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Seventeen miles of Raleigh's northern 540 Outer Loop will receive a fresh coat of asphalt this year in an $8.4 million repaving project that could start by the end of February.

The state Department of Transportation says it awarded the contract to the Fred Smith Co. of Raleigh. The work will cover all lanes of 540 from Interstate 40 near Research Triangle Park to Triangle Town Boulevard in northeast Raleigh.

The work will be done at night to reduce travel delays on the Outer Loop, which carries 78,000 cars and trucks each day.

All lanes will stay open from  6 a.m. to 9 p.m on weekdays, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays. The project also includes some shoulder repairs and work on ramps at interchanges.  Nov. 15 is the deadline for completion.

The first section of the 540 Outer Loop, from I-40 to U.S. 70, opened in January 1997.  The newest section included in the repaving project, between Falls of Neuse Road and Triangle Town Boulevard, opened in August 2002.

View US 70 Clayton Bypass in a larger map

The state Department of Transportation says it will continue for the next several years an unusual traffic lane change put in place last September as an experiment on westbound Interstate 40 at the U.S. 70 Clayton Bypass:

To make the morning rush hour run more smoothly, DOT closed one of three lanes on I-40 and one of two lanes on U.S. 70 as it merges with I-40. The lane slimming was called temporary in September, but DOT will install lane markings to make it semi-permanent on Wednesday.  Traffic studies indicate that the morning drive runs a bit smoother and faster with two lanes than it did with three lanes. ... [MORE]

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Road work will close one of two lanes on northbound Capital Boulevard daily this week between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., NCDOT says.

All lanes will be open during the morning and afternoon rush hour, but this work is likely to cause traffic backups during the day.

It's for bridge and road maintenance work expected to take four or five days, depending on the weather.  There's rain in the forecast later this week, and that could push completion of this work into next week.

View Timber Drive Extension NC50 -> White Oak Rd in a larger map

The start of construction was delayed for a few years before work finally got going in 2010 on the Timber Drive Extension in Garner, but  the road will open 10 months ahead of schedule after a ribbon-cutting today, DOT said.

The four-lane, 1.4-mile road links N.C. 50 to White Oak Road on the east side of Garner. It will provide an alternative to U.S. 70 for traffic from White Oak Crossing to Garner and Raleigh.

Raleigh-based Fred Smith Co. won the $9.4 million contract in June 2010, with completion scheduled in October 2012. Engineers for the state Department of Transportation said months of warm, dry weather helped Smith finish the work this fall.

The ribbon-cutting is planned for 2 p.m. at the Civitan Center, 1105 Poole Drive, Garner.  When DOT and Garner officials scheduled the event several blocks from the new road, they didn't think they'd be ready to allow traffic on Timber Drive Extension today.  Now they plan to do so, at 4:30 p.m.

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Drivers on U.S. 1 will feel a pinch this week when lanes are closed for construction on the Triangle Expressway.

Only one lane will be open in each direction on U.S. 1 between N.C. 55 and New Hill Holleman Road, south of Cary, Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the N.C. Turnpike Authority said.

Road crews will be constucting temporary concrete barriers here, at the site of a future interchange for the Western Wake Expressway section of TriEx.

View NC 12 & NC Ferry Routes in a larger map

N.C. 12, the Outer Banks highway that was severed by Hurricane Irene in late August, will reopen for traffic by Tuesday, the state Department of Transportation said today. [10/6/11 update: see today's story with reader comments.]

“The hope is we can do it before then, maybe Monday,” said Greer Beaty, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation. “But everything is crazy-dependent on the weather. Weather could blow everything off."

Contractors have erected a 662-foot steel truss bridge over a wide gap in the northern end of Hatteras Island, known to locals as New New Inlet, that was blown open by Hurricane Irene on Aug. 27. They are putting four inches of asphalt pavement on a washed-out section of the road just north of the village of Rodanthe.

The $10 million repair is a temporary fix for N.C. 12.  Gov. Bev Perdue said state officials will develop a long-term solution to the frequent storm damage and repair costs for N.C. 12. ... [MORE]

View NC 12 & NC Ferry Routes in a larger map

The hurricane-damaged Hatteras Island villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo will remain closed at least through Oct. 10 to tourists and other non-residents without re-entry passes, Dare County said today.

NCDOT hopes to finish repairing NC 12 north of Rodanthe by Oct. 15, restoring the mainland highway link for the 5,000 residents of Hatteras Island's seven villages. The four southern villages of Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras are open for tourists who can get there via ferry to the neighboring island of Ocracoke. ... [MORE]

View NC 12 & NC Ferry Routes in a larger map

Road crews are working around the clock to rebuild a six-mile stretch of NC 12 on Hatteras Island that was sliced into pieces by Hurricane Irene on Aug. 27, and this week they'll start putting down the first new layer of asphalt.

That's good news for 5,000 islanders who can't wait for the state Department of Transportation to reopen their road link to the world -- probably by mid-October, DOT engineers say. 

But it's bad news for the same islanders who sometimes wait for hours to use the emergency ferry from Stumpy Point to Rodanthe -- because the repaving requires lots of asphalt to be delivered by ferry from the mainland. DOT says asphalt trucks will be given priority on the ferries each day between 5 a.m. and 8 p.m., through Oct. 6.

That means less room for cars and longer wait times for the busy Stumpy Point ferries -- which run every 90 minutes, around the clock.

The state Department of Transportation has awarded two contracts worth $7.6 million to repave and rebuild road shoulders on 27 miles of state roads and streets in Wake County.

The work is to be finished by August. It covers parts of 16 roads, including:

1.6 miles of New Hope Road between Poole Road and New Bern Avenue,
0.8 miles of Hillsborough Street from Gorman Street to west of Gardner Street,
2.7 miles of Horton Road from Forestville Road to Marks Creek Road,
3.3 miles of Johnson Pond Road between Hilltop-Needmore Road and Ten-Ten Road,
1.9 miles of Six Forks Road from I-440 to Atlantic Avenue,
3.5 miles of Church Street between Ashe Street and the Durham County line,
1.8 miles of Ray Road from Strickland Road to Norwood Road, and
0.9 miles of Lynn Road between Creedmor Road and Lead Mine Road.

The contractors are Rea Contracting of Raleigh and Barnhill Contracting of Tarboro.

View Triangle Expressway construction in a larger map

Now that the NC 147 Durham Freeway southern spur from I-40 to Alexander Drive is closed forever, thousands of RTP commuters are trying to find the least inconvenient alternate route to work each day.

NCDOT suggests this one, marked in blue on my map: From I-40 go south on NC 55, then go east on NC 54 to Alexander Drive.

Durham commuters also can reach Alexander Drive by exiting the north end of NC 147 onto Cornwallis Road (or onto Alexander Drive).  Raleigh folks can exit I-40 on Page Road or Davis Drive, then head west on NC 54 to Alexander Drive.  Got it? ... [MORE]