Skip to main content

I-40 and I-440 Signage Changes Around Raleigh

I promised in my earlier post that I'd put additional photos in a future entry regarding signage changes along I-40 in Raleigh. These changes are taking place with the re-designation of I-440 as an East-West route across the top of Raleigh and its discontinuance on I-40. NCDOT had a press release last week saying they had completed the I-440 re-signing. Here are some photos taken in January showing examples:
This is on Wade Avenue approaching the I-440 interchange, the previous 'Inner' and 'Outer' designations have been replaced by 'East' and 'West.'
Here's a closeup of the second sign in the interchange. Another 3 control city sign. The trivia about this sign is that only 1 of the cities (Wake Forest) does either of these routes go to. The other destinations might be more appropriate on a I-40 US 64 sign, since you need to get on 64.
This is signage along the roadway itself, all that was done here is place an 'East' panel over the I-440 shield.

Now for sign changes on I-40 itself. I took a detour further east on I-40 from I-440 East down to Jones Sausage Road (brief pause for any snickering) and back to see signage on I-40 West approaching the Beltline. The first sign is:
The construction signage does not relate to the signage project but an ongoing paving job on I-440. Notice the lack of control cities. A 1/2 mile further this is the next sign:
This sign assembly has both a new sign for I-40 and a revised sign for I-40, notice the only control city is Durham. Is this to help or warn drivers? It's the same for the next signs assembly as seen in the previous post:
They've left the previous ground signs telling people to use 440 for north and east Raleigh and I-40 for south and west Raleigh, but an overhead sign might be more helpful. While these are definite changes from the previous signs, not all has been changed along the I-40 portion, like:
This assembly I assume has been there since I-40 was connected to the Beltline and has survived several route changes, additions, and now subtractions. How long will it remain?
As for the signing of I-40 after the merge, there are new I-40 and US 64 signage:
These are new signs, but they don't follow the recent NCDOT practice of putting route shields with more than one designation on green signage. Maybe this contract has been put off for so long it still was using the old specifications. As for the rest of I-40/US 64 there have been some new signs, but, at least westbound, not too many. The signage where I-40 meets I-440 again has not changed.

I also took some photos related to the I-40 widening project in Cary which begins at the end of West I-440 and continues to Wade Avenue:
Barriers have been placed to protect workers in the median and bringing the new lanes down to grade has begun. To speed up the process NCDOT's contractor is using a conveyor system:
To take the dirt and rock from the median over the highway to awaiting trucks. Another conveyor belt will take asphalt to the site when the roadbeds are completed. It appears workers are concentrating their efforts now between Wade Avenue and the NC 54 exit due to the presumed convenient location of the porta-potty:
This design-build project is supposed to be completed by the end of June 2011. If you would like more information go to the official NCDOT site at: http://www.ncdot.gov/projects/I4744/

Comments

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