Nearly $40 million to be poured into highway projects

September 26, 2011

HUNTSVILLE — Huntsville and parts of Walker County will see nearly $40 million in highway improvements over the next few years.

The Texas Department of Transportation has several projects in the works that will improve the safety of Huntsville roadways.

Highway 19 construction has been ongoing for months and is running smoothly, according to David Stephens, area engineer for Walker, Madison, Leon and Freestone counties.

“I’m tickled to death,” he said. “These are a lot of necessary projects.”

TxDOT partnered with the city of Huntsville on the Highway 19 project, with the city giving $150,000 for aesthetics and a signal on Highway 75 and Boettcher Drive. That project is expected to cost $15.3 million.

“Highway 19 is going well,” Stephens said. “The dry weather is causing a lot of people grief, but it’s really improving the production for Smith and Co., the contractor.”

Most of the on and off ramps have been roughed in along Highway 19, except for those entrances and exits that have traffic. Most of the beams have been placed for the Bearkat Boulevard bridge and the Highway 75 bridge.

“Bearkat is going to really be nice,” he said. “We worked with the city on it and tried to make some changes on it so it looks a lot nicer. It’s really kind of the main entrance to the college.”

There will be Texas stars integrated into the bridge columns for aesthetic purposes.

“We’re trying to make things prettier,” Stephens said. “There will be an exit ramp like there is now, but there will also be a frontage road that continues past Bearkat.”

Highway 30 underpass

The next major project residents will notice is a change to the Highway 30, FM 1791 intersection. There’s a red light for the FM 1791 portion and a blinking yellow light for Highway 30 travelers. Starting this month, contractors have bid on building an overpass that will be the new FM 1791.

Highway 30 travelers will no longer have to worry about someone pulling out in front of them from the farm-to-market road.

“We should start in the winter, then it’s about a 24-month project,” Stephens said. “It’s going to improve safety a great deal. What we’ll do is have frontage roads on either side that will be about where the existing lanes are. If you’re driving on Highway 30, you won’t have to cross any traffic. You will still have to stop on 1791.”

Stephens said this project was needed for safety reasons, and as such, was awarded through the TxDOT safety program.

“Projects compete statewide for a limited amount of safety money,” he said. “We did have a fatality where someone went through that stop light and hit another car. It’ll be a really big improvement.”

There will be a U-turn lane so anyone needing to go back into town will have that ability.

Interstate 45 Frontage

A contract is set to be awarded this month for frontage road construction along Interstate 45 in Huntsville. This project is expected to cost $8.7 million and will relocate entrance and exits ramps all along I-45 in the city.

Construction will stretch northbound from in front of Charlie’s Used Cars down to exit 118. There will be a new entrance ramp in front of El Chico Mexican Restaurant. The ramp at La Quinta Inn will be an exit ramp as opposed to an entrance ramp. There will be a new entrance ramp past Wiesner of Huntsville. The current exit 118 will be rebuilt further south.

“The whole goal is now that Huntsville has grown, we’re trying to keep as much traffic out of the signals as we can,” Stephens said. “We’ll have entrance ramps before signals and exits after the signals.”

On the southbound ramps, construction will start at FM 1791 and extend to Bob Luby’s Seafood. The frontage road will remain much the same, but will be reconstructed. The southbound exit 118 (south of the interchange of Highway 75), will be rebuilt further south.

“We’re basically going to modernize it so it’s more of a high speed entrance ramp,” Stephens said. “We will not touch the ramp in front of the Holliday Unit.”

I-45/75/1791 Intersection

A $2.5 million project clustered around the intersection of Highway 75 North, I-45 and FM 1791 will have a major change on traffic backup in the area.

The process is expected to begin in August of 2012. Just after the Texas Department of Public Safety office, there will be a separate U-turn lane that will go between the bridge columns and the abutment on the south side of the existing road.

There will be a connector road for I-45 stretching from just in front of Kate Barr Ross Park and cutting across Texas Department of Criminal Justice property.

“That’ll be a big improvement there,” Stephens said. “We’ll move the signal near the DPS office up to where 75 is now. We’ll do away with the (cross through street). If you’re wanting to go to the TDCJ BOT complex, you will be able to do that without going through a signal on the west side of the Interstate.”

Stephens said traffic studies were conducted of the area to determine the best way to alleviate traffic during mornings and afternoon rush hour.

“We’re really hopeful that it’ll be a great improvement,” he said. “One of the big things – if you’re going north and you want to go to the BOT, there will be a dual left turn movement. That should improve things a great deal there.”

City Projects

City Manager Bill Baine said the city is looking into ways to connect Spur 59 with FM 1791, creating a cross street that would help travelers heading to the TDCJ BOT complex.

“The idea would be to provide a safe way for local citizens to bypass the head-on truck traffic,” Baine said. “We want to facilitate people commuting to TDCJ headquarters.”

Source: http://itemonline.com