Raleigh — It will be a busy week for the
contractor for the Capital Boulevard bridges project in Raleigh on the Peace Street
phase of the work.
Starting Wednesday night, Jan. 31, the contractor plans to start
installing girders for the new bridge that will carry Capital Boulevard traffic
over Peace Street. It is tentatively scheduled to take three nights to set the
girders, although it may not require all three nights to finish.
For safety reasons for both drivers and the workers, Peace Street
will be closed from midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and if
needed, Friday night as well.
Drivers who are eastbound on Peace Street will be detoured with a
right turn on North West Street, a left turn on West Jones Street and a left
turn on North Wilmington Street to get back to Peace Street. Westbound drivers
will turn left on West Salisbury, right on West Lane Street, right on North
Harrington Street, left on West North Street and right on North West Street to
make it back to Peace Street.
Once the girders are in place, the next step is a traffic shift on
Peace Street itself, tentatively scheduled for Thursday night, Feb. 8. It is
also weather conditional and can be postponed until a later date if needed.
The shift will allow the contractor to work on phase two of the
installation of a large culvert under Peace Street. The initial traffic shift
for the culvert work was last September, and put traffic into a single lane in
each direction, with a left-turn lane so drivers on westbound Peace Street can
turn onto North West Street, and westbound Peace Street returning to a two-lane
pattern between North West Street and Glenwood Avenue. In this next shift,
traffic will move over to the section of road that has been closed, and then the
lanes that vehicles have been using will be closed off to traffic.
The one-lane each way traffic pattern was scheduled to be in place
for 300 days, and since it started last fall, it should wrap up early this
summer.
The bridge over Peace Street is 67 years old. Its replacement is
part of a complete revamping of the interchange, with the current diamond-shaped
interchange now in use replaced by a square loop interchange that eliminates the
ramp directly to Peace Street that currently exists. Instead, drivers will
travel over the new bridge, and then use Johnson Street and Harrington Street,
which will be extended, to access Peace Street at a traffic light. There will
also be bike lanes added along Peace Street between the interchange ramps, and
sidewalks will be widened to 14 feet along Peace Street and most of the square
loop.
It is part of a $36.9 million project that also puts a new
bridge-ramp on Wade Avenue over Capital Boulevard. Work on that bridge, which is
going in next to the current structure, is expected to see motorists moving over
to the new structure later this spring or early summer
Updated information on the bridge projects are available through a
variety of means, including the project
website, as well as through the department’s Triangle twitter feed.
Contact: Steve Abbott
(919) 707-2600
swabbott@ncdot.gov
B-5121, B-5317