Leaders to consider different routes for proposed US 401 bypass in southern Wake County

For years, traffic jams have made it difficult for drivers to take U.S. 401 through southern Wake County.

Since 2017, the plan has been to build a bypass looping around Fuquay-Varina's south side from east to west, which would divert some of the traffic that turns the downtown into a parking lot on a regular basis.

At Monday’s Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting, CAMPO Executive Director Chris Lukasina said CAMPO's governing board and the public asked them to revisit the plan.

"There was a request to look at some additional options," Lukasina said. "So, we extended our study to be able to look at those additional options."

Lukasina said the request from the public and the CAMPO board.

Wake County Commissioner Susan Evans, who sits on CAMPO's board, said she'd heard concerns from property owners and farmers about the impact of building a new major corridor.

"Some of the proposed potential routes for a bypass would unfortunately dissect some of the farmland out that's out there," Evans said.

That would be the case with one potential alternate route, which would build a new bypass east of 401, but making it a shorter, more direct route to Angier and points south than the original plan.

Another alternative bypass would use an existing road already scheduled to be widened – NC Highway 55. It would connect U.S. 401 to North Carolina 210, where existing plans already call for a new bypass around Angier.

"There was actually a request from a lot of the input we received from the community," Evans said. "Could we identify one route that more or less used existing roads?"

However, Lukasina said Highway 55, even after widening, may already be at capacity by the point the bypass is under construction.

"If you do the existing corridors rather than the one of the new corridors, what's that impact?" Lukasina said. "Would it overload those corridors?"

CAMPO is planning to complete its study of the three alternative routes by this summer. The organization will look at several factors, including the number of properties impacted and the cost and effectiveness of each route.

Lukasina said CAMPO will present its recommendations to Wake County and Fuquay-Varina leaders. County and city leaders will then make the final decision on the bypass's location.

Even if that decision is finalized by this summer, Lukasina said, the new bypass may not open for 10 to 20 years.