Traffic passes the location of a new overpass on U.S. Highway 69 at Farm-to-Market Road 344 in 2009. More overpasses are planned on the highway as part of the corridor's long-term improvements. Staff file photo.

The last piece of U.S. Highway 69 is soon to be widened to four lanes, which will allow Texans a north-south travel corridor through East Texas, taking traffic through Tyler and away from the state’s major metros.

Last week, the Texas Department of Transportation broke ground on a widening project in the small town of Wells, in Cherokee County, south of Smith County.

The existing two-lane highway will be taken from two to four lanes, with a center turn lane. It begins two miles north of Farm-to-Market Road 1247 and extends south 2.9 miles to the Angelina County line, according to TxDOT.

The widening not only will alleviate a bottleneck point along a hurricane evacuation route, but it also is the final widening piece in a decades-long project to improve the corridor.

It’s set to be completed in summer 2018 and cost $18.1 million, according to TxDOT.

The corridor is part of the Texas Trunk System.

“The trunk system is the interstate system of Texas that connects county seats and counties to counties,” said Texas Transportation Commissioner Jeff Austin III. “Farm-to-Markets connect rural areas to big cities.”

Improvement plans have been on the books for more than 30 years, officials said, but it really gained momentum in the late 1990s when Jacksonville state Sen. Robert Nichols was a member of the Texas Transportation Commission – the state board that works on long-range road improvement plans.

“We looked to see where they were spending money, and it was scattered across the state,” Nichols said. “(We thought it) would make more sense to take that money and identify which one of those routes would be most important for connectivity to each major region of the state. We put teams together. We had public hearings.”

Nichols said the goal is to create four-lane highways in the Trunk System, which would allow people to travel without going through the major metros.

Rural transportation dollars could then be prioritized. Two of those identified in the Trunk System run through Tyler – Texas Highway 31 and U.S. Highway 69.

U.S. 69 goes from Beaumont, north through Lufkin and Tyler, up to the Oklahoma border. It connects major east/west corridors, too, like Interstate 20.

“I call that a poor boy’s interstate,” he said. “A four-lane highway can carry a lot of traffic safely. It doesn’t meet the standard of an interstate, but it’s pretty good, and will move some traffic from the urban areas, opening opportunities in the heart of East Texas.”

 

MORE TO DO

Commissioner Austin said there’s still a lot of work to do on the U.S. 69 corridor, after the Wells section is complete.

A big part of that is limiting the number of traffic stops on the corridor.

“From Toll 49 to Houston, there are 13 stop lights – seven of them are in Jacksonville,” he said. “We need to help the community there with TxDOT and locals to figure out what to do with that traffic. When you look at eliminating bottlenecks and congestion, it’s not just in big cities. Jacksonville is a good example. The crash rate on Jackson Street (U.S. 69 in the city limits) is three times the state average.”

The construction of Toll 49 helps move pass-through traffic around Tyler, and there are plans to add two overpasses in the Bullard/Whitehouse area, which will help keep traffic moving.

One of those is at the intersection of Farm-to-Market Road 346, which currently has a traffic signal and leads to Whitehouse. That is tentatively scheduled for 2018, but Austin said it could be delayed to re-evaluate construction plans.

The other overpass would take U.S. 69 over Farm-to-Market Road 2493 in Bullard, which is planned as part of the FM’s widening project. That project isn’t funded, but is tentatively scheduled for 2020.

 

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS

The corridor has seen other improvements.

From Bullard to Alto has seen three projects, said Shane Cunningham, Tyler-area engineer.

That includes putting down a surface that allows rain to filter through the pavement and run to the side, instead of washing off the top.

That was done north of Jacksonville, and then from Bullard to Jacksonville and then from Jacksonville to Rusk. The Jacksonville to Rusk project included adding shoulders to the road, Cunningham said.

In Jacksonville, the road received a new layer of asphalt. Cunningham said that project did not include the specialized porous asphalt. Another project is planned for the summer, to resurface from FM 346 south to Bullard. That is scheduled to begin in July, Cunningham said.

Twitter: @TMTFaith

 

Average Daily Traffic Counts For U.S. Highway 69

Tyler – 31,000

Bullard – 16,000

Jacksonville – 14,000

Rusk – 9,000

Alto – 6,500

Wells – 6,000

Lufkin – 11,000

*Information courtesy of TxDOT. Based on 2015 numbers.