A $708.9 million project to widen 26 mi. of I-95 in southeastern North Carolina is on target for the 2027 completion date.
Completed, the project stretching from exits 55 to 81 will expand the interstate from four lanes to eight and is expected to ease congestion and accommodate future growth on the highway. The stretch currently sees an average of 65,000 vehicles daily. The project is split into two segments, Segment A — exits 55 to 71 — and Segment B — exits 71 to 81.
"On the southern sections, milepost 54.5 to 72, we are about 90 percent complete," said Randy Wise, NCDOT-contracted project manager of the two contracts. "We still have a little section, about 10.5 miles, from 54.5 up to 56 to do the widening, and then we're complete pretty much up to exit 72. The second project is just over 55 percent complete. There are no sections of that open to the eight lanes like we have on the southern section, but we have most of the outside widening done. The majority of what's left is all the inside, two lanes in both directions and the concrete wall that still has to be completed."
NCDOT photo
Because of the high traffic volumes, contractors keep two lanes in each direction open through daylight hours, restricting work that calls for lane closures to night hours.
The 26-mi. project is part of NCDOT's long-term goal is to eventually widen all 182 mi. of I-95, either to six lanes total or eight lanes total, said NCDOT spokesman Andrew Barksdale, NCDOT communications officer.
"We are focusing first on where the biggest needs are for modernizing I-95 — sections that have the most congestion and crashes and that have literally been closed for a week or more due to massive flooding during Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. Some of the I-95 bridges we replaced in the Dunn, North Carolina, area for this widening project around mile marker 70 were built in the late 1950s, and they definitely did not meet our modern design standards for interstate bridges today."
Segment A of the 26-mi. project got under way in 2019, widening 16 mi. of I-95 from Murphy Road, exit 55 in Cumberland County, to exit 71 outside Dunn in Harnett County. The contract was awarded to Flatiron Construction in 2021. Segment B was started in 2021 and was awarded to a joint venture of Flatiron and Fred Smith Co. in 2023.
The project has gone largely as planned, but there was one unexpected bump, this one involving the roundabouts located at exit ramps 61 and 65, both leading to truck stops.
NCDOT photo
"The roundabouts are typically designed to slow down traffic, get them down to proper speeds," said Barksdale. "It turns out, the original designs could not adequately handle all the commercial truck traffic/18-wheelers using them. They were made to be traversed by trucks ... mountable. Eighteen-wheelers need wider turn radiuses and they couldn't make it. It was doing damage to curbs and damage to the trucks. It just wasn't ideal and it really impacted truck traffic."
Rather than wait until the project was finished, it was decided the contractor would make the corrections right away, Wise said. The lane wasn't widened, but the curbs and gutters were removed.
"We just have that paved shoulder section. It sort of gave it a wider feel, even though it's the same from lane to lane, lane line to lane line. You just don't have a curve on the outside from the trucks to where it's mountable. By not having them there, not having to run up on them. It does give them more room, visually and physically."
The two were the only ones in need of correction since the other roundabouts are designed differently, Wise said.
The stretch of I-95 was part of the first portion of the interstate built in North Carolina in the late 1950s. When completed in 1980 in Fayetteville, it was a four-lane, median-divided highway traveling north south through the state from South Carolina to Virginia. In Fayetteville, the section is the busiest in the state, and an important part of the local, regional, state and national transportation systems, according to NCDOT. I-95 serves commerce, residential populations, the tourism sector, the military, school systems and medical centers and other institutions. The interstate also is part of North Carolina's hurricane evacuation route system. CEG
