Traffic alert: Gorman Street ramp on to Raleigh's Beltline closing for the weekend

The entrance ramp from Gorman Street onto eastbound Interstate 40 will be closed from about 6 p.m. Thursday, March 15, through the weekend so workers can dig it up and replace it.

The ramp is expected to reopen in time for Monday morning rush hour. In the meantime, drivers wishing to go east on I-40 from Gorman will be directed to either Tryon Road or Centennial Parkway to get to the Lake Wheeler Road interchange..

The ramp is the last one to be replaced as part of Fortify, the state's name for the multiyear effort to rebuild the Beltline across the south side of Raleigh. Contractors had hoped to get the work done before the end of 2017, but poor weather just before Christmas forced them to postpone it.

Next week, if temperatures are warm enough, contractors will resume shifting lanes between U.S. 1 and Gorman Street, putting I-40 into its final alignment. That will include opening a new connector lane on eastbound I-40 from the U.S. 1 on ramp to the Gorman Street exit.

Once the shifts are done, the final layer of asphalt can go down to smooth out the road.

Fortify is the N.C. Department of Transportation's effort to replace 11.5 miles of pavement on the southern Beltline that was crumbling because of a chemical reaction in the road’s concrete foundation. The $183 million project began in late 2013 when crews rebuilt a 3.5-mile section of I-440 from the I-40/I-440 split to just north of the Knightdale Bypass.

The current work on I-40 across the south side of Raleigh started in 2015. NCDOT had expected to have all the ramps rebuilt and all the lanes opened by the end of 2017. It now hopes to finish this spring.

This story was originally published March 15, 2018 at 10:35 AM with the headline "Traffic alert: Gorman Street ramp on to Raleigh's Beltline closing for the weekend."