along with
either $1 million or $1.5 million to
widen South Main Street to
either four or five lanes from Rogers
Road to Forbes Road. A four-lane width
would save on right-of-way acquisition
costs but would mean a concrete median.
O’Donnell has said the town
may not be able to afford the entire
cost of the Franklin Street project at
one time, and the bids will be
structured to allow the town to
construct one section at a time. The
project is part of the town’s
Renaissance Plan.
The increased cost,
O’Donnell said, were mostly because of
high oil prices.
The engineers and staff at
Kimley-Horne Associates are finishing
plans for the street, incorporating
ideas from the July 31 public meeting.
The next step will be purchasing
right-of-way and then sending out a
request for bids.
The other projects in the
2005 street bond issue were 1)
construction of part of the North Loop
at $3.3 million, 2) widening Stadium
Drive to three lanes from Rock Springs
Road to Capital Boulevard at $2.2
million and 3) building a sidewalk on
North White Street from Juniper Avenue
to Flaherty Park at $600,000.
* * * *
The North Carolina Department of
Transportation plans to put up signs for
a truck route through Wake Forest,
Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell said
last week. The signs will probably be
erected at the east and west approaches
to town on N.C. 98 and on South Main
Street where it nears the bypass.
* * * *
In light of DOT’s slowdown
in construction projects because the
money is not stretching to cover them
all, locally people may wonder about the
status of the third leg of the
N.C. 98 bypass. Mayor Vivian
Jones said recently there is no need to
worry.
The funds for the final
section from Capital Boulevard (U.S. 1)
to Thompson Mill Road come from federal
government for surface transportation.
“The metropolitan planning organizations
have the authority to decide where that
money is spent, and those funds are
assigned to CAMPO,” Jones said. CAMPO
(Capital Area Metropolitan Planning
Organization) has designated those funds
to finish the bypass.”
Jones said she was very
vocal about the designation for the
bypass and keeps an eagle eye on it.
That final section of the
bypass will also include a realignment
of Falls of the Neuse Road to meet
Thompson Mill and closing a section of
N.C. 98 (Durham Road) between Capital
Boulevard and Thompson Mill.
The construction contract is
due to be let in August of 2007.
In the future, there will be
at least nine sets of traffic signals on
the 4.8-mile limited-access road.
We already have those at
Jones Dairy Road and business N.C. 98
(Wait Avenue), those at South Main
Street and the three sets at Capital
Boulevard.
Between Jones Dairy and
South Main, there may be signals where
Heritage Lake Road intersects but does
not cross the bypass, and it is very
likely there will be signals at the
intersection when Franklin Street is
extended into Heritage.
To the west of South Main,
there will certainly be signals when
Ligon Mill Road is built to meet or
cross the bypass.
In the third section, we can
count on at least one set of signals in
Wakefield, another at the realigned
Falls of the Neuse Road, and a third at
Thompson Mill Road.
Depending on the development
of the land and whether the northern and
southern portions of Siena Drive are
connected, there could be another set of
signals.
If you want to keep abreast
of local road projects, you can go to
the town’s web site at
http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/roadand
constructionprojects.aspx.
* * * *
One project – the new bridge on
Stadium Drive – is scheduled to
be completed on or before Aug. 24, the
day before school opens. Balfour Beatty
Construction is building the bridge over
Richland Creek for $1.1 million. When
finished, it will be 40 feet wide, wide
enough for the three traffic lanes
planned for the future.
* * * *
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. |
