LUMBERTON — Major changes are coming down the road in 2022 for a 1.3-mile section of Fayetteville Road, Lumberton’s busiest street, and the design is complex.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation had its designs and an animated digital illustration on public display Tuesday at the Bill Sapp Recreation Center. The new design will affect the section of Fayetteville Road from North 22nd Street to Farringdom Street
Highlights of the project include:
— A roundabout at Fayetteville Road and Godwin Avenue.
— Concrete medians along the entire sector,
— Closure of Cedar Street, which will no longer meet Godwin Avenue and Fayetteville Road.
— Three new stoplights, one each for Fayetteville Road at Boomerang Drive, Fayetteville at Highland Avenue and at Roberts Avenue and Boomerang Drive.
— The elimination of many left turns off and on to Fayetteville Road, including the intersection of Fayetteville and Roberts Avenue. Left turns will be possible at stoplights and designated streets.
Safety and traffic flow are the priorities for the upgrade, according to Andrew Barksdale, a DOT spokesman. The upgrade will cost $15.1 million.
“We don’t build five-lane roads with turn lanes anymore,” Barksdale said. “This project will improve the operations at Roberts Avenue and Fayetteville Road.”
Roberts Avenue at Fayetteville Road is Lumberton’s busiest intersection.
The project will include large-scale signage to guide travelers through the intersection. For instance, travelers headed north on Fayetteville Road from downtown to Interstate 95 will be guided to turn right at Roberts Avenue, then left at Boomerang Drive, left back to Fayetteville Road and right on to Roberts Avenue to I-95.
Lumberton Mayor Bruce Davis hailed the project as a “great improvement.”
“Fayetteville Road is our busiest street and difficult to navigate,” Davis said. “It will only get busier, and this project will help travelers get in and out of this area.”
Davis pointed to the “diverging diamond” at Exit 22 of I-95 and the roundabout at Carthage Road and Elizabethtown Road in the downtown area as making believers out of Lumberton residents.
“It will take some adjustment, but it will work,” Davis said. “I’m excited about this for Lumberton.”
Business owners along the route were not as convinced. Jerry Warwick, who owns Carolina Surf & Turf on Fayetteville Road between Godwin and Roberts avenues, had more questions than answers.
“To get to my business going south, my customers will have to go to the roundabout and come back,” Warwick said. “That’s OK, but to leave and go south (on Fayetteville Road) will be difficult with the concrete medians.”
Currently, Fayetteville Road is five lanes wide in front of Carolina Surf & Turf, Smith’s Cleaners and other businesses in that section of the road. The plan is to transform the street to a four-lane road with a raised median.
That appears to make it more complicated for travelers to go south from the businesses along that stretch of Fayetteville Road. They must turn right and go to the stoplight at Roberts Avenue then go to the stoplight at Boomerang and make a U-turn, then go back through the stoplight at Roberts Avenue.
Under the current street layout, customers would turn left and be on their way.
Similarly, a trip to Arby’s or CVS, just north of the Fayetteville Road and Roberts Avenue intersection, will be difficult on the return trip if they wish to go north. To go north, travelers will go south through the Fayetteville-Roberts stoplight, continue to the roundabout then return back through the Fayetteville-Roberts stoplight.
Turning left out of Arby’s today is impossible because of the concrete median, and going north would require considerable difficulties.
The city of Lumberton supports the plan. City leaders say it will minimize negative effects to adjoining businesses or properties along Fayetteville Road. The proposal also received favorable scores and funding through the state DOT’s Strategic Mobility Formula, which prioritizes new highway projects based on safety, congestion, benefits and costs and local priorities.
