Construction Equipment Guide
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Fayetteville, N.C.'s Raeford Road is undergoing a $147.8M rebuild to address traffic congestion and safety concerns. The project includes converting a center lane to a median and creating reduced conflict intersections. Work on the 6.3 mi. corridor began in 2022 and is expected to improve traffic flow and safety once completed.
Thu January 30, 2025 - Southeast Edition #3
As the home of more than 392,000 residents and United States' military personnel stationed at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in its metropolitan area, Fayetteville, N.C., is a vibrant, growing city about an hour south of Raleigh along Interstate 95.
It also is a town often plagued with traffic congestion and accidents, and no Fayetteville roadway better exemplifies that than Raeford Road/U.S. Highway 401, an east-west thoroughfare that runs through the city's west side and routinely sees about 30,000 cars and trucks traveling on it each day.
A 2010 study of the corridor by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) found that approximately 78 percent of Raeford Road's crashes occurred between the roadway's intersections. The final report noted that that statistic "highlights the safety concern of the two-way center lane and the numerous driveway openings along the route."
The agency also learned that the crash rate on Raeford Road is almost twice as high as what would be expected on a similar multilane roadway — 727 crashes per 100 million vehicles traveled, compared to the average statewide rate of 395 accidents for a similar route. Many of the highway's accidents occur because motorists must cross several lanes of traffic to turn left.
NCDOT photo
As a result of the study's findings, a recommendation was made to convert the roadway's continuous two-way center lane into a concrete or landscaped median along most of the corridor to reduce vehicle collisions and improve traffic flow, noted Andrew Barksdale, a public relations director for NCDOT's Division 6, which includes the Fayetteville area.
And, to cut down on the traffic accidents along the congested corridor, NCDOT decided to reconstruct the road using a reduced conflict intersection design that will replace the open center turn lanes with a raised median.
By the time work actually began in April 2022, those ideas had coalesced into a three-phase, $147.8 million construction project along 6.3 mi. of Raeford Road.
Highland Paving Co. in Fayetteville was selected as the prime contractor.
The initial portion of the work, or Section A, stretches 1.125 mi. along the corridor from Old Raeford Road on the western end of the project to east of Bunce Road, and cost $35.7 million.
A contract will likely be awarded for work on Raeford Road's Section B, from Bunce Road east to Glensford Drive, early in 2025, although the reconstruction design for the intersection of Raeford and Skibo Road in that phase is still under consideration, according to Barksdale.
He added that Section C's construction, from Glensford to Robeson Street, is currently slated to begin in mid-2026. It will include the addition of a southbound exit ramp from Fayetteville's north-south All-American Freeway for motorists wanting to exit west onto Raeford.
The freeway's existing southbound off-ramp will continue to be used to head east along Raeford Road, but NCDOT believes the additional ramp will ease congestion on the street near the freeway's overpass.
"There is really not too much difference between the three phases, except that Segment A has some median already, whereas segments B and C all have open-center turn lanes," he said. "I would expect each segment to take two or three years to complete, although a final date will be announced at a later time."
Prior to construction starting on Section A, Barksdale said that some of this segment of Raeford Road had a small, narrow grassy median and open ditches on either side. The new rebuilding effort was designed to fill in the median with raised concrete and landscaping and add concrete curb and gutters and drainage structures.
"While the main thrust of this project is to improve safety, we also want to use this opportunity to modernize this highly traveled and important corridor by updating the drainage, relocating water and sewer lines out of the roadway itself, repaving all of it, and, in some cases, adding turn lanes or through lanes," he explained. "[NCDOT also wants] to add pedestrian signals and marked crosswalks at several locations, so pedestrians are safer using it.
"This will be a complete street, and thoroughly upgraded, when we are done."
A total of five at-grade intersections without traffic lights along the first phase of Raeford Road are being converted into reduced conflict intersections, Barksdale noted.
With these modern intersection designs, traffic on the main route will be able to turn right onto a side road. Motorists coming from a side street that want to ultimately turn left will be redirected to first turn right before making either a U-turn at the next signalized intersection, or in a dedicated U-turn lane with an area of extra pavement, known as a bulb-out.
Among the other upgrades that NCDOT and its contractors have made or will build across the entire project's footprint include:
The first phase of the project fell eight months behind schedule due to a problem caused by a water and sewer line subcontractor, Barksdale explained, but Highland Paving was able to bring in KBS Construction from Fremont, N.C., as a replacement, and its crews have labored hard to bring the work back to full operation.
"Some of the work simply could not proceed until the water and sewer lines were relocated," he added.
As a result, the revised completion timeline for Section A, which was scheduled to be finished last fall, is now set for June 2025. Barksdale noted that, as of late September 2024, 71 percent of the project had been completed.
"Many of the improvements to the westbound section of Raeford Road are complete, minus the final layer of pavement and the permanent lane markings, which will be placed in the spring," he said.
Toward the expected end of Section A work in 2025, road asphalt will be applied to Raeford and final pavement markings will be made.
Gabe Shoffner, the state transportation agency's resident engineer on Raeford Road's Section A construction, noted that besides KBS Construction, the project's other main subcontractors are Newcon Inc., a Rocky Mount firm in charge of the concrete work; and Fayetteville's Fulcher Electric, which is handling the street signal installations. They are among a total of 21 subs operating along the corridor.
NCDOT photo
On a weekday in September, Shoffner counted 37 Highland Paving crew members working onsite along Raeford Road, along with six NCDOT inspectors.
He also listed an impressive quantity of materials that were needed to upgrade this relatively short section of the highway, including 60,217 tons of asphalt; 13,604 linear ft. of waterline; 21,000 linear ft. of storm drainpipe; and 4,152 cu. yds. of concrete.
Shoffner also took careful note of the array of machinery and brands on hand during a particularly busy day. There were, of course, several Cat machines, including a 325, a 330 and a 335 excavator; a M314F wheeled excavator; a 420E backhoe; a 120M2 motor grader; two 924K wheel loaders; a 926M wheel loader; a AP1055F paver; a 5-ton steel wheel roller; and a 13-ton steel wheel roller.
Among the other equipment at the job site was a Power Curbers 5700-C curb and gutter machine; a Kenilworth tack distributor; two Rosco Challenger six-broom tractors; and one each of the following: a Wacker roller; a Ramex roller; a Hamm roller; two Godwin dewatering pumps (a 4-in. and a 6-in. model); and an American Piledriving Equipment (APE) hydraulic pump with a hammer.
Twelve dump trucks also were on the scene, as well as four Ford F-150 pickups; two Ford F-250 utility trucks; an F-250 with a trailer; an F-350 utility truck; an F-350 flatbed truck; four GMC pickups; and a Chevy 2500 heavy-duty pickup.
When asked about any complications that NCDOT and the contractors have had to face so far in the two years they have been rebuilding Raeford Road, Shoffner explained that the primary headache was undoubtedly overcoming the delays caused by the former water and sewer subcontractor abandoning the enterprise.
NCDOT photo
Beyond that, though, he said, "Utility conflicts have been a major issue with this project, especially if you run into a conflict at night. That was one of the reasons why we have allowed more daytime lane closures than planned. Traffic congestion also was a challenge, especially when working around the busy signalized intersections."
Shoffner also noted that heavy storms occurred after temporary drainage measures were installed, causing a few issues, including a Raeford Road failure near its intersection with Graham Road that was quickly repaired.
In addition, Barksdale said that the construction has been a source of "complaints and questions" since it began due to the added traffic congestion and project delays, particularly around Fayetteville's 71st High School, north of Raeford Road at the junction with 71st School Road.
"[NCDOT is] allowing the contractor to have short-term lane closures in the daytime in small segments here and there for this current section under construction," he said. "We realize this causes some inconvenience and delays, but these lane closures not only protect the workers but allow them to get this project completed as soon as possible.
"When everything is finished, it will be a much better, safer road, and with less congestion, so the temporary inconvenience of the lane closures will be worth it in the long run," Barksdale assured. CEG
A writer and contributing editor for CEG since 2008, Eric Olson has worked in the business for more than 40 years.
Olson grew up in the small town of Lenoir, NC in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he began covering sports for the local newspaper at age 18. He continued to do that for several other dailies in the area while in college at Appalachian State University. Following his graduation, he moved on to gain experience at two other publications before becoming a real estate and special features writer and editor at the Winston-Salem Journal for 10 years. Since 1999 he has worked as a corporate media liaison and freelance writer, in addition to his time at CEG.
He and his wife, Tara, have been married for 33 years and are the parents of two grown and successful daughters. His hobbies include collecting history books, watching his beloved Green Bay Packers and caring for his three dogs and one cat.