Morning Traffic Congestion

We've had a few questions/complaints about traffic congestion in the morning as residents are leaving Harrington Grove. Following is a summary of some information received from the City.

Update: The City is planning to widen Leesville Road from I-540 to New Leesville Boulevard to a four-lane median-divided section with curb and gutter, sidewalks, and streetlights. This project is planned to begin construction in 2011, with the design and public involvement process starting in 2009.

In the short term, we are looking to partner with Wake County Schools to extend the improvements that the school is making all the way down to I-540. These improvements would add an additional southbound lane from Norwood Road to the I-540 interchange, which will specifically benefit the morning rush hour. It wont fix your situation completely, but it should provide some substantial improvement.

I can tell you that the City is working with Wake County Public Schools to piggy back onto some road improvements associated with the elementary school that is being constructed. These improvements will result in two southbound lanes from the beginning of the school property down to the I-540 interchange. The remainder of the road is in the CIP (Capital Improvement Program) but I don’t believe it is funded in the next five years. It was a candidate project in the last bond issue but exorbitant increases construction prices severely impacted the number of projects that could be built with the Bond Funds. There has been mention of another Bond Referendum for next year and this would certainly be a candidate project if that happens. The CIP is available on the City’s Web Page (PDF).

It should be a significant improvement over the current situation. There will continue to be one lane northbound and two lanes southbound from the school down to the interchange. Northbound traffic will remain as it is today, one lane up to the existing New Leesville Boulevard, until the entire project is built. There should be no significant transition problems once the construction is complete but it will add significant capacity to the southbound traffic. Expediting this portion of the improvements was a “target of opportunity” that would allow traffic to take advantage of the improvements that the school system had to build anyway as a part of the school construction.

Additionally, one of our signal technicians will check the signal operation during the morning commute and school take-in times to make sure the signal is operating properly and to make adjustments to the timings if needed. Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention.