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Dallas: $1.7 billion IH-635 east expansion

Started by MaxConcrete, June 12, 2015, 10:01:52 AM

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Bobby5280

Parts of the I-820 expansion in Fort Worth are kind of odd. Much of the road has been paved with asphalt rather than longer lasting concrete. Even though there's 2 toll lane going in each direction there's as few as 2 general purpose lanes in each direction as well.  They probably could have had 5 or 6 lanes going in each direction within the same space.

The I-35E project North of Dallas is certainly not as good as other expansion projects in the DFW area. My main gripe is the narrow striped lanes. However, that is an interim project. The plan is to do another expansion project a few years from now. That would add another pair of toll lanes (getting rid of the current reversible toll lanes setup) and presumably fix the lane widths, getting them back to 12' wide.


Plutonic Panda

#26
That project won't be affected by the recent anti toll position taken?

Bobby5280

Oh, the second half of the I-35E expansion project certainly could be badly affected by these recent political moves against toll roads. It would be a hell of a lot harder to get funding for the project. Voters hate toll roads, but they sure hate fuel taxes and any rate hikes on them every bit as much too.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of increases in traffic accidents occur on I-35E between Dallas and Denton. It seems fair to assume narrow lanes and high traffic counts will result in many more cars "trading paint." If the number of accidents and resulting back-ups really accumulate then the public anger over it could eventually get the rest of that I-35E project funded. As a "free" road the separate 2 lane roadways would be used for HOV traffic rather than Lexus lane traffic.

MaxConcrete

News report about NCTCOG's plans to make a presentation to the Texas Transportation Commission at the January 25 meeting.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/2017/12/24/backers-toll-financed-lbj-east-expansion-hope-state-officials-will-take-road-block

At the last meeting when toll projects were removed from the plan, Austin had a large delegation in support of toll lanes on IH 35, but it didn't help. I'm thinking North Texas officials need to do some work behind the scenes to lobby the people that really matter: Lieutenent Governor Patrick and Governor Abbott.

Quote
A plan to fund 14-plus free lanes on LBJ Freeway by adding tolls to four lanes on the same highway is likely to fall on deaf ears when its presented to the Texas Transportation Commission next month.

But with no other solution on the board to fund the $1.8 billion LBJ East expansion project, the leaders of the Regional Transportation Commission – which allocates the area's state and federal transportation dollars – feel they have to make a unified pitch to state transportation officials.

The 10.8 miles of Interstate 635 through Dallas, Garland and Mesquite has become a focal point in the the state's tolled freeway debate. Leaders in those cities fear a "pay as you go" approach would saddle the area from Central Expressway to Interstate 30 with a decade of construction.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have directed the Texas Transportation Commission not to use toll revenue to finance public roadway projects around the state.

Stalled in the crossfire of three consecutive legislative sessions without funding approval for LBJ East is the $65 million reconfiguration of the Skillman/Audelia interchange at LBJ.

It's a project that Dallas leaders say simply can't wait anymore. Approved separately, it was tied to LBJ East because the Texas Department of Transportation wanted to keep concurrent projects from having separate contractors.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

MaxConcrete

#29
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that a compromise has been reached to end the stalemate. The new plan (pending approval and no new issues) keeps the same number of lanes but changes the configuration from 5-2E-2E-5 to 6-1M-1M-6. This would be the longest stretch of 6 sustained free lanes each way in Texas (about 11 miles). Anti-toll leadership in Austin apparently deems this acceptable since there are already two HOT lanes on the freeway, and most users of the HOT lane (carpools) don't pay the toll.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2018/05/07/austin-north-texas-leaders-seeing-eye-eye-lbj-east-another-shot-states-list

Quote
State officials are promising a long-awaited go-ahead for the $1.8 billion LBJ East freeway improvements if regional officials agree to build the road without additional tolled lanes in a Thursday meeting.

Interstate 635, LBJ Freeway, currently has four free lanes and an HOV/express lane running down the middle in each direction, a "4-1-1-4" format. That would change to "6-1-1-6" with widening to include two more free lanes in each direction between Central Expressway and Mesquite.

In addition, the plan being proposed to the Regional Transportation Council at its meeting this week in Arlington stipulates the continuous frontage roads and a rebuilt interchange at Interstate 30 that Dallas, Garland and Mesquite officials have wanted.

"Based on agreement from the RTC ... the commission and TxDOT are ready to advance," J. Bruce Bugg, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, told regional leaders in a letter. The TTC oversees the Texas Department of Transportation.

www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

txstateends

The squabbles and hand-wringing look to be over on this one.  Construction contract will be awarded next year, with completion in 2024.  Oh, goodie, 5 years of fun and detours...

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2018/05/24/txdot-gets-long-awaited-go-ahead-move-forward-lbj-east-project
\/ \/ click for a bigger image \/ \/

MaxConcrete

Unfortunately the approved plan does not convert the two cancelled toll lanes into regular lanes. So if the plan proceeds as proposed, the net gain for main traffic lanes is only 1 regular lane each way. (Of course there are also big improvements to frontage roads and auxiliary lanes).

http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot/commission/2018/0524/6a-presentation.pdf

According the news article, elected officials are going to push for the 6 free lanes each way. I think the costs of the bids will be the main determining factor if the sixth free lane each way is included

QuoteBecause there were space and plans for a configuration with five free lanes and two managed lanes in each direction, the senators said they would push for a switch to six free lanes with the grandfathered single managed lane in each direction.

"I think there would still be enough money for 14 lanes," Huffines said.

www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

MaxConcrete

#32
http://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot/commission/2019/0530/6a-presentation.pdf

The TxDOT Commission revealed the winner for the design-build contract today. The winner is Pegasus Link constructors, which consists of Fluor and Balfour Beatty, at  $1.737 billion. Pegasus Link also built the Horseshoe project, and is currently building the $666 million Southern Gateway project on IH 35E.

Unfortunately it appears to be a budget buster because the estimated amount was around $1.56 billion, which included $278 million for the I-30/I-635 interchange, and I don't know for certain that the interchange work is included in the bid. Some local officials (mainly Michael Morris, NCTCOG director) had mentioned they thought the bid could come in below the estimate.

Unfortunately the presentation is totally lacking in any details of the proposal. There was no discussion at the meeting (which was available on a live feed). There's nothing in Dallas Morning News yet.

Since the project was originally designed to have four managed lanes, there is space for two more lanes which some officials had suggested could be general-purpose lanes. The proposal details will need to be available to find out the fate of those two lanes.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

MaxConcrete

#33
Since the contract award I have not seen any information about the final design. (Design-bid proposers can tweak the design for cost reduction.) Also, the managed lanes were supposedly reduced from 4 to 2, which would be a substantial change compared to the approved design of the ROD.

On Thursday's NCTCOG meeting agenda was the first glimpse of any information about the final design. The design has been changed at SH 78 (Garland Avenue). Originally the frontage roads were slated to intersect SH 78 and go under the KCS railroad, with SH 78 also sunk for the intersection. Now the frontage roads are going over SH 78 due to KCS being uncooperative, and also to reduce cost.

See item 6 in the agenda documents for a depiction of the revised design
https://www.nctcog.org/nctcg/media/Transportation/Committees/RTC/2019/presentations-sept.pdf?ext=.pdf

The design clearly shows 4 managed lanes, which would be very good news if the 4 lanes are in fact retained on the entire project.

The schematics I have (from January 2017) also show NW Highway going over 635, but the depiction shows 635 now going over NW Highway.

On a possibly related subject: Does anyone know what happened to plans to award the contract for the $320 million interchange at Loop 12 and SH 183 (Texas Stadium site)? It was slated to receive bids in July, then it was pushed back to September, and now it has entirely disappeared from the FY 2020 letting list. I'm thinking the project's funds may have been shifted to cover the cost overrun on 635.
www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

Bobby5280

#34
It would be very good news if the managed lanes portion of the project featured at least 2 lanes in each direction.

IMHO, toll/managed lanes featuring only 1 lane per direction is STUPID! What person in their right mind wants to pay EXTRA to drive on a single separate lane only to likely get stuck behind some slow poke old fart puttering along 10-20 mph under the posted speed limit? Being hemmed in with concrete Jersey barriers on both sides you're completely stuck behind the slow poke. There's only one single lane. You cannot pass. Or like Gandalf said, "You shall not pass!!!"

Any HOV or toll/managed lanes configuration is not worth doing at all unless the separated roadway has at least 2 lanes, allowing faster drivers to pass the slow pokes. If the facility only has a budget to do a single HOV/Toll lane per direction then it's not worth doing at all. Put that extra money into more "free" general purpose lanes or other roadway improvements.

The single toll lanes that have been popping up in a few places in the DFW metro, such as along TX-183, are just blatantly idiotic. It's at least as stupid as the 2-2-2-2 configuration of I-820 on the North side of Fort Worth. After all that construction traffic jams on the minuscule general purpose lanes of I-820 are commonplace. There's even visual evidence of it in Google Street View. A single barrier-separated HOV/toll lane is really bad since the barriers eat up valuable space, particularly if they're the concrete Jersey barrier variety. The end result is a road which is arguably less efficient. Most drivers are going to steer clear of a single barrier-separated toll lane for all its downsides. But that toll lane eats into the space that would be used for general purpose lanes. So everything is getting squeezed in some way. Add to that the new habit of re-striping lanes at widths of less than 12'. I really hate driving on roads with lanes striped at widths of only 11' or 10'. That's claustrophobic.

-- US 175 --

Quote from: MaxConcrete on September 15, 2019, 12:54:46 AM
Since the contract award I have not seen any information about the final design. (Design-bid proposers can tweak the design for cost reduction.) Also, the managed lanes were supposedly reduced from 4 to 2, which would be a substantial change compared to the approved design of the ROD.

On Thursday's NCTCOG meeting agenda was the first glimpse of any information about the final design. The design has been changed at SH 78 (Garland Avenue). Originally the frontage roads were slated to intersect SH 78 and go under the KCS railroad, with SH 78 also sunk for the intersection. Now the frontage roads are going over SH 78 due to KCS being uncooperative, and also to reduce cost.

See item 6 in the agenda documents for a depiction of the revised design
https://www.nctcog.org/nctcg/media/Transportation/Committees/RTC/2019/presentations-sept.pdf?ext=.pdf

The design clearly shows 4 managed lanes, which would be very good news if the 4 lanes are in fact retained on the entire project.

The schematics I have (from January 2017) also show NW Highway going over 635, but the depiction shows 635 now going over NW Highway.

On a possibly related subject: Does anyone know what happened to plans to award the contract for the $320 million interchange at Loop 12 and SH 183 (Texas Stadium site)? It was slated to receive bids in July, then it was pushed back to September, and now it has entirely disappeared from the FY 2020 letting list. I'm thinking the project's funds may have been shifted to cover the cost overrun on 635.

The Loop 12/TX 183/Spur 482 interchange is on the UTP list  (as well as LBJ East) so apparently the TTC had enough $$$ for both.


STLmapboy

Just to verify, the current schematics are 5-1H-1H-5 right? Excluding the 2-lane each way frontage roads. Is this down from 5-2-2-5 to 6-1-1-6 to the current design?
Teenage STL area roadgeek.
Missouri>>>>>Illinois

Plutonic Panda

#38
The HOT lanes are just toll free express lanes I thought. I could be wrong but I imagine there will be more than 1 each way. Just west of the 75 there exists 3 in each direction.

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: Plutonic Panda on May 13, 2020, 11:33:23 PM
The HOT lanes are just toll free express lanes I thought. I could be wrong but I imagine there will be more than 1 each way. Just west of the 75 there exists 3 in each direction.
Apparently not the case which I find to be weird given you are correct there exist 3 each way and are tolled free IIRC but I haven't been on this road for a few years so my memory could be fuzzy.

Per this article which is an update to this project the new roadway will be 3 lanes of service road each way, 5 GP lanes, and one tolled lane each way. I find this to be a mistake as there should be two HOT lanes each way. Traffic counts are at 230k a day and will surely only go up. Might as well plan for the future so we don't have to worry about this for another several decades.

https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/pegasus-link-constructors-leads-17b-project/52083

MaxConcrete

Quote from: Plutonic Panda on May 05, 2021, 02:09:12 PM
Apparently not the case which I find to be weird given you are correct there exist 3 each way and are tolled free IIRC but I haven't been on this road for a few years so my memory could be fuzzy.

Per this article which is an update to this project the new roadway will be 3 lanes of service road each way, 5 GP lanes, and one tolled lane each way. I find this to be a mistake as there should be two HOT lanes each way. Traffic counts are at 230k a day and will surely only go up. Might as well plan for the future so we don't have to worry about this for another several decades.

https://www.constructionequipmentguide.com/pegasus-link-constructors-leads-17b-project/52083

Most of this section lacked frontage roads and the project will add continuous frontage roads.

For the main lanes, the original plan and last schematic made available was 5-2M-2M-5 (M=managed). However, due to the funding source (Prop 1 and/or 7) prohibiting tolls, TxDOT refused to let project proceed if toll lanes would be added, even though local interests wanted the four tolled lanes.

There was a big controversy, and the compromise was to allow the existing managed lanes to be grandfathered, for 5-1M-1M-5. But a revised schematic was never released. This is also a design-build project, and information is always lacking for the final design for design-build projects.

I'm thinking and hoping that the design being built includes the originally-planned pavement for the missing two managed lanes. In other words, I'm hoping they're building the approved 5-2M-2M-5 design but striping the managed lane area for one lane only.

Aerial photo coverage is very good at https://635east.com/view/aerial-photos/
It looks like the bridges in progress are taking up all available width, which suggests there was no downsizing.



www.DFWFreeways.com
www.HoustonFreeways.com

Plutonic Panda

^^^^ thank you for the information I was not aware of that. Indeed it would be nice to be able to simply stripe in another lane later rather than have to go through another round of construction.

-- US 175 --




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