The stretch of Interstate 40 along the Pigeon River Gorge heading into Tennessee won’t reopen as planned in the new year, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said Friday.
Originally, the section was expected to reopen with one lane in each direction early in 2025, following catastrophic damage from landslides during Hurricane Helene. But NCDOT said the reopening will be delayed because a chunk of asphalt fell away from the eastbound lane earlier this week.
“It is an unfortunate situation,” NCDOT engineer Wanda Payne said in a statement Friday. “It’s a new hurdle that we have to overcome in order to provide a safe facility for the travelling public.”
When the stretch of I-40 does eventually reopen, traffic is expected to be reduced to one lane in each direction.
I-40 is one of 190 roadways that remain closed in the wake of Hurricane Helene. In Asheville, some routes, such as Swannanoa River Road near Biltmore Village, do not have a timeline for reopening.
Across all of Western North Carolina, more than 1,200 roads damaged by Helene have reopened in the nearly three months since the storm hit.
NCDOT marked its latest repair in the area this week with the reopening of the U.S. 70 bridge in East Asheville, just past the Veterans Affairs Hospital.
NCDOT communications officer David Uchiyama said the bridge normally carries about 16,000 vehicles a day.
“Now, that's a pre-storm number,” Uchiyama told BPR in an interview this week. “And we certainly anticipate that many folks driving on that bridge once again. So, it's a small victory and one we can pat ourselves on the back, but just for one minute because we have so much more work to do.”
Many drivers have experienced delays and traffic jams in recent weeks due to the closures. Uchiyama said that reopenings like the one on U.S. 70 should improve conditions for drivers in that part of town.
“In the past 11 weeks, they had been using I-240 and I-40,” he said. “So we anticipate congestion in that area to drop down. And one of the few statistics that we do have related to congestion is that on that section of I-240 East over by the mall, traffic had increased about 22% by average on a daily basis after the storm compared to before the storm.”
Despite the reopenings, roads throughout the region are likely to get backed up again next week due to the Christmas holiday, Uchiyama said.
“Christmas usually means travel for a lot of folks,” he said. “So, we really want everybody to travel safe. And in preparation for that, please plan ahead as you’re departing or even inviting some friends and family into the area.”
Travelers can visit drivenc.gov for real-time traffic information as they hit the road ahead of the holidays.
