Future I-42: Stretch of Johnston County highway almost ready to become interstate
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- U.S. 70 has been converted to a limited-access freeway near Wilson’s Mills.
- The speed limit will increase soon after contractors finish final details.
- This stretch of highway will become part of Interstate 42 from Raleigh to Morehead City.
A stretch of U.S. 70 near Wilson’s Mills in Johnston County has been transformed into an interstate highway.
Two sets of signs that will make it official, though, aren’t ready yet.
The first set are new 70 mph speed limit signs. They are in place now but remain covered with tarp. They’ll stay that way until the companies that built the road have finished a few final items, says N.C. Department of Transportation spokesman Andrew Barksdale.
Still to be finished, Barksdale said, are stabilizing drainage ditches; fixing a bump on one of the travel lanes near the Neuse River bridge; and adjusting a few manholes that are too high.
“The contractor aims to finish everything, so we can unveil the newly installed 70 mph speed limit signs, by late November,” he wrote in an email.
In the meantime, the prevailing speed limit on the digital construction signs is 60 mph.
Feds must sign off on Interstate 42 signs
Work on the new 4.7-mile stretch of U.S. 70 began in 2021 and is expected to cost about $91 million. Contractors converted a four-lane divided highway with driveways into a limit-access freeway, with interchanges at Swift Creek and Wilson’s Mills roads and new side roads providing access to homes and businesses.
This new bit of highway will become part of Interstate 42. It will extend a 10-mile section of I-42 that begins at I-40 in Wake County and serves as the Clayton Bypass.
But the Federal Highway Administration needs to approve before those red, white and blue I-42 shields appear along that stretch of road, Barksdale said.
The FHWA and The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials conditionally gave North Carolina permission to designate U.S. 70 between Raleigh and Morehead City as future I-42. But the federal agency must OK each section before it becomes official. (Google and perhaps other mapping programs already refer to the highway near Wilson’s Mills as I-42.)
I-42 will eventually stretch from Wake through the coastal plain to Morehead City, as U.S. 70 is gradually upgraded to a limited-access freeway. The 22-mile bypass around Goldsboro in Wayne and Lenoir counties is already I-42, and contractors are working on upgrading another 6.4-mile section between New Bern and Havelock.
