The last 2-lane stretch of NC 55 in Apex will be widened — and the railroad bridge replaced, too
As N.C. 55 was widened to handle the commuters and shoppers in booming western Wake County, one stretch near the heart of Apex has remained mostly the same as its days as a two-lane country road.
The N.C. Department of Transportation wants to change that. This week, it will present its plans to widen 2 miles of N.C. 55 from U.S. 1 to Olive Chapel Road, including the last two-lane stretch between Fuquay-Varina and Research Triangle Park.
Williams Street, as N.C. 55 is known in Apex, would be four lanes wide with a median down the middle and paths for cyclists and pedestrians on the side.
NCDOT will present the plans and take feedback at a public meeting Thursday, Aug. 30, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Apex Town Hall, 73 Hunter St. For more information, including diagrams that will be on display Thursday, go to nando.com/williamsstreet.
The project will involve replacing a town landmark: a concrete bridge that has carried railroad tracks over Williams Street since 1939. NCDOT is working with CSX to shift the tracks to allow it to build the new bridge in stages, said Zahid Baloch, the project manager for NCDOT.
“It’s going to take some work, but we’ll be able to build a bridge in a way that would accommodate the traffic under the bridge during construction and also keep the railroad open,” Baloch said.
The railroad bridge also acts as a cinch point on N.C. 55 that has complicated any notions of widening the road through town. With barely room for three lanes to pass underneath, the bridge would force a narrowing of the road, no matter what happened on either side of it. The new bridge will be longer, creating space for the wider road and bike and pedestrian paths.
As NCDOT began widening N.C. 55 in western Wake County 17 years ago, the railroad bridge was only part of why the stretch through Apex was left largely untouched. Residents and town officials at the time were reluctant to see a wide boulevard cutting through town.
“I don’t hear that anymore,” said Mayor Lance Olive.
The town’s population has more than tripled in the last 20 years, to more than 50,000, and the resulting traffic overwhelms Williams Street, particularly in the mornings and evenings, despite the Triangle Expressway carrying commuters to and from RTP.
“The population that we have now, most of them haven’t been here since 2001,” Olive said. “They’re just looking for traffic solutions.”
What to do with the bridge?
But even as public pressure to widen the road has grown, the bridge remained a hurdle. Not only does it narrow the road, it also produces a low spot that floods during heavy rains, sometimes forcing police to close Williams Street.
“We’ve said all along that the full functioning of 55 as it’s supposed to function will require that bridge getting replaced,” said Town Manager Drew Havens.
Last year, NCDOT presented an early proposal for widening Williams Street without replacing the bridge, which carries six to eight trains a day, including two Amtrak trains. CSX owns the bridge and considers it acceptable as it is, said Baloch, the NCDOT engineer.
But at the urging of the town, NCDOT agreed this was “the chance of a lifetime” to replace the bridge and went back to the railroad to work it out, Baloch said.
The state will pick up the tab for the bridge and the widening of the road. Construction is expected to cost about $23 million, Baloch said. It’s not clear yet how much the state will spend to acquire property along the road. Baloch said the state will need to take some homes and businesses to make the project work, but exactly how much property hasn’t been determined.
The loss of private property is only part of the hardship the project will cause. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2021, the year before NCDOT plans to begin remaking U.S. 64 in Cary and Apex and a few years before it begins widening U.S. 1 from U.S. 64 to the Williams Street exit.
“We’re going to have 5 years of orange barrels. There’s no getting around it,” said Olive, the mayor. “My request to people is to see it as a symbol of progress, and we’ll come out the other end of it and be better off.”
NCDOT will accept public feedback on the N.C. 55 widening project until Sept. 30. Comments may be sent to Baloch by phone at 919-707-6012 or by email at zbaloch@ncdot.gov or to Candace Andre, the consultant project manager, at 919-741-5346 or by email at candre@vhb.com.