Water line break shuts down Ridge Road in northwest Raleigh

A water line break forced a full shutdown of Ridge Road in northwest Raleigh Thursday afternoon, cutting off a busy connector near Glen Eden Drive and sending commuters, shoppers and nearby residents into detours around the Lake Boone Trail corridor.

The closure began around 1:45 p.m. at Ridge Road and Westwood Drive, just south of Glen Eden Drive. Raleigh Police said water from the broken line appeared to buckle the road surface, turning the problem from an underground utility failure into a visible pavement hazard. City officials later said the road was still closed around 2:40 p.m. as crews worked to establish a detour.

Raleigh’s road-closure alert said the repair work was initiated at 2 p.m. Thursday on the 2100 block of Ridge Road and was expected to run overnight through 2 a.m. Friday, June 5. The city said crews hoped to finish by midnight, but the work could stretch until 2 a.m. if needed. During the repair, Ridge Road was closed in both directions, and a detour was posted.

Drivers heading through northwest Raleigh had little room to absorb the disruption. Ridge Road links Lake Boone Trail and Glen Eden Drive near Interstate 40, and even a short closure in that area can back traffic up quickly around nearby medical, retail and neighborhood destinations. The city said residents could still access Glen Eden to Westwood, but the full closure remained in place beyond Westwood until the repair was complete.

Once crews finished the fix, the road was set to reopen to traffic even while final asphalt restoration continued. That meant the immediate emergency was the water line break itself, but the pavement damage left behind still needed a follow-up repair to make the roadway fully whole again.

Raleigh Water says residents can report a water leak, sewer backup or overflow by calling Raleigh Water Customer Care and Billing at 919-996-3245, 24 hours a day. The utility serves more than 650,000 residents across Raleigh and nearby towns including Garner, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Knightdale, Wendell and Zebulon.

The break also landed in a corridor already under heavy construction pressure. The city’s Blue Ridge Road widening project, which includes work near Glen Eden Drive, has been moving through spring 2026 with Carolina Sunrock LLC as contractor and Kimley-Horn as design consultant. For drivers in northwest Raleigh, that made the Ridge Road shutdown part of a larger pattern of roadway strain in a fast-changing part of Wake County.