Long-planned widening of Interstate 40 in Orange County gets underway soon
Work will begin soon to widen one of the final four-lane sections of Interstate 40 in the Triangle.
Contractors for the N.C. Department of Transportation will add lanes to an 11.4-mile section of I-40 between the Durham County line and the merger with I-85. Work is expected to begin in 2022 and finish sometime in 2025.
The project also involves reconfiguring the N.C. 86 interchange to create new westbound on- and off-ramps that line up with Whitfield Road. There will also be a new spur or slip ramp from the eastbound I-40 exit directly on to Eubanks Road. But an earlier plan to relocate Eubanks, which would have meant demolishing several houses, has been abandoned.
NCDOT awarded a $236 million contract Monday to The Lane Construction Corp. for final design and construction. Lane, which is based in Connecticut, is the general contractor that is widening and overhauling a four-mile stretch of the Beltline in southwest Raleigh.
NCDOT began planning to widen I-40 in Orange County in 2012. But when the state adopted a new system for determining whether a road should be built or widened, the project didn’t score very well and was shelved.
Then NCDOT engineers discovered that the system didn’t take into account the backups around U.S. 15/501, where westbound I-40 narrows from three lanes to two. With those traffic jams factored in, the project became a higher priority.
The widening of I-40 in Orange County is one of 16 highway projects supported in part by what are known as GARVEE bonds. The state agreed in early August to borrow $300 million under the bond program.
The Orange County construction overlaps with the ongoing widening of I-40 southeast of Raleigh. When the two projects are finished, I-40 will be at least six lanes wide from N.C. 42 in Johnston County to western Guilford County, west of Greensboro.
This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 12:04 PM.
