A Raleigh underpass years in the making nears an important phase
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- Creating the Blue Ridge Road underpass required building three parallel bridges.
- Contractors have removed about 100,000 cubic yards of material.
- NCDOT currently expects the underpass to open in time for the 2027 State Fair.
It’s been 3 1/2 years since Blue Ridge Road closed near the State Fairgrounds so the N.C. Department of Transportation could build a new underpass at Hillsborough Street.
The work is nearing the final stretch, but it will be a long while yet before it’s finished.
The underpass will replace what was the most complex intersection in North Carolina. Blue Ridge Road, Hillsborough Street and Beryl Road all converged in one spot, with a busy railroad line running down the middle. It was especially messy during the State Fair, when pedestrians crossed the streets and tracks going to and from the fairgrounds.
Creating the underpass meant building three parallel bridges for Hillsborough, Beryl and the railroad. The bridges are now mostly finished, and NCDOT and its contractors have begun removing dirt from underneath them, carving out a path for Blue Ridge Road with sidewalks on either side.
Blue Ridge Road closed at Hillsborough at the end of the 2022 State Fair. At the time, NCDOT said it expected the underpass would be finished in time for the 2024 fair.
The current schedule has it open in time for the 2027 fair.
The biggest challenge has been building the underpass without curbing use of the railroad tracks. Hillsborough Street and Beryl Road were closed while those bridges were under construction, but the tracks had to stay open for the roughly 22 Amtrak and freight trains that pass through each day.
So NCDOT built a parallel set of tracks that trains could use while the railroad bridge was built. The bridge is finished, and now contractors are putting down two sets of permanent tracks, one for CSX and the other for Norfolk Southern, said Cody Winkler, the NCDOT engineer overseeing the project.
NCDOT expects trains will begin using the new tracks by September, Winkler said. Contractors can then begin taking up the temporary rails and continue excavating the ground under the bridges.
The underpass will be up to 30 feet below the bridges. So far, contractors have removed about 100,000 cubic yards of material, enough to fill about 5,000 dump trucks. Some of that dirt was used on the nearby Interstate 440 widening project, while the rest was hauled away to a disposal facility, Winkler said.
As the dirt comes out, contractors gradually build the concrete walls of the underpass.
“We’ve got retaining walls that are going to run basically the entire length of Blue Ridge Road underneath all three bridges,” Winkler said. “We have to put those in to stabilize everything, which is why we need to remove it in increments.”
The department says several factors have caused the project to drag on, including complex utility work and the additional coordination and review needed to work next to a busy passenger and freight rail corridor.
Another big factor is that the soil under the temporary and permanent railroad tracks was not dense enough to support trains long term. Before the rails could go be built, contractors had to dig out the soil and replace it with granular stone, Winkler said.
When the temporary tracks are removed, contractors will have room to finish the Hillsborough Street bridge, creating space for a wide shoulder on the south side to match the one on the north.
When the underpass is done, drivers will move between Hillsborough and Blue Ridge on a connector road that was built in the northeast corner of the intersection, near the N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine, when Blue Ridge was closed. There’s now a traffic light at Hillsborough Street, and there will be another where the connector meets Blue Ridge.
