East Market Street likely has too many cars to become a three-lane road, N.C. Department of Transportation engineers told Smithfield officials Tuesday.

Town councilmen and downtown leaders had asked DOT to study the possibility of changing the street from a four-lane road to two lanes with a center turn lane.

"It's teetering on the sense of I would recommend you not do that," said Jim Dunlop, congestion management engineer. "A road like this, you don't have a good option other than to leave it as it is."

Dunlop said most blocks of Market Street see about 22,000 vehicles a day, with as many as 36,000 passing the Front Street intersection daily. Three-lane roads generally become too congested with more than 16,000 vehicles per day, he said.

Read more in the Aug. 26 edition of The Herald.