Arlington(TX): Interchange at IH 30 and SH 360 construction

[The Ghostbuster]

Why didn't they build an interchange between these two routes in the first place?

[wxfree]

I-30 was built as a turnpike.  The original interchange ran all traffic onto a single road, where the toll booth was located.  The original configuration, minus the toll booth, is still used.

[Road Hog]

Plus, when the original turnpike was built, 360 was a two-lane road and the whole area was still open country. Just 15 years ago 360 ran mostly on frontage roads with no main lanes except at a couple of interchanges (including I-30).

[MaxConcrete]

Plus, when the original turnpike was built, 360 was a two-lane road and the whole area was still open country. Just 15 years ago 360 ran mostly on frontage roads with no main lanes except at a couple of interchanges (including I-30).

Actually, most of the main lanes were built in the 1980s, 30 years ago. The far north and far south main lanes opened in 2005 and 2006.

http://dfwfreeways.com/images/book/ChMidCitiesFreeways/10_mid_cities-450.jpg

[DNAguy]

Dude.... this is a huge project.

I wish here in Houston we could get cool things like this instead of the Grand Parkway (excluding the section form 290 to I45) in the middle of nowhere...

[Sigh] 

[rantanamo]

uhh, 610@59

[DNAguy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the 610/59 rebuild isn't adding any capacity. This project does.

[TXtoNJ]

Uh, the entire central freeway complex is scheduled to be reconstructed in the next decade

[txstateends]

New project website:::::::
http://www.keep30360moving.org/

[MaxConcrete]

https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/richard-greene/article230690884.html

The article reports that the project is behind schedule.

Originally scheduled for completion in 2020, we are now told it will be sometime in the following year before it's done.

The report also has an inaccuracy: "The Arlington intersection of I-30 and State Highway 360 is the last of the interchanges between Fort Worth and Dallas to be upgraded from the original cloverleaf design of the old DFW Turnpike that opened to traffic in 1957." Not true, the intersection at Interstate 30 and Loop 12 is still in the original toll cloverleaf configuration.

[-- US 175 --]

https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/richard-greene/article230690884.html

The article reports that the project is behind schedule.

Originally scheduled for completion in 2020, we are now told it will be sometime in the following year before it's done.

The report also has an inaccuracy: "The Arlington intersection of I-30 and State Highway 360 is the last of the interchanges between Fort Worth and Dallas to be upgraded from the original cloverleaf design of the old DFW Turnpike that opened to traffic in 1957." Not true, the intersection at Interstate 30 and Loop 12 is still in the original toll cloverleaf configuration.

Not only I-30/West Loop 12, but IINM, the I-30/Hampton exit hasn't changed much or any, either, compared to the Turnpike days.  Also, the WB exit to Lamar and Cooper in Arlington has a RIRO-like/Turnpike look, and there's a RIRO exit east of Oakland in Fort Worth in both directions that I'm sure was pre-1978 as well.

The few times I've seen the I-30/TX 360 work, it didn't really look like they were exactly busting it out there.  I don't want to accuse them of having an 8-hour coffee/donuts buffet, but it really didn't have the appearance of getting very far along.

Aerial photo from very early in the history of the DFW Turnpike (used in the Star-Telegram article), looking west, pre-Six Flags...

[motorola870]

https://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/richard-greene/article230690884.html

The article reports that the project is behind schedule.

Originally scheduled for completion in 2020, we are now told it will be sometime in the following year before it's done.

The report also has an inaccuracy: "The Arlington intersection of I-30 and State Highway 360 is the last of the interchanges between Fort Worth and Dallas to be upgraded from the original cloverleaf design of the old DFW Turnpike that opened to traffic in 1957." Not true, the intersection at Interstate 30 and Loop 12 is still in the original toll cloverleaf configuration.

Actually they did do some work to the loop 12 interchange they replaced at least the bridge going over interstate 30 and new interstate 30 bridges were comstructed during the early 2000s. Hampton road had some ramp reconfigurations and a new ramp bridge crossing 30 was built. New interchanges at cockrell hill, westmoreland, conversion of belt line into a standard on and off ramp exit configuration was done during the reconstruction from what at the time was 19th st to beckley.

[MaxConcrete]

This project is proceeding at a glacial pace.

Bids were opened in November 2015 and work started in April 2016, but the project appears to be less than 50% complete. Only two ramps are open, and the other six are all less than 50% complete. The official site says completion is in 2021, but they're going to need to start moving fast to make that schedule. The contractor Williams Brothers can work very fast if they want to, so we can't rule out on-time completion.

You can see the status on the official photo site: https://www.keep30360moving.org/images/interchange/

I also posted 10 new photos here (at the end of the collection): http://dfwfreeways.com/i30-landry/construction-360

[bwana39]

Well here is a milestone.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/traffic/sh-360-at-i-30-in-arlington-closing-for-three-days-for-bridge-construction/3052393/

[The Ghostbuster]

Wasn't there once a service area in the vicinity of the Interstate 30/TX 360 interchange? Does anyone know when it was demolished?

[MaxConcrete]

The service area was located at present-day Ballpark way. Eastbound services were on the southwest side of the interchange, and westbound services were on the northeast side. According to a press report for the opening, "Signs and lights are being installed and final touches are underway on the two service stations and two restaurants located midway between Dallas and Fort Worth near Arlington." I don't know about later additions, or when the facilities were closed.

The TTA office was located on the southeast corner of the Turnpike and SH 360. See attached image. I have photos of that building being demolished in 2011. However it looks like I never posted those photos on DFWFreeways.com.

http://dfwfreeways.com/images/book/ExDFWTurnpike/09_Tom_Landry_Highway-404.jpg


The interchange construction yard is located at the site of the former TTA office. Photo taken March 2022.
http://dallasfreeways.com/dfwfreeways/i30-landry/construction/360_20220319-20_DFW_232_1200.jpg

[J N Winkler]

Three days ago, the City of Arlington posted an aerial photo of the ongoing construction to Facebook, which has stimulated conversation on the road-related Facebook groups.  This prompted me to do a little checking on project progress.

StreetView imagery dated September 2022

Quite a lot of steel still has to be hung for the direct connectors.

[-- US 175 --]

Three days ago, the City of Arlington posted an aerial photo of the ongoing construction to Facebook, which has stimulated conversation on the road-related Facebook groups.  This prompted me to do a little checking on project progress.

StreetView imagery dated September 2022

Quite a lot of steel still has to be hung for the direct connectors.

This project will likely rank among the slowest-completed DFW projects ever.

[Bobby5280]

They've been working on this thing for six years and counting. Based on the latest Street View imagery of the scene (9/2022), it looks they might be working at least another year or two to get the interchange completed. It's a long way from being finished. From what I can tell it appears they still need to build more support pillars in the center of the interchange.

The odd thing is there's nothing visually special about this interchange design. The pillars are very plain-Jane looking. The overpasses are the same old conventional concrete and steel girder designs. They're not doing any "elegant" looking, like a cast-segmental design typical of interchanges in California and Arizona. So why is this project taking so damned much time to finish? The global pandemic and supply chain issues might be a culprit. But they were working on this project for almost 3 years before the pandemic really got bad.

[J N Winkler]

This project was let so long ago (November 2015) that I actually struggled briefly to find the sign panel detail sheets for it--they turned out not to be in the folder that has PDFs and already has about 7,760 sheets, but rather the older folder for TIFFs that has 16,652 sheets, dating from TxDOT first putting plans online around 2000 all the way to their discontinuing TIFF scans of hardcopy plans sets about six years ago.

I speculate that the contractor is dragging its feet in order to allocate resources elsewhere and TxDOT is deliberately not enforcing whatever deadlines and prosecution-and-progress clauses exist in the contract.  The Dallas High Five is structurally somewhat more complex and went up in less than half the time, and in a casual inspection of satellite imagery I can't identify any site-specific constraints that might make the construction process more like keyhole surgery than usual.  For example, the contractor has multiple staging areas protected from traffic, similar to the casting yard near the High Five.

[MaxConcrete]

The contractor is Houston's Williams Brothers, which had persistent problems with taking far longer than scheduled in the 1990s. Williams built most of the Eastex freeway expansion north of I-610 in Houston, and they generally took twice the allocated time. Folks in Houston surely remember the glacial pace of work. Work on individual sections took up to 10 years! The reason was because late penalties were extremely low, and it was more profitable for Williams to shift resources to other projects (and get the higher-margin progress payments) and pay the minimal late fees for the Eastex work. The SH 146 Baytown ship channel bridge was another Williams project which took far longer than scheduled.

After the Eastex delays, TxDOT drastically increased late penalties and some projects even had early completion bonuses. The High Five in Dallas had an early completion bonus, which surely helped speed up the work. Williams Brothers changed from being one of the slowest contractors to being one of the fastest. Big jobs done by Williams like the Katy Freeway expansion (completed 2008) were completed on or ahead of schedule. After 2000, I can't think of any Williams projects that have been behind schedule.

In DFW, another project which took a long time was the interchange at IH 820 and SH 183/SH 121. It took 8 years of effort when completed in 2001. (The contractor was not Williams.)

Which brings us to this project. Looking at the original bids, the results page says the project was scheduled for 1150 working days, which is around 6 years. (http://www.dot.state.tx.us/insdtdot/orgchart/cmd/cserve/bidtab/11043231.htm)
Assuming a start at the beginning of 2016, completion should have been around the end of 2021, which was only 9 months ago. Extensions were probably granted for Covid, possibly through mid 2023. Williams can move very fast if they want to. Now that they have a new $333 million contract on I-30 in Rockwall, I think they're going to start moving very fast to get the I-30/SH 360 interchange done by summer 2023. (I hope my prediction comes true!)

[SquonkHunter]

I lived in this area from 1956 to 1999 and can't remember a time when there wasn't some kind of active construction along TX 360 - either new terrain or rebuilding the existing. It's like the road that is never finished. Drove thru there more times than I could count. Glad to see it finally getting this far along but it really was needed years ago. Better late than never I guess?   

[Bobby5280]

I remember the I-820/I-35W interchange taking a bit longer than usual to complete. Construction ran from 2011 to around 2017. However that's a really complex stack interchange. It isn't a "pretty" interchange, but holy cow, it has a lot more flyover ramps than usual. And even more flyover ramps could be added to that interchange if the express lanes on I-820 are extended West of I-35W.

[Chris]

The first direct connectors have opened to traffic: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/transportation/2023/03/23/two-i-30-ramps-open-after-years-of-construction-in-arlington-when-will-the-work-be-done/

They anticipate 'substantial completion' by the end of the year. Is this the slowest project in Texas? Construction began 7 years ago.

[Stephane Dumas]

There a Streetview imagery from last February taken from the ramp from TX-360 south to I-30 west. https://goo.gl/maps/hYBYvDRcaDrMP2Q5A