WILMINGTON — A North Carolina Department of Transportation project that’s been in the works for years will see groundbreaking by next spring.
READ MORE: $68M Gordon Road widening project to break ground next summer
Around 2.5 miles of Gordon Road will be widened from Market Street to I-40, an anticipated $81-million project that’s been on the department’s 2020-2029 STIP and undergoing assessment for years.
The Wilmington Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization has ranked the widening of the road in its top 25 priority projects since the mid-2000s.
NCDOT began taking steps to address Gordon Road in 2019 and estimated in 2021 it was would cost $46.8 million.
Since, the department has hosted public meetings — garnering more than 100 people participating — did a traffic analysis and environmental review since. It found traffic along Gordon Road contained roughly 22,000 to 24,400 vehicles per day, with escalations by 2045 reaching 29,400 to 35,300.
NCDOT announced this week it awarded $50.8 million to S T Wooten Corp. of Wilson to complete the project. Funding for the project also includes $5.8 million for development and design and $16.3 million for property acquisition.
Once done, Gordon Road will consist of four lanes, separated by a 17.5-foot raised median and include reduced conflict intersections — which means right turns only are allowed. Left turns from side roads will be forbid and, instead, motorists utilize U-turns to change direction of traffic.
The reduced conflict intersections are known to reduce by half the number of pedestrian and vehicle collisions.
The project also will include sidewalks, which are remiss from the area now, which has multiple home developments and apartment complexes located off Gordon Road. More than 700 new residential units have been approved in the last several years alone, including — 439 single-family and apartment units at the Landing at Lewis Creek, 300 apartments at Hawthorne at Smith Creek and an 84-unit affordable housing complex, Estrella Landing.
Specs of the project include:
- 11-foot travel lanes with curb and gutter
- 10-foot multi-use path, separated from the roadway by a grass area, on the north side
- 5-foot sidewalk, separated from the roadway by grass area, on the south side
“The project is needed because the capacity of Gordon Road between I-40 and U.S. 17 is inadequate to meet current and future traffic volumes, resulting in increased congestion and reduced mobility,” NCDOT noted in documents about the project. “The purpose is to improve capacity and reduce congestion along Gordon Road and is intended to aid in managing the growth that the Wilmington area has been experiencing. This project will also improve mobility for bicyclists and pedestrians through the corridor by providing multimodal facilities.”
The project is slated to wrap by summer 2029.
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