BILTMORE PARK — It's happening.

After years of planning, a lawsuit here and there, and dozens of meetings, the Interstate 26 widening from Brevard Road to Four Seasons Boulevard in Hendersonville is ready to begin.

"It's finally here," said Mark Gibbs, the division engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation's Division 13. "It's the project so many of us have been waiting for, for many, many years."

Widening Kickoff

Gibbs and other DOT officials, as well as construction company project managers and Blue Ridge Parkway officials, gathered Wednesday morning in a Biltmore Park parking deck to announce the widening kickoff. I-26 at the Long Shoals interchange roared in the background, a testament to the heavy traffic the road carries.

The extensive widening actually is a continuation of widening and an improved interchange under construction at Brevard Road interchange and nearby, but this section of the project has its own contracts and spans Buncombe and Henderson counties.

Gibbs said signs and safety barriers will start going up in the coming days along the Buncombe County portion of I-26, with work starting on the Henderson County section soon thereafter.

More:I-26 widening from Buncombe to Hendersonville could start in September

More:I-26 Connector in Asheville will bring big changes. Here's a preview

In all, the DOT will widen 18 miles of roadway on I-26, which officials noted is a heavily used corridor not only for Western North Carolina commuters — including 375,000 residents in Henderson and Buncombe — but also for tourists, truckers and others traveling between the Carolinas and Tennessee, Ohio and the Midwest.

A congestion solution

"It's no secret, as you can hear in the background, that we have issues with congestion on I-26," said Brian Burch, division engineer for the DOT's Division 14, which includes Henderson County.

DOT traffic counts for 2017 showed I-26 carried 84,000 vehicles a day near I-40 and just to the south. Traffic drops to 82,000 vehicles a day in southern Buncombe County and 67,000 in Henderson County.

Once an environmental impact study was submitted in 2016 for the widening, the wheels really started moving on the project.

“What we’ve done, quite honestly, is somewhat astonishing, when you think about how far we’ve come just in the last three years,” Burch said. “We had a draft environmental impact statement in 2016. We have gone from that point to today, having two contracts, where contractors can get started on this widening project. Some of you who have been around for a while know that (doesn’t) just happen all the time in the state of North Carolina; that doesn’t always happen in the DOT.”

Plan Details

With work about to begin on the project, officials offered details on the plans and took questions. Here are some highlights, in Q&A format.

Question: What is the scope of this project?

Answer: The widening will increase I-26 from four lanes to eight lanes from the Brevard Road interchange to the Fletcher/Mountain Home interchange at U.S. 25. From U.S. 25 to Four Seasons Boulevard in Hendersonville (U.S. 64), the project will widen the interstate from four lanes to six.

Q: What is the timeline?

A: Construction will start this month and is scheduled to be completed in late April 2024.

Q: What is the cost, and who are the contractors?

A: Total cost for the two contracts is $534 million. The Henderson County portion came in at $271 million, while the Buncombe County portion will cost $263 million. Fluor/United will handle the Buncombe County work, Archer/Wright the Henderson County segment.

Q: How will they handle traffic flow? How many lanes will be closed?

A: The contractors will employ safety barriers, often called "Jersey barriers," along the roadway, narrowing lanes to 11 feet, according to Nathan Moneyham, assistant construction engineer for Division 13. In Buncombe, for the time being, the inside lanes will not have safety barriers, relying instead on the existing median and guard rails.

Some lane closures may occur over the course of project, but those likely will occur overnight. Lane shifts will occur at different times as the project progresses. The speed limit will be 55 mph the length of the project.

Q: What will happen to the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge? Will the parkway close at all during construction?

A: The Parkway will be getting a new bridge over I-26 as part of the widening, but the scenic roadway will experience a minimal impact, with no closures anticipated.

"The bridge was designed and planned to minimize any parkway closures," said Andy Otten, a project manager with the National Park Service. "The new bridge is going to be built right beside the existing bridge. The existing bridge will stay open until the new bridge is finished, then traffic will move on to the new bridge and the old bridge will be taken down.”

Drivers may encounter some temporary single lane closures on the Parkway, but those should be infrequent, Otten said. Vegetation removal for the new structure will start this fall, and no blasting is anticipated for bridge footers, DOT officials said.

The new bridge will match the look of typical construction along the parkway, with a combination of concrete and stone work.

"It's going to be a concrete type structure, similar to the Linn Cove Viaduct — a concrete, segmented bridge," Otten said, adding that it will feature stone masonry characteristic of the parkway. "It will also have a five foot wide sidewalk on one side to accommodate the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and it’s also going to have a new parking area on the north side, again to accommodate those wanting to use the Mountain-to-Sea trail."

Q: How many new bridges will be built?

A: Five spots on I-26 in Buncombe County will get new bridges, Gibbs said, including: the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge, the I-26 bridge over the French Broad River, the I-26 bridge over Glenn Bridge Road, the I-26 bridge over an unnamed road for Biltmore Farms access, and an I-26 "box culvert" over Ferry Road, a structure that acts like a bridge.

In Henderson County, the first phase of the widening project will comprise eight new bridges, including five overpasses and three bridges at grade.

Q: What will happen to the rest areas?

A: "The existing rest areas will be razed (and replaced)," said Ted Adams construction engineer for the N.C. DOT's Division 14. "They're old and they've already been rehabbed once."

More parking is needed, especially for tractor-trailers, so the new rest areas will include larger parking areas. The rest areas date to the late 1950s.

Q: How many private property parcels will the project affect?

A: The widening will have an impact on 63 parcels and 58 property owners in Henderson County. In Buncombe County, where the DOT already had secured more easements, 24 parcels will be impacted.

Q: What about the I-26 Connector Project? When will that start? And what about "Future 26" to the north of Asheville heading into Tennessee?

A: Gibbs said the DOT hopes to start the Connector project "in a couple of years."

"That project will widen I-26 from I-40 north to the Broadway Street interchange," Gibbs said. "That project will also separate local traffic from interstate traffic there in Asheville across the Jeff Bowen bridges. Beyond that to the north side of the Broadway Street interchanges, we are in the planning stages of widening I-26 from Broadway up to U.S. 25/70 near Weaverville."

North Carolina transportation officials estimate the I-26 Connector work will cost $950 million. Some estimates had work beginning in 2020 on the Connector, but that may be optimistic.

More:I-26 Connector in Asheville will bring big changes. Here's a preview.

The connector project includes revamping the I-26/I-40/I-240 interchange near the WNC Farmers Market, adding two lanes to I-240 in West Asheville and building a new bridge to carry I-26 and I-240 traffic over the French Broad River north of Bowen Bridge.

Q: The DOT bridge replacement project at Pond Road in Buncombe County took way longer than it was supposed to. Did the DOT put provisions in the contract to spur the contractors to finish on time?

A: Yes. Both the Buncombe and Henderson contracts have incentives for the contractors to finish the project on time or earlier, while meeting all contract details. If they do that, each contract carries a $2 million bonus. Contracts also carry penalties for missing the completion date.