Honkin' Mad

Good news in Grapevine - Texas 114/121 work is 90% done

@gdickson

GRAPEVINE Nearly four years of orange-barrel headaches soon will be coming to an end in Grapevine’s Texas 114/121 corridor. Work on the DFW Connector project, a $1 billion-plus makeover of Grapevine-area highways, is nine to 10 months ahead of schedule, a spokeswoman said. Most of the detours and narrow lanes could be gone by August or September.

“We are 90 percent complete, and we are looking at substantial completion in the August or September time frame,” said Alyssa Tenorio, spokeswoman for NorthGate Constructors, the main contractor.

In the latest sign of progress, crews moved the westbound Texas 114 lanes into their permanent traffic pattern during the past weekend. With this change, both directions of Texas 114 between Texan Trail and Freeport Parkway are now in their permanent place. That was one of several traffic alterations that took place over the weekend. Workers also opened the westbound Texas 114 off-ramp to Main Street in its permanent place. Also, just north of DFW Airport, the southbound Texas 121 bridge to westbound Texas 114 is now open at full capacity.

The project began in October 2009, after more than a decade of planning. The long-delayed effort got a boost from the federal Recovery Act program. An award of $250 million for the DFW Connector was the single largest expenditure of stimulus money for a transportation project in the United States.

Although the project will be substantially complete by late summer, motorists may still see workers doing touch-up work along the eight-mile Texas 114/121 corridor. Also, some work along Farm Road 2499 near the Grapevine-Flower Mound border will continue. That work near Grapevine Mills was initially cut from the project because of budget constraints but was later added back in, after the Texas Department of Transportation found an additional $32 million to pay for it.

The DFW Connector is one of the most complicated projects in North Texas highway history. It involves untangling a web of gridlock caused by the confluence of at least seven state highways - including heavily-traveled Texas 114 and Texas 121 - into a narrow space between Lake Grapevine and DFW Airport. Before the state transportation department came up with the DFW Connector name, the area was widely known by frustrated drivers and traffic broadcasters as the “Grapevine funnel.”

At its widest spot near the DFW Airport entrance, the rebuilt Texas 114/121 is 23 lanes wide. That includes new toll-free main lanes, frontage roads and ramps - and two toll lanes in each direction.

Gordon Dickson, 817-390-7796 Twitter: @gdickson

Trucks forced out of left lane on more Texas highways

Thank you to all the readers who submitted comments last week about Texas' plan to expand its left lane truck restrictions. Your comments helped give the story meaning and made it more readable. I fit as many of the comments into the story as I could, but if your comment wasn't used, please accept my apology. I just ran out of space. I promise I did take the time to read all the comments. Here is link to the story, which ran in Monday's Star-Telegram.

Should trucks be kept out of the left lane?

@gdickson

Trucks are already prohibited from using the left lane on I-30, I-20 and I-45 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. State officials want to dramatically expand the number of highways with a left-lane truck ban beginning in the fall.

What do you think of this restriction?

I'm writing a story about this topic, and would like to include your input. To have your say, please post a comment to this blog item, or send an email to gdickson@star-telegram.com

Private investment in toll roads - a potential multi-TRILLION dollar industry #fundingtransport

@gdickson

I have returned from a fantastic week covering the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, Germany. Here's a story that ran in the Wednesday's edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the 54 nations approving a declaration in support of private investment in roads. Among the speakers was a chief executive at MacQuarie Group Ltd., one of the world's top private transportation investment firms - and he said the universe of pension, equity and other funds available for investment in infrastructure for pretty much any nation that wants to take advantage of it is in the neighborhood of $27 TRILLION.

That's so-o-o- much money, one has to wonder if it's enough to literally solve the world's congestion problems ... or at least put a serious dent in them. But do we want that much private investment in roads? Do we want any more investment than we already have?

I found the trip to Germany to be a fantastic learning experience, and over the next several weeks I hope to write some more stories that explore these funding issues.

In the mean time, please consider these initial stories a conversation starter, and send me a note to gdickson@star-telegram.com if you'd like to ask any questions or suggest a story idea.

@gdickson

p.s. To pay for the trip to Germany, I was one of 35 journalists from around the globe (3 in the U.S) awarded a grant from the International Transport Forum's media travel programme.

Should high-speed rail stop in Dallas, or DFW Airport?

@gdickson

The fate of a proposed high-speed rail line from Houston to Dallas-Fort Worth rests on whether area leaders can decide amonst themselves where to put the dang station.

Texas 360 ramp to Interstate 20 closing for bridge work

@gdickson

ARLINGTON - Driving between Arlington and Dallas will be just a tad trickier for motorists during the next couple of nights.

The southbound Texas 360 ramp to eastbound Interstate 20 will be closed Wednesday and Thursday night beginning at 8 p.m. for bridge maintenance. The Cummins Street bridge that crosses over Texas 360 also will be closed.

The work will be completed by 5 a.m. Friday.

A detour will be posted urging motorists to take South Collins Street to I-20. But drivers are urged to seek alternate routes.

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Update: Deal reached to build Texas 360 toll road in Arlington, Mansfield

@gdickson

Updated at 2:15 p.m.

Getting Texas 360 extended from Arlington to Mansfield beginning in 2015 became a lot more realistic Friday, after the North Texas Tollway Authority approved a deal to develop the toll project in a partnership with another agency.

Texas 360 will be extended as a toll road from Sublett Road/Camp Wisdom Road to U.S. 287, with the Texas Department of Transportation doing the initial design and construction and then turning over the road to the tollway authority, to be operated and maintained as part of the region's now-vast tollway system.

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The state transportation department can pay for the initial work with project-backed debt, a federal transportation infrastructure loan (TIFIA loan) or cash from the state's highway fund, according to the agreement.

Here's a copy of the resolution and term sheet, if you'd like to read it yourself

The agreement calls for four main lanes as far south as Broad Street, and two main lanes from Broad Street to U.S. 287. Frontage road improvements are also in the mix. The project is expected to cost about $600 million.

Any toll revenues left over after the debt, operations and maintenance expenses are paid will be split evenly between the two agencies. The state transportation department will focus its share of the funds on improving the Texas 360 corridor north of the project. For example, some of the funds could eventually be used to improve the Texas 360/Interstate 30 interchange, although a timetable for such work isn't spelled out.

Depending upon how the environmental study of this route goes, a realistic goal is to get the project under construction by 2015. Under that scenario, the road could be open to traffic by 2017, said Texas Transportation Commission member William "Bill" Meadows of Fort Worth. Meadows worked closely with tollway authority officials to reach an agreement.

The Texas Transportation Commission will consider approving the deal during a meeting in late February. Pending that approval, both sides would then need to put the final touches on a development agreement by March.

The tollway authority has dramatically expanded its role in providing mobility options for North Texas motorists during the past decade, beginning with the Sam Rayburn Tollway in Denton and Collin counties. The tollway authority also extended the President George Bush Turnpike into Grand Prairie and Irving, and inked a deal to build the Chisholm Trail Parkway from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne.

But arranging all that work has come at a whopper of a cost. The tollway authority is now servicing $9.5 billion worth of debt and, although it probably could have issued more, didn't want to go deeper in the red to build the Texas 360 extension. So, the next best thing was to tap into the borrowing power of the Texas Department of Transportation, and that's the essence of the agreement reached Friday.

"It preserves our funding to use on future roads as they come up," said tollway authority board member Victor Vandergriff of Arlington, who will be leaving the board at the end of the month.

The tollway authority gets to add Texas 360 to its growing portfolio of toll roads. The Texas Department of Transportation gets the benefit of traffic relief at essentially no cost - the agency does pay for Texas 360 expansion up front, but will get its money back.

"We get it back over time," Meadows said.

And Texas motorists will get the immediate benefit of a road expansion that, were they left to use only traditional forms of funding, they might not be able to afford for another 20 years.

“Traffic congestion on SH 360 is a serious quality of life, economic, and safety issue for families and businesses in southeast Tarrant County," state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, said in an email. In 2009 and 2010, Turner organized community leaders in Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mansfield to work together and see the Texas 360 project through to completion.

"Today's decision by the NTTA," he said, "is a significant step forward in solving this problem."

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Buses could be rolling in Arlington by August

Kudos to my colleague Susan Schrock for updating the effort to bring mass transit to Arlington.

BTW, the photo at right is of the Mavs Mobile, an electric shuttle used to ferry passengers from the fledgling College Park District to the E. H. Hereford University Center. It's not necessarily the type of vehicle that will be used in the pilot project getting passengers to and from CentrePort Station in the Trinity Railway Express line ... although, why not?

For more info on the Mavs Mobile, go here.

@gdickson

Of Texas' Top 100 transportation challenges, 26 are in DFW area

@gdickson

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.

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Arlington's Victor Vandergriff steps down from NTTA board

@gdickson

12:25 a.m. update: Here's a link to an updated version of the story with more details about Vandergriff's potential interest  in the job of Arlington mayor, as it appears in the Thursday Star-Telegram edition.

Arlington businessman Victor Vandergriff announced Wednesday that he is leaving the North Texas Tollway Authority board, a position he has held since 2007.

Vandergriff was chairman of the board in 2010 and 2011, taking over from predecessor Paul Wageman of Plano, who guided the agency through tremendous growth but was sometimes criticized for aggressive management.

The decision takes effect at the end of the month, a tollway official said.

Vandergriff attempted to unify the board, but was unable to pass through sweeping changes on the tollway authority's reliance on a small number of legal, engineering and other professional firms to do virtually all of its day-to-day work. So he stepped down as chairman and was replaced by former Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr, the current chairman.

Still, Vandergriff received a standing ovation from the tollway board during a meeting Wednesday in Plano.

Vandergriff was a vocal member of the board when key projects were delivered, including the Sam Rayburn Tollway in Denton and Collin counties, and the western extension of the President George Bush Turnpike in Grand Prairie and Irving (a key route to Cowboys Stadium in Arlington).

“We cannot thank Victor enough for the countless hours he has dedicated to working on NTTA projects that increase mobility for North Texas drivers,” Barr said in a statement.

He also oversaw the conversion of the region's tollways to an all-electronic form of collection - essentially doing away with the toll booths - and the beginning of construction on the 28-mile Chisholm Trail Parkway project from Interstate 30 near downtown Fort Worth to U.s. 67 in Cleburne.

Chisholm Trail Parkway is scheduled for completion in 2014.

More recently, Vandergriff was trying to secure construction of the Texas 360 extension south of Arlington-Mansfield to U.S. 287.

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