View I-40 widening in a larger map
I-40 between Cary and West Raleigh will start getting wider tonight, finally, as construction crews start removing the orange cones so drivers can use all three lanes in each direction.
DOT officials warn drivers to watch out for a new traffic pattern that will take effect Tuesday morning. Drivers who go from northbound U.S. 1 to eastbound I-40 will see a yield sign for the first time, because they'll be required to merge with I-40 traffic. Previously, this U.S. 1 exit lane turned into a free-flowing lane on I-40, and no merging was required. (See traffic map attached to the end of this post.)
It's part of a $49 million project, to finish by the end of June, expanding I-40 from four to six lanes wide for 6.2 miles as it passes between Cary and West Raleigh from Harrison Avenue to Jones Franklin Road.
Road crews will spend the next couple of weeks, working at night to open the third lane in each direction about one mile at a time. The first section to become three lanes Monday night is the eastbound stretch that ends at the U.S. 1 interchange and the nearby Jones Franklin Road overpass. Each night, the work will move another mile west on the eastbound lanes, and then the work will start in the westbound lanes and move east.
But this project isn't quite finished. Still to come in the next eight weeks is the final top layer of asphalt, to be applied at night, and the final lane markings and stripes.
Bruce Siceloff reports on traffic and transportation. A News & Observer reporter, editor and blogger since 1976, he took over the
Comments
Why doesn't the Wade Ave split have different lane markings
Mon, 04/25/2011 - 15:10 — PlainAndSimpleThere are lane markings for other Exit Only lanes along other areas of I-40 where there is an exit-only lane, as for Cary Towne Boulevard, and for the US1/64 exit. The lane marking is denoted with short lines, rather than the long lines used for the through lanes.
This model works on those, and it works in other parts of the country where there are multiple lanes that are Exit Only. Why doesn't DOT use this demarcation on the Wade Ave split on I-40 Eastbound?
Please send the check for $millions that this suggestion would save in damage and lives lost to ...
PlainAndSimple