Western Blvd. closed at Raleigh Beltline as construction work takes longer than planned
Update: Western Boulevard reopened to traffic at the Beltline at 8:44 a.m. Tuesday.
Western Boulevard is closed in both directions at the Raleigh Beltline as a weekend construction project spills over into Monday.
Contractors for the N.C. Department of Transportation closed Western at the Beltline late Friday with plans to create a new traffic pattern over the weekend. The work was scheduled to be completed by 5 a.m. Monday.
But the work took longer than expected, and drivers approaching the interchange from both directions on Western will be detoured onto the Beltline until Tuesday, according to NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
“A variety of unforeseen issues has delayed reopening the interchange,” Homan wrote in an email. “Crews continue working to finish paving and striping operations and plan to have the interchange open tomorrow.”
When the work is completed, the Western Boulevard interchange will become the Triangle’s first diverging diamond. The design involves crisscrossing traffic at either end of the underpass under the highway in a way that eliminates potentially dangerous left turns and the amount of time drivers spend sitting at red lights.
It’s a relatively new concept for American drivers, though one that’s becoming more common.
The first diverging diamond in the United States was built by the Missouri Department of Transportation at a busy interchange in Springfield in 2009. There are now 150 to 200 nationwide, with hundreds more planned, says Chris Cunningham, an engineer with the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at N.C. State University.
Driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road
On paper, diverging diamonds look confusing, Cunningham said, as the right-hand lanes temporarily cross over to the left before switching back again. But most drivers don’t find them intimidating at all, he said.
“They’re relatively intuitive,” he said. “Most people don’t even realize that they’re driving on what they would consider the wrong side of the road.”
Other diverging diamond interchanges are planned at I-40 and N.C. 42 in Johnston County and at I-40 and Airport Boulevard near Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
Redesigning the Western Boulevard interchange means eliminating the tight loop exit and entrance ramps that slow down traffic on the Beltline. Also going away is the merging of Western Boulevard traffic onto westbound I-440 from the left, into the high-speed lane. That ramp closed Nov. 5.
The new interchange at Western is part of the larger effort to widen a four-mile stretch of the Beltline from four lanes to six.
NCDOT is also reconfiguring the interchanges at Wade Avenue, Hillsborough Street and Jones Franklin Road. Work on the entire project began in the summer of 2019 and is expected to take four years to complete.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 9:23 AM.
