NCDOT resurrects plans to widen Aviation Parkway in Morrisville
Aviation Parkway, the mostly two-lane road that connects Interstate 40 with the heart of Morrisville, has changed little since the town was a rural crossroads with a couple hundred residents.
Now Morrisville is a fast-growing suburb of more than 32,000, and the state is dusting off a stalled project to widen Aviation Parkway.
The N.C. Department of Transportation will present plans to expand the road to four lanes at a public meeting at Morrisville Town Hall on Monday evening.
NCDOT will overhaul 2.4 miles of Aviation Parkway between I-40 and N.C. 54/Chapel Hill Road. It plans to separate the two sides of the road with turn lanes or a grassy median, with a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the north side and a 10-foot multi-use path on the south.
Where Aviation Parkway crosses Lake Crabtree, the median will become narrower, replaced by wider paved shoulders. The causeway over the lake will need to be widened to make room for the wider road, which will include a multi-use path separated by a guardrail.
NCDOT also plans to reconfigure the intersection of Aviation and N.C. 54 to eliminate left turns. Drivers wishing to turn left onto either road will use a new loop road in the northwest corner of the intersection, which will have traffic lights at both ends.
Without left turns, traffic should flow more smoothly, with fewer crashes, particularly when the roads are busy, according to NCDOT’s engineers.
Planning for the Aviation Parkway project goes back to 2015. NCDOT had drafted initial designs and done environmental studies before presenting the results at a public meeting in June 2019.
But then NCDOT ran into financial problems that forced it to delay dozens of projects statewide, including Aviation Parkway. Planning work resumed in 2023.
Completion is still a ways off, though. NCDOT expects to begin acquiring right-of-way next year but not begin construction until the summer of 2029.
Inflation, especially acute in the construction business, has driven up the cost. In 2019, NCDOT expected to spend $28.8 million on the project. Now the estimate is more than $57 million.
Monday’s open house will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. at Morrisville Town Hall, 100 Town Hall Drive. There will be no formal presentation, and people are free to come and go as they wish.
For more information or to comment on NCDOT’s plans, go to publicinput.com/4203.
