Get stuck on NC 54? This new road is expected to help.

Work will soon begin on a new road that is expected to reduce the time people get stuck in traffic on and around N.C. 54 during rush hour.

As soon as April 30, contractors will begin building a 1.6-mile segment of McCrimmon Parkway between Airport Boulevard and Aviation Parkway. When it's finished in the late fall of 2019, the new four-lane road will connect the western end of Evans Road coming out of Cary with another piece of McCrimmon Parkway that the town of Morrisville is building now between Airport Boulevard and N.C. 54.

Together, the two new sections of McCrimmon Parkway will create an alternative for drivers who now squeeze on to two- and three-lane stretches of N.C. 54 that often gets overwhelmed with traffic, particularly on weekday afternoons.

The N.C. Department of Transportation recently awarded an $11.6 million contract to Barnhill Contracting Co. of Rocky Mount to build the section between Aviation Parkway and Airport Boulevard.

McCrimmon Parkway is one of about a dozen new road construction and widening projects planned for Morrisville in the coming years. Among the others in the works is a new segment of Louis Stephens Drive into Research Triangle Park and the widening of N.C. 54 from Perimeter Park Drive to near N.C. 540 , which is set to get underway in the spring of 2021.

And more work is coming on McCrimmon Parkway. NCDOT plans to build a bridge to carry McCrimmon over N.C. 54 and the adjoining railroad tracks and widen McCrimmon between N.C. 54 and Davis Drive starting in 2021.

This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 2:54 PM with the headline "Get stuck on NC 54? This new road is expected to help.."