After years of delays Oak Street Extension is completed; travel safe

Steve McCraw loads dozens of orange barrels onto a transport truck as the Oak Street Extension road project has come to a close - three years later than expected.

The estimated $4 million road project on Oak Street Extension and Piney Ridge Road, Forest City, was nearing completion last Tuesday morning as Site Development Corp. employees and the NC Department of Transportation were finalizing the project.

The project that began in 2018 and expected at that time to be complete in 2019 met more delays than anyone expected, said Emite Scruggs, site manager from Cliffside.

"DOT is doing its final walk through making sure everything is up to par and hopefully we're be out of here by the end of the week (Friday, Sept. 2).

Danny Holtzclaw, a DOT employee, said last fall the project had been slowed down due to the relocation of numerous utility lines along the roadway, the problem of not being able to move some of the lines and having to relocate them, the global pandemic in 2020, the state budget crisis and the challenge of getting the needed supplies.

Scruggs echoed his marks.

"Some of those lines were underground since the '20s and no one knew anything about it," Scruggs said.

Scruggs was overseeing some of the final steps of the project while others removed all the large orange and white barrels and the cones.

Steve McCraw was lifting the barrels one at a time from the sidewalks while other team members loaded them onto a transfer truck on Monday.

"We should have this yard cleaned up in a day or so," Scruggs said of the area off Oak Street Extension where much of the heavy equipment and trucks were parked for the past few years.

The 0.6 miles of the widening project included dedicated turning lanes from Piney Ridge Road onto Oak Street Extension and an additional lane from Piney Ridge Road to Allendale Drive, constructing sidewalks, curbs and building retaining walls in several areas, including the area of the Burger King.

According to the NCDOT, widening this road was necessary to help improve traffic flow and safety in that area. Oak Street is one of two roads in Rutherford County that are considered over-capacitated.

In the process of construction and building sideways and curbing, that began in 2018 approximately 25 parcels of land were impacted by the project and $450,000 was set aside by the DOT for right-of-way takings.

"Looking right now, we could be finished by the Summer of 2022," Holtclaw said in December 2021.

That completion date has been met.