LBJ Express Work Progresses to Excavation Phase
"The metroplex has really pulled together to look at leveraging the dollars and really use all of the tools to make things happen,” says Texas Transportation Commissioner Jeff Austin III.
The LBJExpress work involves the creation of managed lanes on slightly less than six miles of I-35E from roughly Northwest Highway to where it connects with I-635 in Farmers Branch. A 10.7-mile stretch of I-635 from I-35E east to U.S. 75 (includes eight general use lanes and four to six frontage road lanes) and it will be completely rebuilt with six new managed lanes sunk below the cantilevered general-purpose lanes.
Restrictions on the width of the project and prohibitions of creating additional elevated roadways required the creation of the sunken toll lanes. One of the biggest challenges for the contractor now is excavating the more than 4 million cu-ft of material while allowing traffic to flow through the corridor.
“We have to be able to accommodate 250,000 travelers per day while still excavating over 20,000 cu-yds per day from the project,” says Joaquin Losada, manager for Segment 2 of the project. “Getting all that material out while maintaining traffic flow on one of the busiest highways in Texas requires significant planning and foresight from our team.”
Most of the frontage roads and general-purpose lanes east of Preston Road have been completed, allowing the contractor to use those lanes for the bulk of the traffic during the ongoing excavation work.
For the first six months, the managed lanes will operate using a set pricing scale so information on traffic volume can be monitored. After the testing period, the pricing will vary as the traffic volume on the lanes increases and decreases.
The variable pricing system being used by the LBJ Express is the inaugural aspect of a regional TEXpress Lanes Network. According to TxDOT, the system will be expanded to another five traffic corridors in the Dallas/FortWorth area: the LBJ Express, the North Tarrant Express, the DFW Connector, I-35Express and sections of the I-35W.
