Still hard to believe all the ramps/bridges with 70 bypass @ 40 are going away. that was all supposed to be designed with 540 in mind. Although of, course, 540 design was not final, just where it was meeting. That has to be 50 million +/- NCDOT wasted money.
I thought the same thing, but probably the contractor said that it would make more sense or something. Of course that means more revenue/profit for the contractor.
Wow, thanks Rocky. That's what i had been looking for. You can only see so much progress from the roads. There is another video that guy did from Bells Lake to 55 @ Holly Springs right after this one. I really expected the path from NC50 to I 40 to look like the other video, with the basic path cut in already. I thought the would have had a crew on bridges and another doing the clearing/grading.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3226752464097903 They were flying over today for the traffic and got a lot of good shots of all the 540 construction around 70 and 40
I was able to grab this view from somewhere recently of the 540/40/70 interchange. The green is all the new work. It's actually a really neat interchange and should be able to maintain speed very well. If you look closely, the gray that doesn't have a green outline will go away.
It's sort of weird they hadn't started clearing heading towards NC 50. But id guess this is a separate crew, and the other bunch is heading from NC 50 towards I40. I think they are working on the bridge over swift creek.
I believe they might actually be different sub-contracts as well. I think one sub-contract is just doing the interchange at 40/540/70
https://www.summitde.net/i-540-complete.html here are some pictures of 540 under Const from the testing engineers web site.
I know this is a little off topic, but I remember reading somewhere here I think that they were suppose to extend Ranch road up to where the Sheetz on 70 (right at where 42 east is). Does someone know know the link, and when its suppose to start? Thanks
Right-of-way acquisition in FY21 and construction in FY22. (Search for "U-6223") And this link has some more information, and a link to a YouTube visualization of the project.