Increasing capacity and relieving congestion

US 17 Widening and Interchange Improvement Design-Build

US 17 corridor is the main connection between Brunswick County and Wilmington and provides direct access to North Carolina beaches, including Myrtle Beach. When the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) wanted to increase the roadway's capacity and alleviate traffic congestion, they pursued a design-build project.

As the lead design firm on the design-build team, we contributed to the design and construction of bridge and roadway improvements on approximately two miles of US 17 in Wilmington. To address challenges related to maintaining seasonal traffic, geotechnical conditions for the bridge foundation designs, and restrictive construction moratoriums, project design and construction was planned to be completed within two construction seasons. Besides roadway and bridge design, our team worked on traffic analysis, signing, signals, transportation management, proposals, and more.

The project has added more lanes on US 17 as well as replaced three of four existing bridges over intercoastal waterways and widened the remaining bridge. The roadway was widened to add auxiliary lanes along the entire length of the project, and an existing diamond interchange was converted to a double crossover diamond.