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[Road Hog]

SH 289 (Preston Road) is at the moment undergoing major construction for 12 miles north of Frisco. The road is being converted from 2 lane asphalt to 6 lane divided concrete and should be completely done in spring 2014.

The southern segment, from FM 3357 to US 380, is virtually finished except for some median work at the south end which still (aggravatingly) has some lanes closed. The second segment, consisting of a new overpass over US 380 and a 3-mile stretch through Prosper, began in April and earthwork is progressing nicely. Lane shifting will be this weekend for the final 4-mile segment into Celina.

[Road Hog]

Wanted to share this notice I got with my water bill in the mail:

Collin County Toll Road Authority (CCTRA) Public Hearing

The CCTRA will conduct a Public Hearing to present alignment alternatives and discuss the status of the proposed Segment 3 of the Collin County Outer Loop from SH 289 to FM 2478.

•WHEN: Monday, August 6, 6:00 p.m.
•WHERE: 4th Floor, Commissioners Courtroom, Jack Hatchell Administration Building
•ADDRESS: 2300 Bloomdale Road, McKinney, TX 75071
•PROJECT INFORMATION/OPEN DISCUSSION: Citizens are invited to attend the Public Hearing. Verbal and written comments from the public regarding this project can be presented at the Public Hearing.

[jczart]

Some project photos from today. I went to Trader Joe's and decided to go see what TxDot was up to.
Full sizes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatguyinalittlecoat/

635 westbound west of Hillcrest. Many bridges are replaced, and they've started building the outer lanes.


35E northbound before 635, direct connection ramps to 635 and Loop 12


SH 121 at SH 114 north of the airport


Through Grapevine... the inner express lanes look mostly done, they're working on the outer lanes I guess.


Direct connection ramps from SH 114 to SH 121 southbound. The northbound in the foreground, the southbound in the rear.


SH 121 southbound at Murphy (widening)


SH 121/183 westbound in Hurst. The structures are ramps for the express lanes to exit to the frontage roads.


SH 121/183 westbound in Hurst or Bedford. There will be 6 express lanes and 6-8 regular lanes. The new ROW is really wide, but it didnt photograph well.


Direct connection ramps for the express lanes onto IH 820 southbound and SH 121 southbound to downtown Ftw.




IH 820 is being rebuilt from SH 121/183 west to 35W.


New stack at 820 / 35W with express and regular ramps




Two new stretches of the SH 199 freeway to Azle opened this year, I think in May.




Overton Park Blvd at SH 121T / Chisholm Trail in southwest Ftw. The stack at IH 20 / 183 has a few of the pillars up, but there isnt really a place for photos of it.


SH 121T / Chisholm Trail follows Vickery Blvd in Fort Worth for a while, the viaduct over the railyards is mostly complete. This view looks east at Vickery and Hulen.


IH 30 eastbound at SH 161 in Grand Prairie




Phase 1 of Loop 121 / SH 114 in Irving looks done now, there are some new cement molds up for Phase 2 it looks like

[Brian556]

Nice job, Justin. Appreciate the update. Looks like you covered all current projects, exept for LOOP 12/SH 114 interchange.

[Brian556]

I-635, looking EB from Preston, Date: 7.25.12

[jczart]

It's a bit difficult to photograph IH 635... when they were building the High 5 I went to one of the office buildings next to it and asked to take pictures out the window, and they let me.

Loop 12 / 114 is the final photo.

[txstateends]

It's a bit difficult to photograph IH 635...

Agree with you there.  I've tried a few times since construction has started, but it's really a problem if you're passing over a bridge on a bus or whizzing by on a light-rail train.  There used to be some of DART's bus routes that ran along parts of I-635's service roads, but that was changed a few years ago; it could have been because they didn't want to traverse a future active long-term construction area, or they decided that boardings had decreased in those sections.

[jczart]

I missed the 170/114 junction and ramps, some SH 114 stuff, 161 at IH 20 stack, IH 20 at Southwest Parkway (or whatever they call it now) stack... and some 35W stuff in North Ftw.

[MaxConcrete]

I agree with everyone: all these projects are difficult to photograph. Here is a photo of the IH 30/SH 161 interchange taken in March. Progress has been quick.

[jczart]

Here are some photos from today of the US 75 widening through McKinney, on my way to Grayson County. It is being resurfaced from Anna to the Grayson County line, also.
Full size: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fatguyinalittlecoat/

Northbound past Eldorado.


More complete near Wilmeth



The Eldorado overpass old/new southbound.

[NE2]

Is this the standard tollway sign (i.e. there are no Toll 121 signs)?

[txstateends]

Is this the standard tollway sign (i.e. there are no Toll 121 signs)?

Since they decided to have a "name" for the tolled main lanes, the only labeling/signage referencing 121 is the service roads (similar to TX 190 in Carrollton, Richardson, Plano and TX 161 in part of Irving), using the primary state sign style. 

[jczart]

It was originally signed here as Toll 121, when they were first building the junction but it changed to "SRT" pretty quickly (this is on my daily commute)...
Toll 121 is still signed that way down closer to the airport and it changes in Lewisville to the SRT signing.

[J N Winkler]

Is the Dallas District now completely papered over with county toll road authorities?  The Collin County Toll Road Authority has already been mentioned upthread, and when I downloaded the IH 35E RID package yesterday (19 GB!), I found draft plans with a DCTA (Dallas County Toll Authority) collar.

I am frankly concerned by this proliferation of toll agencies because it makes it much harder to keep up with the documentation.  When it was just TxDOT and NTTA, it was much easier, since both put their construction plans online.  Nowadays I have to exchange email with the procurement officers for the NTE and LBJ Express just to stay up with those projects, and when I tried to get hold of a copy for the RFP for a CCTRA project, I had to sign up with BidSync just to find out whether there might be documents available for download, and was fielding cold calls from them for their extra-pay services for several days.

[NE2]

Toll 121 is still signed that way down closer to the airport and it changes in Lewisville to the SRT signing.

Ah. I assume the changeover is where there are no frontage roads and SH 121 hops on the freeway?

[jczart]

You might try the TxDot FTP site, schematics and project lists are usually in there: ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/
including some toll projects by other agencies. There isnt a single repository for projects, though, as with most regions. There are city, county, state, federal, toll agencies, etc.

Counties are allowed to toll whatever they want, but the only two I know of up here are Collin and Dallas. The Collin County project is essentially a county road freeway. Some other counties have them, too, like Harris, Brazoria or Williamson. They're usually part of a county transit system. Dallas County formed their toll road authority in 2010 to try to expedite the Loop 9 project, but hasnt really done anything with it since. Dallas is very big on trying to equalize the income levels of the poor southern part of the wealthy north part of the county by building lots of big ticket items on the south side (UNT, Woodall Rodgers Extn., Loop 9) that dont end up really doing anything.

[txstateends]

when I downloaded the IH 35E RID package yesterday (19 GB!), I found draft plans with a DCTA (Dallas County Toll Authority) collar.

The only "DCTA" agency I know of around here is the Denton County Transit Authority.  Their rail line parallels I-35E between Denton and Carrollton.  Their RR ROW is within feet of the I-35E ROW in the vicinity of Lake Lewisville.  I haven't looked at the link to see if there's any other DCTA agency, but I do remember there being talk about Dallas trying to do something toll-wise...I haven't heard much lately, though.

[J N Winkler]

Just to thank both of you for the help and clarifications:

*  I checked Ftp.dot.state.tx.us again.  It had previously been used to host RID distributions for the SH 121 CDA and the LBJ Express Lanes procurement, but those were a while ago, and I had thought things had gone dead.  However, I found a link to the RID for the ongoing Grand Parkway procurement, which includes about 2.2 GB worth of old as-builts.  (The IH 35E RID includes about 1.8 GB worth of as-builts, including the original signing contract for IH 35E in Denton County, a sign replacement covering IH 35E in Dallas and Denton Counties, and the huge Dallas District reflective signing contract done in the early noughties, which has almost 200 sheets of pattern-accurate sign details.  The Denton County signing contract shows advance guide signs which use the word "EXIT" in the distance expression and tenths fractions:  4/10 mile, 9/10 mile, etc.)

*  I checked again and couldn't find "DCTA" spelled out.  However, the sheets that have "DCTA" on the collar have "Denton-Carrollton Rail Line" in the title box, so it looks like "DCTA" is indeed Denton County Transit Authority and not "Dallas County Toll Authority" as I had thought.  A Google search for {Dallas Toll Authority} has the lead hits from the Dallas Morning News transportation blog, not a toll authority website, and the blog posts I looked at say just that a toll authority was under consideration (and fierce criticism from NTTA:  "North Texas' Toughest Anglos") as of 2010--they don't confirm that it was created.

[Brian556]

Quote from JN Winkler:

  I checked Ftp.dot.state.tx.us again.  It had previously been used to host RID distributions for the SH 121 CDA and the LBJ Express Lanes procurement, but those were a while ago, and I had thought things had gone dead.  However, I found a link to the RID for the ongoing Grand Parkway procurement, which includes about 2.2 GB worth of old as-builts.  (The IH 35E RID includes about 1.8 GB worth of as-builts, including the original signing contract for IH 35E in Denton County, a sign replacement covering IH 35E in Dallas and Denton Counties, and the huge Dallas District reflective signing contract done in the early noughties, which has almost 200 sheets of pattern-accurate sign details.  The Denton County signing contract shows advance guide signs which use the word "EXIT" in the distance expression and tenths fractions:  4/10 mile, 9/10 mile, etc.)

Where exactly are the Denton county signing plans? I got on the site but couldn't easily locate them. Could you give the file path?

[J N Winkler]

Brian556--these projects are packed into a 1.1-GB file containing the as-builts:

http://ih35erid.corridorprogram.com/RID/RFP/1.%20General/As-builts.zip

The CCSJs are as follows:

*  Denton 0195-02-018--IH 35E signing from the Dallas county line to the Cooke county line (October 1961)

*  Dallas/Denton 0195-02-023--IH 35E break-away sign supports etc. installation (includes some sign replacements) (February 1968)

*  Denton 0196-02-091--IH 35/E/W sign refurbishment (part of the TxDOT-wide sheeting upgrade in the early noughties) (April 2001)

[us175]

http://www.smwrightproject.org
http://www.smwrightproject.org/PDF/Notice-8-7-12-PM.pdf

TxDOT is having a public meeting tonight (about the plans for the S.M. Wright redo and future new US 175 west terminus at I-45 (full interchange ramps in both directions this time, I hope!)) at the MLK senior center from 5p to 8p on MLK Blvd. in Dallas.  Wish I could go, but I have to work later today ( )!

[Brian556]

Got a few pics of the DFW Connector today.

Looking west (south) on SH 121 after the split with the SH 114 lanes, which are on the right.


Looking east on SH 114 at the SH 121 interchange.

[rantanamo]

Hard to tell the scope of the I-635 project from just driving, but this pic says it all

[NE2]

Dayum. It's like a natural disaster wiped out a whole city block.

[MaxConcrete]

rantanamo, where did you get that aerial photo? Is it available for use and is it available in higher resolution? I would like to use it in the DFWFreeways book
www.dfwfreeways.com.