The Durham East End Connector looks finished. So why can’t people drive on it?
Around the first of the year, it appeared this would be the month that Durham drivers would finally get to begin using the East End Connector, a four-mile highway that was first proposed in 1959.
Now, six years after construction began, the N.C. Department of Transportation says the project has been delayed again and probably won’t be ready for traffic until the end of the year.
The connector will link Interstate 85 with the Durham Freeway on the east side of town. It entails constructing a new 1.25-mile highway between the Durham Freeway (N.C. 147) and U.S. 70 and converting about 2.75 miles of U.S. 70 to a freeway.
Before it can open, contractors must tear down a temporary railroad bridge that crosses U.S. 70 near where it merges with the new section of highway. The concrete piers that hold up the bridge are in the path of some of the new lanes of the wider road.
The temporary bridge was built to carry CSX and Norfolk Southern trains over U.S. 70 while two parallel permanent bridges were demolished and replaced with new ones that can accommodate the wider highway. The new Norfolk Southern bridge is finished, but CSX still needs to lay tracks on its bridge and is still using the temporary one, said Liam Shannon, NCDOT’s resident engineer for the project.
Shannon said winter weather delayed construction on the CSX bridge, which was built by NCDOT’s contractor. It’s up to the railroad to lay the tracks, he said, and that should happen this summer, allowing NCDOT to then tear down the temporary bridge and finish the road underneath it.
“Our goal right now is around the end of the year to have the connector itself open to traffic,” he said.
Highway is three years overdue
When construction of the East End Connector began in the spring of 2015, NCDOT expected it would be finished in 2019. The completion date has now been pushed back at least three times, to the chagrin of Durham residents like Thomas Aker.
Aker lives in southern Durham and drives to the northeast side of town almost daily to visit friends or as a part-time Amazon delivery driver. He’s very much looking forward to the connector opening.
“It would be a huge help,” he said. “Navigating from southern Durham to that part of town is like going through a rat maze. And if you go a certain time of day, the traffic is horrible.”
Like a lot of people, Aker drives past the point where the new highway branches off from U.S. 70 or the Durham Freeway and wonders why it is taking so long.
“Going up 70 and all, it’s been a headache for years,” he said. “I was finally glad they did something. Never had any idea it would take this long to complete it.”
Even Durham residents who don’t ever expect to use the East End Connector are anxious to see it open. That’s because they’re hoping the highway will divert some traffic from city streets such as North Mangum and North Roxboro that run between N.C. 147 and I-85.
“It should take a lot of traffic off Gregson and Duke streets and make them safer,” Jon Paul Davis, who lives in Northgate Park, wrote on Facebook. “Those streets are residential streets but function more like highways that enable people to push through town to get to and from 147.”
Delays are not costing NCDOT more money
NCDOT awarded a $142 million contract to build the East End Connector back in 2015. With all the delays, the general contractor on the project, Dragados USA, has not asked for more money, Shannon said.
In fact, it may be that Dragados will be paid less. Contractors can be financially penalized for delays in NCDOT projects, and Shannon said the department and the company are negotiating over how much could have been avoided and what could not.
On a project of this size, he said, delays are common.
“It happens all the time on something of this scale, especially with a third party like the railroad involved,” he said. “So a six-month delay, maybe a year delay, is honestly not unheard of. This is obviously beyond that at this point.”
Whenever the East End Connector does open, the highway stretching from I-85 south to I-40 near Research Triangle Park, including parts of the Durham Freeway, will be known as I-885.
