Sections of U.S. 321

will be closed Mondays
By Scott Nicholson

Motorists traveling off the mountain toward Lenoir and Hickory will need to steer clear of U.S. 321 on Monday nights.

The N.C. Department of Transportation is adding another closure to help with blasting for the widening project. The additional closure will be on Monday nights between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., beginning on June 1.

The regular closures, taking place from from 12 noon to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, will continue, though NCDOT engineer Lee Hammer said the Monday-night closings may reduce the number of Tuesday closings as crews will be able to blast and remove larger sections of rock with the expanded window of time.

“The one good thing about this is they should be able to pull off a much larger blast, which should move the project along faster,” Hammer said.

The complete project is already more than half a year late. The $64 million widening of a 6.6-mile section from Caldwell County to Blackberry Road was due to be completed by Aug. 15, 2008. It is currently about 80 percent complete, according to Hammer. He anticipates the Monday-night closing will remain in place for at least several months.

The detour from the Boone area follows U.S. 421 to Wilkes County and then detours west on N.C. 18 to Lenoir, reconnecting with U.S. 321.

The third phase of the road widening, originally scheduled to start in 2008, was delayed because of a lack of funds. The right-of-way acquisition is under way in Blowing Rock, with the contract scheduled to be granted in October 2010.

The U.S. 321 widening through the Green Park historic district will be a narrower four-laned highway with no median, while the route near the town of Blowing Rock will include sidewalks, medians and other amenities.

The right-of-way acquisition is under way in Blowing Rock for the third phase of the widening, with the contract scheduled to be granted in October 2010. Pettyjohn said the right-of-way purchases had stalled due to lack of funding.

The route will run from Blackberry Road to Possum Hollow Road near the Tanger Outlet Shoppes on the Parkway. The final 4.3-mile section of the widening project through the town will cost about $46 million.