Section of Hillsborough Street to reopen just in time for big NCSU football game
Hillsborough Street is expected to reopen at Blue Ridge Road by Wednesday, Sept. 6, just in time for N.C. State University’s first home football game of the season.
The N.C. Department of Transportation closed the road in early March and set a goal of reopening before NCSU hosts Notre Dame at nearby Carter-Finley Stadium on Sept. 9.
Blue Ridge Road remains closed south of Hillsborough Street as contractors continue to build an underpass that will carry Blue Ridge under Hillsborough, Beryl Road and the N.C. Railroad tracks that run between them.
Since March, contractors have built a bridge that for now carries Hillsborough Street over dirt. The area under the bridge will eventually be excavated for Blue Ridge Road to pass under.
Contractors also must build bridges for Beryl Road and the railroad tracks. They are working to complete a set of temporary tracks that freight and passenger trains will use while that railroad bridge is under construction.
NCDOT hopes to have the temporary tracks in place by the end of the year. Beryl Road is scheduled to close at Blue Ridge Road after this fall’s State Fair, to enable contractors to begin working on the new railroad bridge and that section of the underpass, according to department spokesman Aaron Moody.
Work on the new underpass began after the close of the 2022 State Fair last October. NCDOT and its main contractor, Lane Construction Corp., hope to complete the project in time for the 2024 State Fair.
Lane Construction is also the contractor overhauling a four-mile stretch of the Raleigh Beltline nearby.
That project, which entails widening Interstate 440 from four lanes to six and redesigning and rebuilding four busy interchanges, has entered its fifth year. It was scheduled to be finished this summer, but NCDOT says several factors, including labor and materials shortages and difficulty acquiring right-of-way and moving utilities, have caused delays.
NCDOT now hopes to be substantially finished with the Beltline project by the end of 2024, Moody said.
“But a lot of working parts to this effort and things have to come together as expected,” he wrote in an email.
Lane Construction hopes to finish new pavement along the outside edge of westbound I-440 between Hillsborough Street and Walnut Street in Cary by the end of the year, Moody said. That will allow them to begin working on the eastbound side.
