Capital Boulevard — a focus on acceleration
- February 15, 2024
- Posted by: Joe Milazzo II
- Category: Blog
Accelerating the conversion of Capital Boulevard into a multimodal freeway remains RTA’s top freeway priority. There is no argument that Capital Boulevard needs some transportation “TLC”, and with the growing region, it’s only going to get more expensive as the years progress.
NCDOT has an outstanding plan to upgrade Capital Blvd. north of I-540 to a 10+ mile, 70 MPH freeway. When complete, there will be no stoplights, no left turns, and no driveways, saving travelers substantial time and stress. However, there is currently insufficient funding to complete the roadway.
Support for studying ways to accelerate the corridor — As of this week, there are now a total of seven motions or resolutions of support to study the acceleration of the freeway upgrade using toll revenue from both public and private entities:
Public entities:
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- Capital Area MPO (1/17/24)
- Town of Wake Forest (11/21/23)
- Town of Franklinton (12/19/23)
- Town of Youngsville (1/11/24)
Private business organizations:
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- Wake Forest Area Chamber (11/9/23)
- Raleigh Chamber (2/14/24) — new this week
- Regional Transportation Alliance (11/8/23)
Travel alternatives once the freeway opens — NCDOT’s multimodal freeway design includes the construction of miles of new parallel service roads, which will create a new, non-toll travel way parallel to the US 1 freeway, in concert with and accessible from all proposed exits.
An initial analysis commissioned by RTA of projected future peak period corridor travel times found that travel along the parallel service road routing would take far less time than travel along an unimproved Capital Boulevard. Thank you to RTA Leadership Team member Wetherill Engineering for performing the analysis.
Next steps
As I said to the News & Observer a few weeks ago, “We want to see what the detailed study would tell us. Of course, the reality is that Capital Boulevard travelers are already paying a toll of delay and stress every day with nothing to show for it.”
We look forward to ongoing partnership with CAMPO, NCDOT, the NC Turnpike Authority, and other partners as we look to make improvements to Capital Boulevard a reality faster, together.
Let’s get moving,
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director
RTA is the voice of the regional business community on transportation
