Capital Boulevard — February 2026 update
Improvements to Capital Boulevard continue to be the top regional freeway priority of the Regional Transportation Alliance.
As we have noted for several years, accelerating the US 1 / Capital Freeway in northern Wake County will remain our top regional freeway priority until it is fully under construction.
This week the News&Observer had an excellent overview article and accompanying video on the status of the upgrade to multimodal freeway.
We were quoted in the article:
(The) Regional Transportation Alliance hasn’t given up on finding ways to get the highway built sooner.
“RTA is looking for other solutions with key partners and key elected leaders… Innovative funding, perhaps innovative financing or project delivery to accelerate this project.
And this is absolutely correct. The regional business community is looking at a variety of options. Could there be a loan solution, an innovative project delivery option, a combination, or another method? We shall see, and shall continue to push forward.
NCDOT has been an outstanding partner in their efforts to find ways to keep this project moving, and ideally faster. They are accelerating advanced right-of-way acquisition and the development of a parallel utility corridor. As we noted in an RTA blog update last fall, while the prior toll conversation has ended, it has provided necessary focus on the importance of the roadway across the public and private sectors.
You can read more in this week’s blog.
BRT has officially risen in the east
It was very nice to see this headline in official correspondence from the City of Raleigh on Thursday afternoon: “BUS RAPID TRANSIT (BRT) IS OFFICIALLY UNDERWAY”.
The regional business community thanks Raleigh elected leaders and staff for their leadership, persistence, and service to not just the capital city but our entire metropolitan area and state.
With zero BRT projects in place in the Triangle and in North Carolina, the City chose to step up and simultaneously develop four BRT projects across all four cardinal directions from downtown. The first direction is east, along New Bern Avenue, and that project is now officially underway.
As the New Bern Avenue BRT project progresses we will provide more updates, and of course you can always check the City’s project website.
RTA supports this vital enhanced transit improvement, we applaud the City of Raleigh and their contracting partners for building the first BRT corridor in the state, and we will look to complement it by supporting and accelerating other BRT projects across the region, in Durham County, Orange County, Johnston County, Chatham County, and more — including the I-40/RDU Airport exchange station that will serve our entire extended metro area.
Our objective is to have several BRT corridors and transit priority improvements open up concurrently across the region in the next few years.
