Skip to main content

First Tour of the TriEx in 2010

Adam Prince and I took a Sunday morning tour to check out construction of the Triangle Expressway, NC's first Toll Road. I had not been down to check progress since I first toured the area last fall. The TriEx (as the Turnpike Authority is trying to get potential users to call it) is made up of 2 parts: The Triangle Parkway (an extension of NC 147) and the Western Wake Freeway, an extension of NC 540 from NC 55 north of Apex to the NC 55 Bypass in Holly Springs.
Here's a map to help explain the two parts and to identify the locations where we went on this trip (map excerpt taken from NCTA 2009 Annual Report, p. 17):
We expected to see more progress on the Triangle Parkway than the Western Wake Freeway, but it turns out it was the exact opposite. The contractors (who are working under the name The Raleigh Durham Roadbuilders, very original) started tree cutting and landscaping at the northern end of the Triangle Parkway, starting where it will depart from the existing NC 147:
Above is a photo from the southbound lanes while below is a view going northbound:
The tree cutting and landscaping continues, but only as far as just south of the US EPA complex. Here's a view north from the end of the cutting back toward Hopson Road, which will have the one of the two interchanges on the parkway (the other being for Davis Drive, number 3 in the map above:
Here's a view from the overlook on the other side of the road:
The ground overlooking the above view will be used as part of building a bridge for the road/ parkway intersection. The dimensions of the bridge were marked by stakes like below:
This was on the west side of the Parkway right-of-way, a similar stake was marked on the east side. Here was some of the equipment doing preliminary work on the bridge:
There was no work going on here, in contrast to where we went next, the current end of NC 540 at Exit 66:
Notice the cars parked on the left for contractors doing work even on Sunday.
Now an indulgence:
A closeup of the Exit 66A gore sign. Since I'm partially responsible for the taped over number, and the map shows different interchange numbers, I thought I'd take a photo before 'my exit numbers' were possibly removed.
Now back to the overview of construction progress:
The crane truck seen two photos above. Where this equipment and road closed signs are, is where the groundbreaking took place last fall, not even the potted plants remain. Here's a view beyond the barriers:
Just in case you wanted to see an official sign as who is constructing the parkway:
You can tell their tree cutting is very environmental from the color of the highway and the flower in the middle of the logo (plus you can work on your Spanish).

We thought that there would not be much tree cutting and landscaping work for this part of the Expressway as for the Parkway. Turns out there was more. The clearing proceeds further south, over McCrimmon Parkway, just to the west of Panther Creek High School, and all the way to Carpenter Fire Station Road in Cary (that's just about where the purple NC 540 shield is in the map above, if you're not familiar with the area). We plan to go out again in late March to get the next update on construction. The NCTA still says the Triangle Parkway will be open in 2011.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you for updating us, esp since the news and county don't seem to care to. Really wished they were further along.
Anonymous said…
Let's get some of the stimulus $$$ to build it quicker. We can surely use the 64 to US1 section as soon as possible. Every day I go against the traffic it will be great to see the fuel economy savings as folks avoid the traffic.
Anonymous said…
Well this week April 5-9 they have cleared Kitt Creek/540 to Davis, I imagine Davis to hopason next week for the Triangle parkway.
They are moving fast. Once those crews go in, they clear many acres a day.

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po