The N.C. Department of Transportation is moving ahead with its project to widen a section of 15^th Street in Washington for safety reasons.

“DOT has got its preliminary design done,” City Manager Brian Alligood said Friday.

The plan is somewhat different than one proposed last year. The City Council’s formal approval of the revised plan came during one of its meetings in February. The project’s roots go back to 2000, according to Dwayne Alligood, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Transportation.

The revised plan calls for improvements in the section of 15^th Street from Carolina Avenue (U.S. Highway 17 Business) to the Pierce Street area. The proposed improvements call for a divided road with a median separating the travel lanes.

The DOT spokesman said the project’s goal is to reduce the number of vehicles crashes on that section of 15^th Street. Those crashes on that section of road occur about three times more frequently than crashes on similar roads in other areas of the state, according to DOT figures.

“What that would do, we would put a center median in there and provide turn lanes at signalized intersections. If there are places in between where we can provide a crossover, then we would do that. That would be a channelized crossover. It wouldn’t be a full opening. It would be where you could make a left turn off the main line,” Alligood told the council in January.

“What it’s going to do — they’re going to add a center lane. You’ll have two lanes an each side, plus the center lane. The center lane, instead of it being like the suicide lane you have now on (U.S. Highway) 17 Business, it would be restricted left-turn lane. So, it’s channelized,” the city manager said Friday. “Greenville has some. … You get into it and you can only turn left.”

Haywood Daughtry, a safety engineer with DOT, said the project is about “keeping local people alive.”

“The last time we talked with DOT, they said it was their intent to have it designed … then have a public meeting where they tell everybody what’s going to happen. Their schedule is to have it bid by June 30, July 1 (2015), somewhere in that time frame and have it all completed by the end of paving season next year. Paving season sends in December, Dec. 15,” the city manager said Friday. “Their goal is to award the contract June, July and then have it done before the end of the year.”

The city manager said DOT is preparing to meet with business owners along that corridor to talk about the project. Some of those business owners have expressed concerns about the project reducing customer traffic in the project area. The city manager was not sure when that meeting will take place.

Earlier this year, Dr. Timothy Klugh, with the eyecarecenter in Washington, and Pat Griffin, a city businessman, expressed those and other concerns.

Griffin said some property owners along the segment of street proposed for the project oppose the proposal. They also fear it would harm their businesses, he said.

“Some of them have said they would take it to court if they have to,” Griffin said.