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New Ramp Changes Precede Chisholm Trail Opening

April 17,2014

Fort Worth Star Telegram Ron T. Ennis

Reposted from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Photo: Ron T. Ennis

BY GORDON DICKSON
gdickson@star-telegram.com

The opening of the new, 28-mile Chisholm Trail Parkway toll road is still more than three weeks away, but changes to surrounding roads are already being made.

Weather permitting, one is scheduled to take place Friday, when on- and off-ramps are to be reconfigured and a new frontage road is to open along Interstate 30 just west of downtown Fort Worth. The area is the site of a planned intersection for I-30 and Chisholm Trail Parkway.

In that area sometime Friday evening — after rush-hour traffic has subsided — a new westbound frontage road will open from Summit Avenue to University Drive. To make room, a westbound I-30 entrance ramp at Summit Avenue and an exit ramp at Forest Park Boulevard will be permanently closed.

Once those ramps are closed, westbound traffic headed for Forest Park Boulevard will have to go down the I-30 frontage road. Motorists also will be able to access westbound I-30 from the Parkview Drive entrance ramp.

The changes come as the North Texas Tollway Authority, the lead agency in charge of building the toll road, scrambles to meet a self-imposed May 11 deadline to get the toll road at least substantially open. The opening could be delayed by a few days if the region receives large amounts of rainfall.

A weekend of events, including a bicycle race, a half-marathon and appearances by local elected leaders and dignitaries who helped see the project through to completion, is scheduled for May 9-10. Those events, some of which have been planned for nearly a year, will take place regardless of whether weather causes any delays in construction, tollway authority spokesman Michael Rey said.

For motorists, the May 11 toll road opening will provide a sample of how the road could be used in their daily lives. But the road will by no means be complete. Work on the Chisholm Trail Parkway will continue into the fall, officials said.

“As construction comes online, you’ll start to see a prettier road emerge,” Rey said.

For example, motorists who enter Chisholm Trail Parkway at its southern terminus, U.S. 67 in Cleburne, will be able to drive northbound uninterrupted to the interchange with I-30 near downtown Fort Worth. But along the way, they won’t be able to use three of the four interchanges at Interstate 20 in southwest Fort Worth because the connections aren’t yet complete.

Also, southbound motorists on the north end of the corridor near downtown Fort Worth won’t yet be able to use a direct connector to Chisholm Trail Parkway from I-30. A planned flyover ramp in that area isn’t built. But southbound motorists will be able to use Forest Park Boulevard, West Rosedale Street and other area roads to access the toll road.

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