Update: Hwy. 311 Extension

(By Tom Britt; WGHP) - The first leg of the 311 Extension is well underway and is expected to finished "ahead of schedule." The 10-mile stretch starts at Business 85 between Baker Road and Brentwood St. and ends at Cedar Square Rd. in Glenola. The project will cost $105 million.

"The biggest obstacle they've had is the rock. There's a whole lot more rock than people expected. That's taken longer to blast it and shoot it and haul it - dispose of it so that's slowed them down a good bit," said Brian Smith, a NCDOT Engineer.

But despite having more work than they had thought, the project is actually ahead of schedule, and could conceivably be finished by the end of this year . The second part of the project picks up between Cedar Square Rd in Glenola, passes through Sophia over the existing Highway 311 and ends at US 220 just north of the Pineview exit in Randleman. That 8-mile portion is expected to cost right around $1 million dollars, and was awarded to Barnhill Construction in July of 2008.

DOT Engineer Jeff Loflin in Randolph County says crews ran into the same problem with the rocks.

"Well, in this section we have about 300,000 yards of rock to excavate and we've been doing a lot of blasting all winter and that's going good. We've got most of that blasted and are moving it now," said Loflin.

Loflin says Barnhill 'is' a little behind schedule right now because of the rock, but he expects they will be catching up quickly and will not have any problem making the deadline.