Long-waited Capital Boulevard freeway delayed again, but NCDOT plans to start one leg
News&Observer, June 14, 2023
Nearly five years ago, the N.C. Department of Transportation unveiled plans to turn Capital Boulevard into a six-lane freeway from Interstate 540 north through Wake Forest. Construction was expected to begin in 2021.
Since then, land and construction costs have soared, forcing NCDOT to delay the freeway and numerous other projects across the state. Under the department’s latest 10-year plan, approved last week, construction on one leg of the U.S. 1 freeway is now scheduled to begin in 2025, with the rest starting in 2029 or later.
NCDOT engineers will present their latest plans for the freeway at a public open house and hearing on June 21 at Living Word Family Church in Wake Forest. The open house will run from 4 to 6:30 p.m., followed by the hearing from 7 to 8 p.m.
Converting Capital Boulevard to a freeway between Raleigh and Wake Forest would eliminate traffic lights and driveways and speed travel in northern Wake County, particularly for commuters. The road is busy with stop-and-go traffic most any time of day but especially mornings and evenings, says Brandon Jones, NCDOT’s top engineer for the division that includes Wake County.
“It’s a very, very important corridor for our overall transportation network in this region,” Jones told a gathering of business and civic leaders last month. “We’ve got to protect that backbone. So converting this to a freeway is still a top priority for us, but funding can’t make it happen right now.”
The 10-mile freeway would be six lanes wide, with 12-foot shoulders and a concrete median and a speed limit of 65 mph. Instead of intersections, there would be four new interchanges at Durant/Perry Creek roads, Burlington Mills Road, Falls of Neuse Road/Main Street and Purnell/Harris roads. Streets that now intersect with U.S. 1, including Thornton Road, Sharon Farms Avenue, Jacqueline Lane and Caveness Farms Avenue, would lose that direct connection.
The plans also call for new access roads to reach homes and businesses that now have driveways on Capital.
NCDOT has divided the project into four parts. In 2018, it estimated building all four would cost about $465 million.
Now, with rising costs for land, materials and labor, NCDOT expects to spend more than $750 million to build all 10 miles of freeway.
NCDOT has money to begin building the first leg, between I-540 and Durant and Perry Creek roads, starting in 2025. It would eliminate the intersection with Gresham Lake Road and turn the Durant and Perry Creek road intersection into an interchange. The department expects construction to take about 4 years.
NCDOT set a tentative date for breaking ground on the second and third legs in 2029 but won’t know for sure until priorities are reassessed in the years ahead. Those legs would extend the freeway north as far as N.C. 98 Business.
Meanwhile, the department doesn’t have money to start building the final leg, north to Purnell/Harris roads, any time in the next decade.
Completing the planned freeway is important to the Triangle’s business community, says Joe Milazzo, executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance, a program of the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. The RTA’s steering committee decided last month that its top highway priority is helping NCDOT find money to upgrade Capital Boulevard, the primary way in and out of Wake County from the north.
“We’ve got to have that freeway,” Milazzo said in an interview. “And it needs to be as soon as possible for the people who are living here and the people who are coming.’