Busy two-lane road in Johnston County will be widened starting this fall
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Work on 1.5 miles of Covered Bridge Road expected to begin as soon as this fall.
- Project includes center turn lane, realigned South Murphrey Road, and new traffic signals.
- Carolina Sunrock received a $12.3 million contract and expects to finish by summer 2028.
As new residents pour into northern Johnston County, two-lane country roads fill with traffic that often comes to a standstill when someone needs to make a left turn.
Now a 1.5-mile stretch of one of those roads, Covered Bridge Road in Archer Lodge, is going to be rebuilt and widened starting in the fall.
The N.C. Department of Transportation plans to build a center turn lane on Covered Bridge Road from west of Helena Lane to just east of Buffalo Road through the heart of the community. NCDOT says giving drivers a place to wait to make left turns into driveways and side roads will prevent rear-end crashes and reduce congestion.
NCDOT also plans to realign a section of South Murphrey Road so it meets Archer Lodge Road at Covered Bridge. The new intersection will have a traffic light.
NCDOT says it also will install a new traffic signal at Castleberry Road and upgrade the existing traffic light and add turn lanes at the Buffalo Road intersection.
The widening of Covered Bridge Road has been in the works for years. The population of Archer Lodge has ballooned since the town was incorporated in 2009, growing 18% since 2020, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
NCDOT held a workshop on the Covered Bridge Road project in May 2018, but held off getting started because the state began widening N.C. 42 east of Clayton that fall, said spokesman Andrew Barksdale.
“Apparently, a lot of people were detouring onto Covered Bridge Road during the N.C. 42 widening,” Barksdale wrote in an email. “We didn’t want to make both roads an active work zone at the same time.”
Financial challenges at NCDOT from hurricanes and the COVID-19 pandemic led to further delays, Barksdale said.
Last month, NCDOT awarded $12.3 million construction contract to Carolina Sunrock of Raleigh. Work will begin as soon as this fall and is expected to be finished by the summer of 2028.
