Last Updated on August 26, 2026 12:49 pm
VALLE CRUCIS — Traffic moved onto the first half of the new N.C. 105 bridge over the Watauga River early Tuesday morning, and within hours one question took over local social media: where is the left-turn lane onto Broadstone Road?
The N.C. Department of Transportation has an answer. It's coming.
“The final design of the N.C. 105 bridge replacement project includes a left-turn lane from N.C. 105 to Broadstone Road,” said Chrissy Murphy, communications officer for NCDOT Divisions 11 and 12. “The alignment of the road for the current phase of construction did not allow enough space to include a turn lane.”
Construction on the remainder of the bridge replacement project is expected to finish in late 2027, Murphy said.
Why the question came up
Turning at that intersection has been a problem in both directions for years. A traffic signal controls N.C. 105 and Broadstone Road, but with no separate turn lane, a driver on 105 waiting to turn left toward Valle Crucis has to sit in the through lane — and everything behind that car sits too, green light or not. Drivers coming off Broadstone Road wait out their own backup at the signal. Tuesday’s traffic shift did not change either one — by 8:20 that morning, the first on the new span, WataugaOnline.com was reporting significant delays on Broadstone Road.
Comments across community pages ranged from “where’s my turning lane” to frustration that four years of construction has not eased the backup. Others were confused by the new striping and the lane shifts through the work zone. Some drivers concluded the turn lane had been left out of the plans altogether.
What opened Tuesday is only the first span
The traffic shift moved N.C. 105 onto the first completed section of the new structure. The old bridge is still standing beside it. Crews will now tear that old span down and build a second new span in the same spot. Joined together, those two halves become the finished bridge — so the work ahead is building another bridge, not finishing a detail on this one.
That is the reason for the current lane configuration. Everything drivers see at the intersection right now — the lane shifts, the temporary striping, the barrels channeling traffic through the work zone — is a construction setup built around where the road has to sit during this phase. It is not the finished design.
What's still to be built
NCDOT Construction Engineer Ivan Dishman told WataugaOnline.com that a retaining wall is being built on the Broadstone Road leg of the project to accommodate the additional width needed for turning lanes there.
Also still to come: a median between the northbound and southbound lanes, new drainage pipes, drainage boxes and curb and gutter sections, and a final layer of surface asphalt across the road sections, including pavement at the bridge ends designed to create a smooth transition back into the existing roadway.
Before any of that, crews have to demolish the old bridge, build the remaining end and interior bents, set beams and pour the deck. Mountain winters restrict when concrete can be poured, cured and paved, which factors into the timeline.
Why it has taken four years
Construction began in fall 2022. Early plans anticipated solid rock throughout the corridor. Instead, crews found soil that lacked the strength to hold the steep slopes in the original design, requiring soil nails paired with mesh systems to stabilize them — work that slowed excavation compared to standard rock removal. Flattening the slopes was evaluated but would have required acquiring additional right-of-way and caused greater impact to nearby structures.
Hurricane Helene added more. N.C. 105 was impassable after the storm, and primary contractor Wright Brothers Construction redirected crews to repairing and reopening the highway for several weeks before returning to bridge work. Storm-driven supply chain disruptions slowed the sourcing of aggregate and other materials.
Keeping N.C. 105 open to traffic throughout construction, rather than closing it, has also limited how much work can happen at one time. Dishman has said the corridor's importance to Avery and Watauga counties kept continuous access a top priority, which meant strict limits on lane closures and flagging operations.
The four-lane widening is a different project
The bridge is Section BA of a larger N.C. 105 improvement project, and the two are frequently confused.
The widening itself, Section B, would take N.C. 105 to four lanes with a 23-foot-wide raised grass median between Broadstone Road and the N.C. 105 Bypass, add six-foot paved shoulders along the full 4.5-mile corridor, and include a reduced conflict intersection design. NCDOT lists that widening as expected to begin in 2030 and notes the schedule is tentative and subject to change.
The turn lane at Broadstone is not waiting on that project. It is part of the bridge work now underway.
What drivers can do now
NCDOT asks motorists to allow extra travel time through the work zone, avoid distracted driving, and obey posted signs and flaggers. Real-time travel information is available at DriveNC.gov.
