Highway Routes Tangled: Sunnyvale: State Unveils Proposals for Road From Turnpike to I-20
Posted on: Saturday, 8 April 2006, 15:00 CDT
By Andrew D. Smith, The Dallas Morning News
Apr. 8--It will cost about $400 million. It will ease traffic jams on LBJ Freeway. And it's beginning to take shape.
State Highway 190 will connect to a planned extension of the Bush Turnpike at Interstate 30, cut south through Garland, Sunnyvale and Mesquite, then join another proposed road, Loop 9, at Interstate 20. The Texas Department of Transportation announced that basic plan more than a decade ago, but it has never proposed anything specific, until now.
Starting from various intersection points with the major roads -- two at I-30, three at U.S. Highway 80 and three at I-20 -- transportation department computers devised more than a dozen connecting routes.
"The suggestions may look rambling and inefficient, but that's because the computer considers a lot more than minimizing road length," said Tim Nesbitt, the transportation department's project engineer.
"We feed the computer aerial photographs and other information on geology and topography. If a straight path barrels through avoidable hills, the computer will save you money by weaving around the hills."
In the week since the transportation department unveiled the possible routes, 180 people at a meeting ranked the contenders. Their input, though not unanimous, can be summarized this way: The farther east the path, the greater its popularity.
"We want the road east of Mesquite Airport," said Mesquite Mayor Mike Anderson. "We've spent a decade planning around that route because it makes the best sense. The eastern path opens up more territory and displaces fewer buildings."
But the eastern route has drawbacks.
Its sweeping course would run two miles longer than the shortest route, 13.75 miles rather than 11.5 miles, adding $70 million to construction costs and extending end-to-end commutes by 1,000 miles a year.
Using current Internal Revenue Service estimates, those extra miles would cost the average commuter about $450 annually.
And then there is dislocation.
Easterly routes generally traverse less-developed areas and require less demolition.
The least destructive route would run through only 27 homes, about one-sixth the number of one western route. However, routes that spare houses tend to destroy wildlife.
Unlike supportive Mesquite officials, Garland's politicians have no formal position on Highway 190.
"We've always seen the Bush connection as critical to our economic development, but we have never had the same feeling about 190," said Robert Wunderlich, Garland's senior managing director for transportation and engineering.
As for the potential alignments, he said, "We'll wait for more thorough studies to take a position."
In Sunnyvale, many residents have opposed the highway, fearing Highway 190 would divide the town and bring unwanted development.
Unlike Garland, Sunnyvale has been heatedly debating potential routes for nearly a year. The Town Council, which recently narrowed eight possible choices to four, will discuss Highway 190 yet again Monday.
Sunnyvale's final recommendation will probably hinge on this spring's elections; nine candidates are running for three council seats, and Highway 190 is one of the big issues.
While the transportation department waits to hear the official positions from Garland and Sunnyvale, it is accepting comments about all the potential routes. People who'd like to weigh in have plenty of time to do so at www.theeastbranch.org; transportation department officials think it will be several years before they pick a final route and as much as a decade before construction begins.
E-mail asmith@dallasnews.com
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Source: The Dallas Morning News
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