Town Engineer Eric Keravuori gave the mayor and commissioners good news Tuesday evening: the traffic signals at the Jones Dairy and Chalk Road intersection are ready to operate. He said he went to the intersection on his way to the meeting. “They were painting the striping, the signals are up. They will possibly be up and running tomorrow.”
The somewhat bad news is that completion of two other traffic signal projects is stalled for the moment. John Sandor, the deputy division traffic engineer for Division 5 of the state Department of Transportation, sent Keravuori an email update on July 29, saying the project at Marshall Farms and Rogers Road is held up by a detail about the right to use some land and the traffic signals at the N.C. 98 bypass (the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway) and Franklin Street will have to be redesigned.
At Marshall Farms and Rogers, one of the Heritage homeowners associations earlier agreed to provide some of the cost and the land, but, Sandor wrote. “They apparently can’t donate the land [for the signal pole] without a vote. I’m not sure how that will shake out, but our r/w [right-of-way] group thinks the process can be completed in 30 days. Once the vote is complete, we can get an immediate right of entry to begin construction.”
DOT engineers had hoped to be able to design the bypass/Franklin Street intersection as it is planned in the future – a superstreet with no left turns at the intersection. But the topography defeated them.
“I just got some preliminary plans back on NC 98/Franklin, and we aren’t going to be able to design this around the future “superstreet” usage,” Sandor wrote. “We will have to proceed with a standard “box” intersection [right and left turns allowed for all three streams of traffic] for this location due to the severe slopes on the south side of NC 98. I hope to let that to contract late summer/early fall.”
Keravuori said after all the details are worked out and the plans complete, the actual construction is fast. “They actually go up pretty quick.”
