RALEIGH, N.C. — The city of Raleigh is putting flaggers at a southeast Raleigh corner during rush hours and plans to bring in sheriff’s deputies after neighbors said a road closure has turned their daily commute into a scramble.
Pearl Road has been shut where it meets Rock Quarry Road since earlier this week so contractors can shift it roughly 150 feet and line it up with Barwell Road. When the work wraps up, expected by Christmas, two side-by-side intersections will merge into a single one.
In the meantime, residents of several hundred houses along Pearl have lost the one traffic signal they relied on to get in and out. Posted detours point drivers to the far end of the loop near the Shoppes at Battle Bridge, but many are cutting through Laurel Glen Drive, a narrow neighborhood street that spills onto fast-moving Rock Quarry Road.
Byron Sanders, who directs the city’s engineering department, said flaggers will stay at Laurel Glen and Rock Quarry during the morning and evening commutes after backups continued past the first day. Wake County Sheriff’s Office deputies will take over traffic duty there starting next week, once they finish working the N.C. State Fair, and the contractor is adding more detour signs.
The realignment is one piece of a larger overhaul that is converting roughly a mile of Barwell Road, from Rock Quarry northward, from a rural two-lane into a neighborhood street. Plans add a center turn lane, new bus stops, sidewalk 6 feet wide along one edge, a multi-use path 10 feet wide along the opposite edge, plus five new crosswalks. The speed limit will drop from 45 to 35 mph.
Work on the Barwell Road project started in the summer of 2025, and the city expects the full job to be done next fall.
Section: More Raleigh NC crime news
Filed under: Raleigh NC Traffic News
