The N.C. Department of Transportation is gradually eliminating railroad crossings in Wake County, as it begins building a new passenger rail link between Raleigh, Richmond, Virginia, and the Northeast.

Now that effort reaches Wake Forest, where construction begins soon on a bridge that will carry Rogers Road over the railroad tracks that Amtrak trains will use in the future.

The $46.2 million bridge is one of four NCDOT is building to eliminate busy rail crossings along the so-called S-line, a rail corridor built in the 19th century that now sees a couple of slow-moving CSX freight trains per day. The federal government has pledged $1.1 billion to help NCDOT lay new tracks capable of carrying fast passenger trains between downtown Raleigh and Wake Forest, the first leg of a line that will eventually extend into Virginia.

Blythe Construction of Charlotte was awarded the contract to build the bridge and can begin work as soon as Nov. 30. NCDOT expects the span will be open to traffic by the fall of 2030.

Rogers Road will remain open throughout construction, though traffic will be shifted onto temporary lanes at times, according to spokeswoman Kim Deaner.

“Residents and businesses will continue to have access to their destinations during construction,” Deaner wrote in an email.

The project will eliminate what is now a traffic bottleneck where Rogers Road narrows to two lanes across the tracks. The new bridge and the approaches on either side will have four travel lanes, a center turn lane and sidewalks on both sides.

Raising the elevation of Rogers Road over the tracks will require creating a new entrance to the Heritage Professional Park and re-routing Heritage Branch Road to tie in with Capital Creek Drive at Rogers Road.

NCDOT hopes to extend Amtrak’s Piedmont service to Wake Forest by 2032. The state is negotiating to buy the rail corridor from CSX, with help from a $47.5 million federal grant it received in 2020. Earlier this month, the Federal Railroad Administration released $550 million for the S-line project, half the money pledged in 2023 during the Biden administration, with assurances the rest will come as construction progresses.

Replacing railroad crossings with bridges will eliminate traffic backups and the risk of crashes when frequent and fast passenger trains begin using the tracks. Besides Rogers Road, the three other bridges will be at Durant, East Millbrook and New Hope Church roads in Raleigh.

The first of those, at Durant Road, should be finished by Thanksgiving, according to Jason Orthner, head of NCDOT’s Rail Division.

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