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There are several choke points on South
Main Street where traffic backs up, and
Friday the town’s deputy manager said it
is possible to ease the situation.
At the South Main (U.S. 1-A)
intersection with the N.C. 98 bypass,
Roe O’Donnell said, “It looks like the
flow of traffic could be improved with
changing the timing” of the traffic
signals. The timing was set when the
bypass was opened to Capital Boulevard,
and now that the traffic load has been
established, changes could help. Also,
O’Donnell said, there will be some
improvements at the intersection when
Holding Village to the east is built.
At the Rogers Road
intersection, southbound traffic backs
up in the mornings because there are
out-bound commuters and parents dropping
their children off at Wake Forest-Rolesville
Middle School. Southbound traffic
waiting at the signal interferes with
residents turning left into Selsey
Drive.
O’Donnell has talked with
the state Department of Transportation
about that situation also, and the
solution would be to add a southbound
right “drop lane” that would end at the
school entrance and adding another lane
on the left.
The school system would have
to donate the right-of-way on its side,
O’Donnell said, and on the left the town
would have to buy the right-of-way.
“DOT said they would pay for
the lane provided we acquire the
right-of-way.” The 1,000 feet needed –
stretching back to Farm Road – might
have to be acquired, at least in part,
by condemnation, O’Donnell said.
Later, when the board was
discussing the timing of the top three
road projects – Franklin Street,
widening South Main and the North White
sidewalk – Commissioner Stephen
Barrington said he thought the town
needs to work on the bypass and Rogers
Road intersections.
“Let’s get done what we’ve
planned on South Main before we start on
that,” Mayor Vivian Jones said. “Don’t
hold up this project to do that.”
On an unrelated topic,
paving the town’s dirt streets, Jones
asked Commissioner Margaret Stinnett if
she and Commissioner Velma Boyd, the
board’s transportation committee, if
they had met.
“We couldn’t reach a
consensus. We’re deadlocked,” Stinnett
said.
Stinnett, during past board
meetings, has advocated the town pave
the streets while Boyd wanted to follow
the town’s policy of assessing a third
to property owners on each side with the
town paying a third.
Boyd was absent for the
morning session but was driven in by her
husband at noon. She is recovering from
several problems. An operation on her
hand to relieve trigger finger led to a
staph infection and pneumonia. |
