Wednesday, September 23

I-35 near SAMMC; an exit ramp to change

Last weekend LANE Construction adjusted their plans to avoid full closures of the main lanes of I-35 between AT&T Center Parkway and Binz-Engelman on the city's east side. They also moved their schedule to avoid closures on Saturday, impacting Sunday morning and Monday night traffic instead. The closures allowed bridge crews to set beams along I-35 over Salado Creek to form the new auxiliary lanes.

A similar plan will be implemented overnight a few times in the next few weeks while crews remove ovverhead highway signs.

Now crews working on some ramp adjustments and work that adds auxiliary lanes in each direction between George Beach and AT&T Center Parkway will temproarily shut down an exit ramp.

Starting tomorrow night (Friday, September 24) the northbound exit ramp to Binz-Engelman will close to allow crews to work on new, longer ramps. The ramp will reopen in November.

While the ramp is closed traffic headed to Binz-Engelman will exit Splashtown Drive and follow the frontage road. There are no signalized intersections along this route, so the traffic should be relatively unencumbered.

A temporary entrance ramp for folks headed north from AT&T Center Parkway will be built while crews rebuild this entrance ramp, allowing folks attending events at that location an easy way to continue home post-event. A new, longer, exit ramp to Binz-Engelman will take the place of the current ramp when work is finished. The entrance ramp from AT&T Parkway will also be lengthened.

Work on this segment of I-35 (running between AT&T Center Parkway and George Beach) will wrap up early 2016.

Meanwhile, LANE continues to move at Rittiman and Eisenhauer roads to finish the work at those two intersections and complete the widening there. Most of the resources on the segment between George Beach and Windcrest has been allocated to the southern portion of the project, focusing on getting the southbound I-410 connector and new northbound exit to Rittiman Road complete.

Work on the segment between George Beach and Windcrest is running ahead of schedule and currently on pace to wrap up late summer 2016. The contract allows LANE until the end of 2016 to finish the job.