Starting soon, construction to extend a key road through Morrisville
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Construction will extend Airport Boulevard to Church Street in Morrisville.
- NCDOT-awarded contract builds four-lane segment with median, sidewalk and multi-used path.
- Opposition petition got 196 supporters but failed to sway officials; project long planned.
Construction will soon begin on a new section of Airport Boulevard in Morrisville, part of a decades-long effort to connect two disconnected sections of the road through town.
The N.C. Department of Transportation recently awarded a contract to extend Airport Boulevard less than a half mile from Garden Square Lane across Town Hall Drive to Church Street. The four-lane road will have a raised median, a sidewalk on the north side and a 10-foot multi-use path on the south side.
NCDOT says the road should be finished by June 2028.
Airport Boulevard will end at Church Street for the foreseeable future. Neither the state nor the town has money to build the second and final section that would extend the road to Chapel Hill Road/N.C. 54.
The second phase would entail building a bridge to carry Airport Boulevard over Chapel Hill Road and the parallel railroad tracks. Completing that section would create a four-lane road from Interstate 40 to Davis Drive.
Finishing Airport Boulevard has long been a goal for the town, which is covering the $12.8 million cost of the first leg with a combination of local money and a federal grant. Morrisville officials say a completed Airport Boulevard would make it easier to get through town and take pressure off nearby Aviation and McCrimmon parkways and Morrisville Carpenter Road.
Not everyone in town is looking forward to the new road. Residents of nearby subdivisions created a petition seeking to halt the project, which they said “stands to negatively impact our neighborhood in numerous ways, altering our daily lives and undermining the environment we cherish.”
The petition received 196 supporters and failed to move town officials.
Mayor TJ Cawley noted that the project had been on the town’s long-range transportation plans for more than two decades. The path for the road was set aside years ago, between the subdivisions where some opponents live.
In response to the petition, Cawley asked town staff to write a short report explaining the project’s history and goals. The report noted that all design and engineering work had been completed, the right-of-way acquired and all the utility lines moved out of the way so construction could start.
