Skip to main content

Check the box: Interstate 495 to 87 conversion administratively approved

Future I-87 signs are coming to Wake, Franklin and Nash Counties.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials have recently approved North Carolina's application to remove the short-lived Interstate 495 and future I-495 from Raleigh to Rocky Mount.  This administrative move most likely will result in North Carolina signing Interstate 87 and Future I-87 on the entire corridor in the near future.

Interstate 495's Future is no longer bright along the I-87 corridor.

Approved in 2013, Interstate 495 was first signed in 2014 along US 64 from Interstate 440 in Raleigh to Interstate 540 in Knightdale.  The remaining segment of highway to Rocky Mount was signed as Future Interstate 495.  However, in 2016, North Carolina's congressional legislators were able to get language in the 2015 FAST ACT designating the US 64/US 13/US 17 corridor from Raleigh to Norfolk as an Interstate.  In 2016, the FHWA and AASHTO designated this entire corridor (including the existing Interstate and Future 495) as Interstate 87.  (NCDOT had applied for Interstate 89 along this route.)

It is currently unknown when the Interstate 495 signs will be taken down and replaced with Interstate 87.  When first signed, Interstate 87 will be slightly longer than Interstate 495 was.  The designation will run from where Interstate 40 and 440 meet in Southeast Raleigh along Interstate 440 West to Exit 14 where I-495 begins today.  Interstate 87 signs will then be on the entire length of the Knightdale Bypass to where Interstate highway standards end at Rolesville Road (Exit 430).  There are no currently scheduled plans to upgrade US 64 from Exit 430 to Interstate 95 in Rocky Mount to Interstate standards. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chowchilla Mountain Road to Yosemite National Park

Chowchilla Mountain Road of Mariposa County is one of the oldest roadways servicing Yosemite National Park.  As presently configured this fourteen-mile highway begins at California State Route 49 near Elliot Corner and terminates at the Wawona Road in Yosemite National Park.  Chowchilla Mountain Road was constructed as a franchise toll road over Battalion Pass circa 1869-1870.  The highway was built at behest of Galen Clark to connect the town of Mariposa to his property near the South Fork Merced River at what is now Wawona.   In late 1874 the highway along with Clark’s Station would be purchased by the Washburn Brothers.  The Washburn Brothers would continue to toll Chowchilla Mountain Road as part of their Yosemite Stage Route lines.  The highway would ultimately become a Mariposa County public highway in 1917.  Mariposa would later be more directly linked with Yosemite Valley in 1926 following the completion of the Yosemite All-Year Highwa...

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l...

Angus L. Macdonald Bridge

At 1.3 kilometers (or about 0.84 miles) in length, the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge is one of two bridges crossing over the Halifax Harbour between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with the other bridge being the A. Murray Mackay Bridge . Opened in 1955 and named after former Nova Scotia Premier and Canadian Minister of Defense for Naval Services Angus L. Macdonald, the Macdonald Bridge was the first bridge that crossed Halifax Harbour that was opened to traffic. The Macdonald Bridge was also the subject of the Big Lift, which was only the second time in history that the span of a suspension bridge were replaced while the bridge was open to traffic. Planning began in 2010 for the Big Lift, while construction took place between 2015 and 2017. Similar work occurred on the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia before the project took place on the Macdonald Bridge. At this time, much of the bridge infrastructure is new, leaving only the towers, main cables and...