Interstate 95 is a major economic corridor in the state and on the East Coast and is a hurricane evacuation route. Construction began in the late 1950s and was completed in 1980 around Fayetteville. In 2009, the N.C. Department of Transportation began researching the feasibility of upgrading the interstate. The study was completed in 2016.
An
I-95 Corridor Planning and Finance study, coupled with a
$22.5 million federal grant awarded from the U.S. Department of Transportation through its Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program in the fall of 2019, allowed NCDOT to accelerate the timeline to widen and modernize this section of the interstate. NCDOT held open houses in 2019 to review preliminary plans, and more public meetings will be held later.