Today's Herald Sun has a good article describing a trifecta of road construction projects happening around Ninth Street Shopping Center and Duke's East Campus. By far the most destructive of three, promises to be the demolition of the bridge that carries Main Street over Campus Drive
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As I described previously, the work is likely to last for at least a year and will result in a complete closure of Main street. The detour will be through Durham Freeway, which is likely to cause considerable pain to residents trying to get to downtown and Bright Leaf square without having to get on the interstate. Before the work begins, however, the city will need to replace a major water main. The construction is slated to begin in the summer. On the bright side of things, DOT officials promise to repave the Main Street and narrow it from four lanes to three to allow bike lines on both sides.
The Herald Sun article describing the full impact of this and some other roadwork projects is reprinted after the break.
Ready for detours on Main Street?
DURHAM — City leaders are bracing for a three-headed construction project along Main Street that one elected official is predicting will become “a royal pain” for residents and travelers in the corridor.
The work near Ninth Street and Duke University’s East Campus is likely to begin by the middle of February, leading off with a major city water-main replacement that will limit traffic on Main Street to the use of two lanes.
By late summer, the attention will turn to the corridor’s headline project, the replacement of the bridge that carries Main Street over Campus Drive.
When contractors move in to demolish the bridge, the N.C. Department of Transportation will shut down traffic in the corridor, establishing a formal detour along the Durham Freeway between Swift Avenue and Chapel Hill Street.
Logistics and geography dictate a full closure because there’s no room along Main Street to establish a bypass, city Transportation Director Mark Ahrendsen told elected officials on Thursday.
“You have the historic wall at Duke you can’t intrude onto, and [on the other side] the railroad right of way is at the curb line,” Ahrendsen said. “You can’t build a runaround because of the limitations on either side.”
“Even if you could do that, it would simply lengthen the project,” he added. “So the decision was, close the bridge, do the work and get out as quickly as possible.”
Once the bridge is complete, DOT will finish up by repaving Main Street from Ninth Street all the way west to Peabody Street, near the Hall-Wynne funeral home.
Thursday’s briefing was the City Council’s second look at the effort and, as before, the idea of closing Main Street for any lengthy period drew a gloomy assessment from Councilman Eugene Brown, who lives in Trinity Park a couple blocks off the corridor.
“Don’t try to sugarcoat this,” he told Ahrendsen and other officials. “This is going to be a royal pain in the fanny. There’s no way to get around it. I just hope we know what the hell we’re doing.”
Brown added that he’s worried the council will take the political blame if the yearlong bridge replacement goes awry, even though it’s the state DOT’s project and one the city has no control over.
The leadoff water-line work, though, is a city project and one that has to make considerable progress before DOT contractors can move in and start taking down the bridge.
Water Management Director Don Greeley said a contractor will install a new, 3-foot-wide pipe to become the backbone main that connects downtown Durham to one of the city’s water treatment plants.
The new piping replaces smaller, existing mains that date from the 1880s, including pipes that now hang from the Campus Drive bridge.
The council approved contracts for the water project last fall and set its budget at $4.8 million. Construction will begin next month on the southernmost reaches of Ninth Street before moving to Main Street.
Greeley said administrators are planning to meet soon with neighborhood and merchants’ groups to brief them on some of the potential fallout.
Duke officials are cooperating and have said they’ll allow pedestrians displaced by the water-line construction to use the pathway on East Campus, Greeley said.
Ahrendsen said Main Street is handling about 11,000 to 12,000 vehicles a day. He and his staff believe two travel lanes can handle the load “with minimal delays,” although there will be some tie-ups at intersections.
Workers will change the striping of lanes at the intersections and the timing of key signals like those at Broad Street and Buchanan Boulevard in recognition of the new traffic patterns, he said.
Although DOT will designate the Durham Freeway as the formal detour once it closes Main Street, city officials are assuming a good number of motorists will use other streets, Markham Avenue being one.
They’ll adjust traffic signals there, too.
After laying down the new pavement, DOT at the city’s urging will stripe Main Street for two travel lanes and a center turn lane to make room for bicycle lanes on both sides of the road, Ahrendsen said.
That squares with the existing use of bikes near Duke and the council’s desire to encourage people to rely more heavily on them, he said.
If traffic volumes rise beyond levels the three-lane scheme can handle, DOT would simply repaint the road for four lanes.
Given the cost of paint, “it’s not a major risk financially” to try a three-lane scheme, Ahrendsen said.
Read more: The Herald-Sun - Ready for detours on Main Street
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