By Suze Parker, Contributing Author
When Phase 1 of the Triangle Expressway extension opened in September, the residents of Raleigh, N.C. and its surrounding communities entered a new era of regional connectivity.
The extension has been envisioned for decades as part of the Complete 540 project, an outer loop around the booming metro that will improve mobility, reduce congestion and foster economic growth.
The 18-mile project runs between the North Carolina Highway 55 Bypass and the Interstate 40 interchange near the Wake/Johnston County line, with three lanes in each direction. At $1.3 billion, it is the largest highway infrastructure investment in North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT) history.
“The Triangle Expressway supports the region’s growth and provides an efficient transportation option,” said JJ Eden, executive director of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority. “Before Phase 1 was complete, travel to northern Raleigh from the southern part of the region was onerous at best. The Triangle Expressway extension gives drivers an alternative to driving I-40 through downtown Raleigh, one of the most congested roads in the state.”
Support for a Toll Road
The concept of the Triangle Expressway toll road began in 2005, when mayors from five of the Raleigh area’s rapidly growing suburban cities approached the North Carolina Turnpike Authority (NCTA), an agency within NCDOT, to request consideration for taking on the project.
“It was unusual 20 years ago for these elected officials to champion a toll road,” said HNTB Program Manager Jennifer Harris. “There were no toll roads in the state at the time. The mayors recognized a need for transportation infrastructure that would enable their communities to grow as planned and knew there was no funding for the project. It was a toll road or no road.”
NCTA, with assistance from HNTB as its general engineering consultant, evaluated the project and determined that building the road with tolling could significantly accelerate the timeline.
Reducing Public Impacts
An extensive effort was required before ground was broken in 2019 for the first phase of the Triangle Expressway extension.
The entire extension – Phases 1 and 2 – comprises 28 miles of greenfield roadway, necessitating a complex environmental review process across a huge study area. NCTA had to consider multiple project alternatives to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and avoid and minimize impacts to the human and natural environments.
To engage the public in discussing the project and potential alternatives, NCTA conducted a robust outreach program, which included meetings in communities. It also created a dedicated project email address and a telephone hotline where area residents could provide comments or ask questions and receive answers.
The project team constructed miles of noise walls to mitigate the corridor’s sound impacts on nearby properties. And, for one neighborhood that was bisected by the Triangle Expressway, NCTA built a culvert that allowed community members to pass back and forth beneath the roadway.
NCDOT also agreed to provide 30% funding for the Open Space Program in Wake County, where most of the Triangle Expressway extension is located. The agency’s $20 million contribution helped Wake County purchase and maintain high-value properties as permanent parks, greenways and other open spaces.
“NCTA was deliberate in partnering with communities and coordinating with local governments to address concerns and determine how alternatives being considered coincided with local land-use plans,” Harris said. “The agency was a good neighbor in all aspects of the project.”
Partnering with Disadvantaged Business Enterprises
Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) completed about $75 million of the Triangle Expressway extension work. To match DBEs to project needs, NCTA held an industry forum in conjunction with the NCDOT Office of Civil Rights to inform DBEs about the project.
Project leaders also met with small companies that were not already registered as DBEs to walk them through the process of becoming pre-qualified to work on the project. Interested DBE company representatives could talk directly with potential prime contractors in a pre-bid informational event.
To achieve efficiency as well as inclusion, NCTA divided the Phase 1 work into three projects, each supported by its own contract. It staggered them to reflect the sections’ state of readiness for advertisement.
This approach allowed for a more diverse pursuit of each project. It further allowed companies to make educated decisions about whether to pursue work in each section as they knew the outcome of one bid before the next bid was due.
NCTA also incorporated woman- and minority-owned firms into right-of-way acquisition. Typically, different firms handle different parts of the process. NCTA, however, brought numerous related activities together within one contract.
For two of the three contracts, NCTA packaged and advertised right-of-way work designed to give DBEs an opportunity to lead in these contracts.
Mitigating Challenges
Building through COVID created labor and supply chain challenges that NCTA met with a teamwork approach.
“At one point, about $15 million worth of heavy equipment sat for months because operators were unavailable,” Eden said. “There was a time we couldn’t get structural steel. At one point we were bringing cement from overseas, and then that country went on strike and turned the ships around. The engineering staff and the contractors would analyze the problems and not give up. Working together, we crossed over silos and found innovative solutions to move forward.”
Rigorous synchronization across the three project segments upheld NCTA’s commitment to opening all 18 miles simultaneously. Contractors pivoted from one material to another or found alternate sources as supply chain accessibility shifted.
“NCTA understood the sensitivity of our schedule and was willing to entertain anything creative the project team proposed,” said Alan Shapiro, NCTA deputy chief engineer. “It was a total team effort to ensure the project never stopped.”
That spirit of cooperation enabled NCTA to also handle an eleventh-hour emergency. Fifty-six days before the Triangle Expressway was scheduled to open – and the day after the toll system integrator had validated the system at a toll site projected to be one of the corridor’s busiest – a truck struck and completely disabled the tolling gantry.
Normally, fabrication of a replacement gantry would have taken at least six months. Civil and technology installation and testing could then take an additional three months.
However, within 23 days, a vendor had constructed and installed a temporary, tolling-ready alternative solution.
Shapiro called the outcome “a truly incredible accomplishment that included coordination and cooperation between the Turnpike Authority, the vendor and the construction contractors, who were also trying to get the remainder of the projects ready to open to traffic.”
The NCTA finance team’s innovative work contributed to project success, as well.
“They could not have anticipated that the cost of fuel would balloon so much because of COVID, but they had the foresight to incorporate a fuel hedge at the outset of the project,” Shapiro said. “That fuel hedge saved us millions of dollars when fuel costs skyrocketed.”
Aesthetics that Reduce Maintenance Costs
NCTA developed and applied an aesthetic design guide into the Phase 1 Request for Proposals to ensure that the Triangle Expressway extension would be as beautiful as it is easy to drive.
The completed project, for example, includes more than 3.5 million hand-laid bricks on the Expressway’s noise and bridge walls, mimicking the original Triangle Expressway, where the majority of noise and bridge walls are painted to look like brick.
Triangle Expressway extension Phases 1 and 2 will include more than a million square feet of brick-clad noise walls, which will cost less to maintain because they will not have to be repainted. NCTA also learned from its contract partners that providing real brick was cheaper than providing and painting the panels.
“So, we saved on construction and future maintenance costs and achieved a more pleasing product,” Shapiro said.
NCTA installed equipment on the toll gantries to detect and classify vehicles for proper tolling rather than embedding intelligent detector loops in the pavement. This decision reduces future costs by eliminating the need to continually cut the pavement and change out the loops following pavement rehabilitation activities.
Exceeding Expectations
In the first 60 days since the Phase 1 extension opened, motorist usage had exceeded expectations. More than 5 million toll transactions had taken place. The heaviest travel day during that period included 147,000 transactions.
Semis and other large trucks made up 6% of all transactions, double the expected amount. Those numbers indicate that the Triangle Expressway is helping to reduce traffic congestion on I-40 and the local network by pulling truck traffic off those roads.
Consistent comments from area residents about the road’s beauty and effective design confirm recognition of NCTA’s beautification efforts, which include flower beds, replanted trees and placement of a dogwood emblem, the Triangle Expressway icon, on all sign columns and bridges along the corridor.
Phase 2 of the Expressway extension, a 10-mile stretch between I-40 and Interstate-87 that will complete the 540 outer loop, began construction in June and is anticipated to open to traffic in 2028. RB
Suze Parker is a public relations consultant who frequently writes about roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.
