DOT Study Shows Highway Congestion Will Continue To Get Worse

In the next 25 years, the number of cars traveling everyday between Interstate 540 and the Durham Freeway will increase by more than 50 percent.

Gail Grimes is in charge of the DOT's congestion study. As far as solutions, she says nothing is going to solve congestion.

"There is not one single solution to this," Grimes says. "It's not just rail. It's not just widening and it's not just HOV. It's not just any strategy on its own."

Phase one of the study is finished and it cost the state $450,000. Phase two will take up to two years and will cost about $2 million.

Drivers vented their frustrations about the state's efforts to study congestion.

"I think that they tend to spend money sometimes like it's a bottomless well," says driver Stuart McNeill. "They've got themselves in a pickle, and they misplanned. They don't know what to do about it so they are going to come up with alternate suggestions, and those alternate suggestions probably will be against the general consensus of thought."

Driver Dessie Bennett says she wants to the state to stop studying the plan and just do it.

"I'm out in Knightdale, and we've been waiting on the bypass for years now," Bennett says.

People who would like a copy of Phase One of the DOT's Congestion Management Study can call1-877-DOT-4YOU.