Fayetteville, NCDOT leaders collaborate to improve safety on Bragg Boulevard

Fayetteville leaders have said they’ve wanted to improve traffic conditions for drivers and pedestrians along Bragg Boulevard for some time.

City leaders met with the North Carolina Department of Transportation and they have a plan in place.

Almost every day, pedestrians scramble to get across sections of Bragg Boulevard.

The four-lane highway between Stamper Road and Skibo Road can be a dangerous place.

NCDOT data shows there were 500 crashes along that section of Bragg Boulevard between 2012-2017 with 50 of them resulting in serious injuries.

NCDOT public relations officer Andrew Barksdale said the changes are aimed at improving safety.

"We're just not really, really sprucing it up,” Barksdale said. “We're just making it safer for pedestrians.

“We are closing up. There are some median openings where we're going to close them up, so if you're on the side road, we don't want you going left."

It means drivers will have to turn right at some intersections and make a U-turn to head in the opposite direction on Bragg Boulevard. It is intended to make the road safer for drivers.

Barksdale said the plan also call for adding push button crosswalk signals at intersections. They will let pedestrians know how much time they have left to safely cross the road.

“Once you have crosswalks with pedestrian signal boxes, [they] make it easier for people to figure out, ‘Oh, now I can go. Oh wait, the hand is going up, it's flashing. I better hurry up or I better not cross yet,’” Barksdale said. “That will make it a lot easier for people to navigate."

The plan is also to replace guardrails and improve some of the Fort Bragg Boulevard landscaping.

The project is expected to be done by fall 2024.

In June, Fort Bragg officially became Fort Liberty.

It will cost the state about $500,000 to change highway signs from Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.

However, city leaders do not plan to change the street names of Fort Bragg Road or Bragg Boulevard.