If a quicker journey between Wake Forest and north Raleigh is high on your wish list, help is on the way. Through the State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP), North Carolina has committed funding for major upgrades to Capital Boulevard from I-540 to the Franklin County line.
Design, planning and geotechnical work are already underway on U-5307, which will provide expressway passage between the two points, with limited access, new service roads and a 70 mile-per-hour speed limit. The $1.3 billion project is among the state’s highest transportation priorities, according to Kim Deaner, the Public Information Officer for Division 5 at the N.C. Department of Transportation. “We’re going to be turning Capital Boulevard into a controlled freeway,” Deaner says.
The STIP relies on a data-centered assessment of traffic volume, safety, costs and other factors, weighing out priorities statewide. The transformed U.S. Highway 1, which will not be tolled, won’t have an Interstate shield due to its funding model. In that respect, it will be like U.S. Highway 264 east of the Raleigh beltline. “But we’ll have a freeway,” says Deaner, a Wake Forest resident who commutes to NCDOT’s Raleigh headquarters several days a week. “We’ll be able to get home much faster.”
Construction will commence in 2031, and the upgrades will occur across four segments: Segment A connects I-540 to Durant Road, while Segment B will reach from Durant Road to Burlington Mills Road. From there, Segment C will extend to the NC 98 Bypass. The final segment creates an interchange at Stadium Road and possibly another one on or near the county line.
While NCDOT is still conducting design work and securing rights-of-way, all phases of U-5307 are fully funded by the state, Deaner says. About 65,000 vehicles currently travel that stretch of Capital Boulevard each day, with estimates for as many as 75,000 daily cars by 2040, according to NC DOT. State and municipal leaders first began studying potential upgrades to the corridor in 2006.
In recent months, NCDOT has initiated public affairs surrounding U-5307, with web-based and video resources. The news coincides with two other major transportation upgrades affecting Wake Forest. Plans for the S-Line passenger rail project remain underway, with upgrades from downtown Raleigh to downtown Wake Forest offering another high-speed transit alternative for residents, tourists and commuters. As important are upgrades to U.S. Highway 401 (aka Louisburg Road) that are now wrapping up between Raleigh’s Perry Creek Road and the newly relocated entrance to Ligon Mill Road. That $37 million project, which is running a full year ahead of schedule, will provide safer, quicker passage of vehicles around northern Wake County.
“People will be able to use 401 as an alternative route,” says Deaner. All but the landscaping work is expected to be complete this summer, she adds. “It’s right around the corner.”
Even though construction of the Capital Boulevard expressway won’t begin for five years, motorists may begin noticing pre-development work now. NC DOT is already working with the engineering firm S&ME to test soil and geotechnical conditions, according to a department video. Additional information on U-5307 and other transportation projects is available on the NC DOT website, where stakeholders may request ongoing email and text alerts with the latest news.
The modernization of Capital Boulevard has been a high priority for the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership (WFBIP) since the organization’s founding, says Jason Cannon, the organization’s President. “It’s been a long time coming,” Cannon says, “but we’re going to have a high-speed corridor connecting Wake Forest to Raleigh’s outer beltline and then the rest of the state.” It is also significant that the expressway will not collect a toll, something the Town’s residents and businesses had objected to.
Working with experts at Creative Economic Development Consulting LLC, WFBIP has studied the economic impact U-5307 will have on maximizing six product development initiatives emerging along the Capital Boulevard corridor. The properties include Wake Forest Exchange and the Wake Forest Business and Technology Park. Once fully built out, the six properties represent an addition of as much as $3.4 billion to the Town’s annual economic output, the analysis found, as well as 15,208 total jobs. Creative EDC’s impact analysis was conducted last year with support from ElectriCities of North Carolina, a WFBIP utility partner.
“Combined with the S-Line initiative, there’s an obvious quality-of-life benefit for residents, workers and visitors in Wake Forest that will come out of this, but the story doesn’t end there,” Cannon says. “This next-generation incarnation of Capital Boulevard will elevate our Town’s economic development posture and connect our most lucrative business assets to each other and to the Triangle Region’s growing economy.”
