Capital Boulevard — a focus on acceleration
Accelerating the conversion of Capital Boulevard into a multimodal freeway 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, saving travelers substantial time and stress. However, there is currently insufficient funding to complete the roadway.
Support for studying ways to accelerate the corridor — There are now a total of seven motions or resolutions of support to study the opportunity for accelerating of the upgrade of Capital Boulevard to a multimodal freeway using toll revenue.
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 business organizations:
- Wake Forest Area Chamber (11/9/23)
- Raleigh Chamber (2/14/24)
- Regional Transportation Alliance (11/8/23)
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.
