DOT to Begin Work on Madison Street Project

One of the worst spots for flooding along Madison Street in Whiteville is scheduled for a major upgrade starting in 2027.

Whiteville City Manager Darren Currie briefed the city council on the project at Tuesday’s meeting.

The culverts between Radio Station Road and Hay Street in Whiteville will be replaced with a larger outlet across Madison Street (U.S. 701 Business), according to a letter from Dept. of Transportation Division Project Engineer Craig Freeman to city officials. The project is expected to cost $2 million, and is being paid for through the DOT Strategic Transportation Improvement Program (STIP. No local funds are involved in the project, since the affected highways are both state-maintained.

The project has been in the earliest planning stages for several years, City Manager Darren Currie said. The state received the nod to move forward on construction in July.

At the center of the project is a substandard sized culvert that drains the area between San Jose Restaurant and East Hay Street. Affected businesses include the Donut Shop, Go-Gas, the former Enterprise car rental and a defunct used car lot. All four of those properties flood during heavy rain events.

The culvert carries most of the stormwater from the area between Madison Street and the U.S. 701 Bypass to Richardson Swamp (part of Soules Swamp). The current culvert was installed by the state, and is not part of the city’s responsibility.

The memo from Freeman said that traffic will be detoured to U.S. 701 Bypass when necessary, but engineers anticipate keeping Madison Street open for most of the time during construction.

“U.S. 701 Business frequently floods at the existing culvert because the culvert cannot handle stream flow volumes from the unnamed tributary to Richardson Swamp during storm events,” the planning paper said. “The culvert will be replaced with an appropriately sized structure to handle storm flow volumes based on current hydraulic studies.”

The report said the existing culvert is “a substandard design made up of multiple junction boxes with dissimilar pipe sizes from the early 1990s,” a method typical at the time.

“It is not sized properly to handle stream flow volumes from the unnamed tributary to Richardson Swamp during storm events and is in poor condition. Under existing conditions, the Radio Station Road neighborhood and the GOGAS station frequently flood during rain events.”

The improvement will allow for better runoff from upstream as well as the immediate area. Several intermittent creeks flow through the area, sometimes leading to catastrophic flooding when the existing culverts are overwhelmed. It was originally set to be part of the U.S. 701 Bypass widening project, but that portion of the highway project has been delayed until 2030.

“The Division wants to proceed with the R-5020AA project because of the existing flooding problems in the Radio Station Road neighborhood and at the GOGAS station,” the report said. “In addition, proceeding with the …project…will allow construction of the culvert while traffic is in a normal pattern on US 701 Business and not constrained by diverted traffic due to construction on mainline US 701 Bypass. Finally, proceeding with R-5020AA would ideally time the culvert completion to coincide with the upcoming resurfacing of US 701 Business, as the resurfacing project cannot begin until 2029.”