There’s a new interstate highway in Eastern NC. You may have driven on it.
Eastern North Carolina has a new interstate highway.
The federal government has officially designated 37 miles of U.S. 264 between Wilson and Greenville as Interstate 587. The N.C. Department of Transportation recently repaved and widened the shoulders on a section of the four-lane divided highway to bring it up to interstate standards.
Drivers may not notice the difference, but economic developers say the interstate designation is important. Some companies won’t consider locating in a place without interstate access, even if a freeway such as U.S. 264 is almost just as good.
“Interstate connectivity is one of the most critical economic development tools in our chest,” Thomas Taft Jr., who represents the Greenville area on the state Board of Transportation, said in a written statement. “Without it, many companies will simply look past all the other amazing attributes our communities can bring to bear.”
I-587 will help Greenville and surrounding Pitt County attract attention, said the city’s mayor, P.J. Connelly.
“This has been an economic development goal of the city of Greenville for quite some time,” Connelly said in a written statement. “We are eagerly awaiting the impact that it will have on our area in terms of economic prosperity and growth.”
The interstate’s number, 587, reflects that it will someday be a spur of Interstate 87, which will one day run from Raleigh to the Hampton Roads region of Virginia over what are now U.S. 64 and U.S. 17. For now, I-87 goes from the Beltline only as far east as Wendell Boulevard.
NCDOT eventually wants to see I-587 extend from Greenville to Zebulon, where it would meet I-87. Both I-587 and I-87 will evolve in segments over many years, as the highways are brought up to interstate standards.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials designates interstate highways and chose I-87 and I-587. There’s already another Interstate 87, running from New York City north to the Canadian border, but AASHTO was forced to approve a duplicate because there aren’t any unused odd numbers available in the 70s, 80s or 90s.
AASHTO and the Federal Highway Administration conditionally approved the interstate designations in 2016, pending upgrades to the highways. NCDOT will erect the familiar red and blue shields for I-587 in Wilson, Greene and Pitt counties next year.
A five-mile stretch of I-587 near Wilson overlaps with another spur interstate, I-795, which begins at I-95 and goes south to Goldsboro. I-795 opened as U.S. 117 in 2006 and was designated an interstate by AASHTO the following year.
