Roadway projects detailed at meeting

An update on the city's Capital Investment Program was presented to the Allen City Council at its March 13 workshop.

John Baumgartner, director of the city's engineering department, briefly went over several of the city's in-progress, pending and funding-strapped facility, roadway and utility projects.

Currently, the biggest project on the city's plate is TxDOT's $60 million U.S. 75 lane expansion. One of the project's main issues -- whether or not sound walls will screen noise from the highway near residential neighborhoods -- still has not fully been worked through with the state, Baumgartner said.

"The last meeting we had, which was a week ago, was, 'It warrants a wall,'" he said. "Our allowance for a wall is $25 a square foot, and it's a $40 per square foot wall. We need to determine if TxDOT's going to fund the difference or if they're going to ask the local [cities] to fund the difference."

Other improvements by TxDOT that would see Stacy Road expanded to a four-lane divided roadway from Greenville Avenue to Angel Parkway have been slowed to a halt by the city of Fairview, Baumgartner said.

"Fairview has had a change of heart and has been working to reduce the right-of-way, take the construction plans and rework them and redo them; take the environmental hearings and start the process all over," Baumgartner said.

City Manager Peter Vargas said the sudden disinterest is likely due to conflicts with nearby property owners over two lanes of additional right-of-way that would be acquired as part of the project. Planning for the project, Vargas said, is 95 percent complete.

Another TxDOT project in the Allen-Fairview area likely to die on the vine is the four-lane improvement to FM 1378, which failed to gain consensus from stakeholder cities Fairview, Lucas and Allen.

The Ridgeview Drive project, which will ultimately connect the road continuously from Custer Road to U.S. 75, has seen its first phase completed and right of way acquired but is still missing several of the required creek crossings.

"We've got some county funding; probably not enough to construct the roadway in its entirety, but we have ourselves in a position that if an economic development opportunity comes forward, we'll be able to get that property," Baumgartner said.

The widening of Bethany Drive is moving along as planned, with construction starting May 1 and lasting six months. The project includes LED streetlights and improvements to Angel Parkway to facilitate right turns to Farm to Market 2551.

A project that will add an acceleration lane to the U.S. 75 service road from Cabela Drive to Stacy Road is also still on track for construction to begin this summer and conclude in November. Improvements to the Exchange Parkway median from U.S. 75 to Greenville are also continuing as planned and are set to kick off in May.

TxDOT's FM 2551 improvements, which take the roadway to a four-lane arterial from Main Street to the southern city limits, remain in their early stages. Land acquisition, environmental clearance and construction plans are still required, and construction is not anticipated to begin before 2015.

A separate project the city has been working on would add an entrance to The Village at Allen from the U.S. 75 frontage road north of Best Buy. This would require crossing a Dallas Area Rapid Transit-owned rail line and could cost a significant amount for closure of the railroad crossing, Baumgartner said.

Other, non-roadway projects being considered include a $600,000 to $800,000 improvement to the police department headquarters' dispatch area, making additional room for patrol and adding some additional improvements to the building. The improvements are hoped to be paid for with savings from investment projects, and a design contract is on track to be put before the council this spring.

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