View Construction Delays: Triangle Expressway in a larger map

More traffic delays are scheduled in coming days and nights on I-40 and Davis Drive as road crews close lanes to accommodate construction of the state's first modern toll road, the Triangle Parkway through RTP, NCDOT says.

 * Nightly lane closings are planned on I-40 between Airport Boulevard and N.C. 55 from Sunday, Aug. 21, through Friday, Sept. 2, between 9pm and 6am.  Some traffic stoppages are planned between midnight and 5 a.m. for as much as an hour at a time.

* Daytime lane closings, between 9am and 4pm, are planned on Davis Drive between Development Drive and Hopson Road next week, from Monday Aug. 22 through Friday Aug. 26.

These plans come on top of DOT's announcements that the NC 147 spur from I-40 south to Alexander Drive will be closed permanently (see today's story with reader comments) starting Sept. 6, and that northbound lanes on NC 147 north from I-40 to Alexander Drive will be closed at night through Sept. 1.

View 540 Loop @ Davis Drive in a larger map

Call it planned obsolescence: State roadbuilders knew in July 2007 -- when they opened the NC 540 section of Raleigh's Outer Loop through southern Research Triangle Park -- that the Kitt Creek Road / Davis Drive interchange would not last for long.

At least they were pretty sure. So it wasn't really a surprise when NCDOT announced today that the interchange will close for good on June 1, a bit less than three years after it opened.

Workers at Cisco Systems and NetApp are among the big beneficiaries of this intherchange ... [MORE]