Route:

Freeway portion begins at I-40 exit 289.
Freeway ends at I-440/US 1, and continues for another 4 miles as a part surface road/part expressway.  Ends at a trumpet with US 401/Capital Blvd. just north of downtown.

Attractions:

Runs past the Entertainment and Sports Arena, home of the Carolina Hurricanes and NC State Wolfpack basketball.  Also visible is Carter-Finley Stadium, home of Pack football.   Past the Beltline, Wade Ave. runs through an older part of Raleigh that is quite hilly (see below).

Major Intersections:
(west to east)

I-40, I-440/US 1, US 70/ NC 50 (Glenwood Ave.), and US 401 (Capital Blvd.)

Notes:

Strange road that seems like it was built in about 30 different pieces.  Well, surprise surprise, it was.  The first parts of Wade Ave. to see the light of day were the section between Glenwood and Daniels St., and then from Dixie Tr. to the Beltline (more on this in a minute).  The Glenwood section (including the intersection of St. Marys St) was the first part to be built, around 1953 (it's conceivable, although I don't have any evidence of it, that this part was all called Daniels St.), and then the Dixie Tr. section was done by the end of '54.  When the freeway section of Capital Blvd. was built in '55 or '56, Wade was extended east to end there, as it does now.

There was a road connecting Oberlin Rd. and Brooks Ave. before Wade came through, I think.  I haven't found its existence on any maps I've seen, but the houses in that area are much older than the road itself - judging from the houses, I'd imagine there was a road of some sort there by 1940.  The insanely curvy portion of Wade between Daniels and Oberlin is an upshot of trying to connect the existing portions of road together, and apparently that was the best they could do.  I have a picture of the Oberlin bridge over Wade after it had just opened, and it's dated 1959, so I'd guess that's when that part opened.

Somewhere in the mid-50s, probably around '56 or '57, Wade was finished to connect Brooks and Dixie.  Again, the maps jump around (the archives' map collection jumps from '54 to '60) so this is a guess, but I'm judging again on the age of the houses.  The houses west of Brooks are much newer by comparison than the ones east.  Another thing:  the entire road was originally built with 4 lanes; it hasn't been widened since it was first built.

Before the Beltline was built west of Meredith College in 1963, (judging from every map I've seen) Wade ran either directly over it or just to the east of it.  In other words, where the interchange of Wade and the Beltline is today, there was a 90-degree bend in Wade that shot it down to end at Hillsborough St.  The section of Wade just north of Meredith, from Faircloth St to Ridge Rd, is the newest part of the road, as it was re-aligned to tie into the Beltline.  (The extension was done at this time too, and it was designated I-40 for 20 years or so until the south part of the Beltline was done.)

Whew.