NTTA to open another stretch of TX121 tollroad

NTTA gets another 15km (9 miles) of tollroad this Sunday Aug 31. The new pike to be called the "121 Tollway" will be opened on SR121 between Old Denton Rd and Hillcrest Rd. Called Segment 2 it straddles Denton and Collin counties.

Segment 1m open for over a year, is 11km (7 miles) long.

A joint announcement of TxDOT and NTTA (North Texas Tollway Authority) says: "A one-way trip down the 16-mile (26km) corridor is expected to take from 15 to 20 minutes during peak traffic times. Currently, a trip from Plano to Lewisville takes 35 to 45 minutes. Motorists can expect to save time and fuel because they can drive continuously at higher speeds without stopping at traffic signals."

After a huge political fight NTTA overturned a private sector procurement by TxDOT and in 2007, TxDOT awarded the NTTA the right to finance, design, construct, operate, maintain and toll SH121 under a public-public concession of 50 years. For this the NTTA paid TxDOT $3.2 billion to be used on other highway projects in north Texas.

Motorists with transponder (TollTag) accounts will pay $1.18 at the mainline toll plaza and camera tolled customers (ZipCash) will pay $1.71. That's 7.9c/mile (4.9c/km) and 11.4c/mile (7.1c/km).

Segment 3 from Hillcrest Road in Frisco/Plano to Hardin Boulevard in Allen/McKinney, is under construction, and scheduled to open to traffic by Jan 2010.

The NTTA is receiving bids for segment 4, the 121 Tollway/US75 interchange, so construction can start this fall. The interchange is scheduled to be open to traffic by Jan 2011.

Segment 5, the addition of direct-connector bridges linking the 121 Tollway with the Dallas North Tollway, is currently in the environmental-approval process and is scheduled to be open to traffic by Jan 2012.

The new tollroad consists of 3+3 lanes of full expressway with 3-lane frontage roadways on either side. The frontage roads Texas style provide access and egress through highspeed slip lanes and come to signals at cross streets where there are special U-turns for motorists needing to get to the other side of the tollway.

Tolling is all-electronic from gantries over the mainline and over slip ramps. Raytheon HTMS produced the initial toll system under contract to TxDOT, which initiated the project. However when NTTA took over the project the Raytheon system was removed and NTTA used their established toll systems contractor Electronic Transaction Consultants on the road.

see http://www.ntta.org

TOLLROADSnews 2008-08-28