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Update: You can learn about the plans for the widening of South
Main Street (U.S. 1-A) from
Forbes Road to Forestville Road at a public meeting in the Wake Forest Town
Hall on Thursday, Oct. 25, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
The
plan calls for three lanes, two travel lanes and a turn lane.
Update: The left turn lane on Rogers Road at South Main
Street is closed.
Update: North White Street
from Roosevelt Avenue to the Franklin County line is being repaved.
* * * *
A reader asked who she should call
about adjusting the lights at the intersection of the N.C. 98 bypass and Capital
Boulevard. She goes to work about 5 a.m. and finds that the traffic
signals there have not been turning green for an advanced left turn. This has
forced drivers to turn left on red, she said.
Those
signals are maintained by the state Department of Transportation, which also
owns and maintains the bypass.
The
person to call is Steve Johnson, the Division 5 traffic engineer, at 220-4600.
Other
people with traffic signal complaints or problems may also call Johnson.
* * * *
The
contract for the third section of N.C. 98 bypass will be let Dec. 18.
Once the contractor is known it will take six to eight weeks for construction
to begin, making it the first of February before we see crews and equipment.
The estimated cost for this section is $16.9 million, substantially more
than for the first two sections because Falls of the Neuse Road, Thompson Mill
Road and Old N.C. 98 will be realigned to make better intersections, Tad
Hinnant, a DOT engineer in the Youngsville office, said. No houses will be
disturbed by the construction.
The bypass will run from its current
end at Retail Drive just west of Capital Boulevard to near where Thompson Mill
now crosses N.C. 98 (Durham Road).
* * * *
The short extension of
Siena
Drive in the Cimarron subdivision to the south side of the N.C. 98
bypass is not connected to a commercial development proposed on the other side
of the bypass but is instead another development plan, not yet made public,
which involves the town selling the land for the never-developed J.L. Warren
Park.
* * * *
Oak
Grove Church Road
(the extension of East Juniper Avenue that goes to N.C. 96) has been closed by
the state Department of Transportation for bridge repair. The closure extends
from Gillcrest Farm Road to Averette Road. There is no date for the road to
re-open.
* * * *
Heritage
Lake Road
now almost meets the N.C. 98 bypass. Just recently it received its first coat
of asphalt, but that ends maybe 500 feet short of the bypass. Heritage
developer Andy Ammons said there is no date yet to connect the two, “but it
should be this year.” People on the east side of town are anxious for the
connection as it will give them easy access to the interior of Heritage, stores
such as Harris-Teeter and the two Heritage schools.
“It
(the intersection with bypass) will be full movement with turn lanes and
signals,” Ammons said. As discussed during the public hearing for Gateway
Commons Shopping Center, planned for the southwest corner of the bypass/Jones
Dairy Road intersection, Heritage Lake Road will also give access to those
stores and businesses.
That
leads to the second road from Heritage accessing Gateway Commons – Friendship
Chapel Road. “We have completed our responsibilities for Friendship
Chapel,” Ammons said. “The connection to Jones Dairy will be made when the
commercial projects on Jones Dairy do their improvements. They wanted us to
stop 10 feet short.”
* * * *
Wake
Forest Director of Engineering Eric Keravuori said recently his office is still
reviewing the draft traffic study for Star Road, a study that has gained
new complexity because the owners of the quarry on the west side of Capital
Boulevard, Benchmark Carolina Aggregates (formerly Nello Teer), want input.
The
quarry, which plans to double in size in the future, has 350 trucks entering
and leaving each day, Keravuori said.
Along
with all the developments underway, planned or possible along dead-end Star
Road, the town must also take into account the plans to make Capital Boulevard
a limited-access freeway and the Wake Forest transportation plan, which calls
for a new road linking Star Road with Ligon Mill Road. Star Road runs from
South Main Street and ends near where the CSX rail line goes under Capital
Boulevard.
Dan
Caster, who owns A-1 Storage on Star Road, has purchased the former Starlite
Motel and Pawn Shop acting as Wake Forest Gateway Center. He has a sign up
offering to build to suit, and a restaurant is reportedly interested.
Daryl
Cady of Cady Construction has purchased land immediately to the north of Living
Word Family Church from Allen Massey and Jeff Looper and is grading for the five-lot
commercial subdivision.
That
subdivision may become part of the larger LaScala Uptown, a mix of retail space
and offices that Cady is planning.
One
reason the town contracted for the study with Kimley-Horn Associates, the costs
of which will be charged back to developers, is the limited access to the road.
A median in South Main Street restricts movement to only right in, right out.
There are two crossover access points to the road from Capital.
“Everything
can’t just dump out onto Capital Boulevard,” Keravuori said.
Another
aspect of the study is a possible link to Ligon Mill Road. There is such a link
with no firm alignment on the town’s transportation plan. The link would give
fire trucks from Station #2 on Ligon Mill Road much easier access to Star Road,
but the road would have to avoid the historic Hartsfield house and be west of
the CSX rail line.
* * * *
Now
that the Wake Forest commissioners have approved the Alexan at Ligon Mill, a
288-unit apartment complex just north of Wal-Mart and east of The Shoppes at
Caveness Farm, the town is pretty much assured Ligon Mill Road will be
extended from South Main Street to the N.C. 98 bypass within the foreseeable
future.
The
Alexan developers, Trammell Crow Residential, will remove the sewer pump
station in the road’s right-of-way, build two of the four future road lanes and
grade for the remaining two travel lanes and median. Their section of the road
will go from the current end near Wal-Mart to Caveness Farm Avenue.
Also
Parker & Orleans of Cary, the firm building Reynolds Mill subdivision on
Forbes Road, must build the eastern two lanes of the road up to the bypass
before the seventy-fifth building permit is issued.
The
third leg of the assurance is a bit shaky since Weingarten Realty Investors is
reportedly seeking to sell The Shoppes at Caveness Farm shopping center despite
having named Steinmart as one of the tenants.
Building
Ligon Mill north of bypass will depend on the development of that area. The
town’s transportation plan does call for it to extend to N.C. 98 (Durham Road)
in the vicinity of the Wake Forest Business Park and McDonald’s and then go
northward. Some of the future alignment depends on the plans for the Capital
Boulevard (U.S. 1) corridor plan.
* * * *
Did it take this long
to build a pyramid? Earlier in 2007 CAMPO Senior Transportation Planner Kenneth
Withrow said it will take 20 to 30 years and $487 million to make Capital
Boulevard into an eight-lane limited access thoroughfare. The cost
estimate is in 2006 dollars so we can be assured the amount will continue to
rise.
The
preferred alternative has three regular travel lanes and an HOV lane on each
side, a raised median and access roads in front and in back of homes and
businesses along the highway. There would be 10 interchanges where traffic
could get on or off intersecting roads and nine grade-separated crossings. One
of those fly-overs is planned at Stadium Road.
In
the short term, Withrow said, CAMPO (Capital Area Metropolitan Planning
Organization) plans bus service in and around Wake Forest that will go to
Raleigh and the Research Triangle Park.
Also,
Wake Forest Planning Director Chip Russell has said CAMPO will try to place two
of the interchanges on the state’s Transportation Improvement Plan – those at
South Main-New Falls of Neuse and Durant-Perry Creek.
The
next step is for the affected governments to adopt a memorandum of
understanding for the project. The changes would reach from the I-540
interchange to U.S. 1-A north of Youngsville.
You
can see the study area at http://www.ncdot.org/~us1study.
* * * *
The
Town of Wake Forest is talking with DOT about changing the timing of the
traffic signals at the N.C. 98 bypass intersection with
South Main Street to alleviate some of the congestion on the street. Also, there
will be some improvements when construction of Holding Village gets underway.
* * * *
DOT
is supposed to mark a truck route through town at some point, and the residents
along North Main Street are adamant that through truck traffic be
banned from their street.
* * * *
In
the future, there will be at least 12 sets of traffic signals on the 4.8-mile
N.C. 98 bypass.
We
already have those at Jones Dairy Road and business N.C. 98 (Wait Avenue),
those at South Main Street and the four sets at Galaxy Drive, Capital Boulevard
and Retail Drive.
Between Jones Dairy and South Main, there will be signals
where Heritage Lake Road meets the bypass in a full movement intersection, and
it is certain there will be signals at the intersection when South Franklin
Street is extended into Holding Village and 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.
Upcoming
events
The
Wake Forest Farmers’ Market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Oct. 13,
but the vendors will be in two locations because of the Autumn Arts Festival.
You will find about half the vendors at the south end of the South White Street
gazebo parking lot and the rest along East Owen Avenue between South White and
Brooks streets.
* * * *
The
Wake Forest College Birthplace Society will hold its annual meeting and a
groundbreaking for the new museum at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 14, at the Calvin
Jones House on North Main Street.
* * * *
An
open question-and-answer session with the people present asking questions of
the Wake Forest Town Board candidates will be held Monday, Oct. 15, at The
Forks Cafeteria. The event begins at 6 p.m. when people can eat and meet the
candidates. The questions and answers begin at 7 p.m. The event is sponsored by
the Concerned Citizens for the Preservation of Wake Forest Golf Club, but the
group is inviting all area residents, homeowners’ associations and other groups
to attend and ask questions about their concerns.
* * * *
Wake Forest VFW Post 8466 will host a barbeque fundraiser
Saturday, Oct. 20, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the lawn at the Wake Forest
College Birthplace (the Calvin Jones House) on North Main Street. There will be
fun activities for children, music and food. The money raised will purchase an
electric scoreboard for the Wake Forest-Rolesville Middle School football
field.
* * * *
The
Wake Forest Community Business Expo 2007, a popular free event for people in
the area, will be held Thursday, Oct. 25, from 4 to 8 p.m. at The Factory on
South Main Street.
* * * *
A
public meeting for comments about the new South Main Street widening plan will
be held Thursday, Oct. 25, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in town hall.
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