Heading into Raleigh on eastbound Interstate 40 might be one of the last places you’d expect to see a highway sign celebrating the UNC-Chapel Hill men’s basketball team’s national championship last year.
Yet there it is, a standard issue green sign with white letters, just beyond the overpass for North Harrison Avenue, three miles from PNC Arena. And there’s another one on westbound I-40 at the Wake-Durham county line.
The N.C. Department of Transportation put up the signs at the direction of the state Board of Transportation. At a special teleconference meeting in late November, the board approved a UNC request to erect the signs in eight places: Four on I-85 and I-95 at the Virginia and South Carolina state lines; one along I-40 at the Tennessee line; one on southbound I-85 near I-77 in Charlotte; and the two along I-40, more than 14 miles away from Chapel Hill.