Take to the Highway:
Contractors across the state take on tough projects

It is an ongoing battle to keep the highways and bridges across Texas in good repair. Here is a look at some of the most challenging major road improvement projects currently underway.

by Mary Lou Jay

The U.S. Census Bureau recently announced that Texas gained more people than any other state between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006.  Anyone traveling the roads in the state won’t have much trouble believing it. 

Residents, tourists and carriers moving goods north from the U.S./Mexico border are jamming the interstates and highways, causing congestion on many urban and suburban routes.

To keep the traffic moving, the Texas Department of Transportation is constantly working on road construction and reconstruction throughout the state.  Here’s a look at some of the largest and most difficult projects currently under way.

Texarkana Frontage Road Project

Interstate 30 and the roads that run across it in Texarkana are frequently clogged with traffic. Motorists traveling the cross streets must pass through four signals in less than a quarter mile at the interstate interchanges.

The lack of continuous frontage roads adds to the congestion because local motorists use the interstate to move between shopping areas on arterial roads. Traffic exiting the interstate often backs up on the exit ramps and the interstate itself.

To correct these problems, TxDOT launched a complex, four-year project in October.  The $153.5 million project covers an 8.1-mi stretch of I-30 between Kings Highway and Jefferson Avenue in Arkansas

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The new design moves the interstate ramps to the frontage roads, which will run under the crossroads alongside the interstate. TxDOT will convert the frontage roads to one direction, with the lanes on the south side of I-30 heading east and those on the north side going west.  There will be no signals along these frontage roads, and so traffic will be able to move from one end of the project to another without stopping.

Since the city of Texarkana crosses the state line into Arkansas, TxDOT will be, too, says Lance Simmons, the district’s bridge engineer. “We did the design for the entire project and Arkansas helped us review it, but we are constructing all of it,” he adds. “TxDOT inspectors will work for a mile or so in Arkansas, which will reimburse us for its share of the project.  This seemed a better approach than having two different contractors and two different sets of state inspectors.” 

Arkansas has already reconstructed its Jefferson Avenue interchange along I-30.

To keep traffic moving during the project, TxDOT will first construct the turnaround bridges on each side of the existing overpass and then detour traffic through those bridges. 

“Once we start detouring traffic, the contractor has 80 days to demolish the old bridge, build the new one and get traffic put back where it should be,” says Kenny Icenhower, Texarkana area engineer.

Meanwhile, Simmons says that the public acknowledges that existing conditions have to be fixed, and people know that it is gong to get worse before it gets better, “but they have been extremely understanding so far. They can see that based on what we’re showing them this area will be a whole lot nicer and a whole lot safer for everybody.”

U.S. 59 Freeway

Before construction began on U.S. 59 through the city of Sugar Land, the highway consisted of two lanes in each direction with a grassy esplanade in the center.  “Now we’re building an urbanized freeway that will have four main lanes in each direction plus one nonbarrier-style diamond lane or carpool lane in each direction, plus a two- to three-lane frontage road in each direction as well,” says Jim Hunt, TxDOT’s Fort Bend area engineer.

The $195.2 million project is located along a 5-mi stretch of U.S. 59 between SH 6 and SH 99.  Three roads previously crossed over the highway in this section, but the project is changing that. “We’ve demolished the old cross streets, brought them down to ground level and then built the new mainlines of the freeway to cross over,” Hunt says.

The general contractor, Williams Brothers Construction Co. of Houston, built much of the new highway bridge structure as possible on the grassy esplanade, leaving out the span where the cross street bridge went through. When that was completed, workers had only 14 days to accomplish the switchover at each intersection.

Crews demolished the existing crossover bridge structure and cast the last span for the new U.S. 59 concrete bridge deck.  Then they switched the mainlane traffic to the new bridge and opened up the new cross street underneath. Working round the clock, Williams Brothers not only met the deadlines, but also beat them by five days each time, earning the maximum bonus of $100,000 per intersection.

The job also requires a new bridge across the Brazos River.  “This is a pretty vicious river,” Hunt says.  “It rises quickly, with little warning, and there’s a tremendous amount of driftwood and other stuff that comes down the river.  There’s a lot of scouring that goes on.”

Working from barges, the contractor is excavating 30 ft below the mud line of the river, driving cluster piles another 90 ft farther into the ground and then building the footing on top of the cluster pile. 

“In essence the bottom of the column is a good 120 ft below the mud line of the river,” Hunt says.  “It’s a pretty significant foundation but it’s definitely needed with that river.”

The new frontage road bridges will be built first, and these will serve as the detour routes while the main U.S. 59 bridge is built.

All work on the three-year U.S. 59 project should be completed by the end of 2008.

SH 89

U.S. 181 is a major hurricane evacuation route, carrying traffic from the Corpus Christi area inland. South of the city of Sinton, the road is a divided highway, but it narrows into a two-lane road through the city proper.  A dozen or more traffic signals in this section can cause serious bottlenecks when traffic is heavy.

In May 2006, TxDOT started on a new road—SH 89—that will bypass this business district.  The four-lane divided highway will begin near the intersection of U.S. 181 and FM 1074 south of Sinton and reconnect with U.S. 181 3 mi north of the city.

“It’s a pretty extensive project because there are 10 new bridges going in,” says Bill Reitman, Sinton area engineer in TxDOT’s Corpus Christi District.  “We are crossing two creeks and also building a new overpass at U.S. 77 and a new overpass over U.S. 181, the existing road.” 

Traffic heading away from the coast in hurricane weather should also benefit from another part of the project. “On the north end we’re putting in two huge new drainage structures that will help drainage along U.S. 181,” Reitman adds.  “There has been some flooding on that road when we have heavy rains.”

Zachary Construction Corp. of San Antonio is the contractor on  the 7.5-mi, $44.4 million  project, which should be completed by summer 2008.

Yager Lane Bridge Replacement

TxDOT is replacing the outdated two-lane Yager Lane Bridge over Interstate 35 in Austin with a new six-lane bridge.  It will align on the west side of the interstate with Yager Lane and on the east side with another city street, Tech Ridge. (Yager Lane will tie into Tech Ridge on this side via an intersection.) 

The project is part of a master development plan that provides residents and businesses in the area better access to I-35.

Working over this section of I-35, which carriers an average daily traffic count of 75,000 vehicles, is a huge challenge, says Terry McCoy, TxDOT’s North Travis area engineer. “One of our primary objectives is to manage construction so that it has the least impact on traffic,” he says. 

That was evident during the demolition of the old bridge, which took place in December.  “We never actually closed the main lanes of I-35 when we demolished the bridge,” McCoy says. “We closed frontage roads and moved the main lanes around so we weren’t working over mainline traffic and used the existing frontage roads as the main lanes.” 

When it came time to hang the beams for the new bridge, everything was in place so that traffic had to be stopped only for 10 minutes while cranes moved the beam into place.

 General contractor Capital Excavation Inc. of Austin has just 269 days from bridge demolition to get the new structure open to traffic. The company, which must “rent” lanes from TxDOT to do the work, earns bonuses for early completion and penalties for failure to meet schedules.

“With rentals and bonuses, you think of lane closures from a different aspect,” says Bill Mayfield, vice president of Capital Excavation.  “When I do lane closures now, I will maybe do four operations instead of just one.  I’m not making the same production, but with the lane rental incentive I save enough money to make it worthwhile.  And the public profits because they’re not getting inconvenienced four times but just once.”

The construction team is using a movable barrier system for lane closures.  “It allows traffic to be maintained during the daytime during the heaviest traffic periods,”McCoy adds. “Then at night, when the inside lanes is needed for workspace, you can capture it very quickly and efficiently.”

Doing such a complex job within such a short time period requires many planning sessions, McCoy says. “We have an extremely good relationship with the contractor,” he adds.

Katy Freeway Reconstruction

The Katy Freeway is a section of Interstate 10 that extends from the center of Houston west to the Brazos River.  Renovating it was a massive $1.4 billion project, one of the biggest ever undertaken by TxDOT.

The project also was fast-tracked. “Typically a program of this size would take 10 to 12 years,” says Raquelle Lewis, TxDOT’s spokesperson for the project.  “But this is on an accelerated project with a six-year construction schedule.” 

Nine contracts were let for different sections of the project, with Williams Brothers Construction winning six and Balfour Beatty of WHERE? the remaining three. Construction began in June 2003 and should be completed by the end of 2007.

The new road will feature at least nine lanes in each direction throughout its entire length. That includes four mainline roads, two HOV/toll lanes and three frontage roads. 

Although the disruption required by this large-scale construction could have caused huge backups, TxDOT did a superb job of designing the sequences and phases of the project to provide for traffic, says Doug Pitcock, president of Williams Brothers.  “The consensus is that traffic is flowing better during construction than it did prior to construction.” 

As in the Yager Bridge project, TxDOT has provided financial incentives to the contractors to complete the job quickly.  “We like this system because it gives us a chance to recover the increased costs we have working 24/7,” Pitcock says. “It’s a win-win for everybody.  The public gets the new road, the department gets it built in record time and the contractor doesn’t go broke trying to build it.”

This is one of TxDOT’s “green ribbon” projects.  “The intention is to make the freeway more aesthetically pleasing,” Lewis says. The Texas star, chosen as a unifying, recurring symbol for the project, is featured on retaining walls.