Honkin' Mad

Names of those arrested for DWI will be posted on Tarrant County district attorney's website (but their photo's won't)

Tonight through Monday is a "no refusal" weekend in 25 area cities, including Fort Worth, Arlington and Keller. In addition to all the legal turmoil, drunk driving suspects will face a bit of embarrassment, when the DA's office posts their names on its website. But the DA won't publish mug shots.

Seattle experiments with electronic tolling on the 520 bridge

Traffic has dropped 45 percent on the 520 bridge in Seattle after officials this week started charging electronic tolls on the structure, the Seattle Times reports. Meanwhile, traffic is up 20 percent on the nearby toll-free I-90 bridge.

Seattle experiments with electronic tolling on a floating 520 bridge

Traffic has dropped 45 percent on the 520 bridge in Seattle after officials this week started charging electronic tolls on the structure, the Seattle Times reports. Meanwhile, traffic is up 20 percent on the nearby toll-free I-90 bridge.

Bridges connecting Southlake to Grapevine over Texas 114 switching to one way next week; latest move in $1 billion DFW Connector project

Starting next week, the bridge from Grapevine's Northwest Highway to Southlake's Gateway Drive will be westbound only, and the bridge from Southlake's Southlake Boulevard (Farm Road 1709) to Grapevine's Wall Street will be eastbound only. More here ...

Planning to travel Christmas Eve? Might be better to leave early, and beat the bad weather

Rain is in the forecast for Saturday afternoon, and there's a possibility of snow in the northwestern nook of North Texas.

New (temporary) ramp to Interstate 35W at Meacham Boulevard makes traffic a smidge better in far north Fort Worth

It just got easier to enter northbound Interstate 35W from Meacham Boulevard.A temporary on-ramp just north of Meacham replaces one that was closed weeks ago by construction of connector ramps from I-35W to Northeast Loop 820.The ramp will remain open most of the time until a permanent ramp has been built, said Lara Kohl, spokeswoman for Bluebonnet Contractors. The company is building the $2.5 billion project to expand Loop 820 and Texas 121/183 in northeast Tarrant County.North Tarrant Express Mobility Partners spokesman Robert Hinkle said that access from Meacham wasn’t part of project’s original design.“Over the course of our continued outreach with businesses all along the NTE corridor, we saw an opportunity to lessen the hardship of this particular on-ramp closure,” he said.The work at Meacham Boulevard is part of the 13.5-mile project that by 2015 will expand Loop 820 and Airport Freeway from I-35W to Industrial Boulevard with four to six toll lanes and new main lanes. Frontage roads will be continuous except for the space along Iron Horst Golf Course in North Richland Hills.Keep up with details and closure notices at www.northtarrantexpress.com.

Terry Evans, 817-390-7620

 

@fwstevans

@gdickson

North Texas Tollway Authority will pay legal fees for board member involved in federal investigation

The North Texas Tollway Authority board on Wednesday agreed to pay legal fees for one of its members who disclosed that he has been asked to provide documents for an ongoing federal investigation into the agency.

Tollway board member David Denison of Lewisville has retained the firm Meadows Collier Reed Cousins Crouch & Ungerman LLP to represent him, according to a letter from Denison to tollway authority general counsel Thomas Bamonte. The undated letter was released Wednesday.

"I believe with respect to performance of my duties as a director of NTTA that I have acted at all times in good faith, my conduct was not opposed to the best interests of NTTA and I did not have reasonable cause to believe that my conduct was unlawful," Denison wrote in the letter. He couldn't be reached Wednesday afternoon to elaborate. In the letter, Denison said he was asked to provide the documentation Oct. 11.

In October, tollway authority officials disclosed in a preliminary bond offering statement to potential Chisholm Trail Parkway investors that the FBI had questioned several officials about possible conflicts of interest by past and present board members. Details of that inquiry have not been discussed publicly.

In February, Denison came forward with a potential conflict issue, after the Star-Telegram reported the sale of a 625-acre tract of land straddling the planned Chisholm Trail Parkway, a 28-mile toll road from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne that officially broke ground on Tuesday. Denison, a retired real estate investor, disclosed to fellow board members in February that he had worked as an independent consultant and investor with one of the partners in the purchase, Stratford Land.

Stratford and Legacy Capital Partners bought the McPherson Ranch property, about five miles south of Hulen Mall, near where McPherson Boulevard is expected to intersect with the new toll road. Part of the property will be set aside for single-family homes, although retailers will likely also be drawn to the area once the toll road provides easy access, a Stratford official has said.

But, Denison wrote in a Feb. 11 memorandum to fellow board members and tollway staff: "There is no scenario under which that acquisition can result in any economic benefit to me." Denison later explained in a Star-Telegram interview that Stratford has several funds, each of which is managed independently, and that although he was an investor in three such funds, he had no involvement in the fund near Chisholm Trail Parkway.

On Wednesday, tollway board chairman Kenneth Barr of Fort Worth sought to downplay the board's agreement to pay Denison's expenses, and instead focus on the agency's progress in getting the Chisholm Trail Parkway project underway. The agency is also celebrating the opening of a new, 10-mile eastern extension of the President George Bush Turnpike east of Dallas.

“The NTTA Board gave careful consideration of the request and concluded that reimbursement under the circumstances is appropriate, is consistent with its continued cooperation with the FBI in its investigation, and will provide current and prospective directors with the assurance that the NTTA will stand behind its indemnification obligations," Barr said in a statement. “The NTTA will now move to formalize the terms and conditions of the reimbursement process. This will include an agreement by Director Denison to repay any monies paid if it is later determined that Director Denison is not entitled to indemnification. We look forward to getting this matter behind us and so that we can fully focus on delivering more mobility projects to the North Texas region.”

@gdickson

North Tarrant Express gobbles up property from area businesses; a price paid to improve traffic mobility

Colleague Terry Evans wrote this story about businesses losing property for right-of-way on the $2.5 billion North Tarrant Express project. In the name of progress ...

Chisholm Trail Parkway ground breaks -- 'It's about time' -- North Texas Tollway Authority prepares residents for traffic headaches

After nearly 50 years of planning, the 28-mile Chisholm Trail Parkway project is now officially underway.

Motorists will be asked to endure traffic delays, narrow lanes and other mostly minor traffic annoyances for the next two-and-a-half years along routes such as Interstate 30, Interstate 20, Vickery Boulevard and Bryant Irvin Road as the planned 28-mile toll road from near downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne cuts diagonally across southwestern Tarrant County and into northern Johnson County. Some of the work along I-30 near Summit Avenue, and Vickery Boulevard near University Drive, could begin in the next week or two, a project official said. A large swath of land on the south side of I-30 between University and Summit has already been cleared of trees and other obstacles to make way for the work.

But on Tuesday, dozens of officials were all smiles as they commemorated the beginning of a $1.6 billion project (including $1.4 billion in construction costs alone) first envisioned in 1962.

"I think I speak for a whole lot of people when I say, it's about time," said Kenneth Barr, a former Fort Worth mayor and current chairman of the North Texas Tollway Authority, the lead agency on the project. Barr noted that Johnson County boasts a Chisholm Trail museum, where visitors can learn about the historical cattle trail for which the toll road is named. And, Barr quipped, "I recently learned the artifacts in the museum are older than the plans for this parkway."

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley and state Sen. Wendy Davis hold up commemorative Chisholm Trail Parkway road signs after a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning at the Lockheed Martin Recreation Center on Bryant Irvin Road.

The project is unusual in that it follows a mostly undeveloped pathway diagonally through Fort Worth's southwestern quadrant, but intersecting many highly-traveled roadways that have been in place for decades, and are frequently used by residents of some of the city's oldest neighborhoods. For many motorists, the traffic changes won't be a huge surprise. Some of the intial Chisholm Trail Parkway work actually began in early 2010, when North Texas officials dedicated about $140 million in federal stimulus funds to kick-start the construction of the Chisholm Trail Parkway's intersection with I-20 in southwest Fort Worth, and U.S. 67 in Cleburne. Also, a new Hulen Street bridge over the Davidson railroad yard in west Fort Worth is under construction to make way for the toll project.

But with the beginning of full-blown project work this month, residents of many well-established neighborhoods along the Chisholm Trail Parkway route are expressing worry about how the work will affect their day-to-day lives.

During a meeting with tollway officials Monday night at the Botanical Gardens, Overton Woods neighborhood resident Geoffrey Sieber asked why the decision had been made to reduce northbound Hulen Street traffic to one lane -- and eliminate the cloverleaf turn to Vickery Boulevard. The result, he said, is long waits for motorists, who often can't get across the bridge while trucks attempt to make a hairpin turn to Vickery.

"Is that what you had in mind?" Sieber asked tollway officials. "That whole thing has turned into a disaster."

The tollway authority is working with the city to increase the green light timing for northbound Hulen Street traffic, and perhaps add temporary pavement to the north end of the bridge to make turning easier, said Elizabeth Mow, the tollway authority's interim assistant executive director for project deliver.

Marc Rogers, who tracks noise issues for the Mistletoe Heights Neighborhood Association, said he still can't get clear answers about why a different type of sound-absorbing material isn't being used on a planned soundwall near his home.

But many of those concerns were hashed out in years of negotiations between the city and tollway authority, who jointly came up with a Chisholm Trail Parkway development plans that will include design features not seen on any other roadway in North Texas.

For example, the northern end of the parkway will include an engineered speed limit of 50 mph, to ensure tire noise is minimal. Such details may be overlooked by residents who moved to Fort Worth after the tedious details were worked out.

"During the past 30 years, Fort Worth's citizens, businesses and institutions have been intimately involved in deciding what kind of a road it's going to be," said Bill Meadows, a Texas Transportation Commission member and former Fort Worth councilman who has worked on the Chisholm Trail Parkway project for more than two decades. "From the Mistletoe Heights Neighborhood Association, to the Citizens Advisory Committee, to the 7,000-tree landscape plan, our citizens traveled the country to see how we could make this road the very best it can be."

The plan is to open the entire 28-mile road by mid-2014, Mow said. The precise date of lane closures and other such events isn't yet known, but residents can expect some of the changes possibly in a week or two, she said.

Some of the traffic challenges motorists will face include:

• Closure of Westbound West Rosedale Avenue between University Drive and Lovell Avenue, with a detour at University drive.
• Narrow Lanes on I-30 from Summit Avenue to University Drive.
• Occasional lane closures at eastbound I-30 and Summit Avenue.
• West Vickery Boulevard closed east of University.
• I-30 westbound frontage road turnaround closed at the Fort Worth & Western Railroad.

@gdickson

 

North Texans ready to once again push for more funding for Cotton Belt, commuter rail, regional transit

ARLINGTON – Despite three failed attempts during the past decade to persuade state lawmakers to help raise revenue for regional transit in Dallas-Fort Worth, North Texas officials on Thursday said they’re taking steps to try again during the 2013 legislative session. Representatives of the region’s three largest transit agencies -- Fort Worth Transportation Authority, Denton County Transportation Authority and Dallas Area Rapid Transit – proclaimed Wednesday they were ready to work together to connect their rail systems into a 250-mile, regional network by 2035. Those agencies rely mostly on local sales taxes and federal grants to operate their existing services, but lack the money necessary to reach into areas beyond their current boundaries such as far north Fort Worth, Arlington, Mansfield and Burleson.

Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, noted that previous proposals to raise new funds for regional rail through possible increases in sales taxes, motor fuels taxes and vehicle registration fees were unpopular among lawmakers. Even though those increases would have required voter approval, lawmakers were unwilling to support what they said was a de facto tax increase. One problem was the complicated menu of taxes and fees that was presented to lawmakers, some Regional Transportation Council members said Thursday during a regular monthly meeting in Arlington.

“We need to come up with a solution and recommend it, rather than having a drop-down comparison,” said RTC member and Cedar Hill Mayor Rob Franke.

At stake are several projects that are either unfunded or only partially paid for. Among them is the proposed TEXRail line from southwest Fort Worth to Grapevine and Dallas Fort Worth Airport. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority recently submitted an application for a federal new-start transit grant that ultimately could pay up to $415 million for the project. But many North Texas officials hope to extend the project further to the northeast into Addison, Dallas and Plano. Up to $2.7 billion could be raised to help pay for the project through a series of non-traditional funding efforts. Among the ideas is to borrow funds, or find a private partner to help pay for the work up front, and repay the debt through future property taxes. Additional funds could be raised by selling advertising along the line, or charging riders higher fares.

RTC members also huddled in executive session Thursday to discuss possibly offering economic incentives to an unidentified company to relocate to North Texas. The discussions are believed to be tied to the region’s effort to speed up development of the Cotton Belt corridor, which would include the TEXRail project in Fort Worth, Grapevine, D/FW Airport and the north Dallas area.

@gdickson