History:
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US 64 came into being in Wake County in 1932, and it has changed such over the years that the only part that conceivably is on an original alignment is the part west of Salem Street in Apex (and that's debatable; I can't confirm or refute it). US 64 was originally routed on Chatham Street through Cary, where it was multiplexed with US 1 into Raleigh.
In downtown Raleigh, when US 1 turned north on Wake Forest Road, US 64 kept going east along New Bern Avenue. The section of what is now Business 64 from the Beltline to the 64/Business 64 interchange east of Knightdale was the last confirmed part of original US 64; only one short portion was bypassed along this route, near the Neuse River; however, the road was widened at some point, and the grading for the new lanes was much flatter than the original road, much like widenings of two-lane highways in Virginia. This is especially pronounced east of Knightdale, where it's obvious that one side of the road existed long before the other.
US 64 was not routed onto the Beltline until the freeway was finished to New Bern Avenue in the mid '60s, and it has stayed on the Beltline ever since. The portion of the Beltline that US 64 is routed on, however, has changed; from the 1/64/40/440 mess in Cary, 64 is now routed along the I-40 portion east to the 40/440 split, when it joins 440 to exit 14. There was a time in early 2001 when eastbound 64 was again signed along the inner Beltline according to the signs at the Crossroads interchange, but these have since been fixed with some crude cutting-and-pasting, courtesy of NCDOT. The widening project on US 1/64 through Cary replaced these signs, but they still exist on the outer Beltline approaching the interchange.
Meanwhile...
Ever since eastern Wake County became a bedroom community for RTP commuters in the early 1980s, poor old New Bern Avenue had handled just about all the commuter traffic coming from anywhere east of the Beltline. On top of that, US 64 is the main route to points east of Raleigh, and is a main connection to I-95 in Nash County, so there was plenty of through traffic to contend with as well. The towns of eastern Wake County, particularly Knightdale, were so adamant to get a bypass completed that they actually sued the state at one point (the suit was later dropped) claiming the state was causing their towns harm by not adequately addressing the traffic troubles on US 64.
The Knightdale bypass, as the new road came to be called (North Carolinians aren't much for anything other than straight-to-the-point names), began construction in 2002 as a six-lane freeway with three intermediate interchanges (and a fourth, at I-540, set up for future completion) between the termini. It was scheduled for completion in August 2005, but in a watershed moment for Wake County road construction -- remember, I-540 was only 20 years late -- the bypass was finished a month early. (Mike Tantillo reports that from the awarding of the initial contract to completion, the construction took 13 years, but hey, it finished a month early, so let's party!) |
"Exit 421" |
For a few months after the opening of the Knightdale bypass, there was one additional "exit" worth mentioning
Between New Hope and Hodge roads, right next to the Neuse River, is a bridge carrying a local access to a county park. Next to that bridge, on the north side of the bypass, is what amounts to a service road -- not at all unlike a city greenway in Raleigh. For almost a year, this service road crossed an active railroad track, and with no access control save a small wooden gate...the path dumped directly onto the freeway!
Below are some pictures of "Exit 421" taken before the bypass was opened to traffic.
Looking south on the greenway toward the Knightdale bypass.
Looking at the railroad crossing from the other side of the tracks, you can see where the greenway leads. There's even a railroad crossing warning sign on the greenway approaching the crossing, although it isn't evident in this picture.
The crossing gates were removed in late 2006, and the greenway was demolished within the vicinity of the railroad track. However, the wooden gates still remain.
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