Interstate 540 (North Carolina)

Interstate 540 and NC 540
Raleigh Outer Loop
Route information
Maintained by NCDOT
Length:	29.9 mi (48 km) I-540: 26 miles (42 km) NC 540: 3.9 miles (6 km)
Existed:	1997 – present
Major junctions
Beltway around Raleigh
	I-40 in Durham US 70 near Raleigh US 1 in Raleigh US 64 / US 264 near Knightdale
Location
Counties:	Durham, Wake
Highway system
Auxiliary route of the Interstate Highway System Main • Auxiliary • Business North Carolina Highway System ← NC 522 NC 561 →

In the U.S. state of North Carolina, Interstate 540 and North Carolina Highway 540 share a partially completed interstate grade beltway, also known as the Raleigh Outer Loop, around the city of Raleigh.

Route description

When completed, the beltway will total 70 miles (110 km) in length, surrounding the city of Raleigh and the towns of Apex, Cary, Garner, and Morrisville. The designation from I-540 and NC 540 happens at I-40, in Durham County, where I-540 goes east and NC 540 goes west.

The beltway is further broken down into four segments:

Segment Name	Designation	Location	Mileage
Northern Wake Freeway	I-540	NC 55 to US 64/US 264	29.0
Western Wake Freeway	NC 540	NC 55 in Cary to NC 55 South of Apex	12.4
Southern Wake Freeway	NC 540	NC 55 to I-40 near Garner	16.5
Eastern Wake Freeway	NC 540	I-40 to US 64/US 264	12.9
Total			70.8

Interstate 540

I-540 is the designation for the northern completed part of the perimeter loop around Raleigh (not to be confused with the I-440 Beltline). Known formally as the Northern Wake Freeway, it runs 26 miles (42 km) from I-40, in Durham County, to US 64/US 264, near Knightdale.  Majority of the route is 6-lanes, with some major intersections at 8-lanes; the speed limit throughout is 65 mph (105 km/h).

North Carolina Highway 540

NC 540 is the designation given to the Western Wake Freeway and future Southern and Eastern Wake Freeways. As of August 2007, the North Carolina state route traverses east–west from I-40, in Durham County to NC 55, in Morrisville.  Initially intended to be signed as an extension of the I-540 loop, the route bears mile markers and exit numbers for the complete Interstate loop, going from 66 to 69. In Mid-2012, this section of the beltway will become part of the Triangle Expressway.

History

Planning for the highway originally started in the early 1970s; by 1976, the "Northern Wake Expressway" was added to the planning map. In the mid-1980s, realizing that the growth in western Wake County may require more roads than planned, highway planners decided to expand the project as a new beltway around Raleigh. In 1992, construction began on the first 3-mile (4.8 km) section of the Northern Wake Expressway, connecting I-40 with US 70. On January 21, 1997, the freeway opened as Interstate 540.

In the following ten years, the now known Northern Wake Freeway (so not to be confused with the Triangle Expressway) made several extensions:

• December 11, 1999: From US 70/Glenwood Avenue (exit 3) to Leesville Road (exit 7).
• December 21, 2000: From Leesville Road (exit 7) to NC 50/Creedmoor Road (exit 9).
• June 29, 2001: From NC 50/Creedmoor Road (exit 9) to Falls of Neuse Road (exit 14).
• August 12, 2002: From Falls of Neuse Road (exit 14) to US 1/Capital Boulevard/Triangle Town Boulevard (exit 16).
• January 16, 2007: From Triangle Town Boulevard (exit 17) to US 64/US 264/Knightdale Bypass (exit 26).

From 1999 to 2002, each additional section of the freeway was designated as Future 540, until it connected with US 1.

On July 14, 2007, a section of the loop from I-40 west to NC 54 and NC 55 was opened. However, the route is signed not as I-540 but as NC 540. Officials decided to change the designation in early July at the urging of the North Carolina Turnpike Authority (NCTA). Work on the western and southern portions of the beltway, if paid for by state funds, would possibly not open until 2030. At the request of several Wake County mayors, the NCTA in 2006 began studying the use of tolls to complete these portions of the Outer Loop.

The Authority concluded in early 2007 that it would be financially feasible to build the western section (along with an extended Durham Freeway, which combined would be called the "Triangle Expressway") using toll funds.  The NCTA apparently never wanted an interstate designation for the Western Wake Parkway. To lessen motorist confusion about where I-540 ended, the route was truncated to the I-40 interchange. All I-540 signs that were put up along the unopened stretch between I-40 and NC 55 were taken down in early July 2007; the new section is now signed as NC 540. (In addition, I-540 as a completed loop would violate the Interstate numbering convention regarding three-digit routes, as spurs begin with an odd number and loops with an even number, and at one point, I-640 — the last remaining available number within the state, as I-240, I-440 and I-840 are already taken — was proposed for the loop.)

Work to build the Western Wake Freeway, which would be renamed the "Western Wake Parkway" under the toll proposal, began August 12, 2009, with the Triangle Parkway portion opening in December 2011, and Western Wake portion scheduled to open in two phases in 2012.

In October 2008, the authority was unable to issue bonds to fund the Western Wake Turnpike project as planned due to market conditions affecting municipal bonds such as those.  On July 29, 2009, the Authority closed on a revised $1.01 billion bond plan, consisting of $270 million in toll revenue bonds, $353 million in Build America Bonds, and a $387 million loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. 

Groundbreaking was held on August 12, 2009 at the west end of Interstate 540. "A dozen dignitaries" used shovels painted gold as 150 watched.

After work began on Western Wake Parkway in 2009, engineering and environmental studies began a year later for the Southern and Eastern Wake Freeways, also known as the Triangle Expressway Southeast Extension. Construction would begin on 2014 and be completed by 2019; however, it was delayed on March 2011 by the enactment of North Carolina Session Law 2011-7 (N.C. S.L. 2011-7), which forbid NCDOT to consider a few alternative routes.

In 2010, NCDOT made an interchange improvement at I-540/I-40; adding an additional auxiliary lane from I-540 south to I-40 west, at a cost of $4.8 million.

The completed Triangle Parkway, the first section of the Triangle Expressway, with its connection to NC 540, opened on December 8, 2011, reestablishing exit 67. The collection of tolls will not begin until January 3, 2012.

Future

In Mid-2012, the first phase of the Western Wake Freeway will be completed; connecting NC 55 in Morrisville (exit 66) to US 64 in Apex. The remaining portion from US 64 south to NC 55 in Holly Springs should open by December 2012. When the first section opens tolling will begin on the Triangle Expressway, including the previously open section from NC 54 to NC 55.

The Southern Wake Expressway would connect Holly Springs with Garner. The route for the southern leg known as the Orange Route, on maps since the 1990s, would affect only a few people, but it would potentially hurt the endangered dwarf wedge mussel, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked for other routes to be considered. In September 2010, a new map showed several other routes, including the controversial Red Route, which many Garner-area residents protested in a December 2010 meeting; a total of 3,000 signatures on petitions opposed the route as well. A Pink Route would run along the Orange Route to Lake Benson and then join with the Red Route at I-40; residents opposed this plan as well. Another possibility would be to prevent pollution that would affect the mussels, mainly around bridges.

Exit list

This exit list encompasses both I-540 and NC 540.

County	Location	Mile	Exit	Destinations	Notes
Durham		0	1	I-40 – Raleigh, Durham, RTP	I-540 begins and NC 540 ends; signed as exits 1A (east) and 1B (west)
Wake	Raleigh	2.0	2	Aviation Parkway  – RDU Airport	Signed as exits 2A (south) and 2B (north)
		4.0	3	Lumley Road
		4.2	4	US 70 (Glenwood Avenue) – Raleigh, Durham	Signed as exits 4A (east) and 4B (west)
		7.0	7	Leesville Road
		9.2	9	NC 50 (Creedmoor Road) – Creedmoor, Raleigh
	Raleigh	11.4	11	Six Forks Road
		13.8	14	Falls of Neuse Road
		16.8	16	US 1 (Capital Boulevard) – Raleigh, Wake Forest
		17.0	17	Triangle Town Boulevard	To Triangle Town Center
		18.4	18	US 401 (Louisburg Road) – Louisburg, Raleigh
		20.2	20	Buffaloe Road
		24.6	24	US 64 Bus. – Raleigh, Knightdale	Signed as exits 24A (west) and 24B (east) eastbound
		25.8	26	US 64 / US 264 (Knightdale Bypass) – Raleigh, Wilson, Rocky Mount	I-540 ends; signed as exits 26A (west) and 26B (east)
				Poole Road	Proposed Eastern Wake Freeway/Triangle Expressway Southeast Expressway Phase 2 (Currently in planning and environmental study)
				Auburn Knightdale Road
				Rock Quarry Road
				US 70 Bus.
				White Oak Road
Johnston				I-40 / US 70	Proposed Southern Wake Freeway/Triangle Expressway Southeast Expressway Phase 1 (Currently in planning and environmental study)
Wake				NC 50 (Benson Road)
				Old Stage Road
				US 401 (Fayetteville Road)
				Bells Lake Road
	Holly Springs			Holly Springs Road
				NC 55	Western Wake Freeway/Triangle Expressway – Under Construction (Projected: December 2012)
				US 1
	Apex			Old US 1
				US 64
				Green Level Road
	Morrisville	66.4	66	NC 55 – Apex, Durham	NC 540 currently begins; signed as exits 66A (east) and 66B (west)
		68.4	67	NC 147 north (Triangle Parkway) – Durham	Was Davis Drive before June 1, 2010; reopened December 8, 2011 as Toll NC 147 north
		69.2	69	NC 54 – Chapel Hill, Cary	End of NC 540 portion of Triangle Expressway. Road continues as I-540 (see Exit 1 above).
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi      Concurrency terminus •      Closed/former •      Incomplete access •      Unopened

When NCDOT initially posted the exit signs for exits 66 A/B, 68, and 69, they had posted them as  47 A/B, 49, and 50. The reason for the discrepancy was an apparent error made when summing the mileage for the new highway by the NCDOT's GIS unit, about 20 miles (32 km) of the proposed route was left out. NCDOT corrected the exit numbers and corresponding mileposts prior to the road opening in mid-July 2007.

See also

• Neuse River
• Triangle Town Center

References

External links

• I-540 on Wake County Roads
• North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) project website for the Outer Loop
• NCDOT: Western Wake Freeway Project
• "Turnpike Authority To Study Tolls On I-540". WRAL-TV. December 14, 2005. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/122456/. Retrieved 01/07/2006. 
• Siceloff, Bruce (October 31, 2006). "Bit by bit, I-540 gets closer to coming full circle". News & Observer. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/traffic/story/59928.html. Retrieved 2006-10-31. 
• Siceloff, Bruce (January 16, 2007). "I-540 link opens today". News & Observer. Archived from the original on January 18, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070118080638/http://www.newsobserver.com/243/story/532917.html. Retrieved 2007-01-16. 
• Roberts, Mark (April 10, 2007). "New Section of I-540 Could Open by June". WRAL-TV. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1267697/. Retrieved 04/10/07. 
• Roberts, Mark (May 15, 2007). "Man Takes Fight Over I-540 Toll Road to Web". WRAL-TV. http://www.wral.com/traffic/story/1417699/. Retrieved 2007-05-15. 
• Siceloff, Bruce (June 8, 2007). "Part of I-540 To Be Done By Holiday". News & Observer. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/traffic/story/596394.html. Retrieved 06/08/07.