Starting Monday, you’ll have to take the new U.S. 70 route west.
Between Innovation Way and Banks School Road moving west, the N.C. Department of Transportation will shift both lanes of U.S. 70 West to one lane on the new U.S. 70 route that starts in front of Electrolux, curves behind West Pharmaceutical and comes out near the intersection of existing U.S. 70 and Banks School Road.
At the northernmost point of the new route, there will be an interchange where it connects to the eventual Part A section of the C.F. Harvey Parkway.
“That loop is so truck traffic coming from (the Global TransPark) can take a loop and end up on (U.S.) 70 going east,” Lenoir County Commissioner J. Mac Daughety said. He’s the chairman of the Board of Commissioners’ transportation committee, and on the Highway 70 Corridor Commission. “That’s why the reconfiguration of the road is to allow for us to put in an interchange there.”
Daughety added, “We hope to have the east-west lanes we’re working on now totally complete and traffic on there absolutely no later than just before Memorial Day. We really hope to do it in about 30 days.”
The plan as it stands now is to have Part A of the parkway — or the “crescent road” — linking U.S. 70, the Harvey Parkway and U.S. 258, completed by around October or November. Construction of sound barriers near a residential area will push the project end date to the first quarter of 2014.
Also, the east side of the Goldsboro bypass is underway, terminating in Lenoir County at Promised Land Road and U.S. 70 west of La Grange. It should be complete by midway through 2015.
“I hope that by July 2015, you’ll be able to leave Kinston and go to the Interstate, and the only light that you will hit during that time will be the light at Little Baltimore,” Daughety said. “And, you’ll be able to go at freeway speeds, which means 60-65 mph. And you’ll be able to leave the TransPark and pretty much be able to do the same.”
By connecting the TransPark to the Interstates and the Port of Morehead City with roads that facilitate quick delivery of freight, it’s hoped by planners to boost business growth along those corridors. It would be a first for Lenoir County.
“You’ll be able to leave here at freeway speeds and go direct to the Interstate,” Daughety said. “We’ve never had that.”
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.