Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, CaryThe Triangle Area
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The N.C. Department of Transportation has awarded a $15.2 million contract to create a new interchange on the Triangle Expressway at Morrisville Parkway between Green Level West Road and N.C. 55 near mile marker 64.
The new project, awarded to Barnhill Contracting Co. of Rocky Mount, can begin as early as January 29. It will extend the parkway to the bridge from west of Highcroft Drive on the east side, and from east to near Mills Park Elementary School. It will also add ramps for the interchange, as well as signs and tolling infrastructure.
Construction would link the two sections of the road that are now separated by the expressway with a four-lane roadway. This added interchange was in the planning stages when the expressway was built, so part of that project was the building of a bridge over the expressway to minimize impacts to motorists during the interchange construction.
The new interchange is expected to be open for traffic in late 2019, with additional vegetation work to go to late March 2020.
The project is being built through a partnership with the Town of Cary, the N.C. Department of Transportation and the N.C. Turnpike Authority. The Town worked with the NCDOT and NCTA on the required designs and environmental studies. The new interchange is expected to improve connectivity in western Cary and help alleviate congestion on nearby roads, as drivers who want to use the Triangle Expressway will not have to travel to the existing interchanges at Green Level West Road and N.C. 55. Traffic along Morrisville Parkway is projected to increase from 11,850 vehicles per day in 2017 to 23,005 vehicles per day in 2037.
The interchange was requested by local transportation planners, and included in the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) Long Range Transportation Plan and will improve mobility for current traffic, as well as for much larger volumes of traffic anticipated as a result of substantial growth/development.
This is the second interchange to be added along North Carolina’s first modern toll road since its final phase opened in 2013. The Morrisville Parkway interchange will provide additional access to the Triangle Expressway, similar to the Veridea Parkway interchange in Holly Springs, which opened to traffic in April 2017.
Exciting! Been looking forward to this interchange as it'll drastically reduce my commute time. Currently have to go all the way down Davis to pick up 540. Now I can just stay on Morrisville Parkway and boom, there.
Finally. Pretty dumb not to have built this in the beginning, but better late than never.
Agreed but I kind of understand why it wasn't. Morrisville Parkway wasn't extended far enough to 540 until the recent developments completed the extensions necessary. It wasn't until recently where Morrisville Parkway extended far enough to where this made sense I guess.
Agreed but I kind of understand why it wasn't. Morrisville Parkway wasn't extended far enough to 540 until the recent developments completed the extensions necessary. It wasn't until recently where Morrisville Parkway extended far enough to where this made sense I guess.
Maybe, but seems like with Green Level Church rd running parallel to 540 for a good ways collecting lots of various neighborhoods, it would have been smart to put it in and at least connect the west side which was a pretty small amount of surface road to add, then wait for the east side to come in, which is definitely more work aside from the interchange. The bridge is the most expensive part and they did that and everything else about it would never be lower cost than when they were building the rest of the road. Obviously they identified a future need from the beginning and have been talking about it ever since. Seems a much better use of everyone’s resources to have done it, and they’d have additional revenue from the beginning. Maybe it was a really close decision, they had some studies and we don’t. But it would have been a nice trade for the miles of 540 that taxpayers built and paid for and they stole between 54 and 55.
I wondered about the highway expansion process and how it seems to be illogical in what gets built, where and when. Then I had a chat with a city planner it a lot became clear.
You not only have to consider WHEN the money becomes available, but that the money for roads typically comes from several sources, and those sources have different (and VERY often conflicting) timing, budget limitations, and motivations.
Expressway expansion is a great example. The money for the actual expressway, (and I think 50' of interchange), comes mostly from the feds. But the roads from there out to the users (IE: cities and suburbs), and any of those interchanges and such, all are paid for by the locals, (mostly state DoT). This economics can drive decisions that otherwise appear very illogical.
Example:
I know a place where an interstate was run dead through the middle of a large town, with elevated highway sections, several elevated interchanges, lots of businesses bought out, massive disruption to the town.
If the highway has been built a few miles away, out of town and through corn fields, it's cost would have been staggeringly cheaper, (to the feds), but the state would have to come up with a few million in the cost of the connecting roads from the intersection back over to the town. It was the state that had the routing authority, so downtown it went.
The main highway around Cary was planned decades ago by the NC DoT. But the money people (state legislation along with national DoT grants), had the budget for the mid and late 2020's.
Then some investors put together the Toll Road consortium and offered to lend money so that the road could be built about 10 years quicker. They would make their profit by having this road be a toll road, and they get a part of that revenue.
Since this area has grown faster than was estimated decades ago, the authorities chose this over waiting.
But the new money wasn't bottomless so the spending had to be prioritized.
The original planning had several interchanges that all couldn't be afforded by the original construction. Some were built without connecting roads, some are still just on the planning boards.
Morrisville Parkway coming from the East hadn't even cross the railroad by NC-55 yet (top-right just South of the Olde Carpenter dot on the map). From the West, Morrisville Parkway was closer I agree (bottom-left just South of Gabel Farms on the map). However it's still a bit of "out of the way" distance that would have to be covered to intersect with NC-540.
I imagine it just ended up on the cost-cutting floor as Cary/Morrisville did not want to pay outright for their piece at the time. Instead relying on developers to front it as part of the suburban sprawling neighborhoods they wanted to build.
Even as of May of 2017 it's barely crept up there from the West. The East side has surged for sure thanks to all those houses:
With all that rambling said, I do agree that having this interchange would have at a minimum helped offload traffic from Green Level Church Road.
^^^ Yup, when we moved here in August 2010 they were just finishing Morrisville Parkway on the east side of 55. What's amazing is how potholey that road is now!
Did some more digging and I can kind of see why they left this alone even more:
A good portion of the Twyla community is going to be pretty much wiped off the map with the eastern interchange at A-D. That's a good chunk of additional right of way that I guess had to be acquired that they didn't want to deal with.
What's also interesting is that according to the news release they are going ahead with the full 4-lane build out of this, instead of just a 2-lane. There were plans to phase this with the Town of Cary at one point. They were going to initially just do a 2-lane road and then later widen it to 4 lanes with a second bridge being built (the solid red one on the above image) over NC-540. The full 4-lane build out now happening will require them to build a second bridge to complement the existing.
Here's an old (circa 2012) image that shows the breakup of who paid for what:
I'm guessing the "undetermined" section has now been fronted by the Town of Cary.
Ah, I didn’t realize they were pushing forward with the full four lane. Explains the cost a bit. On the other hand, even more money wasted as the bridge crews were right there and could have built a second bridge way less expensively than what it will cost now. And given this road was paid by tolling, instead of the regular pot, it even makes less sense IMO as I certainly feel like they could have justified this to the people underwriting the bonds. It is good to go ahead with the full four lane though as that would have been a waste of money in its own right, coming back. I know they are darned if they do and darned if they don’t, but lots of little things like this drive the costs up on every project. People are so concerned about right this second, they lose sight of long term.
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