Ranger – Construction crews and heavy machinery are literally moving mountains to improve the stretch of U.S. 19/129 between Ranger and the Georgia state line.
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The N.C. Department of Transportation reports 30% of work has been done on the U.S. 19/129 roadwork, a project that is still years from completion. The project broke ground in March 2024 with a completion target date of June 2, 2029.
Charleston, Tenn.-based Wright Brothers Construction is working to complete the first phase of the project, constructing five detours before the final phase gets underway.
The DOT plans to have the detours ready by spring 2026.
Nearly 1.2 million cubic yards of dirt will be moved in the project, with 340,243 cubic yards of material so far. Property owners in the vicinity reported issues with turbid water in collection ponds, the DOT acknowledged.
“Since then, our erosion control devices have been installed as per plan, and we have added some additional measures,” said Adam Dockery, the DOT’s resident engineer. “Also, we now have established vegetation that reduced the turbid water.”
A smoother ride
The U.S. 19/129 (Blairsville Highway) improvement project won’t add driving lanes to the two-lane highway, but will modernize it. The project will resurface the entire stretch of highway from Ranger to the Georgia state line.
The 3.8-mile, $55 million highway project will add 4-foot-wide shoulders, improve intersections, add left-turn lanes at intersections, fix sharp curves and smooth out low and high sections of roadway.
David Uchiyama, a DOT spokesman, said the project is on schedule.
The project will also improve “horizontal and vertical curvature,” he said. Put another way, it will soften sharp curves, high spots and low spots.
For example, the project will create a four-way intersection at Lance Road, Price Weaver Road and Blairsville Highway. In so doing, it will raise the elevation at that intersection by 12 feet.
It will also reconfigure the four-way intersection of Hedden Road, Taylor Hensen Road and Blairsville Highway, moving the intersection a quarter-mile south and lowering its elevation by 14 feet.
Other planned changes include:
- Reconfigure Moccasin Creek Road and Jim Cordell Road so they meet at the same intersection.
- Reconfigure an intersection with Martins Creek Road and Lance Road at Blairsville Highway.
There are 108 parcels affected by this project. A meeting of affected property owners was held in November 2018.
The project, the largest underway in Cherokee County, was among a long list of projects delayed by COVID-19-related funding issues. Construction start for this project was changed from 2021 to 2023.
Other DOT projects
Other local DOT projects include:
- Old Ranger Road connector completed: A new street that connects U.S. 64 West with Old Ranger Road. This was part of a reconfiguration that would create a four-way intersection meeting at a traffic circle. The traffic circle has been put on pause pending the collection of traffic data.
- Downtown repaving and traffic circle: The DOT has completed resurfacing on Hill Street and Valley River Avenue. The Town of Murphy replaced old water lines in the downtown area, after which the DOT installed a traffic circle at the intersection of Valley River Avenue, Peachtree Street, Tennessee Street and Hiwassee Street.
The town is constructing pocket parks around the traffic circle, after which the streets will be repaved and re-striped.