Gribblenation

I took a few hours this past Saturday (2/27) to check out the progress on several projects that will help shape the future of driving in Massachusetts and beyond. Most notably, wider roads, electronic tolling, and milepost-based exit numbers. 1. Wider Roads The longest construction project going on in the Metro Boston area is the '128-Add-A-Lane' Project, to create a fourth travel lane on I-93 and I-95 from MA 24 in Randolph to MA 9 in Wellesley. The work is now concentrated on the last section north of Great Plain Avenue in Needham. The work includes adding a fourth lane to the median: Replacing bridges over the highway, such as this one for Kendrick Street, now completed: Building a new off-ramp from Kendrick Street, in progress: And, revising the interchange with MA 9: The whole project is due to be completed by 2019. 2. Electronic Tolling MassDOT having instituted electronic tolls on the Tobin Bridge in 2014, is now in the process of doing the same for...

Could these be the next two Interstates in North Carolina? It seems more than likely that NCDOT is going to petition AASHTO to approve the formal numeric numeration for the two new interstate corridors that were included in the FAST ACT.   The two corridors are US 64 from Raleigh to Williamston then continuing north on US 17 to Hampton, VA.  The other follows US 70 from Interstate 40 near Clayton eastwards to Morehead City. NCDOT is most likely going to submit an application for both routes this April for the AASHTO meeting this coming May.  Here are my predictions for the number of each route. US 70 Corridor - We know that NCDOT is planning to petition for a number between 40 and 60 .  Obviously, 40 is already taken, and there is an Interstate 44 already in place running from St. Louis to Wichita Falls, TX.  42 is possible - however - there are a few of the opinion that since NC 42 intersects with the proposed Interstate this number is out....

While the year was fairly quiet for both I-73 and I-74 in North Carolina, with only continued construction and no new segment openings, there were some positive signs that funding had been found to accelerate several projects over the next several years. I-73 Work continued on the I-73 projects in the Greensboro area. The US 220 widening from the Haw River had both good news and bad news. The good news was the project surpassed the 50% completion mark during 2015, with the percentage finished reaching 56.5% at the end of the year. The bad news was that the project was supposed to be 92% complete. Therefore, NCDOT finally faced the facts of the delay in the work and pushed back the completion date from the end of 2016 to June 2017. The additional work on revamping the NC 68 interchange at the northern end of the project should be completed around the same time. Here's a couple photos from last January showing progress approaching the of the future interchange with US 158  an...

The highway bill known as the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) is passed and signed into law.  The 1,305 page bill has a lot items to it and future impacts to transportation in North Carolina are inside the bill.  This includes the creation of two new Interstate corridors and the extension of another.  As for the numbering of the new corridors, I'll discuss in a later post. High Priority Corridor 81: The first is the creation of High Priority Corridor 81 - this lists as including US 117 and Interstate 795 and runs from US 70 in Goldsboro southwards to Interstate 40 in Faison.  In short, this will extend I-795 from Goldsboro to I-40 in Faison.  North Carolina has had on their agenda for numerous years making a freeway route from I-40 northwards to I-95 in Wilson.  The current Interstate 795 is the north half of this. The southern half consists of US 117.  A number of steps are needed to make this section ...

For decades now, the 33 or so miles of Interstate 70 between New Stanton and Washington, Pennsylvania has been miles of narrow highway with nothing but a concrete (prior to that a steel guard rail) median separating high-speed Interstate traffic.  The ramps at nearly all the interchanges have no acceleration or deceleration ability - in fact, nearly all on-ramps to I-70 have a stop sign with them.  Narrow lanes and shoulders and low-speed limits. Well, the good news - PennDot short of building a new Interstate 70 (I will get to that history some other time) is doing some much-needed improvements throughout this stretch of highway .  As of this blog entry in November 2015, the Smithton (Exit 49) and PA 519 (Exit 25) interchanges have been redone and the PA 917, PA 481 and New Stanton interchange rebuilds are underway.  Further plans are to improve the interchanges with PA 51, PA 31, and Yukon/Wyano within the next five years. But these aren't the first wide-scale ...