Photos and video: construction at Northwest Highway and Lawther. What’s going on?

by John P. Meyer

Anyone who drives regularly along Northwest Highway on the north end of Dallas' White Rock Lake will have noticed by now that something "constructive" is going on. At the very least, they'll have been inconvenienced by the fact that the number of lanes merging westbound onto Loop 12 from northbound Buckner has decreased from three to two.

For several months now there've been backhoes and earthmovers at work near the East Region Headquarters building of Dallas Parks and Recreation (at Goforth and Northwest Hwy.); there are big pipes being laid and little pipes aplenty which appear to be diverting water from the upstream north side of White Rock Creek to the downstream south side.

Since I live within walking distance of the area - and am curious by nature - I thought I'd find out just what the heck was going on.

A call to our friend and neighbor Sara Dement of the Old Lake Highland Neighborhood Association put me on to Timothy Nesbitt and Vincent Lewis, both of whom are employed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TX DOT) and were kind enough to provide details about the scope of the project and its current status.

In a nutshell, the three 77-year-old bridges spanning White Rock Creek and its two relief channels (to the west of the main channel) were found to be situated on alarmingly unstable ground, as determined by subterranean soil borings taken a few years back. The only way to stabilize the roadway, it was determined, was to sink bridge piers down to bedrock. Furthermore, current regulations dictate that newly constructed bridges be brought above the level of the floodplain - which the existing road surface lies within.

So the plan calls for the roadway between Goforth and East Lawther Drive to be raised by several feet, resulting in a continuous raised span across that currently low-lying stretch of road, which has historically been prone to frequent flooding.

The raising of the roadway will result in an added benefit to those who bike, hike and jog, as TX DOT will be constructing a new hike/bike trail parallel to the roadway on the north side of the highway. To access the trail (which will connect up with East Lawther at Goforth and West Lawther on the other end), pedestrians need not cross busy Northwest Highway, as the path will pass under the raised road surfaces.

During construction (scheduled to be completed in 2010, barring delays due to inclement weather and/or flooding), no old-growth trees are to be destroyed, and there will be no encroachment into existing parkland.

So what's actually going on at the site now? According to Vincent Lewis, all current activity is in support of the replacement of an aging buried waste water line. The new line will be constructed of 60" pipe as opposed to the existing 48" pipe, in order to handle future increased usage.

Work on the bridges is scheduled to begin this fall, at which point traffic will be limited to two lanes in both directions during weekdays (it's already down to two lanes going westbound); on weekends it may go down to one lane in each direction.

The short video tour begins at the Goforth Park and Rec Headquarters building, progresses across the westbound lanes to the center median and finishes up down by West Lawther, panning back toward the east.

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