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Traffic Problems Continue Despite New Stretch of Outer Loop

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WAKE COUNTY — A new two-and-a-half mile section of the Interstate 540 outer loop was supposed to ease traffic tie-ups in the Triangle. Commuters sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic Monday evening might say otherwise.

The stretch of road connects drivers to Interstate 40 from Leesville Road. But now the two-lane Leesville Road must handle the highway's traffic.

The line of cars backed up along I-540 Monday evening was so long you did not have to be in it to see the problem.

"I was riding my four-wheeler in the woods, and it was between four and five that I noticed all the traffic backing up there at the red light. It was pretty bad, the traffic was backed up all the way down the ramp and back down the highway," says Greg Bridges, who lives along Leesville Road.

Bridges says theDepartment of Transportationmay have jumped the gun by opening up I-540 to Leesville Road -- a narrow, two-lane, curved road with no room for rush hour traffic.

"They should have waited until they got it to Creedmoor Road," says Bridges."Creedmoor Road is a better place to dump all that traffic on instead of this little two-lane road that we have here."

The stretch of I-540 to four-lane Creedmoor Road is not expected to be completed for at least a year.

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