Nighttime detours will be marked on I-40 in West Raleigh this weekend as NCDOT schedules overnight closings for the I-40 East exit to Wade Avenue Friday night -- and for Wade Avenue at I-40 West (Exit 289) Saturday night.

The closings are scheduled both nights from 9 p.m. to 10 a.m. the next day. The detours will include looping traffic south to the N.C. 54 (Exit 290) interchange.

The work is part of a project to widen 6 miles of I-40 from Wade to U.S. 1/64.  Also this weekend, traffic will be shifted onto the newly built lanes in the I-40 median.

Also this weekend, another NCDOT project will close the exit ramps from southbound I-540 to east- and westbound I-40 near Research Triangle Park, from 9 p.m. tonight to 6 a.m. Monday.  Detours will use N.C. 54.  This project is for widening the I-540 off ramp to westbound I-40.

View I-540 repaving in a larger map

Nighttime repaving work starts Wednesday night on a 3.8-mile section of the 540 Outer Loop in western Wake County, from I-40 to U.S. 70.

C.C. Mangum Co. of Raleigh has the $2.2 million contract, funded with stimulus money from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to resurface the roadway and ramps and to rebuild the freeway shoulders.

The work will take place at night only between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., with at least one lane of traffic open at all times. The repaving is to be finished by May 2010.

If this project goes like a recent repaving job nearby on I-40, traffic backups will be possible even late at night with freeway traffic squeezed into a single lane.

Call 511 or check online at www.ncdot.gov/travel/ for construction traffic updates.