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North Carolina

Started by FLRoads, January 20, 2009, 11:55:15 PM

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mvak36

Quote from: michealbond on August 09, 2017, 08:25:12 AM

Quote
While we're at it, let's just extend I-87 southwest down to Rockingham and make US64 an interstate so that it bypasses Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

Hi all, new poster here. I moseyed on over from the city-data forums.

I know NC has been wanting an alternate highway from Raleigh to Charlotte. I would like the state to try to get I-87 to be this alternate highway.  They can run it through the US64-NC49 corridor or the US1-US501-NC27 corridor. Or they could even have it run US 64 to Asheboro, down I-74, then follow the NC 27 corridor in to 485. They could tell the feds that 87 could not only be a direct connection from Raleigh to Norfolk, but a more direct route between Charlotte and Norfolk.

I think it could become an easier, faster route between Charlotte & Raleigh.

I kind of said that tongue in cheek, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up happening. I wouldn't put it past them.

I do wish they'd finish some of the other future interstates they have planned like 26, 42, 285, and 785 before they start building these new ones.
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LM117

#1551
Quote from: michealbond on August 09, 2017, 08:25:12 AMHi all, new poster here. I moseyed on over from the city-data forums.

I thought I recognized your name from the Greenville thread on C-D. Welcome to AARoads! :wave:
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

michealbond

Quote

I kind of said that tongue in cheek, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up happening. I wouldn't put it past them.

I do wish they'd finish some of the other future interstates they have planned like 26, 42, 285, and 785 before they start building these new ones.

Yea i understand you weren't serious. But NC really has been studying an alternate route for years. (https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us64phase1/)I'm not sure if you live in NC or near it. The 40/85 corridor can get very congested. With NC getting all these new interstates, they may have some success with the feds trying to keep them going to other parts of the state. They could try to do the same with I-42 and market it as an easier way to get people from Charlotte to the Crystal Coast. 3 interstates connecting Charlotte to Raleigh would be cool, even if it would be overkill. But if the government is just handing out interstates left & right, it'd be a good idea to at least try to get as much as you can from it. This state is only going to get bigger in population, trying to make it easier to travel throughout it would be ideal.


LM117, I hadn't come over here before but I saw a few posts on CD about this forum so I came to check it out.

mvak36

Quote from: michealbond on August 09, 2017, 02:03:07 PM
Quote

I kind of said that tongue in cheek, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they do end up happening. I wouldn't put it past them.

I do wish they'd finish some of the other future interstates they have planned like 26, 42, 285, and 785 before they start building these new ones.

Yea i understand you weren't serious. But NC really has been studying an alternate route for years. (https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us64phase1/)I'm not sure if you live in NC or near it. The 40/85 corridor can get very congested. With NC getting all these new interstates, they may have some success with the feds trying to keep them going to other parts of the state. They could try to do the same with I-42 and market it as an easier way to get people from Charlotte to the Crystal Coast. 3 interstates connecting Charlotte to Raleigh would be cool, even if it would be overkill. But if the government is just handing out interstates left & right, it'd be a good idea to at least try to get as much as you can from it. This state is only going to get bigger in population, trying to make it easier to travel throughout it would be ideal.


LM117, I hadn't come over here before but I saw a few posts on CD about this forum so I came to check it out.
I forgot to say earlier. Welcome to the forum.
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LM117

In addition to Meredith College, the NC State University Club isn't happy about the I-440 project, either.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/traffic/article166199207.html

QuoteMembers of the N.C. State University Club told N.C. Department of Transportation officials Tuesday night that plans to widen the Beltline in West Raleigh threaten the existence of their institution, which was founded as a club for faculty in the early 1960s.

Proposals to reconfigure the Interstate 440 interchanges at Wade Avenue and Hillsborough Street would take 19 acres from the club, including all of its tennis courts, most of its parking lot, part of its par-3 golf course and a new tennis shop and snack bar next to the pool.

"The pool will be less than a Frisbee throw from the traffic,"  said Jim Crisp, a history professor. Crisp said the loss of those facilities would be "crippling if not fatal."

Crisp was one of more than two dozen club members who spoke Tuesday night at a hearing on the project, which has also drawn concern from people at Meredith College and some West Raleigh residents. They talked about the countless kids who have learned to swim at the club, its use for wedding receptions and other events and the community that has grown up around it over the years.

No one who spoke disputed the need to widen I-440 from four to six lanes between Wade Avenue in Raleigh and Walnut Street in Cary. This 4-mile stretch dates back to 1960, when there was far less traffic and highway design standards tolerated shorter entrance and exit ramps and the crisscrossing of entering and exiting traffic.

As many as 94,000 vehicles a day now squeeze through this narrow section, often having to slow down suddenly, particularly around the Western Boulevard interchange. The result is an accident rate that is three times the statewide average for urban interstates, says Joey Hopkins, the division engineer in charge of the project.

Hopkins said before the hearing that he thinks DOT engineers can rework the plans to reduce, though not eliminate, the impacts on the University Club and other property owners along the Beltline, including Meredith College.

"What we try to do at this stage is show what's the worst impacts that can be,"  he said.

The two-hour hearing drew more than 300 people to the McKimmon Center at N.C. State University. Earlier in the afternoon, DOT invited people to study the plans and ask questions in an adjoining room, and hundreds filtered through, looking at maps hung on walls and spread over tables to see how the project would affect their home or neighborhood.

"That would come right in the front door there,"  said Faye Childers, pointing to where the DOT's right-of-way would cross a rental house she and her husband own on the corner of Jones Franklin Road and Barringer Drive. Childers, 82, said that her mother and father built the house in 1957, and that she and her husband, Joe, built the one where they live next door on Barringer in 1977.

Joe Childers, 83, joked about whether he should plant grass or leave it for DOT to worry about. "You can't do anything about it,"  he said of the prospect of losing property for the project.

But others were less sanguine. After he found his home on one of the maps, Phil King learned that there were no plans to build a noise wall between it and the expanded highway. A DOT representative told him that because his house at the end of Ravenwood Drive was one of only two along that stretch of road, it wasn't considered cost-effective to build a wall.

"If you're not going to build a wall, then you're going to buy the house,"  said King, 68. "Because we've got noise like crazy now."

The questions and worries differed from map to map. How many houses will be lost on Aukland Street? How long will the Melbourne Road and Athens Drive bridges over the Beltline have to be closed? Does that exit ramp from the Beltline to Hillsborough have to take up so much land?

Not everyone was unhappy with what they saw. Deborah Williams was pleased to see that none of the plans would encroach on Oak Grove Cemetery, which was established by freed slaves in the Method community and is where her grandparents and great-grandparents are buried.

"That's been up there since the Civil War days,"  said Williams, 62.

The most complicated parts of the project are the new interchanges at Wade Avenue and Hillsborough Street. DOT presented three options Tuesday, all of which would take 19 acres from the University Club and at least 13.5 acres from Meredith College across the highway.

Meredith president Jo Allen said not only would DOT take land the college plans to use for expansion, but it would put highway bridges, berms and light poles all along the western edge of the campus.

"This project will ... forever change the character of our campus,"  Allen said.

But it was the University Club members whose voices were heard most often Tuesday, imploring DOT officials to come up with alternatives that take up less space. Beth Weaver, 62, told Hopkins that she'd been a club member since she was 10 and had her wedding reception and raised her kids there.

"We know you're trying to do your job,"  Weaver said. "For us it's personal. And it's emotional."

It's not clear whether or how the state would compensate the club, which is now open to alumni as well as faculty and staff. The state already owns the land on which the club sits; the property is leased by the university's foundation, which in turn leases it to the club.

DOT will accept written comments on the Beltline project until Aug. 22 at publicinput.com/1851/. Information about the project, including maps showing various configurations for the road and interchanges, can be found at www.ncdot.gov/projects/i-440improvements/.

DOT doesn't expect to award a contract for the final designs and construction until next summer. Even then, Hopkins said, motorists may not notice the work getting under way until early 2019.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

orulz

#1555
Both Meredith and the University Club have ample reason to be upset.

Now, I'm OK with some property takings on either or both sides of the highway. A house here or a business there is frankly the cost of progress - you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and all that. But the proposed corridor between Meredith and the University Club is over 800' wide. This is an enormous land grab that they're proposing here, and it really, really hurts. Just because there is nothing currently built on much of that land, doesn't mean it's OK to squander it on gratuitous grassy highway right-of-way. Open land in central Raleigh is a precious resource, and the institutions of Meredith and the University Club are really important parts of what make Raleigh a great place to live.

So let's take a step back. Why is the corridor so wide? If you look at it, it's mostly the braided ramps. After some discussion, an engineer at the meeting told me that in all the proposed designs, the braided ramps cross each other with as sharp of an angle as is possible with conventional skewed bridges, and those angles combined with the minimum curve radius drive the width. But this is a problem that urban highway designers figured out how to solve ages ago. The solution is called a "straddle bent." Although commonplace elsewhere, I'm not aware of a single highway viaduct with straddle bents in the entire state of NC. (There may be a few, but if so, they're not common, and there certainly aren't any in the Triangle.) It's as if NCDOT is stuck in a rural mindset - the equity formula had them only building rural freeways for so long, while neglecting the urban areas, that they haven't really learned how to build true urban freeways. FWIW, The only straddle bents I have seen in NC belong to the Blue Line light rail in Charlotte, where it crosses over the Norfolk Southern freight line, near Tyvola in the south and near Sugar Creek in the northeast. And the NCDOT highway department had nothing to do with that project.

Travel just a short ways north up to Chesapeake, Virginia, and you'll find a perfect example: on I-64 they have a place where they took an 8-lane highway with 2-lane braided ramps on either side and used straddle bent viaducts to stuff it all into a corridor less than 350' wide: https://goo.gl/maps/P9dUe87LT5k

NCDOT had some frankly unconvincing words about how "it's in the contractor's best interest to minimize the footprint." But I doubt a contractor - particularly a contractor based in NC who is used to dealing with NCDOT - would volunteer such a solution without at least some poking and prodding. I think DOT needs to go back to the drawing board and think outside the box of what has been built before in NC, and have another go at minimizing the footprint. Maybe call up their counterparts at VDOT.

BrianP

I'd also question how necessary the Hillsborough interchange is in this case.  You could remove the interchange to simplify the Wade Ave interchange.  Then you would rely on the Western Blvd, Wade Ave, and Blue Ridge Rd at Wade for local traffic to use instead.  The Blue Ridge interchange could be improved to a SPUI or go further and make it a diverging diamond.  Which that doesn't have to happen immediately.

Beltway

#1557
Quote from: orulz on August 09, 2017, 09:38:24 PM
It's as if NCDOT is stuck in a rural mindset - the equity formula had them only building rural freeways for so long, while neglecting the urban areas, that they haven't really learned how to build true urban freeways.

NCDOT has built lots of fine highways, but like you say very few true urban freeways.  A couple miles of I-277 in Charlotte, maybe a mile of NC-147 in Durham.  Anywhere else? 

Quote from: orulz on August 09, 2017, 09:38:24 PM
I think DOT needs to go back to the drawing board and think outside the box of what has been built before in NC, and have another go at minimizing the footprint. Maybe call up their counterparts at VDOT.

One of the things that has always interested me about VDOT and other highway agencies there (RMA and CBBTD), outside the box engineering solutions.

Just a few --
-- The bridge-tunnel concept, built three of them including the first in the world (HRBT).  Also CBBT and MMMBT.
-- VA-195 connection to I-95, double decked elevated freeway built to connect directly to pre-existing I-95 James River bridge.
-- I-95 Shirley Highway reconstruction 1965-1975, one the first such projects to rebuild and expand an older urban freeway, and the first exclusive busway on a freeway.
-- I-95 and I-395 reversible roadway for HOV, extended twice.
-- I-66 built with Metrorail line in median.
-- I-195 Beltline Expressway built around pre-existing depressed mainline railroad.  The conceptual design itself as well as the construction engineering required to construct it.  Designed by RMA and built by VDOT.
-- I-77 thru Fancy Gap, 18 million cubic yards of excavation thru mountainous terrain crossing the Blue Ridge.
-- I-295 Varina-Enon Bridge, one of the earliest cable stayed bridges in the U.S.
-- I-495 HOT lanes project.  The conceptual design itself as well as the construction engineering required to construct it.
-- I-95/I-395/I-495 Springfield Interchange which includes an HOV only interchange between the two freeways.
-- I-95/I-495 Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project (shared with MDOT SHA).

And at least 10 others that  I could add if I wanted to type them out.

Two of those projects won the OCEA award, those being the CBBT and the WWB.
(American Society of Civil Engineers annually recognizes an exemplary civil engineering project as the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement)
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orulz

#1558

Quote from: Beltway on August 10, 2017, 03:43:17 PM

NCDOT has built lots of fine highways, but like you say very few true urban freeways.  A couple miles of I-277 in Charlotte, maybe a mile of NC-147 in Durham.  Anywhere else? 

A short stretch of I-240 in downtown Asheville built in the 1960s and upgraded a bit around 1980, and the rather ancient Green 40 in Winston-Salem (which is supposed to get rebuilt soon, I think.) come to mind.

None of the old ones were built recently enough for there to be much in the way of institutional memory left at all. The rural-focused equity formula held sway for about 25 or 30 years.

NJRoadfan

I thought the initial alternatives for I-440 were a bit..... extravagant for the interchanges that were there. I guess NCDOT engineers just assume that because the land next to the highway is open, that they can build on it. I bet folks in the northeastern states wish they had half the open land that's alongside I-440 there to work with on projects around here.

orulz

Quote from: BrianP on August 10, 2017, 11:40:51 AM
I'd also question how necessary the Hillsborough interchange is in this case.  You could remove the interchange to simplify the Wade Ave interchange.  Then you would rely on the Western Blvd, Wade Ave, and Blue Ridge Rd at Wade for local traffic to use instead.  The Blue Ridge interchange could be improved to a SPUI or go further and make it a diverging diamond.  Which that doesn't have to happen immediately.
Eliminating the Hillsborough interchange wouldn't come close to working with the way that the Hillsborough/Blue Ridge/Beryl intersection is right now with the railroad grade crossing. The signal timing and cycles are super conservative to make it nearly impossible for a driver to become entrapped when a train is coming and the gates are lowering. Maybe if they build the railroad grade separation that would help. Word at the meeting was that NCDOT is considering doing just that, combining the beltline project with u-4437, the RR grade separation on Blue Ridge, into a single contract.

bob7374

#1561
NCDOT accelerating US 17 Hampstead Bypass project by 5 years:
https://apps.ncdot.gov/newsreleases/details.aspx?r=14224

wdcrft63

Quote from: NJRoadfan on August 10, 2017, 05:34:38 PM
I thought the initial alternatives for I-440 were a bit..... extravagant for the interchanges that were there. I guess NCDOT engineers just assume that because the land next to the highway is open, that they can build on it. I bet folks in the northeastern states wish they had half the open land that's alongside I-440 there to work with on projects around here.
NCDOT is in a lot of trouble with both NCSU and Meredith, which means a lot of important people in Raleigh. Expect some significant changes to the plans.

LM117

Quote from: BrianP on August 10, 2017, 11:40:51 AM
I'd also question how necessary the Hillsborough interchange is in this case.  You could remove the interchange to simplify the Wade Ave interchange.  Then you would rely on the Western Blvd, Wade Ave, and Blue Ridge Rd at Wade for local traffic to use instead.  The Blue Ridge interchange could be improved to a SPUI or go further and make it a diverging diamond.  Which that doesn't have to happen immediately.

Meredith would probably be even less happy with losing the Hillsborough interchange. They want to have their cake and eat it too. I'd be surprised if NCDOT can come up with anything that would satisfy NCSU and Meredith short of saying "to hell with it" and leaving I-440 as it is. There's very little room to work with on I-440 and leaving I-440 as it is isn't acceptable. Something's gotta give.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

LM117

#1564
Good news for people who can't read stop signs in Holly Springs. :pan:

https://apps.ncdot.gov/newsreleases/details.aspx?r=14240

QuoteRALEIGH - The N.C. Department of Transportation has approved a traffic light at the new intersection of South Main Street, Ralph Stephens Road and Piney Grove Wilbon Road.

The town and NCDOT are fast-tracking installation, slashing months off the usual time required by starting with wooden poles instead of custom-designed metal ones.

The extension of South Main Street to a realigned Piney Grove Wilbon Road opened in early August, providing a new route through southwestern Holly Springs and alleviating traffic congestion on Avent Ferry Road. However, several crashes have occurred at the new intersection. Police said drivers have failed to stop for stop signs on Ralph Stephens Road despite numerous warning devices.

Town officials received approval of the traffic light Tuesday morning, the day after submitting traffic count and accident data required to meet state criteria for a traffic light. To save time further, the town submitted engineering plans while DOT reviewed the town's request for a traffic light.

Town officials believe timesaving measures could have a traffic light up and running in less than two months instead of the usual six to nine months.

Town Manager Chuck Simmons said he was pleased with DOT's approval of the light and thanked state transportation officials helping to expedite installation.

"Safety is our overriding concern,"  he said.

"We are glad the department and the town could work quickly together to come up with a solution to improve the safety for drivers and their passengers at that intersection,"  said NCDOT Division Engineer Joey Hopkins.

Crashes occurred at the intersection even after the addition of message boards, rumble strips, additional stop signs, and other measures to attract drivers' attention.

During planning and design for Main Street extension, the town asked for a traffic light for the intersection of Main Street, Piney Grove Wilbon Road, and Ralph Stephens Road. But traffic forecasts completed during design did not show that the roadway met federal criteria for a traffic light. Therefore, the town and DOT agreed to a new analysis after opening, using actual traffic counts.

The town built the Main Street extension and intersection in partnership with NCDOT. The roadway will be part of the state's transportation system. That is why DOT has final say over road design and the traffic control plan. DOT provided most of the funding for the roadway through federal grants.
“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

gcjdavid

https://www.google.com.sg/maps/@34.9692651,-79.737839,13.75z\

I'm new to AARoads and I would like to ask a question. Based on the link above, why are there residential roads marked with four-figure state highway designations in Rockingham, NC?

OracleUsr

Those aren't highway designations.  We use SR (State Road) for these, or at least used to.  It might be equivalent to Virginia's secondary route (the circle shield).
Anti-center-tabbing, anti-sequential-numbering, anti-Clearview BGS FAN

WashuOtaku

Quote from: OracleUsr on August 20, 2017, 07:19:23 AM
Those aren't highway designations.  We use SR (State Road) for these, or at least used to.  It might be equivalent to Virginia's secondary route (the circle shield).

SR stands for "Secondary Road" and they are used for identification purposes by NCDOT (administrative function), they reset in each county.  All non-primary roads will have them if they are maintained by NCDOT.

TimQuiQui

Yes, the above explanations are correct. In NC, at many intersections you may notice little black plaques attached to the usual green road name markers. Those black markers indicate the state road number. Always found that a bit amusing - even a diehard road geek like me has no idea what any of the secondary numbers around my house are, so I don't know to whose benefit these extra markers are.

OracleUsr

I only know of two in the whole state.  SR 1360 in Rockingham County, heading into Virginia (my dad and I used to take it off US 220 to get to the Mayo River to do a little canoeing) and SR 1001 in Jackson County, heading away from the WCU campus up the mountain and back down to Franklin (we had family friends building a log cabin just short of the huge switchback on the road).
Anti-center-tabbing, anti-sequential-numbering, anti-Clearview BGS FAN

sparker

Quote from: TimQuiQui on August 20, 2017, 10:15:14 AM
Yes, the above explanations are correct. In NC, at many intersections you may notice little black plaques attached to the usual green road name markers. Those black markers indicate the state road number. Always found that a bit amusing - even a diehard road geek like me has no idea what any of the secondary numbers around my house are, so I don't know to whose benefit these extra markers are.

Since NCDOT maintains these secondary roads as well, they're probably simply road ID markers for (a) reference purposes regarding maintenance records, and (b) indications to maintenance crews for navigation purposes.

wdcrft63

In suburban areas, where the intersections are marked with ordinary green street signs, the SR number is sometimes added in the lower left corner. Here's an example on Herndon Road in southern Durham County:
https://goo.gl/maps/XEWWVsmYEt12
Obviously, these notations are too small to read from among vehicle.

wdcrft63

Quote from: wdcrft63 on August 21, 2017, 06:22:30 PM
In suburban areas, where the intersections are marked with ordinary green street signs, the SR number is sometimes added in the lower left corner. Here's an example on Herndon Road in southern Durham County:
https://goo.gl/maps/XEWWVsmYEt12
Obviously, these notations are too small to read from among vehicle.
Make that a moving vehicle!

NJRoadfan

Sometimes secondary routes do get a bit more publicity, as Ten Ten Rd. (yes its SR-1010) in Wake County shows.

CanesFan27

From Southeast Roads on Facebook - an unknown NC route designation is coming to Miltary Cutoff Road Extension in Wilmington.

Also out now: the signage plans for the Military Cutoff extension in Wilmington: https://xfer.services.ncdot.gov/dsplan/2017%20Highway%20Letting/10-17-17/NEW%20HANOVER%20U-4751%20C203980/Standard%20PDF%20Files/250%20Signing%20Plans.pdf

Of note: the extension itself will have an unknown NC designation (the plans only have a blank NC shield listed), and NC 140 is going to be moved to the stretch of freeway running east from I-40 exit 416 to US 17 once the remainder of I-140 opens between US 421 and US 74/76.

Eventually, and this is likely the reason US 17 was moved back to run through Wilmington along Military Cutoff and Oleander, it will be a straight shot off the Hampstead bypass onto Military Cutoff with no turns needed to follow US 17.



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