After more than a decade of study, the N.C. Department of Transportation thinks it has come up with a way to overhaul the outdated Pinehurst Traffic Circle without cutting down all the beloved trees in the middle.
The circle at the entrance to town in Moore County is often overwhelmed with traffic, resulting in long backups and hundreds of crashes in recent years. But while residents want improvements, many say they don’t want to lose the wooded circle itself.
NCDOT has come up with a compromise that retains much of the circle but with a new roadway that cuts through it. The department will present its final design at a meeting in town Tuesday.
The Pinehurst Traffic Circle was built in 1956, where U.S. 15-501, N.C. 211 and N.C. 2 meet about a mile from the center of town. About 50,000 cars and trucks a day passed through the five-legged circle in 2023, according to NCDOT, resulting in backups as long as a half mile as cars merge and crisscross to get in and out of the circle.
The crisscrossing and merging results in a lot of crashes, according to NCDOT — an average of nearly one every two days in recent years.
NCDOT expects things will get much worse as the number of cars and trucks passing through the circle increases to about 80,000 a day by 2050.
Over a year ago, NCDOT proposed replacing the circle with a large intersection and a new connector road. While acknowledging something needed to be done, many residents said the state’s plan would destroy the pleasant entrance to their village. They peppered the community with lawn signs that read, “Improve, Don’t Destroy Our Circle!”
So NCDOT and its contractors tried again. Their new plan preserves part of the circle, by keeping U.S. 15-501 in its current circle pattern.
But it creates a new east-west road that crosses through the circle, with traffic lights on each end where it intersects 15-501. Including turn lanes, the new road would be six lanes wide and require taking down a swath of trees.
The new plan also changes how Midland Road — the main route in and out of the heart of the village — intersects the circle. And the nearby intersection of N.C. 211 and Airport Road would become a roundabout.
Last year’s intersection proposal would have displaced seven homes and businesses. The new plan doesn’t call for any relocations.
“The final design is the culmination of years of collaboration between NCDOT and local communities aimed at improving traffic flow and reducing accidents at this historic intersection,” NCDOT said in a video explaining the project. “This design saves more trees, reduces right-of-way impacts and preserves the unique characteristics of the traffic circle and the iconic gateway to Pinehurst.”
NCDOT will answer questions about the plan and accept feedback from 3 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at The Fair Barn, 200 Beulah Hill Road South in Pinehurst. There will be no formal presentation, so people can drop in any time.
NCDOT will accept comments on the final design through Nov. 12, by email to [email protected] or by phone at 984-205-6615, where callers can enter code 7045 and leave a message.
The department considers this the final design, though small changes may be made to reduce impacts to utilities and surrounding properties.
Construction is not expected to begin until 2031. NCDOT says it will take place between the U.S. Open golf tournaments at Pinehurst in 2029 and 2035.
For more information about the project, go to publicinput.com/pinehursttrafficcircle.
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