2022 VOTER GUIDE
Denton County’s population is approaching 1 million and it is one of the fastest growing counties in the country.
ACCOMMODATING GROWTH
“WE WANT TO BUILD A ROAD THAT FITS INTO THE COMMUNITY AS BEST AS POSSIBLE AND DOES MORE THAN JUST CONVEY TRAFFIC IT ALSO SHOULD DO SOMETHING TO HELP THE ENVIRONMENT.” JOHN POLSTER, DENTON COUNTY TRANSPORTATION CONSULTANT
Dallas County Tarrant County
Collin County Denton County
3,869,605
4M 3.5M
3,196,603
3M
2,456,914
1M 1.5M 2M 2.5M
in Collin County. TxDOT is working on a potential bypass freeway for US 380, which will arc north of US 380 and south of the Outer Loop, although an exact route is still being determined. TxDOT is scheduled to identify a pre- ferred US 380 bypass alternative and further develop its schematic design by the end of the year. This will be pre- sented at a public hearing in early 2023. The Outer Loop and the US 380 bypass are two projects that will com- plement each other, Webb said. “The Outer Loop is going to be the midpoint between [US] 380 and the county line,” he said. “What we were trying to do—but development has been occurring so rapidly—was put in a grid system for freeways.” To that extent, Collin County com- missioners are in the process of a cor- ridor study examining where to place another north-south freeway east of US 75 that connects to the Outer Loop, which would put it through the Frisco and McKinney border. The goal is to provide some additional regional con- nectivity, Webb said. “Although that area is building out so rapidly, it’s going to be a challenge to nd another corridor to put a freeway,” he said.
between the tollway and Preston Road, Webb said. When it opened this spring, it immediately became congested, Webb said. With that road already at capacity, the county is now working to build an additional lane in each direction for that service road, so it will have two lanes moving in each direction. Con- struction is expected to begin in 2024, but the duration of the construction has not been determined, Webb said. In 2018, Collin County taxpayers approved a $750 million bond issue, with $600 million reserved strictly for the design, planning and construction of a freeway system in the county. That included building the Outer Loop out from the Collin County and Denton County line to US 75, crossing north of Frisco through the cities of Celina, Pros- per, Weston and north McKinney. A major hurdle to cross has been funding the Outer Loop project, which the Collin County bond helped with, Webb said. But major freeway projects like this take time. Between the initial planning phase, environmental clearance processes, right-of-way acquisition, moving utili- ties and constructing the road, freeway projects can take about a decade from start to nish, and that is if things go perfectly, he said. Regional connections Additional major roadways are in the works to help address the growth
2,332,629
500K
2022
0
2045 2040 2050 2035
2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
SOURCE: 2018 STATE DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS COMMUNITY IMPACT
“We need to be sure that, over time, there is another viable, high-capacity corridor that people can travel east- west other than [US] 380,” Neal said. Neal said the region relies on US 380 and FM 455 as primary east-west road- ways, but nding a viable path to build another is di cult due to environmen- tal considerations. Both the Denton County greenbelt and the Lake Ray Roberts dam place limitations on where road building and road improvements can occur, Neal said. “We don’t want to open up any new crossings at the [Denton County] greenbelt in order … to try to make the greenbelt as viable and as healthy, envi- ronmentally, as it can be,” Neal said. Collin County connection In addition to providing a path through Denton County, the Outer Loop will also connect to Collin County, with Collin County’s portion of the Outer Loop extending from the county line to US 75 north of Frisco, then south
to Rockwall County once complete. Collin County’s plan for the freeway is to build it in phases, with the service roads constructed ahead of the main lanes and the center of the roadway reserved for a potential rail corridor. After completing a project earlier this year on a two-lane service road between the Dallas North Tollway and Preston Road in Celina, work is now underway to extend that service road across Prosper, north of Frisco. The two-lane service road will stretch to Custer Road. The project is necessary to support growth in the county, said Duncan Webb, the regional Transportation Council Chair and Collin County Pre- cinct 4 commissioner. Collin County is growing even faster than Denton County, data shows, with a population of about 1.1 million people and projections of growing to between 2.5 million-3.5 million by 2050. This is evident by the demand for the newly constructed service road
For more information, visit communityimpact.com .
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