Where?
The existing I-35 right of way is rather narrow, because it was one of the first interstate highways laid out in Texas. The TxDoT engineers didn't put in enough room for entrance and exit lanes or enough separation between opposing lanes of traffic. The incredibly heavy traffic and substandard separation of opposing lanes has lead to quite a few horrific accidents in which cars left their lanes ran across the median and collided head on with opposing traffic especially in bad weather and fog. Notice that now concrete barriers have been erected to prevent future head on collisions. In order to do the current expansion from 2 to 3 lanes in each direction, it was necessary to completely rebuild the entire highway rather than just add on an addtional lane. There is quite a bit of develped land along both sides of I-35 all the way from San Antonio to Hillsboro. It would be cheaper to buy bigger new undeveloped rights of way than to buy up expensive developed land adjacent to the existing higway. It is also cheaper and faster to build a new state of the art highway designed based on the experience of the last several decades than to expand I-35 while periodically rerouting its traffic to keep it open during construction.
I35 is a local off/on or more of a commuter type roadway. The TTC is supposed to be long haul with limited access on/off designed to move traffic long distances at rapid speed. Like this article is complaining about using 360 through the metroplex..... totally out of context with the purpose.
Thats true. They did an incredibly crappy job when they
designed this highway. The on/offramps and frontage road
layouts are criminal deathraps and need to be fixed.
The frontage roads that route opposing traffing into
an offramp were prosecutable offenses if you ask me.
These are deathraps now and would be deathraps with
TTC.
The cost to aquire ROW north of Ft Worth should not be all that much. Alliance is all but offering ROW for free, and
north of the Speedway theres nothing until you get to Denton. Denton has mostly roadside buisness. From there
to Sanger its the odd gas station, truck stop, and tack store. Beyond Sanger, to Gainesville, theres squat dooda.
Routing this through Collinsville and into Gainesville
would be as disruptive as fixing this sad excuse for an
I35. Plus it would run through the heart of cutting horse
country. You're messing with Texas and tradition when you do that.
For the 4-lane sections, adding lanes in the median with a concrete tall wall separating (to prevent head-on collisions) would be best...