Officials Voice Support for Texas 121 Expansion

By Bill Teeter, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Mar. 15–This story was published in the Final West edition.

GRAPEVINE — Four speakers, most of them officials of area cities, voiced their support for the Texas 121 expansion project to Texas Department of Transportation representatives during a public hearing Tuesday night at the Grapevine Convention Center.

Coppell City Manager Jim Witt, Grapevine Mayor William D. Tate and Jerry Hodge, a Grapevine city administrator and chairman of the Metroport Cities Partnership, all said they support the project.

Hodge, whose group represents a coalition of cities, including Grapevine, Trophy Club, Westlake, Roanoke and Colleyville, said it is important that the project that starts on the southeast at Farm Road 2499 to Business 121, a distance of about 2 miles, be completed quickly.

Transportation department officials said the work would be done in two phases, with the job complete by 2009, agency spokeswoman Angela Loston said. The first part will involve moving all traffic onto what is now southbound Texas 121 so work can proceed on what is now the northbound lanes.

The highway, which is now four lanes with two-lane frontage roads and is badly congested, will be widened to five lanes in each direction with three-lane frontage roads.

“We’re here to support this project; we want to see the main lanes following closely behind,” Hodge said.

The project, expected to cost $128 million, was originally part of the Grapevine funnel project to expand highways carrying traffic through an area between Grapevine Lake and Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

Loston said the Texas 121 project has been separated from the funnel project so it can be completed sooner.

“We’re here to support this project; we want to see the main lanes following closely behind.”

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Bill Teeter, (817) 685-3801 bteeter@star-telegram.com

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