SMITH COUNTY — Complaining about the traffic on Broadway Avenue has become somewhat of a sport these days as a growing city population puts pressure on the already congested thoroughfare.
Now local drivers can stop grumbling at stoplights and air their concerns with local and state officials who are seeking public input on changes to be made to a high-traffic area of South Broadway Avenue. Those changes could include widening the road or putting in overpasses.
The Texas Department of Transportation will hold an open house from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday at First Christian Church at 4202 South Broadway Avenue.The meeting will be structured as an open house where community members can show up at the best time for them and have one-on-one discussions with TxDOT team members
TxDOT has been working on a multi-year feasibility to plan revamp a roughly five-mile portion of South Broadway Avenue that begins north of the intersection with Loop 323 and ends just south of Toll 49.
In 2017 TxDOT ranked five-mile strip No. 67 among all congested roadways in the state of Texas. That number is up from No. 105 in 2016; No. 150 in 2015; and No. 179 in 2014. And TxDOT predicts traffic will almost double in the next 25 years.
9, 2018. (Chelsea Purgahn/Tyler Morning Telegraph)
Shane Cunningham, the project manager for TxDOT on the feasibility study, said the department is looking at whether to widen the road to eight lanes or install intersections that have ramps and overpasses.
Cunningham said a working group has been meeting since November to discuss options for the road, but gathering input from the public is the first step of moving the project forward. He said it could be another eight years before construction starts.
Representatives from the city of Tyler and the Tyler Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which does transportation planning for most parts of Smith County, are working with TxDOT on the project.
Voters of Tyler on April 16, 2018 at the Tyler Public Library. (Erin Mansfield/Tyler Morning Telegraph)
“I approached TxDOT because I firmly believe that this is a very important long-term project for this community,” Mayor Martin Heines said of how the project started.
“It has always been a very difficult project to talk about because there is so much commerce that takes place on Broadway, and you don’t want to disrupt business and how not only the businesses interact but how the customer interacts,” Heines said.
“However, long term, as we continue to grow, if we are not focusing on how we can enhance the traffic flow, then the commerce in the areas that have just two lanes on Broadway will begin to increase over the next 20 to 30 years,” he said.
“We need to all work together including TxDOT and the city and the MPO and determine some good paths forward,” he said. “And we don’t need to wait another 50 years to talk about this. This is a topic that we need to discuss to see if there is a way forward.”
Vehicles travel more than 170,000 miles per day on that stretch of Broadway, according to TxDOT. Drivers experience more than 275,000 hours of delay per year during peak hours and more than 425,000 hours of delay during non-peak hours.
The traffic adds up to $18.6 million in congestion costs, 420,000 gallons of excess fuel being used, and 8.4 million pounds of excess carbon dioxide being released into the environment through emissions, according to TxDOT.The traffic levels peak between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. according to data from TxDOT. The congestion is worse going northbound during that time period, and traffic usually travels at 27 miles per hour during that time period.
2018. (Chelsea Purgahn/Tyler Morning Telegraph)
In the southern part of the city, commercial development has increased in the past three years, and Old Jacksonville Highway and Paluxy Drive have become popular alternative travel routes to South Broadway.
TxDOT and the Tyler Area Metropolitan Planning Organization also have plans to widen Old Jacksonville Highway in Flint starting in 2021 and to widen Paluxy from Jeff Davis Drive down to Bullard starting in 2022.
“The challenges with Broadway is just that it’s very congested right now, and trying to find the solution of what would try to improve the situation out there is not an easy answer,” said Michael Howell, the manager for the Tyler Area Metropolitan Planning Organization.
“As with any transportation project, anything that’s done is going to impact somebody along that corridor,” Howell said. He said the feasibility study is a chance for the public to tell leaders what they want from the road before major changes begin.
Cunningham said there would be an additional open house after Tuesday to gather public input. He said the feasibility study would be done in about a year, at which point the details of the project will become more clear.
Environmental study and engineering design will take one to three years, and it will take another two to four years to complete the design and obtain right-of-way access from property owners along the property, Cunningham said. From there, construction would start when funding is available.
“It’s very possible that it could take another eight years before we actually see construction start,” Cunningham said. “I’d like to see it start sooner.”
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