Old Stage Road widening set to begin, new signals planned in southern Wake County
Old Stage Road is set for widening and new signals as southern Wake growth pushes traffic onto a corridor already strained by Triangle Expressway traffic.
Old Stage Road is about to change from a two-lane connector into a much busier four-lane corridor, a sign that growth pressure in southern Wake County has reached one of the roads drivers use most to move between Garner, the Triangle Expressway and nearby neighborhoods.
The N.C. Department of Transportation said the project, known as HL-0008i, was expected to begin May 18, 2026 and reach substantial completion by fall 2027. Fred Smith Co. of Raleigh won an almost $7 million contract for the work, which will widen Old Stage Road from just south of the Triangle Expressway to Rock Service Station Road.
The upgrade is designed to reduce congestion and improve mobility, but it will also remake how traffic moves through the corridor. Project documents call for four 12-foot lanes, a 17.5-foot raised median, curb and gutter, and a reconfigured intersection at Old Stage Road and Rock Service Station Road. Plans also call for a new traffic signal at Banks Road and Old Stage Road, along with turnaround points and other traffic-shift operations that will push more turning movements to controlled locations.
That matters because this stretch has become more than a rural cut-through. Local coverage described the corridor as a busy Y intersection that will become a T as transportation officials try to keep pace with development. Project updates said traffic on the roughly one-mile stretch could roughly double by 2045, a forecast that helps explain why the state is adding lanes and more controlled access points now.
The project has been in the public eye for years. NCDOT first presented it at a Nov. 17, 2022 meeting at Holland’s United Methodist Church on Ten-Ten Road in Raleigh, where comments were accepted through Dec. 16, 2022. At that time, WRAL reported the widening was expected to begin in 2025, showing how quickly the schedule has shifted as the region has kept building out around it.
Old Stage Road is also part of the larger transportation story unfolding across southern Wake. Complete 540 Phase 1 opened Sept. 25, 2024 and extended the Triangle Expressway by 18 miles, a change NCDOT said was intended to ease congestion on roads including Ten-Ten Road. As that network fills in, the Old Stage Road project shows how Wake County’s road system is being forced to catch up, one widening and one signal at a time.
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