If you have ever sat on New Hope Church Road staring at lowered crossing gates, relief is officially on the way, although it will take a few years to show up.
In late February, construction crews moved onto New Hope Church Road to start building a bridge over the S-Line tracks, replacing the current at-grade railroad crossing and letting drivers keep moving while trains pass. The bridge is one of the first big, visible pieces of the long-running effort to bring passenger rail service back through Wake County.
Work to take out the at-grade crossing and put in the overpass began in February and is expected to last about three years, with a price tag of almost $23 million, according to WRAL. Neighbors are being warned to expect construction noise, lane shifts and periodic slowdowns as materials are staged and traffic control is set up along the corridor.
Where The New Hope Church Work Fits
The New Hope Church bridge is just one piece of the broader S-Line program that will rebuild the former CSX corridor and add passenger service between Raleigh and Richmond. The N.C. Department of Transportation notes that the Raleigh to Wake Forest segment has already secured a $1.09 billion Federal-State Partnership grant to cover final design, right-of-way acquisition and construction. State officials and the governor’s office say the corridor is expected to support more frequent trains and could cut more than an hour off the current Raleigh to Richmond trip, according to the governor’s office…