Riverbend Road direct access closed
By From staff reports
Published in News on October 1, 2013 1:46 PM
Direct access to Riverbend Road from U.S. 70 west of Goldsboro was permanently closed Friday morning by the state Department of Transportation to allow work crews to construct the new alignment for the western section of the U.S. 70 Goldsboro Bypass.
Motorists on U.S. 70 will now have to take N.C. 581 North to access Riverbend Road. This pattern will remain until a service road connecting U.S. 70 to Riverbend Road is completed.
That project is tentatively scheduled for completion in January 2014.
A $62.4 million contract was awarded to S.T. Wooten Corp. of Wilson in July 2012 for this 5.9-mile western section of the U.S. 70 Goldsboro Bypass. The four-lane divided highway will go from U.S. 70 west of Goldsboro to Interstate 795. Interchanges will be at U.S. 70 and N.C. 581.
The U.S. 70 Goldsboro Bypass is a three-part project estimated to cost a total of $246 million. Once complete, the 20-mile bypass will span from U.S. 70 just west of N.C. 581 in Wayne County to U.S. 70 just east of Promise Land Road in Lenoir County. Crews are scheduled to complete the remaining sections of the bypass by summer 2015.
The first 3.9-mile section of the bypass, designated as N.C. 44, opened to traffic in December 2011 from I-795 to Wayne Memorial Drive north of Goldsboro. Once the east and west sections are complete, this section will be designates as the U.S. 70 Bypass.
A $104.4 million design-build contract was awarded to Barnhill Contracting Co. of Tarboro in February 2012 for construction of the 12.5-mile eastern section of the bypass. Interchanges will be constructed at U.S. 13, Parkstown Road and U.S. 70.
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