485: Move Goal Posts, Declare Victory
N.C. Department of Transportation officials have announced that a widening of the south Charlotte parking lot known as I-485, from Johnston Road to South Boulevard, is slated to begin in 2014, a year ahead of the state’s current schedule.
That should come as giddy news, except for the inconvenient fact that the widening project was originally scheduled for 2013, but two years ago was bumped to 2015. So, yeah, technically it is now slated to start a year ahead of the current schedule that is a year behind the original schedule. And forget mentioning that the entire outerbelt was launched with a target completion date of 2008; that’d just be rubbing it in.
Anyway, the widening project will also include a bridge at the Johnston Road interchange to allow easier access to the interstate. DOT says the whole widening project, which will add an extra lane in each direction to the four-lane highway that handles about 120,000 a day, will cost between $70 million and $75 million and should be completed by late 2016.
The expanded three-lanes in each direction, however, will still bottleneck to the existing two-lanes of I-485 past the Johnston Road interchange and traffic counts are likely to double by the time the widening project is finished. So we got that going for us.
Earlier this year, DOT officials announced that construction of the final leg of the outerbelt, a five-mile stretch from N.C. 115 to I-85 in northeast Charlotte, should be prepped to start later this year.
That, again, should come as giddy news, if Gov. Bev Perdue hadn’t last year proudly proclaimed that construction would start in 2009. The final eight-lane segment, with its estimated cost upwards of $300 million, is slated to be finished in 2015.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=2833
