PARKTON — Work to build a roundabout in order to enhance traffic flow and reduce the risk of serious vehicular accidents will begin soon near Parkton.

The N.C. Department of Transportation approved a $942,765 contract this week for Barnhill Contracting Co. of Rocky Mount to construct the circular junction at U.S. 301 and West Parkton Tobermory Road, east of Parkton.

The NCDOT converted the intersection into an all-way stop in June as an interim safety measure.

The intersection will close as soon as Sept. 14, when work begins, according to Andrew Barksdale, an NCDOT spokesman. The closure will allow the project to be completed more efficiently, expeditiously and safely.

The contractor has until May 2022 to complete the project. However, Barnhill could be awarded as much as an additional $24,000 if the company substantially completes the roundabout sooner and is able to reopen the intersection to traffic by Nov. 23.

The marked detour will include North Fayetteville Street/N.C. 71, U.S. 301, Roslin Farm Road, John McMillian and Council Road, returning to Parkton Tobemory Road.

The U.S. 301 and West Parkton Tobermory Road intersection is one of two sites where NCDOT has planned safety construction. The second is N.C. 710 at Prospect Road in Prospect. Both intersections were to be converted to all-way stops in June and July.

“For these two locations, we ultimately want to build roundabouts, which will replace the stop signs when completed. Roundabouts take more money and time to fund and build, but they would be a big improvement at these two intersections,” Barksdale said in June.

There have been a total of 30 crashes, with 17 leading to injuries and one to death, at the Parkton intersection, according to an intersection analysis report from NCDOT’s Traffic Engineering Accident Analysis System. The crashes were recorded from Sept. 1, 2012, to Aug. 31, 2017. Ten angled crashes were reported during that time.

There were 24 total crashes at the Prospect intersection from June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2019, according to the report. Fifteen of those crashes led to injuries.

“There is a pattern of frontal impact crashes (14 out of 24), four of which were run-stop-sign. The remainder failed to yield,” according to a project justification sheet for the Prospect project, signed by NCDOT engineers Susie James and Janet Whetstone-Perez.

To learn more about roundabouts, including how to travel through them and why they are built, visit NCDOT’s website.