Capital Boulevard now a ‘feasibility study’
Tuesday evening, February 6, Stephen Meyer with the town’s engineering department, reviewed the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s projects in Wake Forest and their dates.
B-5318 is the bridge on Ligon Mill Road over Smith Creek where work began in 2023 and will be complete in 2026. The public meeting in town about the project was held in March of 2017 at the same time as the following project.
P-5707 is the bridge on Rogers Road over the CSX railroad track which keeps Rogers Road from South Main Street to the tracks as a two-lane road. Two other bridge-over-tracks projects had their public meetings at the same time, March of 2017, Durant Road and New Hope Church Road, and none of the three has been begun.
In 2023 P-5707 was delayed again because of a problem with relocating some Raleigh Water pipes, and Meyer said some land acquisition will be required before a start in late summer of 2025 with completion perhaps in 2028.
The elephant in the room of course is Capital Boulevard, U-5307-CB, which is the overall four sections from I-540 to the Franklin County line. Instead of the land acquisition NCDOT had said it would do this year, Meyer has learned and said there will be a feasibility study in 2024 about the possibility as the road being built as a toll road. There will be an update about the timing for the first section or the entire project in perhaps the middle of 2025.
As WRAL-TV put it, “Both Franklinton and Wake Forest commissioners have approved resolutions to support a study into how a toll road might affect US 1. Town leaders worry the bumper-to-bumper traffic will negatively impact the quality of life and the strength of the economies of the communities along the corridor as the area continues to see population growth.”
If you put in the project number and ask NCDOT, it says there is funding for the first section — $747.7 million — from I-540 to Durant Road, and has said land acquisition is due to be done in 2024 and construction to begin in 2025.
Currently DOT estimates 32,000 to 65,000 vehicles use Capital Boulevard daily and 44,000 to 75,000 will use that highway in 2040.
U-6023 is the project number for the town-wide upgrade of its traffic signal system which may have begun in 2023 and is scheduled to be complete in 2025. All the signals will be “smart” and be controlled from an office outside town. You can see how it functions if you go down Falls of Neuse Road into downtown Raleigh; traffic flows easily with few stops.
There are also two projects connected to the S-Line railroad project. One, P-553BA, will make some changes at Seawell Road off Ligon Mill Road where closing that crossing will mean having to find another way across the railroad. The other is changes at the Friendship Chapel Road crossing.
P-5753BD will address the “separation” at East Holding Avenue where a bridge is planned; “improvements” at the Elm Avenue crossing and providing a pedestrian crossing at the Brick Street crossing.
In other business: The commissioners heard an informative description of the recent property revaluation and how it was accomplished by Nicole Kreiser, the deputy tax administrator with Wake County.
Brad West, the long-range planning director, asked the board to use two grants — if they receive both — to match a federal grant for a mobility hub design and other development activities associated with the S-Line project. The board agreed.
After a closed session, the board approved actions with the widening of South Franklin Street from Holding Village south to Rogers Road. Both were acquisitions of permanent storm drainage easements and temporary construction easements.
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4 Responses
You must be joking. A toll to pay for what was to be an upgrade for Capital Blvd ? We don’t need an expressway. We need an additional lane on both sides and better coordination of traffic signals at the intersections. There is a grass median that sure looks to me to be enough space to widen Capital Blvd. from 540 to 98. What real estate investors and political leaders are behind this birdbrain scheme. I can’t fathom why our Wake Forest Town leaders would even agree to study a toll road. Why wasn’t this put to a vote by the town residents. A simple special election for this one item would have sufficed. What political winds are driving this ?
One of the top complains of Wake Forest citizens is the lacking infrastructure leading to bumper to bumper traffic. A significant road that needs improvements and expansion is Capital Blvd, just like you mention. Everyone agrees on this. The plans have been in the works for years now – but NCDOT continues to withhold funding, delaying and pushing back timelines, leaving earliest possible start of construction into the mid 2030s. Everyone knows that the population is increasing rapidly and something has to be done sooner than later. The town governments have their hands tied when state gov refuses to act. Thus, the various town commissioners are grasping at whatever options could help alleviate the traffic issues.
A study is necessary to get the facts at what the effects, timeline, feasability, costs, and expectations could be IF the toll road was implemented. That’s all this is – gathering information so that the commissioners and citizens could be informed to make the best decision (hopefully by a vote if it comes to that). I hate tolls, but I also hate traffic – and I can’t imagine the traffic that awaits us when the population is nearly double then (on the same roads of today).
If anyone doesn’t want to simply study the toll road as an option, then fine, just don’t complain about traffic to the Town leadership for the next 15 years.
If they put a toll road on Capital, it will just back up the traffic even more on 401/Ligon Mill.
I have died and moved to New Jersey! Why in the world do we need US1 to be a toll road? We all pay taxes, a lot of taxes! We built a “loop” around Greenville and it isn’t a toll road. We built a bypads around Wilmington and it isn’t a toll road. We built a wonderful 4 lane road out to the OBX and it isn’t a toll road, we built a bypass around Greensboro and it isn’t a toll road, and I could go on and on. Why do we get a raw deal? Because we live in a wealthy county, that is why! Look up the socialist math the NCDOT uses to redistribute your tax money to poorer counties. Welcome to NC!