Fresh white paint helps left-turners on US 15-501 @ I-40

You can't ask for much better than same-day service, and that's what DOT provided this week.

In Tuesday's Road Worrier column, Debra Aycock explained a paint problem that makes navigation difficult for left-turn drivers at the big, busy U.S. 15-501 interchange with I-40 in Durham.

By the end of the day Tuesday, a DOT paint crew was out there putting down fresh "mini-skips" -- the two-foot-long lane divider lines that are supposed to guide drivers from the I-40 off-ramp as they curve across 10 lanes of traffic on U.S. 15-501. Aycock pointed out that heavy traffic had erased the lines, leaving drivers confused about how to make that turn and how to end up in the correct lane on 15-501.

Joey Hopkins, DOT deputy division engineer for a 7-county area that includes Durham, said a DOT crew freshened up the mini-skips at this interchange on Tuesday -- and also at a similar trouble spot on the 540 Outer Loop in Wake County, where some left-turn drivers were flying blind.

“We had some on 540 at Creedmoor Road they had to re-do, too,” Hopkins said today.

Aycock was glad to see the improvement, but she suggested it could have been done even better.

DOT added a single curving line as guidance for drivers in two side-by-side left-turn lanes. If you're in the right lane, you'll see the bright white markings to your left as you are looking left and turning your wheel to the left, Aycock said.

But if you're in the left of those two left-turn lanes, she said, you don't get much help from the markings on your right side -- because you're looking the other way.

“I guess it helps, but I don’t think it’s the entire solution," Aycock said today.

"You’re less likely now to bump into each other when you have two cars turning left. But I still saw some drivers in that left lane drifting too far over to the left as they turned,” ending up trapped in one of the left-turn lanes that takes traffic back onto I-40, she said.