Regional Boards > Mid-South
US-287 between Fort Worth (and Ennis) and Wichita Falls if not Amarillo thread
TheBox:
Last year I made a thread about US-290 between Austin and Houston which I should’ve done years ago, so I thought it only makes sense to do the same with US-287 between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls if not Amarillo (even if most of it is already expressway standards/limited access by now)
Scott5114:
Okay. What about it?
Bobby5280:
US-287 between Amarillo and Fort Worth has been discussed from time to time in various other discussion threads. It sometimes comes up in discussions about the Ports to Plains Corridor. I would very much like to see this corridor upgraded to Interstate standards, partly because I drive on it on a somewhat frequent basis. There is a great deal of commercial truck traffic on this highway. To me the traffic levels feel pretty similar to driving on any other rural Interstate highway.
Only some portions of US-287 between Wichita Falls and Fort Worth are limited access. Most of the highway is 4-lane divided with at-grade intersections.
On the bright side some segments would be very easy to upgrade to limited access. From Wichita Falls to Bowie US-287 has a median big enough to add new freeway main lanes and use the existing road as frontage roads. The town of Bellevue is one exception. It would take some pretty creative design work to squeeze a freeway through there without erasing half the town. As easy as the Wichita Falls to Bowie segment would be to upgrade to Interstate quality nothing is being done about it.
The only segment of US-287 that is getting any attention at all is the one between the I-35W split and the split with TX-114 in Rhome. Progress on that is very frustratingly slow. I don't know what the hell the problem is with TX DOT and their sheer lack of attention on this corridor. It's just stupid. Barely a mile West of the I-35W split US-287 dumps down to NOT Interstate quality. Immediately past the Harmon Road exit various driveways and streets make contact with the US-287 main lanes. That even includes new streets like Heritage Trace Parkway. Commercial and residential development is EXPLODING in this area North of Fort Worth. Supposedly TX DOT is supposed to build new frontage roads to cut off a lot of this crap from the main lanes. Still, as of Summer 2023 zero is happening. But new housing subdivisions, new logistical warehouses and retail developments keep plopping down month after month, year after year. TX DOT has to stop farting around already and get US-287 upgraded into Interstate quality at least up to the TX-114 interchange. They're going to get motorists killed in otherwise preventable accidents if they keep screwing around. You can't have people making at-grade right and left turns out into a busy near-freeway where people are speeding like hell. As the population level continues to boom in that locale the chances of high speed T-bone collisions are only going to increase dramatically.
US-287 from Rhome up to the Southern edge of Decatur would be an easy upgrade. Some small segments are getting new freeway exits. US-287 within Decatur is a freaking mess. That really needs to be converted to limited access. But that's not going to be easy to do since too much property is hugging too close to the main lanes. This is another one where TX DOT needs to deal with the problem sooner rather than later.
MaxConcrete:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: money flows to rural highways which have strong political advocacy for improvements.
US 290 between Houston and Austin has a separate thread. The reason the highway has seen few improvements is because it has no political advocacy.
Interstate 69 has had strong political advocacy for a long time. It gets between $500 million and $1 billion per year in contracts for interstate upgrades.
Port to Plains corridor has strong political advocacy. Even though interstate status makes no sense in sparsely populated west Texas, TxDOT is proceeding with preliminary planning.
TxDOT has just solicited for a consultant to do comprehensive corridor analysis. See the map on page 9, and notice that US 287 is not included, but many routes in sparsely populated west Texas are included.
https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot/ppd/meetings/083123/presentation.pdf
Which brings me to the topic of US 287. It has no advocacy (that I'm aware of). It is not a priority corridor for TxDOT. There are minimal improvements planned in the 10-year UTP. In the Amarillo, Childress and Wichita Falls district, the only listed projects are maintenance.
https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot/get-involved/tpp/utp/081823-2024utp.pdf
In my view, in 2050 US 287 north of Decatur will look mostly the same as it is today. Realistically, the only improvements we can hope for is maybe a bypass or two, but I'm not aware of any in the planning phase.
splashflash:
--- Quote from: Scott5114 on September 03, 2023, 02:10:14 PM ---Okay. What about it?
--- End quote ---
Yah, it's already a thread, here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18789.0
--- Quote from: MaxConcrete on September 03, 2023, 10:16:07 PM ---
Which brings me to the topic of US 287. It has no advocacy (that I'm aware of). It is not a priority corridor for TxDOT. There are minimal improvements planned in the 10-year UTP. In the Amarillo, Childress and Wichita Falls district, the only listed projects are maintenance.
https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot/get-involved/tpp/utp/081823-2024utp.pdf
In my view, in 2050 US 287 north of Decatur will look mostly the same as it is today. Realistically, the only improvements we can hope for is maybe a bypass or two, but I'm not aware of any in the planning phase.
--- End quote ---
The section around Harmon Road (south of Rhome) and Haslet Road should get some love as it is in the Fort Worth district and studies are ongoing. Those studies have all been referenced in the threads, https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=18789.0, https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=26379.0, and others.
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