Less darkness on the edge of town: NCDOT is bringing more lights to Triangle highways

Drivers on a four-mile stretch of Interstate 440 in West Raleigh may begin to notice something that’s not found on most of the Beltline: light poles.

When contractors finish widening the Beltline between Wade Avenue and Cary, the road will be lit for the first time since this section of the highway opened in the early 1960s. Lights will shine down from tall masts at the interchanges and from rows of shorter poles that will line the highway in between.

Lights are routine features of urban highways across the country; drivers headed west from the Triangle will find I-40 fully lit through Graham, Burlington and Greensboro. Citing the “Handbook of Road Safety Measures,” the Federal Highway Administration says lighting can reduce nighttime injury crashes on rural and urban highways by 28% and nighttime crashes at intersections by up to 38%.

But Triangle highways have traditionally — some say notoriously — been dark. Nowhere is that clearer than on the Beltline, where six to eight lanes of pavement and busy interchanges at Glenwood Avenue, Six Forks Road, Wake Forest Road and Capital Boulevard are darker than even nearby residential streets.

Neither the City of Raleigh nor NCDOT can say why the Beltline was never illuminated. The city referred questions to NCDOT, where spokesman Aaron Moody said no one working there today remembers.

“The sections without lights were designed so long ago, there’s no one around here now who was involved in the development of those projects,” Moody wrote in an email. “We can conclude it simply wasn’t identified as a priority.”

NCDOT now typically installs lighting along a highway only as part of a larger project, such as adding lanes or rebuilding an interchange, and only then after a study to determine if lights are warranted under state and federal guidelines. Moody said NCDOT consults with local governments and factors in daily traffic counts, the road’s design and whether it’s cost-effective to install and maintain lighting.

NCDOT’s approach has created a patchwork of light and dark in the Triangle. There are lights at I-40 interchanges with U.S. 15-501, Fayetteville Road and N.C. 55 in Durham, but not at N.C. 751 in Durham or N.C. 54 or N.C. 86 in Chapel Hill. The Poole Road interchange on the Beltline is lit, while busier ones are not.

Where NCDOT plans to install highway lights

Several construction projects now underway will bring light to long-dark places in the Triangle. In addition to the Beltline widening, those projects include:

▪ The widening of I-40 from four to six lanes in Orange County. Where no lights exist today, NCDOT will install them at three interchanges — N.C. 86, New Hope Church Road and Old N.C. 86. There will not be lighting between the interchanges.

▪ The widening of I-40 south of Raleigh, from the Beltline to N.C. 42 in the Cleveland community. There will be lights at and near interchanges with the Beltline, Jones Sausage Road, U.S. 70 Business, U.S. 70 Bypass, N.C. 42 and Cleveland School Road, as well as a section between interchanges where the highway crosses Swift Creek.

▪ The rebuilding of the I-40 interchange with Airport Boulevard. Both tall mast and shorter pole lights will be added just as they were at the recently completed rebuild of the Aviation Parkway interchange nearby.

It’s not clear when or if other darkened parts of the Beltline will get lights. NCDOT has contemplated efforts to rebuild interchanges at Glenwood Avenue, Wake Forest Road and Capital Boulevard in recent years, but those projects have been delayed by financial challenges at NCDOT.

Even when those projects get built, NCDOT isn’t making any promises about lights.

“We wouldn’t say lighting will definitely be added on any future projects,” Moody wrote. “But we can say a lighting evaluation will be performed to determine if lighting is warranted and justified for any future Beltline projects.”