Bridge blocking completion of Durham East End Connector is finally going away. What to know.
The railroad bridge that stands in the way of Durham’s long-awaited East End Connector is starting to come down.
Contractors have begun demolishing the bridge over U.S. 70 south of Holloway Street, near where 70 merges with the new freeway. The work is being done at night and will take several weeks to complete, according to the N.C. Department of Transportation.
Concrete piers that hold up the bridge block some of the lanes that lead to and from the East End Connector, preventing NCDOT from finishing a project that began seven years ago.
Once the bridge is gone, contractors will put down the final layer of asphalt and the lane markings on the new 1.25-mile highway between U.S. 70 and the Durham Freeway (N.C. 147). The East End Connector should be open by summer, said NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan.
The opening is three years behind schedule.
The railroad bridge was always meant to be temporary. It was built a few years ago to carry CSX and Norfolk Southern trains over U.S. 70 while two parallel permanent bridges were demolished and replaced with ones that could accommodate the wider highway underneath.
The new bridges were supposed to be completed by the end of 2018, but various construction problems kept pushing that back, an NCDOT engineer said in late 2020. The railroads finally began using them last fall.
The demolition work will take place between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. mostly Sunday through Thursday. Some lanes will be closed, and drivers may experience slow-rolling roadblocks between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., according to NCDOT.
NCDOT awarded a $142 million contract for the East End Connector project at the beginning of 2015. The project also includes converting about 2.75 miles of U.S. 70 to a freeway south of Interstate 85.
When the East End Connector opens, 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.
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This story was originally published February 16, 2022 at 3:21 PM.
