Another stretch of tolled managed lanes has opened on I-35W in Far North Fort Worth. Six miles of "TEXPress" lanes opened between Highway 287 and Alliance Boulevard.
"It's not costing taxpayers a single penny," says former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley. "If you want to use the roads, you can use them, and if you don't, you've got the free lanes you don't have to pay for."
Two TEXPress lanes run in each direction. Tolls vary based on demand to keep an average speed of at least 50 miles an hour.
Construction started in 2020 and cost $910 million. Ferrovial Construction and Webber paid for the project in exchange for the ability to collect tolls in the managed lanes.
Whitley says North Texas is one of just five metro areas of the country where congestion has not grown as quickly as the population.
"We have stayed level. We have stayed even with it, and that's because we had people who were willing to dream," he says.
"We think congestion is bad here, but have you tried to drive in Austin or Houston lately?" asks former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. "We should thank our lucky stars every day for what we are able to accomplish with public-private partnerships."
Developers say $7 billion of highways have been rebuilt with TEXPress lanes in North Texas. The managed lanes are now continuous from Alliance Airport to Downtown Fort Worth.
Hillwood, the company that led the AllianceTexas development, says TEXPress lanes can ensure the region's economy keeps growing.
"In moving goods and services, time is money," says Hillwood Executive Vice President Russell Laughlin. "Congestion is a huge cost and burden."
Laughlin says, as North Texas grows, the region is taking advantage of the ability to plan a transportation network for the future, which includes managed lanes, infrastructure for self-driving cars and trucks and continuous monitoring of conditions.
"It's the only place in the country where you have hundreds of miles of technology-enabled corridors that now can utilize data to help manage transportation systems. It's the only place," he says.
AllianceTexas has a "mobility innovation zone" where companies can test and develop new technologies for self-driving cars and trucks. The company says 66,000 people now work around Alliance, but the area is still only 40% built-out.
On 35W, transportation leaders ultimately hope to extend TEXPress lanes to the 35E merge in Denton.
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