Over a million new residents could be in central NC over the next 30 years. Regional planners are trying to prepare roads now.

Last year, concerns were raised after Apple's announcement to create 3,000 jobs at a new campus in the Research Triangle Park. This week, Vietnamese automaker VinFast promised 7,500 new jobs in Chatham County.

VinFast plans to build its first auto manufacturing facility in the U.S. at a 2,000-acre mega-site near Moncure. The site is expected to add traffic to an area that has already seen double-digit growth on the roads.

From almost anywhere in the Triangle, there is only one route to get to Moncure.

"The site has good access to the existing U.S. Highway 1 freeway," said Matt Day, with the Triangle Area Rural Planning Organization.

"There will have to be some improvements made between local access to the site and the highway," he said.

WRAL Data Trackers looked at the state Department of Transportation's traffic counts on roads around VinFast's site over a decade from 2010 to 2020.

Pea Ridge Road saw a 42 percent increase, traffic increased 68% on Moncure Pittsboro Road and U.S. Highway 1 saw traffic counts soar 79 percent near the VinFast site.

Day said the highway has the capacity to handle commuters in that area.

"It becomes more of an upstream issue in places like Holly Springs, Apex and that area – are the roads up there able to handle it?" Day said.

Traffic counts over the last decade were up more than 60 percent near Beaver Creek on U.S. Highway 64 and U.S. 1 near N.C. Highway 55 in Apex.

The number of cars on interstates around RTP increased more than 20 percent.

Plenty of NC projects to benefit from infrastructure package

"We're planning for over a million new people here in the next 30 years and more than a doubling of jobs," said Chris Lukasina, the executive director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Just last month, regional transportation leaders approved a new plan prioritizing road and transit projects through 2050.

"It remains critically important for our region to continue to focus on that future growth and be very deliberate about how we plan for it and how we prepare for it," said Lukasina.