Over the past few weeks, construction projects have forced the closures of the North Bound and South Bound of Falls of Neuse Road. This road, and the bridge in particular, is widely used by students and staff at Wakefield High School to travel to and from school. The closures have caused numerous tardies and frustration for many. Both sides of the bridge officially opened on Dec. 14. However, this is not the first time there have been troubling traffic disruptions on Falls of Neuse, and it won’t be the last. For instance, farther south on Falls of Neuse, near the entrance to 540, there has been painful traffic due to the reorganization of lanes and new traffic patterns in both directions. With so many different construction projects going on at once with little notice of when the lanes will be closed, it is difficult to get around, which creates a lot of stress for people traveling to and from school or work. 

Before the start of the bridge’s construction project, both directions had large bumps in the road when driving on and off the bridge. So, the construction workers had to pour slabs of concrete onto the front and back of the bridge and let them set to smooth out the road and improve the overall driving experience of Falls of Neuse. The North Bound was closed first for a total of three weeks, and then the South Bound just recently reopened after being closed for the following two weeks. 

Ed Edens, the Director of Transportation at the Raleigh office of Moffatt & Nichol, sheds light on what the scheduling process looks like for construction projects like these.  

“Typically, the owner, City of Raleigh, would have the bridge repairs designed and develop an estimate of the amount of time that will be needed to complete the construction work,” Edens said. “Then they would coordinate with local stakeholder institutions (schools, churches, medical, police, fire and emergency units, etc.) and develop a timeframe for the project to start construction and be completed. A lot of factors would need to be considered when scheduling a large traffic disruption.”

This road maintenance, then, has been a long time coming. Though it is ultimately necessary to avoid car damage, it has created more traffic on an already busy road. With a whole section of the road closed, there were more backups on Old Falls of Neuse Road, a common detour that happens to be right next to Wakefield High School, as well as on Capital Boulevard, another common roadway used by students and staff to travel to and from school. This caused students’ commutes to be longer, especially for those who live farther away from the school. 

Two students who ride to school together, seniors Keya Chaddah and Kendall Geigle, felt this aggravation daily when the South Bound was closed. They were late to school numerous times due to the excess traffic, despite efforts to leave their houses earlier. 

“We have been late to school twice in the past four days because of the closure on the South Bound on Falls of Neuse,” Chaddah said. “I live 15 minutes away from school, this is my only route to school, and we’ve had to wait in traffic for upwards of 15 minutes on the days we’ve been late.” 

The Attendance Clerk at Wakefield High School, Bryanna Thompson, has noticed this as well. In recent weeks, there have been more tardies in the mornings due to the extra traffic. 

“A lot of students don’t say much on [the closures],” Thompson said. “They do say that they’re late because of the traffic, and yes, I do see that there’s a lot more traffic coming in lately.”

One aspect of the traffic that is particularly troubling for students is the unpredictability of driving on Falls of Neuse. 

“We’ll leave at the same time, get there on time some days, and then some days we’ll be twenty minutes late,” Geigle said. “We have to leave earlier and wake up earlier, ruining our sleeping schedule just to leave for school and to wait for 20 minutes to get to class.”

These tardies are more than just minor inconveniences; they have caused students to miss valuable class time and get tardy penalties, such as lunch detention. 

“Both times we’ve been late this past week, we’ve had to get tardies and late passes which are going to ultimately affect our attendance records and affect our free time during lunch if we end up going to lunch [detention],” Chaddah said. “We’ve been 10 to 15 minutes late to our first period, which is AP English Literature and Composition, which is a very important class.”

With both sides of the bridge open, there should now be fewer absences and less irritation among students and staff. However, since construction projects and closures happen often across Falls of Neuse, students are urged to leave early and plan for traffic. Hopefully, the school calendar will be taken into account when scheduling future construction projects, to prevent this ill-timed inconvenience from occurring again. 

“We’re missing important class time and important lecture time, and it’s just ridiculous that our education needs to be compromised for a street to be repaired,” Chaddah said. “This should not be happening during school hours.”