Saturday, April 27, 2024
Traffic on U.S. Highway 377 is worsening throughout Hood County, but the Cresson intersection, where there is a railroad crossing, is particularly problematic. (Photo by David Montessino)
Previous updates on the eagerly awaited Cresson Relief Route have involved delays for the project originally slated for completion in 2022.
Now, finally, there’s some good news, even though the bypass is still a good ways from being finished.
A letter sent to Cresson Mayor Teena Putteet Conway from David M. Salazar, Fort Worth District Engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation, said that the project is currently estimated to be completed in summer 2024, several months earlier than anticipated when TxDOT issued its last update.
So, progress.
“This is actually better news than what they had posted on their website earlier where they predicted the completion at the END of 2024,” Conway wrote in an email to the Hood County News.
She continued, “This project is the most asked about item with the city. We, too, are wanting this completed as soon as possible because it does negatively impact our commuters.”
The slowdown occurred because of design modifications that had to be made after construction began.
The changes were required to meet federal environmental wetland protection requirements beyond the scope of the original project.
According to TxDOT, a change order to construct four additional small bridges to protect the wetlands added time to the construction schedule.
The three-mile relief route will be a new four-lane divided highway with an overpass over the train tracks beginning one mile south of the intersection of U.S. Highway 377 and State Highway 171 and ending one mile north of that intersection.
The current U.S. Highway 377 lanes will then become Business 377.
San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corporation was awarded a $61 million contract in April 2019 to construct the bypass west of Cresson, on the Weatherford side of 377.
