Wake County’s busiest highway interchange near Cary’s Crossroads will get a makeover
The place where Interstate 40 meets I-440, U.S. 1 and the Crossroads shopping area is a complex tangle of entrance and exit ramps that force drivers to crisscross each other at several points as they get on and off the highways.
Now the N.C. Department of Transportation is planning to redesign the interchanges to reduce those crunch points and improve the flow of traffic. NCDOT engineers haven’t settled on a final design yet. They’ll present three at a public meeting Thursday.
The three options use different types of flyover bridges to carry traffic on and off the two highways. The overall goal is to separate drivers moving between the two highways from local traffic going to and from Crossroads.
All three options include a new way to get on and off northbound U.S. 1 , south of Walnut Street. New exit and entrance ramps would connect U.S. 1 with Dillard Drive and Piney Plains Road, near Crossroads Ford. From there, Dillard Drive continues on to Walnut.
The new ramps would replace the exit from northbound U.S. 1 to Walnut Street and the ramps from Walnut and Crossroads Boulevard onto northbound U.S. 1. Drivers entering the highway on those ramps must crisscross traffic trying to get from U.S. 1 onto eastbound I-40.
The I-40/I-440 interchange handles more traffic than any other in Wake County, according to a study done for the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization in 2015. At that time, more than 200,000 cars and trucks passed through each day, and forecasters expected that number to climb to 350,000 by 2035.
The reconfiguring of the highway interchange would coincide with the addition of a lane on each side of I-40 between I-440 and Lake Wheeler Road. That would widen I-40 from three travel lanes to four, with extended merge lanes between the I-440, Gorman Street and Lake Wheeler exits effectively making five lanes in each direction, said NCDOT spokesman Aaron Moody.
Construction is not expected to begin until 2022. By that time, contractors will still be involved in a four-year effort to widen the Beltline between I-40 and Wade Avenue, though NCDOT expects drivers won’t be slowed by both projects at the same time, said Joey Hopkins, the top engineer for the region.
“There may be some overlap,” Hopkins said, “but for the most part the major work would be done on the Beltline.”
The reconstruction of the interchanges is expected to cost more than $151 million, according to the NCDOT’s latest estimates; the new lanes on I-40 will cost another $27 million.
Thursday’s public meeting is 4 to 7 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn at 131 Columbus Ave., off Dillard Drive in Cary. There will be no formal presentation; people can drop in at any time to see the options, ask questions and give their feedback. The department will also gather feedback online at publicinput.com/40-440-us1-interchange.
This story was originally published May 7, 2019 at 12:37 PM.
