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I-30 through Arlington, TX -- expansion begins
QUESTION:The first stages of the I-30/Collins interchange upgrade have begun. They
shut down the entrance from Collins (FM157) to eastbound I-30 this weekend,
and it will be closed for the next two years. They are going to redo this
interchange, which has one of the freakiest shapes you'll ever see... it's
sort of a stretched-out, two-leaf clover interchange that was built in the
1950s. At the time, I-30 was a toll road and so much land occupied the
inside of one of the loops that it's been used by the Texas Highway
Department for storage of construction materials. From what I've heard,
this interchange will be heavily modified (though I'm not sure of the exact
shape) to reduce the amount of land required and also allow more traffic
through. Another problem Arlington had with the original I-30 toll road
(known as the "turnpike") was that because of toll booths sprinkled up and
down the road, there were very few direct entrances and exits for I-30
throughout the city. The toll booths were removed in the late 1970s and
Arlington has been modifying the many overpasses ever since, installing
entrance and exit ramps and in many cases installing brand-new
bridges/interchanges that did not exist before. This is what will be going
on just east of Collins, as Baird Farm Road originally just dead-ended into
the I-30 service road and stopped. A new bridge will be built over I-30 and
allow Baird Farm Rd. to continue over the highway. Another new bridge is
being built further east at NW 19th Street.
Much of this work was going to be done anyway, as it's been on the drawing
boards for years and the funding finally came about. But then Arlington
voters approved the new Dallas Cowboys football stadium, and it is being
constructed right now. It is less than half a mile from the I-30/Collins
interchange and hopefully the highway expansion will be completed before the
first kickoff. A Super Bowl game is scheduled to be played there in just a
few years.
What REALLY needs to be done is the nearby I-30/SH-360 interchange, which
still requires going through a traffic light to go from one to the other.
It bottlenecks every morning and afternoon and will continue to do so for
perhaps another decade, as TxDOT says all the preliminary work has been done
but they lack the funding to begin construction until then.
ANSWER: A list of 12 .pdf files is there, covering I-30 from Oakland in Fort
Worth to the upcoming TX 161 interchange in Grand Prairie.
Click on #5 and #6 to get the I-30 and south side in the Cooper-
Collins and Collins-Ballpark Way sections, and #8 for the north side
for east and west of Collins. Be patient, they may not be instant
loading files.
According to the 3 maps, it looks like a lot of the curlycue-
trippyness will get pared way back...don't know if the TxDOT pile in
the middle gets the boot or not.
The #7 one contains the wished-for I-30/TX 360 direct interchange
ramps. IIRR, the interchange is in the funding/letting stage (?) but
I may be ahead of myself. Might be semi-high-five-ish but TxDOT
insists the schematics aren't etched in stone yet.
The old turnpike-ramp style at 360 will be kept but redone as an
extension of Six Flags Drive above I-30 over to Ave. G (Grand
Prairie's continuation of Arlington's Lamar Blvd.). Looks like there
will be C/Ds in the 360 interchange that will make contact with the
redone Six Flags Blvd.
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