Work to begin on new bypass around one of the Triangle’s fastest-growing towns
.jpg "The N.C. Department of Transportation plans to build a bypass to carry N.C. 55 around Angier starting in the spring of 2023.")
Construction is set to begin next spring on a new bypass highway that will help shape development in fast-growing Angier and make it easier for people to commute into the Triangle from Harnett County.
The N.C. Department of Transportation last week awarded a $61.5 million contract to widen N.C. 55 north of Angier into Wake County and build part of a new bypass that will carry the road around the town’s west side. The work is scheduled to begin next spring and be finished by the end of 2026.
The first leg of the bypass will begin near Kennebec Church Road in southern Wake and extend south to N.C. 210. NCDOT expects to award another contract next spring to build the final leg of the bypass, reconnecting with N.C. 55 near Ennis Road south of town.
The four-lane bypass will divert traffic from downtown Angier, where commuters overwhelm N.C. 210 and N.C. 55. The two state highways have two travel lanes where they meet at the center of town.
“First thing in the morning and starting at 4 o’clock to about 6 o’clock in the evening, there’s about 25,000 cars that come right through Angier, and they’re not stopping here,” said Gerry Vincent, the town manager. “They’re going to Buies Creek and Lillington and Dunn. And through Angier is the only way they can do that.”
While fewer cars and trucks will pass through the center of town, Vincent said, downtown businesses may find it easier to attract customers when the bypass opens.
“Traffic won’t be backed up all the way through town,” he said. “People who are going to want to come downtown won’t have to go through that traffic anymore.”
The bypass will also fuel and guide development on the town’s west side. Angier has fewer than 6,000 residents now but has approved lots for more than 3,500 new houses and apartments, which could double the town’s population in the next five years, Vincent said. Many of those homes, along with lots zoned for new stores and restaurants, lie between the path of the bypass and the center of town.
‘Don’t pave our homes with a road to nowhere’
The bypass will bring more immediate changes, as it cuts a nearly seven-mile path through the mostly rural outskirts of town. NCDOT expects to buy out 10 businesses and 36 other properties, mostly single-family homes, said spokesman Andrew Barksdale.
In an email, Barksdale said NCDOT held several meetings with the public and local officials and designed the road to “limit right-of-way and easement impacts to the maximum extent possible.” He also says the alternative would have been to widen N.C. 55 through town, which would have required taking property from homes and businesses there.
Still, not everyone is happy. Everett Blake III says NCDOT contractors have placed right-of-way stakes about 20 feet from his front porch where the bypass will bisect Gardner Road south of Angier.
“DOT is buying less than a tenth of an acre from me,” Blake said. “But it does incredible damage to the value of my house.”
Blake, who once led the Angier planning board and now serves on the planning board for Harnett County, says he knows growth is coming. But he says most of the commuter traffic passing through Angier is coming up N.C. 210 from the Lillington area and thinks NCDOT could solve Angier’s traffic problems by building just part of the bypass connecting N.C. 210 with N.C. 55 north of town.
“I do believe half of the road is unnecessary,” said Blake, who in 2018 created a Facebook page about the bypass called “Don’t Pave Our Homes with a road to nowhere.”
NCDOT presented plans for the bypass to the public in late 2018. Engineering work was put on hold, as the department paid for cleanup after Hurricane Florence and settlements for Map Act lawsuits. A steep drop in gas tax revenue during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic led to further delays, Barksdale said.
NCDOT is building the bypass in two phases in part because the southern leg required more time for right-of-way acquisition and utility work. In addition to the bypass, NCDOT plans to widen N.C. 55 north of Angier to Jicarilla Lane in southern Wake, from two travel lanes to four with a median.
The work will cost an estimated $121.6 million, including $30.2 million to acquire property.
The department eventually plans to continue widening the road from Jicarilla Lane north to N.C. 42 in Fuquay-Varina. That part of the project doesn’t qualify for funding under NCDOT’s prioritization process, and the department doesn’t know when that work will get started.
This story was originally published November 7, 2022 at 5:30 AM.
