History
The four-lane northern section of the Raleigh Beltline was built first, with 3.5 miles opening between Wade Avenue and Walnut Street in 1960. The road was named the Cliff Benson Beltline to honor a developer and highway commissioner who played a major role in getting the road built. It was not built to interstate highway standards. The six-lane southern section, part of Interstate 40, came later and was designated the Tom Bradshaw Freeway, for the Raleigh mayor and state transportation secretary who helped get that road built. Before the addition of the southern leg, downtown had major traffic problems.
Different parts of the Beltline had different numbers, and people got lost easily. The northern section included sections designated U.S. 1, U.S. 64, U.S. 70 and N.C. 50.
In 1991, state highway administrator William G. Marley Jr. asked the Federal Highway Administration to call the Raleigh Beltline Interstate 440.
That same year, much of the four-lane older section was about to be widened in a seven-year-long $53 million project which also included upgrading the road to interstate standards. U.S. 70 and N.C. 50 were rerouted through Raleigh, which caused concerns about too much traffic on city streets.
In Summer 1991, work began on widening 3.6 miles of the Beltline from Glen Eden Road to Wake Forest Road to eight lanes, including the rebuilding of the 30-year-old Glenwood Avenue bridge.
Early in 1993, work began on widening 4.4 miles from near Wake Forest Road to beyond New Bern Avenue to six lanes.
On July 8, 1994, the state awarded the contract for widening 1.7 miles to six lanes, from Wade Avenue to Glen Eden Road. At that time, completion of the project's second phase was expected by June 1995, and phase three by 1996. Two more miles between New Bern Avenue and Poole Road would be widened starting in 1996. Plans called for widening 3.2 miles from Wade Avenue to I-40 several years later but even after several delays, the 2006-2012 N.C. Transportation Improvement Program did not include funding for the $77.3 million upgrade.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 440 (North Carolina)
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