18. Triangle Parkway
PROJECT COST: $137.4 million
The $137.4-million Triangle Parkway, running through Durham and Wake counties, is one of two projects making up the Triangle Expressway, North Carolina�s first modern toll road, employing all-electronic tolling.
Design-build contractor S.T. Wooten Corp. of Wilson, N.C., began work on the 3.4-mi long, six-lane project in September 2009 and expects to complete it in July 2012. Scope of work includes building eight new bridges, seven box culverts and needed retaining walls; grading; installing storm drainage systems; completing water and sewer work; adding signage; and installing the tolling infrastructure, which will depend on radio-frequency transponders in most cars and cameras to snap photographs of license plates of vehicles passing through a tolling area without a device. The North Carolina Turnpike Authority will bill those people. Crews will use about 1.3 million cu yds of earthen material excavation to construct the roadway fills.
Mulkey Engineers & Consultants of Raleigh, N.C., is providing construction engineering and inspection services for the Triangle Expressway project, which is designed to improve commuter mobility, accessibility and connectivity to Research Triangle Park employment centers and to decrease congestion on existing routes. Once open, the state expects the expressway will save up to 20 minutes when driving the entire 18.8-mi stretch. The entire project cost, for all three sections, exceeds $1 billion.
Key Facts:
Location: Durham and Wake counties, N.C.
Owner: North Carolina Turnpike Authority,Raleigh, N.C.
Contractor: S.T. Wooten Corp., Wilson, N.C.
Engineer: The LPA Group
Start Date: September 2009
Completion Date: July 2012
