Open house, public hearing on Triangle Parkway on Tuesday

Tired of the Durham Freeway's dead-end onto T. W. Alexander Dr. just south of I-40? Wishing you could make it all the way down to Apex without blinking an eye? Excited to pay to use one of North Carolina's first toll roads?

OK, the answer to some or all of these may be no. Still, the completion of the proposed Triangle Parkway project will mark an important improvement to the Triangle's vehicular transportation system.

The Triangle Parkway will pick up at NC 147 (the Durham Freeway) just south of I-40 and will provide a direct freeway connection to NC 540 at Davis Drive; the ramps and flyovers are already designed for the interchange. From there, the parkway will continue down through western Wake County, connecting eventually to US 1.

Why does this matter? For one thing, the road as a whole, in combination with the free East End Connector project, will provide an important north-south highway connection from the southern part of the Triangle (and the state, for that matter) to the I-85 corridor, helping to relieve traffic pressures from US 1 and Durham's roadways alike.

For another, it's good to see the state get with the twenty-first century as far as toll roads and road funding are concerned. Short of a massive transformation of North Carolina's state political machinery to right-size transportation investment allocations between urban and rural interests, toll roads are just about the only way to extend highways to growing urban areas.

At the same time, they provide a fair incentive against sprawl. Want to move to South McNowheresville? Sure! But guess what, you'll get to pay for your own superhighway to get there.

Whatever you may think about the project, you'll get a chance to express your opinions at Tuesday night's NCDOT public hearing on the subject. An open house is scheduled for 4:30 to 6:30pm at Sigma Xi's offices at 3106 E. Highway 54 down in RTP. A public hearing on the road's design will follow at 7:00pm.

Comments

[Joshua]

One of the *features* of this new road is that it will close access to T.W. Alexander where the Durham Freeway now ends. Tolls will be collected as soon as you pass I-40 going south. In my view, the reason for this is to discourage people from taking T.W. Alexander over to the newly widened Hwy 55, the free alternative to the toll road.

IMHO, with the almost complete widening of Davis Drive, newly widened 55, and the new NC540, we don't really need the Triangle Parkway. It's a nice convenience, but I'd prefer to keep the current access to T.W. Alexander that we've already paid for and not pay any money to use a toll road.

[Jeni]

From what I can tell, it does seem that you'll still be able to exit onto TW prior to Cornwallis. They're just cutting it down to 1 exit off the freeway from 2!

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

TW is a pretty long road, those two exits are a world apart when you're trying to get to southern RTP. Interesting to note that in the plan they are committing to leave the existing spur to TW open for "as long as possible" during construction.

The folks at the EPA daycare facility are not pleased, though at least they got a retaining wall. Thankfully the Durham County Wildlife Club is not affected (http://www.dcwc.net).

[Tanner Lovelace]

If the spur to TW Alexander closes you'll have 2 options if you're going south and don't want to pay tolls:

1. Get on I-40 west and then off at Hwy 55 south. This can back up sometimes in the afternoons but it seems to be unpredictable as to when.
2. Get on I-40 east and then off at Davis Dr. This backs up much more often in the afternoon as people from RTP go home to Cary & Raleigh.

Neither one of these is as convenient as the exit to TW Alexander is and as a previous commenter mentioned, it's very easy right now to get off at the end of 147, turn left onto TW Alexander (although it does back up at the light there) and then left onto Hwy 55 south. Why do we need this again?