View Wade Avenue detour in a larger map

[Update 11am Wednesday:  The repairs were finished and Wade Avenue was reopened shortly before 10 a.m.]

Wade Avenue will be closed between the 2800 and 3100 blocks until 12 noon Wednesday -- forcing detours and delays for folks driving to work this morning.

Drivers on four-lane Wade will be rerouted via two-lane Dixie Trail, Hillsborough Street and Brooks Avenue. In other words: find another route to work Wednesday morning.

The city of Raleigh announced the closing to allow repairs to an 8-inch sewer main: ... [MORE]

View Wade Avenue: 60mph in a larger map

After a study confirmed that most drivers are going 65mph -- safely -- on the busy Wade Avenue Extension in West Raleigh, NCDOT has raised the speed limit from 55mph to 60mph.

Lead-foot drivers and other folks, is this a good idea? Let me hear from you, and don't forget your name and workday phone number. [2/16/12 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

DOT made the change after considering a recommendation from the Regional Transportation Alliance, a transportation-advocacy business group. The change covers about two miles, from I-40 to a spot about 500 feet west of the I-440 Beltline.  Then it drops to 45mph, and then after Ridge Road to 35mph. 

DOT engineers also will study other freeway routes around the Triangle for a possible speed-limit increase from 65mph now to 70mph.

RTA's wish list also includes

- the entire 540 Outer Loop,
- US 1 from Cary to Sanford,
- the N.C. 147 Durham Freeway (from the future East End Connector in East Durham to I-40 and continuing on the new tolled portion of Triangle Expressway through RTP to NC 540), and
- I-40 between Aviation Parkway and Lake Wheeler Road.

Wake up and smell the new asphalt,  Interstate 40 commuters!

As Alan Schueler approached the Wade Avenue split today on a newly widened I-40 in West Raleigh (see today's Road Worrier with reader comment), he discovered that lots of drivers have not noticed how the lanes -- and the rules -- have changed:

"This morning, traveling from Durham to Raleigh, I saw 5 cars make dangerous, last-second jogs to the right to get into a proper lane for exiting onto Wade Ave. Apparently they can't read the big new signs, or didn't notice them," Schueler said by email.

The Road Worrier noticed a few drivers making the same dangerous maneuver on the way in from Chapel Hill this morning.

I-40 is four lanes wide as it approaches Harrison Avenue, which is the exit before Wade.  Here's what has changed:

* Previously, the two left lanes continued on I-40. The two right lanes turned into Wade Avenue.  Many commuters heading for Wade favored the second lane from the right, where they could stay out of the way of drivers merging from the Harrison Avenue on-ramp.  These old dogs have a new trick to learn. ... [MORE]

I-40 and Wade Avenue in West Raleigh will be especially unpleasant at rush hour this afternoon, for traffic in both directions.  You might want to find another way home.

A timely repeat from Jay Price's story this morning:

View RBC Center in a larger map

This is the day 18,000 pilgrims are flocking to the RBC Center to hear inspiration from Lou Holtz, Colin Powell and Zig Ziglar about how they can be more productive at the office.

For the rest of us, productivity will go in the other direction.

The Road Worrier warned you that police and emergency management officials expect Raleigh's worst traffic jam today since October 2007 -- which is the last time RBC hosted this "Get Motivated!" tent revival -- when thousands of commuters were hours late getting to work and to school. They recommended alternate routes.  Did their advice help you?

If you're stuck in this mud this morning, what did that do for YOUR productivity?  How did today's traffic jam (warning: it will be bad this afternoon, too) affect your work, your school, your boss, your customers, your karma?

Let me hear from you, and don't forget your daytime phone number

View RBC Center in a larger map

Warning for commuters: Next Wednesday morning more than 18,000 people will converge on the RBC Center for a day of inspiration from a group of speakers (Rudy Giuliani, Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, ... hey, do you have to be Republican to get hired as a motivational speaker?) at a business seminar called "Get Motivated!"

The last time this daylong workday event came to the RBC (in October 2007), it recalled the traffic jam in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (the 1951 version with Michael Rennie, not the Keanu Reeves remake in 2008). 

Traffic was congealed for two hours on Interstate 40, Wade Avenue and surrounding West Raleigh streets. The backups were felt on the I-440 Beltline, Hillsborough Street and Blue Ridge, Trinity and Edwards Mill roads. Hundreds of ticketholders arrived late at the RBC.  Thousands of commuters arrived late to work.  Some people got mad.

So if you plan to Get Motivated on Wednesday, you'd better get there early.

But if you just want to get to work, get as far away as you can from RBC and West Raleigh. And you should leave home early, too. ... [MORE]

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 Glenwood Ave & Wade Ave repair jobs in a larger map;

North Carolina highways will be extra busy this weekend, with AAA Carolinas predicting a 12 percent increase over last year in July Fourth holiday travel.

Triangle drivers were pumping self-service regular gas Wednesday for an average $2.63 a gallon, a penny more than they paid a year ago.

The state Department of Transportation will suspend most construction work from Thursday afternoon until Tuesday morning. But drivers will find traffic lanes closed through the weekend while work is suspended on roads including Wade and Glenwood avenues in Raleigh. ... [MORE]

View Wade & Glenwood repaving in a larger map

Long-sought road repairs are starting today on a worn-out, bumpy stretch of Glenwood Avenue inside the Raleigh Beltline, from Woman’s Club Drive to Wade Avenue.

The recent pothole pandemic prompted the state Department of Transportation to begin work a few weeks early on a scheduled $1.8 million project to repair broken concrete slabs and repave the 2.7-mile section with asphalt. C.C. Mangum Co. of Raleigh is scheduled to finish the Glenwood job by mid-June.

No lanes will be closed during weekday rush hours – 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. – but traffic backups are likely on this busy road at other times of the day and night.

Meanwhile, DOT is repairing potholes on a nearby stretch of Wade Avenue, where a $1.3 million repaving project will resume in March. ... [MORE]

Starting at 9 a.m. Friday, Wade Avenue traffic will be squeezed again into one lane each way, while DOT crews do more work at the Canterbury Road intersection.

A sewer leak at Canterbury prompted Raleigh and DOT officials to close the lanes for repair work Wednesday night. For an update on when Friday's work will end and the lanes will reopen, call 511 or check DOT's Triangle travel info site online.

DOT is repaving Wade this fall between Faircloth and Oberlin. That work is not supposed to impede rush hour traffic, weekdays from 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.