NCDOT spent $7 million to improve clogged Charlotte intersection. It’s ready for use.
Beginning Friday, Charlotte drivers can expect a safer, smoother ride through one of the city’s most traffic-clogged, wreck-prone intersections, state highway officials said Wednesday.
After $7.2 million worth of work, the North Carolina Department of Transportation is set to open the state’s first Continuous Flow Intersection at Brookshire Boulevard and Mount Holly-Huntersville Road.
The design has reduced wrecks and eased traffic at dangerous intersections in other states, NCDOT says in a video showing how traffic flows through the new type of intersection. The design does so by redirecting some or all left turns at the intersection.
Traffic on Brookshire Boulevard-N.C. 16 averages 46,000 vehicles a day, and 12,000 to 16,000 per day on Mount Holly-Huntersville Road approaching the intersection, NCDOT said late last year.
Friday morning, Blythe Construction Co. crews will begin shifting traffic to the new pattern at N.C. 16 and Mount Holly-Huntersville Road, according to an NCDOT news release on Wednesday.
This design reduces congestion because “left-turning traffic is separated from the main traffic flow,” according to the state.
Friday’s new pattern will impact N.C. 16 drivers in both directions who want to turn left onto Mount Holly-Huntersville Road, officials said.
“Drivers will enter the left turn lane and come to a traffic signal about 500 feet from the intersection,” according to the DOT release. “Once it turns green, drivers will cross the opposing lanes of N.C. 16 before arriving at a second traffic signal to continue left.”
Electronic message boards and other signs will alert drivers to the change.
Police and NCDOT staff will monitor the traffic, according to the DOT.