Texas Tollway Expansion – Minimizing Disruption for Commuters

The North Tarrant Express in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is one of Texas’s busiest tollways, carrying over 150,000 vehicles daily. Expanding it meant months — if not years — of potential traffic chaos. The challenge was to add new managed lanes without crippling rush-hour flow.

The project team adopted a design-build approach, allowing construction to start while final design phases were still being completed. Precast pavement panels, manufactured offsite, enabled overnight lane replacement, with sections installed in as little as six hours. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) provided real-time traffic updates, guiding drivers to alternate routes and minimizing bottlenecks.

The paving mix used high-reflectivity aggregates to improve nighttime visibility while lowering urban heat island effects. Crews also recycled over 1 million tons of old asphalt and concrete into the new base layers, saving both landfill space and material costs.

Despite the scale, the project stayed on budget and reduced projected construction time by 25%. Today, the tollway moves traffic more efficiently, cutting average commuter travel times by up to 15 minutes each way.