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Sunday, January 16, 2005
Widening of Hanes Mall Boulevard to start this year
Project expected to cost about $6.9 million, begin in June
By Jim Sparks
JOURNAL REPORTER
Work to widen a stretch of the heavily traveled western end of Hanes Mall Boulevard from two to four lanes is expected to start by this summer, state transportation officials said.
The construction will focus on a stretch of .7 miles between Kester Mill Road, where there is a Wal-Mart Super Center, and the Hanes Point Shopping Center, where there is a Target store.
The now two-lane portion of the boulevard will become a four-lane divided roadway with right and left turn lanes at specific intersections.
The project is expected to cost about $6.9 million, and includes the construction of a second bridge to carry the extra lanes over I-40, said Pat Ivey, a division engineer with the N.C. Department of Transportation in Winston-Salem.
Contractors will be able to bid for the project in March. The DOT board is expected to award a contract in April, with construction scheduled to start by June and last at least two years.
Ivey said that plans call for traffic to be maintained in both directions during the work in order to avoid delays on the already congested road.
At busy times of day and on weekends, cars can back up along Hanes Mall Boulevard close to Stratford Road.
The western end of Hanes Mall Boulevard is used by about 18,000 vehicles a day, according to traffic-volume studies from 2003.
Ivey said that DOT engineers have worked with developers of at least two large shopping centers to be built along that stretch in order to incorporate needs for those projects.
The developers are paying the DOT for their parts of the construction work, which will be done jointly. Ivey said that the coordination should make the entire project easier for everyone.
• Jim Sparks can be reached at 727-7301 or at jsparks@wsjournal.com
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