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GREENSBORO - The importance of newly opened sections of Greensboro's urban bypass depends on where you're going.

People driving within the city might not notice that a few miles away, mainly out of sight, thousands of vehicles on their way from one side of the city to the other are not driving through it anymore.

That's good news for people headed through Greensboro.

Rather than battling city traffic and navigating through a maze of roads where several closely spaced entrance and exit ramps come together on what is now Business 40, drivers on the new urban loop - Interstate 40 - get to sail around it all on eight new lanes of smooth, bright asphalt.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation, the agency that does traffic counts on interstates, will do its first traffic count on the new I-40 loop this fall, but drivers are already noticing some changes.

"I've driven through there at peak time and it seems like the congestion is less," said Craig McKinney , transportation planner for the city of Greensboro .

The new bypass also should be good news for anyone on heavily traveled arteries inside the city. Transportation planners and law enforcement officers expect traffic on Wendover Avenue to lighten up.

"The idea is to get the through traffic out of the center portion of the city," McKinney said.

When the loop is finished, it will be 44 miles and completely encircle the city. As of February, 25 miles are open. Only the southern third is finished, with pieces of the western segment and the majority of the northeastern segment still undone. The portion of the northeastern loop between U.S. 29 and U.S. 70 is scheduled for construction in 2013.

The loop has 23 bridges, including the state's longest single-span bridges of structural steel, which extend 100 yards over West Friendly Avenue .

The biggest impact on traffic on non-interstate roads will be felt later, when High Point Road is relocated and integrated with the loop and when the section of the western loop from Bryan Boulevard to Battleground Avenue is completed, making a high-speed, controlled-access connection between the north edge of Greensboro and the city of High Point.

The existing changes have had some impact on surface roads, McKinney said.

"But the greater effect will come when the western part is complete."

At its peak, Business 40 carried 140,000 vehicles a day.

The road's capacity through the city was only intended to be 110,000 to 120,000 vehicles per day "before things start breaking down," McKinney said.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja.elmquist@news-record.com