Interstate 42 (I-42): Signed Segments and the Raleigh to Morehead City Plan

How long is I-42?

In the January 2026 edition of FHWA's Route Log, I-42 measures 21.55 miles, and Interstate Guide's header shows 21.56, the length AASHTO approved in 2021 for the Wayne and Lenoir County segment, which suggests the Route Log figure covers the Goldsboro Bypass alone. Wikipedia counts 31.5 signed miles, split between a 9.8-mile western piece and a 21.7-mile eastern piece.

The Route Log number sits close to the eastern Goldsboro Bypass by itself, so the Clayton Bypass miles appear to be left out of FHWA's count. The Route Log assigns none of I-42 to another Interstate. NC 36 joins for about 3 miles on the Clayton Bypass between exits 4 and 7. Since the route is far short of 100 miles, its length does not feed a crash rate on this page.

No source we found gives a settled length for the finished road. Interstate Guide lists NCDOT's earlier request to number the corridor I-36 at 137 miles.

Where I-42 starts and ends

I-42 is two roads for now. The western piece begins at exit 1, a turbine interchange with I-40 and the NC 540 Triangle Expressway near Garner, and follows the Clayton Bypass east to US 70 Business at exit 10 near Clayton. Wikipedia lists the old exit numbers at those two points as 318 and 326.

The eastern piece is the Goldsboro Bypass. It leaves US 70 near Goldsboro, passes north of the city, meets I-795 at exit 39 and rejoins US 70 at La Grange in Lenoir County. The signed route touches Wake, Johnston, Wayne and Lenoir counties.

Between the two pieces, through Smithfield and Selma, traffic stays on regular US 70. An upgrade of about 5 miles near Wilson's Mills was completed on December 17, 2025, and Wikipedia says I-42 signs there are waiting on FHWA approval. A 2025 report suggested FHWA may not allow them until US 70 is upgraded to I-95.

East of La Grange, Interstate Guide traces the planned route along US 70 through Kinston, New Bern and Havelock to an end near the Port of Morehead City. The finished road would also put Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point on the Interstate system.

Interstate junctions along I-42

Going west to east, the list opens with I-40 at the Garner end, where NC 540 also comes in, and no other main Interstate meets the signed miles yet. On the Goldsboro Bypass, I-42 crosses I-795 at exit 39, signed 39A and 39B, but I-795 is a three-digit route and stays off the list. Wikipedia's exit list also shows a proposed interchange with I-95 at Selma, exit 19, in the unsigned gap, and marks it unfunded.

Fatal crashes on I-42

For 2020 through 2024, FARS holds no fatal crash coded to I-42, so every year on this page shows zero deaths. At 21.55 Route Log miles the road falls far below the 100-mile minimum we use for rates, which leaves it without a death rate or a place in the ranking of 56 routes. The Interstate network as a whole averages 9.5 deaths per 100 miles a year.

Treat the zero with caution. FARS records each crash under the route it was coded to, and for most of those five years this pavement carried US 70 or US 70 Bypass signs. Goldsboro Bypass signs changed to I-42 starting September 16, 2024, and Wikipedia says the Clayton Bypass signing was finished in 2025. Deadly crashes on these miles before then would most likely be filed under US 70, and this page does not count them.

Counties with the most I-42 crash deaths

Bridges on I-42

I-42's main line rides on 9 bridges in the 2025 National Bridge Inventory. All 9 rate Good, with none Fair or Poor. Their median build year is 2015, in line with the Goldsboro Bypass, which opened in sections from 2011 to 2016.

The planned miles bring more structures. Wikipedia counts 15 bridges on the Havelock Bypass, which opened to traffic on December 19, 2025. Near James City the corridor crosses the Trent River on the Freedom Memorial Bridge, and the Newport River Bridge is slated to go from two lanes to four.

Tolls on I-42

No I-42 facility appears in the toll inventory FHWA compiled as of January 1, 2023. We found no later toll lanes described on either the Wikipedia or the Interstate Guide page for I-42. Driving both signed pieces costs nothing. The one toll road it touches is NC 540, the Triangle Expressway, which meets I-40 and I-42 at the Garner interchange.

How US 70 became I-42, 2008 to 2026

Both signed pieces opened as bypasses years before they carried I-42 signs. The Clayton Bypass opened on June 9, 2008 as a US 70 bypass. The Goldsboro Bypass opened in three parts: a central section on December 16, 2011, first signed NC 44, a western section on October 17, 2015 and an eastern section on May 27, 2016.

Congress named US 70 from Garner to Morehead City a future Interstate in the FAST Act, which President Obama signed on December 4, 2015; Interstate Guide notes it became High Priority Corridor 82. Gov. Pat McCrory unveiled Future Interstate signs on March 30, 2016. Several numbers were proposed: the Transportation Alliance backed I-46, the Super 70 Corridor Commission backed I-50 and NCDOT applied for I-36. AASHTO's route numbering committee chose I-42 on May 24, 2016.

AASHTO approved I-42 in fall 2021, and FHWA approved it on two segments on March 16, 2022. Signs went up on the Goldsboro Bypass in September 2024, and signing on the Clayton Bypass was complete in 2025. Separately, the stretch of NC 42, a state route that shares the number, west of Clayton where it meets the Clayton Bypass was renumbered NC 36 in 2025.

East of La Grange the upgrade is moving in pieces. The 10.1-mile Havelock Bypass opened December 19, 2025, after work began in 2019, and Interstate Guide puts its cost at about $323 million. The James City to Havelock upgrade, about $275 million, is due in summer 2028.

Other parts still wait for money. Wikipedia lists the Kinston Bypass at $716.2 million and unfunded as of 2023, and Interstate Guide expects its final environmental impact statement in 2026 and a record of decision in 2027. The $170 million Princeton upgrade had its funding suspended, and the Northern Carteret Bypass, planned north of Morehead City to reach US 70 north of Beaufort, had no funding as of 2024. Wikipedia gives 2032 as the expected finish for the corridor, and counts about $1.3 billion budgeted as of late 2018 with about 29 miles unbudgeted.

Arkansas now has an I-42 of its own. On September 4, 2026, ARDOT opened the 7-mile second phase of the Springdale Northern Bypass, from Arkansas 112 to US 412 in western Tontitown, and FHWA designated the whole bypass, about 10 miles from US 412 to I-49, as I-42. Talk Business reports that Congress designated a 190-mile future corridor in late 2021 to link I-49 at Springdale with I-35 north of Oklahoma City by way of Tulsa. Interstate Guide says the western and North Carolina routes will not be joined. The Arkansas miles are not in the January 2026 Route Log data used here.

I-42 traffic and road conditions

DriveNC covers both signed pieces of I-42 and the US 70 miles that link them between Clayton and Goldsboro. It is worth a look before any trip toward the coast, because construction on the US 70 corridor east of La Grange is still underway.

I-42 questions