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Parker Road construction on time, anticipated completion by the end of 2010
Ronnie Baker / Staff Photo – Construction crews work daily on the Parker Road bridge that crosses Central Expressway. The projected completion date is late 2010.
By Kim Nguyen, knguyen@acnpapers.com
For commuters traveling Central Expressway through Plano, it has been a long and tiresome drive.
Since July 2009, motorists have been bottlenecked through and around the construction at Parker Road, and according to the Texas Department of Transportation, the project is scheduled for completion in late 2010.
Phase 3 Stage 2 went into effect earlier this year and consists creating new pavement for both eastbound and westbound Parker Road traffic and the southern half of the new bridge. TxDOT spokeswoman Ceason Clemens said the remaining construction will include ramps going up to the U-turn on the bridge.
The new Parker Road bridge over Central Expressway will implement a Single-Point Urban Interchange (SPUI) design, which will allow for improved operation efficiency and safety as well as reduced right-of-way requirements compared to traditional interchange designs, she said.
The SPUI design at Parker Road will be the first of its kind in Texas. SPUI designs are increasingly popular because of their ability to effectively move traffic. The design has been implemented successfully in Arizona, Louisiana, Virginia and other countries around the world.
According to the city of Plano engineering department, a SPUI design can move more traffic than a traditional design, and do so with less traffic delay and congestion. SPUI designs also require significantly less right-of-way for construction as compared to traditional interchange designs. The design requires the use of only one set of traffic signals, and these signals allow opposing left-turn movements to occur at the same time. The concurrent movement of opposing left-turn traffic is where the SPUI design excels over traditional designs because these turns do not cross paths and can be served without having to take several signal cycles to do it. A traditional interchange design requires opposing left-turn traffic to cross paths, thus each movement must be served by its own separate signal phase. When left-turn traffic volumes are high it may take several signal cycles for traffic to clear the interchange when using a traditional design.
The work is part of a $20-million construction project to improve traffic flow at the U.S. 75 and Parker Road interchange. The project is funded by numerous entities, including the city of Plano, Collin County and TxDOT, Clemens said.
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