Green means stop?
By Steve Herring and Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 2, 2014 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Road construction to create a new median on Wayne Memorial Drive limits traffic to two lanes on Tuesday. Heavy traffic causes issues for motorists exiting U.S. 70 West, sometimes causing lines of up to 40 cars on the exit ramp.
Motorists on Wayne Memorial Drive should not expect to see any relief from backups and delays for at least another four weeks. Construction work along the busy corridor has squeezed traffic into just two lanes.
But Goldsboro traffic engineer Bobby Croom is trying to ease some of that pain by monitoring and changing traffic light cycles on the street.
"This is a vital corridor to our city," Croom said. "Taking five lanes down to just one in each direction drastically reduces capacity.
"I am putting in a specific time plan to accommodate Wayne Memorial Drive as much as possible. I am trying to double the green time on Wayne Memorial."
But this modification is causing a backup on the side streets. While people probably expect delays during construction, two of those sides streets are actually U.S. 70 on-ramps to Wayne Memorial Drive, he said.
Croom said that while he wants to keep traffic moving on Wayne Memorial Drive, that it cannot come at the expense of backing up traffic on the ramps and onto U.S. 70. That creates a safety hazard, he said.
Croom said he inputs the signal information every morning about 8 a.m. and it remains in place until 5:30 p.m.
"I try not to start too early," he said.
Monitors in his office allow Croom to keep an eye on the traffic flow. If traffic starts to back up earlier he can change the timing. He also monitors traffic on the on-ramps.
Businesses along the street have been feeling the pain as well.
Mary Bartlett, chief financial officer at 3HC, said employees have been 20 to 30 minutes late to work due to the construction.
Auditors from Charlotte have been at 3HC this week, and they have not had an easy time battling the road conditions, she said.
"When our auditors came in from Charlotte it took them 30 minutes to get from the off ramp on 70 to here," she said.
Croom said he had seen on-ramp traffic back up almost to U.S. 70, but not actually be on the highway. But it is impossible to say that has not happened at times, he added.
3HC's positioning on Wayne Memorial Drive also does not allow alternate access to the business, bottlenecking employees into one route.
Dean Lee, the CEO of 3HC, said he is worried about ambulances trying to reach Wayne Memorial Hospital during emergencies.
"Even when all of this is done, ambulances won't be able to go use the turn lane to get around traffic anymore," Lee said. "What happens if traffic is in both lanes and ambulances can't get around?"
Croom said he has seen northbound traffic backed up as far as Burger King and southbound traffic almost to Hospital Drive.
He said he hopes drivers can find alternative routes and that people who do not have to be on the road will avoid it.
Mrs. Bartlett said she believes people who do not have business to attend to along Wayne Memorial Drive should avoid taking the route.
Wayne Memorial Hospital took its directive from the Department of Transportation, notifying employees weeks ago of the pending situation. Others having to access the hospital services should follow suit, official said.
"We're just telling people to plan earlier, like if they have an appointment or outpatient," Public Relations Director Georgia Dees said. "The best thing to do is go around (the construction).
"As far as people coming to the ER, same thing, go a different way. Don't endanger yourself to get here."
Wayne Country Day School may be located on a side road, but still experiences issues at dismissal time, said secretary Melissa Watkins, who also lives on Country Day Road.
"The mornings aren't so bad because they haven't really geared up to do the work," she said. "People coming and going at 3 to 3:30 to pick up students, that's probably our biggest, the students' biggest difficulty."
Their problem is compounded, though, by an added situation at the opposite end of the school's roadway.
"They're also paving Patetown Road," Ms. Watkins said. "They could have done a little bit better job of coordinating.
"We tried to let people know when we saw (Wayne Memorial) was going to happen but we did not know Patetown was going to happen."
Wayne Community College may be located beyond the construction's scope, but nonetheless college officials took precautions in anticipation of the project. Tara Humphries, the college's public information officer, said advance notification from DOT helped.
"We were able to let our students and employees know to start thinking about possible construction zone etiquette, factor that in the time to get to school," she said. "It's an inconvenience but they know to work around it."
The college is fortunate to have options that others on that roadway do not, she said.
"They have three other directions to come at us from here," Ms. Humphries said. "I hear what a mess it is but everybody here knows (to) have planned an alternate route.
According to 2012 data compiled by the state Department of Transportation, the average annual daily traffic count on Wayne Memorial Drive is about 18,000 vehicles a day at 9th street to 27,000 near Country Day Road.
Since that study, new businesses have opened in the area and traffic follows development, he said. Croom said that while he did not have any new statistics that it is obvious to him that the traffic has increased since the last count two years ago.
The $425,000 resurfacing and median construction project between U.S. 70/11th Street and Country Day Road is being done by S.T. Wooten Co.
Progress on the project is doing well, DOT officials said.
The concrete median work was expected to be finished last week, weather permitting.
Paving of the interior lanes (three out of five lanes total) was expected to begin this week, starting at New Hope Road. The outside lane of each direction is not being paved since they were paved a few years ago.
Once the paving is complete, crews will have to stripe lanes before the project is finished.
The completion deadline remains four to six weeks away, weather permitting.
DOT officials say the median will improve safety along the road by preventing traffic from turning left in front of oncoming vehicles.
The median will be located between existing signals at intersections along Wayne Memorial Drive.
Motorists who want to turn left at areas where there is not an intersection will travel to the next break in the median, make a U-turn and then turn right at their destination.