One particularly heart-tugging image seen in some highway work zones is an orange sign bearing the message: "Please slow down. My dad works here."
But while that sign appeals for the safety of highway workers, in reality four of every five people killed in a work zone is a motorist.
"We want the public to crank up their awareness," said Lonny Haschel, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman.
Haschel joined officials from the North Texas Tollway Authority and Texas Department of Transportation on Tuesday at a work zone site along Interstate 20. Speaking on a newly built bridge over the interstate, the group called for motorists to bear greater responsibility for their actions on the road.
"There is over $11 billion in construction in the North Texas area, with more on the way," said Brian Barth, Fort Worth deputy district engineer for the state transportation department. "Your daily commute to work and school is changing on a daily basis and we need every driver to stay alert."
Work zone fatalities have fallen 39 percent during the past decade, said Elizabeth Mow, tollway authority assistant executive director of infrastructure.
Still, last year 134 people were killed statewide in work zone crashes.
"We need the public's help to complete the picture," Mow said.
Speeding and driver inattention are the leading causes of work zone fatalities, Haschel said.
Distractions such as talking or texting on a mobile device are also a major problem, Barth said.
National Work Zone Safety Awareness week is this week. The groups chose Tuesday's site for their press conference because it is part of the Chisholm Trail Parkway project, a 28-mile toll road from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne that is scheduled to open next year.
The Chisholm Trail Parkway project has created work zones across a swath of southwestern Tarrant County, crossing Interstate 30, I-20, Hulen Street and Texas 183 (Southwest Boulevard).
Texas legislators are ready to snip the Texas Department of Transportation's credit cards. They say the agency has borrowed too much money - nearly $18 billion - because the state lacks the cash to build the projects needed to keep up with growth.
DFW AIRPORT - More than a fourth of Texas' 100 top transportation challenges are in the Dallas Fort Worth area, a report released Thursday concluded.
The worst roads include two sections of Interstate 35W north of downtown Fort Worth - although both areas are scheduled for improvements over the next couple of years.
Still, the report on deficient roads was released Thursday by local and national advocates, who called on the Texas Legislature to increase Texas highway funding to avoid stumping the state's economic growth.
"The consequence of not making these improvements is severe," said Carolyn Bonifas Kelly, associate director of research for TRIP, Washington-based organization supported by insurance and construction companies and other businesses that favor increased highway funding.
Gathering at Dallas Fort Worth Airport's headquarters, officials from TRIP, the Texas Good Roads and Transportation Association and other groups called for lawmakers to embrace new funding sources for Texas highways.
Texas, which relies mostly on motor fuels taxes to pay for roads, is losing ground in trying to keep up with its mobility needs, said Lawrence Olsen, executive vice president of Texas Good Roads. In recent years, lawmakers have allowed the Texas Department of Transportation to issue bond-backed debt to temporarily make up for a lack of road funding. But, Olsen said, the new reality of now making regular installment payments on that debt has made the long-term funding picture more bleak.
"Now when TxDot does its budget it takes $2 billion off the top for debt," Olsen said. "That's money that's not going to these projects."
Among the local projects listed on the report's top 100 Texas transportation challenges:
Interstate 30 from Jefferson Street to Loop 12 in Dallas - a corridor that will be addressed in the Horseshoe project recently funded by the Texas Transportation Commission. Late last year, the commission selected a developer, Pegasus Link Constructors, which committed to performing $798 million worth of work in the corridor. That area is often used by motorists arriving in Dallas from the Arlington area.
I-35W from Texas 183 (28th Street) to U.S. 81 (Decatur Cutoff) in north Fort Worth - a project that is being addressed in the North Tarrant Express development project. Work is expected to begin this spring on the reconstruction of existing general purpose lanes and the addition of two toll lanes in each direction - but the long-term goal of adding free lanes and continuous frontage roads will not be achieved for more than a decade under current funding realities, officials said.
U.S. 75 from Texas 190 (Bush Turnpike) to Interstate 635 in Dallas County. State officials said the proposed addition of managed lanes will be the subject of a corridor study over the next couple of years. However, the improvements aren't currently funded.
I-35W from Interstate 30 to Texas 183 (28th Street) in Fort Worth - also part of North Tarrant Express. This area also will get a makeover, with the addition of toll lanes, but new free lanes won't be added in the near term.
During the current legislative session, lawmakers are being asked to get serious about providing better long-term funding sources for transportation. Rider Scott, executive director of the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, said a growing number of state residents is calling for elected leaders to find the funds to fix the state's crumbling roads.
Among the suggestions is that the state stop diverting transportation funds to non-transportation projects, which could generate about $1.2 billion per year. Another idea would be to dedicate sales taxes paid on automobile purchases to the state's Fund 6 highway fund, rather than the general fund, which would raise another $3 billion.
Of course, both of those ideas would create funding gaps in other state programs.
Similar reports were released nearly simultaneously in other Texas metro areas.
Grapevine's support for the proposed TEX Rail/Cotton Belt commuter line is crucial, since the blooming city in Northeast Tarrant County is at the very heart of the line. But Grapevine officials have opted not to support the proposed "innovative funding" for the project until they get more details.
The effort to extend Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Orange Line to Dallas Fort Worth Airport got a little easier this week after a $120 million federal loan was approved for the project.
The money, approved Thursday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is part of the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. It will give DART flexibility in extending the Orange Line five miles north and west to DFW’s Terminal A area, where the airport is already building a station where passengers can disembark.
DART is on course to open the final Orange Line segment by December 2014, spokesman Morgan Lyons said. It’s a $397 million expansion.
On DFW’s west side, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority is working to extend the proposed TEX Rail/Cotton Belt commuter line to Terminal B by 2016, and is seeking a federal grant to cover up to half the estimate $960 million cost. The T’s line would connect with DART’s Orange Line.
“This investment will continue expanding Dallas’ Orange Line, creating jobs and delivering a major transportation project that will help the regional economy continue to grow and prosper,” LaHood said in a statement.
Since 1996, the U.S. Transportation Department has committed $796 million for DART’s Orange Line and Green Line – clearing the way for the Dallas agency to build a 90-mile light-rail system that covers much of the greater Dallas area.
The new toll lanes that motorists will be able to use on several major highways that are under construction in the Dallas Fort Worth area will have a new name.
They'll be called "TEXpress lanes."
That name was picked as the best suggestion during a naming contest held by the private consortium of companies rebuilding several major roads in the region - including the North Tarrant Express project in Northeast Tarrant County, and LBJ Express in north Dallas.
"The whole term 'managed lanes' didn't make sense to them," said Robert Hinkle, spokesman for NTE Mobility Partners, which is rebuilding the I-35W/Loop 820/Texas 121/183 corridor in Northeast Tarrant County.
More than 3,200 suggestions were submitted in the contest, he said.
The identify of the person or persons who suggested the TEXpress Lanes wasn't disclosed. However, officials with the development consortium said some people who took part in the contest were randomly selected to receive gas cards valued at $2,500, $1,000, $500 and $100.
The re-branding of the toll lanes comes as North Texas officials work through the complicated process of integrating the toll lanes - which will be an option for drivers who will be able to choose betweeen toll and toll-free lanes on the system - and the two-decade old high-occupancy vehicle lane system that operates mostly in Dallas.
The HOV lanes are available to vehicles with two or more occupants, although the Regional Transportation Council is considering increasing that requirement to three or more occupants beginning June 1, 2016. Some Dallas officials are dead-set against that proposal, saying they'll get too much push-back from voters who are accustomed to using the lanes for free.
As for the TEXpress Lanes, they'll likely make their debut in late 2013 on the first new section of LBJ Freeway in Dallas, said Andy Rittler, LBJ Express project spokesman. Then, over the next two and a half years the TEXpress Lanes will open on the rest of LBJ, as well as Texas 114, Texas 121/183 and Northeast Loop 820 in Tarrant County.
Reducing Texas’ reliance on debt and tolls to build roads may be a way to sell state Legislators on an increase in the gas tax or vehicle registration fees, a panel of experts told North Texas leaders Wednesday.
Steve Stagner, president of the American Council of Engineering Companies, noted that when the Legislature convenes in January there will be 44 new members – including many fresh faces elected on a Tea Party mandate of reducing government’s role.
But, Stagner told members of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition, many of those new lawmakers don’t like toll roads, and oppose the state entering into partnerships with private developers to pay for roads.
“They’re skeptical of government, but at the same time they’re unhappy with the level of debt that has financed most of our (highway) program over the last decade and would happily go back to a pay-as-you-go program ...,” Stagner told the group during a monthly meeting in downtown Fort Worth.
One idea could be persuading lawmakers to draw up a constitutional amendment, subject to voter approval, that would raise motor fuels taxes or vehicle registration fees. The amendment would include a caveat that all the money would go toward transportation funding – unlike the current funding, large chunks of which are diverted for education, public safety and other programs.
“We think the move back to a pay-as-you-go system, with a sense to people that the money raised will actually go to the problem, is something they will support,” Stagner said.
Another speaker, Lawrence Olsen, executive vice president of Texas Good Roads and Transportation Association, said he didn’t think lawmakers would be willing to raise the gas tax during the 2013 session. The state’s motor fuels tax – 20 cents per gallon for gasoline – hasn’t been raised since 1991.
But Olsen said he does think state leaders are receptive to finding new funding methods for transportation projects.
Texas Good Roads, a group of business leaders and others who support increasing funding for transportation projects, is making its pitch in an online video dubbed “The Wake Up Call,” which can be viewed on the You Tube website and at infrastructuretexas.org. The video illustrates the cost of congestion to Texans in everyday terms – showing that gridlock adds 15 cents to the cost of a gallon of milk, and $343 annually in vehicle repairs, wasted fuel and worn tires.
The message to new lawmakers is “they’re paying right now for underinvestment,” Olsen said.
“We have 44 new faces, including 41 who have never served before and 23 from the sophomore class,” Olsen said. “So there is a large area of education that needs to be done, especially in Tarrant County, where you’ve got seven (new House members). It’s going to be a tall order.”
The education process includes explaining to new legislators just what the funding need is through 2030, said David Cain, a former state senator and representative who lobbies on behalf of businesses.
For example, one message that should resonate with new lawmakers is that the state is $170 billion short in meeting its transportation needs for the next quarter-century, based on population and job growth projections. That estimate comes from a 2030 Committee that included respected business leaders assembled by Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Transportation Commission.
But that message is hard to sell when motorists see so many projects under construction – projects such as North Tarrant Express and Chisholm Trail Parkway in Tarrant County. But those projects are funded by private investment, and toll backed debt.
“The transportation crisis is not only looming,” Cain said. “It is upon us.”
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a founding member of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition, agreed that even in conservative communities voters can be persuaded to spend public dollars on transportation projects.
“If you tell them what you’re going to spend the money for, they’ll do it,” Whitley said, reminding coalition members that Tarrant County voters in 2006 approved a $433 million capital improvement and transportation bond package. “We listed the projects we were going to do, and they knew exactly what we were doing.”
The folks at the DFW Connector project, the $1.1 billion makeover of the Texas 114/121 corridor in Grapevine, have upgraded their mobile applications for iPhone and Android. Just go to your favorite online app store and search for "dfw connector."
Both versions are free.
The app shows real-time traffic conditions using a Google map, and gives users a heads-up about scheduled detours. There's also a nice bit of background on the mega-project, which stretches eight miles across the north end of Dallas Fort Worth Airport, and links to useful websites.
HONOR SYSTEM
Also, once the app is downloaded and opened, users are required to press a button acknowledging that the app is not intended for use while driving.
The apps originally launched in September 2011, but were upgraded based on feedback from users, said project spokeswoman Kristen Schropp.
"We got overwhelming feedback that the app needed more visuals, so we added a daily detour map so that people could easily view the night and weekend detours," she said.
To date, about 5,000 smart phone users have downloaded the iPhone version, and about 1,000 have downloaded the Droid version, she said.
No unusual traffic problems are expected during the big race weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, even though a bunch of roads leading to the mega-track - including Texas 114 right outside its south entrance - are in the midst of reconstruction.
As of 5:30 p.m. Friday night, traffic is moving along nicely, as motorists heading home for the weekend in the I-35W/Texas 114 corridor jockey for space on the roads with fun-seekers heading to tonight's WinStar World Casino 350 Camping World Truck Series race, which starts at 7 p.m.
