Planners Push Ahead With Construction on Texas 161
By Gordon Dickson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Dec. 14–ARLINGTON — Bridges and frontage lanes on Texas 161 would open in August 2009, before the Dallas Cowboys’ first season in their new stadium, according to a plan approved Thursday by the Regional Transportation Council.
And most of the toll road’s main lanes would open in time for the 2011 Super Bowl.
The RTC, North Texas’ official planning body, voted unanimously to temporarily divert $272 million from other regional road work through 2010 to speed up construction of the Texas 360 reliever route in Irving and Grand Prairie.
The move increases the possibility that construction on the road can begin by summer. Officials from two agencies vying to build the road — the North Texas Tollway Authority and the Texas Department of Transportation — say they’re still working to agree on business terms by next week’s deadline.
“The money you put into this project you will get back in two years,” Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the RTC.
A state law passed this year gives the Plano-based tollway authority first refusal to build the road. But first, the tollway authority and the Transportation Department must agree on the value of the road, which determines how much money can be generated from tolls for use on other projects.
Drawn-out negotiations over those terms have threatened to delay the project. However, the RTC’s action makes it possible to hire contractors to build frontage roads and bridges over the Trinity River and Trinity Railway Express by August 2009, while the negotiations continue.
Whichever agency wins the right to collect tolls on Texas 161 for the next 50 years or so would repay the RTC its funding.
The plan also calls for the RTC money to be used to build the main lanes from south of the TRE bridge to Interstate 30 by November 2010.
The Texas 161/I-30 interchange and the main lanes from I-30 to I-20 would then be built by June 2012, by whichever agency is selected to develop the project.
The tollway authority is interested in making Texas 161 a part of its tollway system, and an extension of the President George Bush Turnpike. The Transportation Department prefers to farm out the project to the private sector and get a large, upfront cash payment for the right to collect tolls for 50 years.
Other action
On Thursday, the Regional Transportation Council also:
Agreed to hold public meetings on a proposal to expand the RTC’s metropolitan planning area to include all of Johnson, Parker, Ellis and Kaufman counties, and parts of Wise, Hood and Hunt counties.
Voted unanimously to support a proposal to build an Amtrak train station in Krum, west of Denton. The station would be served daily by Amtrak’s Heartland Flyer, which operates daily from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City.
Learned from Maribel Chavez, the Transportation Department’s Fort Worth district engineer, that most Tarrant County projects will be spared from a statewide cutback of $1.1 billion in road work in 2008-09. Those projects are backed by tolls and private investment.
Expansion of Texas 26 in Colleyville and Hurst is not on the list of projects to be cut because it is not scheduled for construction until 2010. However, buying right of way could be delayed, she said.
Agreed to get involved in a dispute between the tollway authority and the Transportation Department over $51 million in interest rate funding involving the Texas 121 toll road project north of Grapevine. The RTC wants to spend the disputed money on the Dallas Trinity Parkway, then repay it when the dispute is resolved.
Held the first of what is expected to be many committee meetings to gear up for the 2009 legislative session, during which the RTC intends to push state lawmakers for permission to hold local elections on a regional rail system, to be funded by a proposed sales tax increase of up to 1 cent.
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