Picture U.S. 64 in Cary and Apex as part freeway, part 'superstreet'
To try to improve the flow of traffic on U.S. 64 in Cary and Apex, the N.C. Department of Transportation has come up with three options for overhauling the road and each involves more lanes and fewer traffic lights.
NCDOT plans to remake U.S. 64 from U.S. 1 in Cary west to the CSX railroad bridge in Apex. All three scenarios call for widening the road from four travel lanes to six and eliminating traffic lights at Lake Pine Drive and Laura Duncan Road by turning those intersections into interchanges with bridges.
NCDOT engineers will share their ideas at a public meeting Thursday evening at Summit Church, 3000 Lufkin Road in Apex. There will be no formal presentation, but people can show up anytime between 4 and 7 p.m. to ask questions and provide feedback. The $114 million project is expected to take years to plan, with construction not expected to begin until 2022.
Daily, more than 56,000 cars and trucks use U.S. 64 just west of U.S. 1, and that number is expected to grow to 76,000 a day by 2040, according to NCDOT. In addition, there were nearly 800 crashes along the stretch of road between 2012 and 2016, nearly double the state average for similar highways, DOT says. The majority of those crashes were rear-end collisions in stop-and-go traffic.
Under all three scenarios, U.S. 64 would be turned in to what engineers refer to as a "superstreet" from U.S. 1 west toward Lake Pine Drive. Instead of full intersections, drivers would use a series of traffic lights for left turns and U-turns to get to their destinations, which would ensure that through traffic is more likely to get a green light, said Bob Deaton, the project manager for NCDOT.
"It should keep traffic moving more consistently with fewer traffic signal delays," Deaton said.
The new bridge at Laura Duncan Road will allow students from Apex High School to more safely get across U.S. 64 to the fast food restaurants and convenience stores on the other side. But the options vary, with two including traffic lights at either end of the bridge to stop traffic on Laura Duncan and the third featuring roundabouts that will keep traffic moving but make it harder for pedestrians.
In addition to the bridges at Laura Duncan and Lake Pine Drive, NCDOT also proposes building a bridge at Edinburgh Drive, just west of U.S. 1. Drivers coming off U.S. 1 onto westbound U.S. 64 would no longer be able to turn right onto Edinburgh. Instead, they'd go beyond it and make a U-turn and then a right on to a new road that would circle the Courtyard by Marriott hotel to reach the Edinburgh bridge.
Maps showing the three scenarios can be found at www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings/?search=u-5301. For more information and a link to an online survey, go to publicinput.com/U-5301-US64-Apex-Cary.
NCDOT will take feedback on the project through July 21. You can send comments to Deaton at rdeaton@ncdot.gov, 919-707-6017 or by mail to 1582 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C., 27699-1582 or send them to Ryan White at ryan.white@stantec.com or 919-856-7374.
NCDOT expects to present its preferred scenario for the project at another public meeting in the fall.
This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 11:16 PM with the headline "Picture U.S. 64 in Cary and Apex as part freeway, part 'superstreet'."