The Salem Parkway is an artery corridor located mostly in Forsyth County in the U.S. state of North Carolina, designated U.S. Route 421 (US 421) for its entire length. The parkway is divided into two segments under Interstate 74 (I-74/Winston-Salem Northern Beltway). Between I-40 (exit 188) and I-74, the parkway serves the center of downtown Winston-Salem, which also features "Twin City Trail." East of I-74, the parkway serves Downtown Kernersville, before merging with I-40 west of Greensboro (exit 206). The parkway in its entirety is long.

Route description

Downtown Winston-Salem The parkway begins in the vicinity of the split between US 421 (exit 238) and I-40 (exit 188). US 421 continues northeast and merges onto Salem Parkway; upon exiting the interchange, shortly before coming to the Silas Creek Parkway (NC 67) with a cloverleaf interchange. Silas Creek Parkway reaches the interchange with Stratford Road (US 158), with the parkway turning east and traversing concurrently with US 158. The corridor enters into the center of Downtown Winston-Salem, before coming to the folded-diamond interchange with Peters Creek Parkway (NC 150), in which NC 150 joins the concurrency. The Salem Parkway is parallel to sidewalks which are located on the hills that are adjacent to the highway, which is inside the central areas of Downtown. The parkway comes to the junctions with Marshall Street and Cherry Street before traversing under the Strollway. A half-interchange allows access to the one-way northbound Main Street, with only a westbound off-ramp and eastbound on-ramp. The Twin-City Trail is located inside this area.

Central Segment The parkway leaves the center of Downtown Winston-Salem, where it comes to a cloverleaf junction with the John Gold Memorial Expressway (US 52/NC 8, with NC 8 being unsigned) at a cloverleaf interchange (with the stretch of US 52 slated to become I-285). The parkway comes to a folded diamond junction with Martin Luther King Jr. Drive immediately after. US 158 exits the Salem Parkway onto Reidsville Road at a partial interchange, with the parkway continuing east concurrent with US 421 and NC 150. East of the city limits, the parkway comes to a mostly-cloverleaf junction with I-74 (Winston-Salem Northern Beltway), with I-74 giving direct access to I-40 in this vicinity.

Kernersville Salem Parkway continues inside central Kernersville, where it comes to under construction junction with Big Mill Farm Road (the under-construction Kernersville Loop), before coming to the diamond junction with South Main Street, in which South Main Street gives access to the overall "developed" areas of the town. The parkway traverses the southern downtown area for one mile, coming to the exit with NC 66. Exiting the central district, the route comes to the interchange with Macy Grove Road ("also," the under-construction Kernersville Loop), with NC 150 exiting the parkway. The Salem Parkway, after coming to the junction, enters into Guilford County, shortly before ending at a half-interchange with I-40 in the area surrounding Colfax, with only an eastbound entrance and westbound exit on I-40.

History The current-day Salem Parkway, in its origins, is the consolidation of existing expressways and full freeways in central Winston-Salem and inside what was once south of most of Kernersville.

The towns of Winston and Salem officially formed one city in the year 1913. The newly combined city was not only a merger of local government but a joining of two different road systems. By the 1940s, Winston-Salem grew to become the largest manufacturing hub in the state, as a result of companies including R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and the P.H. Hanes Knitting Company. Notable highways had connected the city, with no direct corridor connecting one area with the other without the use of "making turns," resulting in traffic congestion in the downtown area. From 1946 to 1956, various traffic pattern studies were performed, and plans were created to address the impacts of traffic inside the area.

East–West Expressway Around 1955, an expressway stretch for US 421 opened in the eastern areas of Forsyth County, spanning from Linville Road to Mountain Street. This expressway was considered in the area south of Kernersville. Work would have been underway to build the connecting new expressway, directly linking. The previous year, Winston-Salem gave the state $1 million to buy right-of-way for what was titled the East–West Expressway. This was built to be a full-fledged east-west corridor for the city of Winston-Salem, with construction beginning that same year as the right-of-way was acquired. Though it was planned to become a new routing of US 158, that changed two years later, when the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was passed, and North Carolina was allocated for their share of the Interstate Highway System; was subsequently allocated for a route from the Tennessee state line, through Asheville and Winston-Salem, to Greensboro. The expressway was slightly shifted to become a complete controlled-access highway, I-40 was eventually designated onto the East–West Expressway, which allowed the expressway to actually become the first completed section of Interstate in the state.

On January 6, 1958, the first section of the East–West Expressway was opened between Cloverdale Avenue and Main Street. Because of the novelty, local newspapers ran a series of stories and diagrams on how to use the expressway, educating the public on how on-ramps and off-ramps work. Designated as I-40, the expressway soon ran concurrently with US 158 in 1959, from Stratford Road to Marshall (westbound) and Cherry (eastbound) streets. In 1960, the expressway was extended west to at NC 801 near the Yadkin River, and east to Reidsville Road. In 1961, US 421 was rerouted from Pfafftown and downtown Winston-Salem onto new freeway that connected directly with the expressway, then continued easterly running concurrently with I-40. In 1962, US 158 was realigned to continue along the expressway to Reidsville Road, its former alignment became US 158 Business (decommissioned in 1970). East of Reidsville Road, I-40 was extended to the existing Kernersville expressway, where it then linked with the second built section of I-40 (late 1958) and continued towards Greensboro.

Interstate 40 Business

I-40 Business was established in late 1992, when I-40 was rerouted further south onto a recently opened stretch, which was mostly new construction. The business route spanned from exits 1 to 17 during its tenure, traversing between what was then the western outskirts of Winston-Salem and further east into downtown Winston-Salem and what was then mostly south of Kernersville. The highway continued to serve the overall area of Winston-Salem as the key east-west corridor for the city.

Hawthorne Curve Since its opening in 1960, the Hawthorne Curve, a 10° S-curve overpass of Hawthorne Road, became an infamous accident-prone location; which were usually in relation to the speed of the drivers. Cars and trucks would wreck against the curve and, in certain cases, travel along the guardrail and fall off the overpass. During the time of the construction was the Official Winston-Salem Mayor Marshall Kurfees, who was believed to have ordered the curve to protect political allies who owned businesses on Hawthorne Road and First Street. Mayor Kurfees was extensively blamed for the construction of the curve, and he continued to deny the allegations later on during his life, stating that while the engineers designed it, he had totally lacked direct input on the project. Over the years, several studies were done, and various little fixes were made to address the occurrences, including the implementation of a reduced speed zone, more noticeable guardrails, and the installation of blinking lights and flashing warning signs. In January 1998, the first major improvement in 40 years started with the realignment of Hawthorne Curve. At a cost of $26 million, construction lasted for two years, building a new overpass and reshaping the sharp curve to a gentler one. It was completed seven months early in the middle of 2000. As a result of the stretches west of the Curve actually being of current-day Interstate Highway standards; most of the stretch was also heavily upgraded during the 1990s, which included the replacement of the original concrete stretch with asphalt to blend with the then-recently under-reconstruction stretches of I-40 in Clemmons. Most of the bridges directly west and east of Downtown Winston-Salem, were either replaced or renovated between the 1990s to mid 2010s.

Brief Greensboro extension In February 2008, I-40 was rerouted south of most of the Greensboro city limits, forming the south stretch of Greensboro Urban Loop. The previous route, which went miles south of downtown Greensboro, became the extension of I-40 Business. This also included the hidden concurrency along I-40/US 421, between exits 206 and 212. This extended the route , ending at a new terminus with I-85/I-40, in the vicinity of McLeansville.

However, NCDOT officials received several complaints from residents and motorists about the confusion between the new I-40 and I-40 Business. Another issue was that funding for future construction and repairs on the old route was slashed since it was no longer designated as a primary Interstate. On September 12, 2008, with permission from the FHWA, I-40 was moved back to its old route through Greensboro, decommissioning Business 40.

Kernersville While the I-40 Business designation had been in effect for over 20 years during this period, there had been long-term planning for the need to reconfigure one of the earliest exits on the route. In the town of Kernersville, the half interchange with Mountain Street (exit 16), was the former eastern terminus of the then-new US 421 "Bypass." This junction had been considered to be substandard during the previous set of decades and was directly east of the NC 66/150 exit (exit 15). The need to address this was aligned with another highway project nearby, the Kernersville Loop. Construction began in June 2013 on the first phase of a project to extend Macy Grove Road around the east side of Kernersville. Macy Grove Road, which previously crossed over Business 40 with no interchange and had its northern terminus at the at-grade intersection with Old Greensboro Road, was upgraded to expressway standards and extended to a temporary terminus with the one quadrant interchange with East Mountain Street, and the southern terminus of the expressway being at the recent-day designed diamond interchange, built connecting Macy Grove Road to Business 40. This was completed and opened in May 2015, which replaced the previous partial interchange with East Mountain Street directly east of what was then the NC 66/NC 150 interchange, in which the partial interchange was closed and demolished, with the westbound roadway over in the vicinity of the interchange, being rebuilt to be realigned closer to the eastbound roadway. In October 2020, NC 150 was removed from its concurrency with NC 66 through downtown Kernersville, and rerouted onto the Macy Grove Road east of downtown, as the route was further extended to limited access standards, to its recent intersection with North Main Street, which allowed NC 150 to run concurrently with US 421 for around further east.While not directly related; the Salisbury Road bridge over Business 40 was rebuilt during this period, tailoring to downtown Kernersville, while the bridges at South Main Street and NC 66 were rebuilt in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Salem Parkway