FORNEY, Texas — The much-anticipated U.S. Highway 80 ramp relocation project in Forney is moving forward with a summer 2016 let date, according to officials.
FORNEY, Texas — The much-anticipated U.S. Highway 80 ramp relocation project in Forney is moving forward with a summer 2016 let date, according to officials.
The project consists or relocating entrance and exit ramps on the south service road of U.S. Highway 80 between Farm-to-Market (FM) 460 and Pinson Road and to redesign the service road to continue along the highway and as a one-way road.
The project began in 2012 when the City of Forney provided advanced funding for engineering and construction plans. The project was shifted to the county after voters approved a county-wide transportation bond.
In December 2015, Kaufman County Precinct 2 Commissioner Skeet Phillips told inForney.com the project was expected to go out for bids and let, or be awarded, in June 2016.
In a commissioners’ court meeting on Monday morning, Innovative Traffic Solutions representative John Polster said Michael Baker Corporation is in the process of finalizing the project’s schematics to submit to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
“We are still looking at summer time for this project to be let,” Polster stated. “I don’t see any reason why it can’t happen.”
Polster also says TxDOT will require safety lighting at the ramp gores — which is the triangular area between the onramps and the highway as the lanes merge.
In regard to the ramp relocations, the current FM 460 onramp to eastbound U.S. Highway 80 will be replaced with a new Broad Street exit.
A new Pinson Road exit will be constructed just east of the current Broad Street exit, which will be closed, and an eastbound highway onramp will be constructed in place of the existing Pinson Road exit.
Once construction begins, Phillips said the construction would likely take 12 to 18 months to complete, weather permitting.
