Accelerate Capital Blvd Freeway Upgrade – Northern Wake

Accelerating the transformation of Capital Boulevard into a multimodal freeway and complementary parallel access road system between I-540 and the Wake/Franklin county line remains RTA’s top freeway priority.

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 along the new freeway, saving travelers substantial time and stress, along with a complementary parallel access road system for the length of the corridor. However, there is currently insufficient funding to ensure completion of the roadway corridor in a timely fashion.

Support for accelerating the corridor via toll revenue — There have been at least four endorsements or motions of support during 2025 for accelerating the corridor to a multimodal freeway via the application of dedicated toll revenue. All approved support motions reference the potential for static peak period toll rates on all freeway main lanes once construction is complete and a parallel access road system is in place. All support actions reference consideration of implementing off-peak discounted toll rates; the majority of these actions also speak to the continuing pursuit of non-toll revenue solutions.

Public entities:

• City of Raleigh  (4/15/25)
• Capital Area MPO  (5/21/25)

Private, non-profit business organizations:

• RTA – Regional Transportation Alliance  (1/9/25)
• Greater Raleigh Chamber (4/9/25)

Support for studying ways to accelerate the corridor  — There were at least seven motions or resolutions of support during 2023-24 to study the opportunity for accelerating of the upgrade of Capital Boulevard to a multimodal freeway using toll revenue — while still pursuing other methods of funding the corridor without tolls.

Public entities:

• 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, non-profit business organizations:

• RTA – Regional Transportation Alliance  (11/8/23)
• Wake Forest Area Chamber (11/9/23)
• Raleigh Chamber (2/14/24)

The business case – As we said to the News & Observer in early 2024, “We want to see what the detailed study [of accelerating the freeway upgrade via toll revenue] 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.

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. In broad terms:  it will take around 10 minutes to travel the entire 10 mile stretch from I-540 to Franklin County via freeway, around 30 minutes via parallel service roads, and around 60 minutes along an unimproved Capital Boulevard. Thank you to RTA Leadership Team member Wetherill Engineering for performing the analysis.