Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

I think today's topic will resonate with just about everyone who relies on State Highway six or Earl Rudder Freeway to get where they need to go.

An 11 mile stretch of the highway from highway 21 to the north all the way to William D Fitch or Highway 40 to the south, is about to undergo a massive amount of changes designed to increase capacity while improving traffic flow and safety.

The highway, the exits, the bridges, the cross it, everything and it all begins in the fall and could last up to five years.

I'm going to be so old in five years.

The Texas Department of Transportation is here to help us understand the what, the how with the why of this project.

So joining me today is my co-host, campus student content contributor Avery Foster, and our TXDOT guests, Bryan district public engagement specialist Sydney Fox and transportation engineer Blake Knox.

Thank you guys for being here.

Thanks for having us.

All right, Avery, take it away.

Blake.

Sydney, thank you so much for joining us.

So before we start the conversation, could you just give us some insi Yeah.

Go first for me.

Yeah, I got it.

So, like, Jay said, I'm a public engagement specialist.

I work in our planning section.

So my focus is on projects that are five, ten, 15 years in the future and the conversations and the communication that need to happen with property owners, elected officials, stakeholders, really anyone potentially impacted prior to the start of construction.

So I do a lot of planning for public meetings that we have, meeting with property owners, just being a hub of information for them.

And kind of trying to convey the complex technical information in a way that's understandable to the general public.

And I am Blake Knox, and I take the complex information to make it extra confusing for the general public.

I'm a transportation engineer, and I'm here because I'm the project manager for the State Highway six project.

From Texas perspective.

TXDOT's Okay, probably from an engineering standpoint, Blake, why does anything need to be done out on highway six?

Have you driven on it around 5:00?

I try not to, because I'm tucked away safely in a Bryan neighborhood, but.

But explain why there is a need for a project of this scope for highway six.

There's not just one need, for a project of this scope for highway six.

And that's part of the reason why it's as massive as it is.

Congestion is a major one.

And proving safety is at the forefront of everything that TXDOT does.

And so improving the intersections and between all the stops that you just mentioned is, a high priority and increasing the capacity in 4 to 5 years sounds like an impossibly long time.

But why is there much time needed for something like this?

Well, when you look at everything that we're doing in that project, it, it makes more sense why it takes so long.

Because it's we sometimes call it a widening project.

We are widening it.

We're adding an extra main lane in each direction.

So we'll go from 2 to 3 lanes in each direction.

But like we meant yet, like you mentioned, we're also improving almost every single intersection.

We're replacing bridges, we're adding turnaround lanes.

At lots of intersections.

We're improving the frontage roads.

Lots of locations.

We're adding additional turn lanes, at the frontage roads, at those intersections, we are building what's called a collector distributor lane, which we can maybe get into that.

Yeah.

A little bit, but essentially we have the main lanes and we have the frontage roads.

And then in between the two we're going to construct something called a collector distributor lane.

And the idea for those is to support local traffic.

So a couple years ago, whenever we had the public meetings, we kind of presented some data that around 53% of all traffic that travels on highway six is traveling less than two miles.

So a lot of folks are just trying to get from one place to the other.

And that leads to a lot of hopping on, just a hop off in some of the areas at 5 p.m.

where we see so much congestion is because people have entered the highway just to get off an exit or two later.

And so these collector distributor lanes that we're building in the middle, are to serve that traffic.

So instead of going from the frontage road, merging onto the highway and then exiting, you just merge onto this, collector distributor lane to take you from point A to point B. And it just reduces some of the congestion in the conflict of everyone hopping on and off the main lanes.

And so there's a couple locations that we're building.

Those are, one of those is going to be kind of in the Rock Prairie Harvey Mitchell Texas Avenue area.

That's a hotspot if you drive home, 5 p.m., every day.

And, so that's a big thing.

Like I said, all the bridges, there's there's just a lot going on, which maybe Blake can expand more on on the construction and stuff, but it's more than just a widening.

Yeah, yeah, we talk about the the number of years.

When I hear that, I think, wow, that's really fast for the scale that we're trying to do this because it's I mean, it's really more like 15 TXDOT projects in that time period.

And, it's a lot crammed into one section.

It's the most it's the biggest project that Bryan District has ever let.

Really.

Yes.

I'm eager for us to dive into some elements about that.

So back in 2019 and 2021, y'all gathered public feedback.

So were there any standout comments to y'all or any comments that helped create, change or disregard any decisions towards the project?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

A lot of our our projects, we so we're required, for many of our projects to hold public meetings.

It's a requirement through the Nepa Policy Act.

But also it's just such a great way to get, kind of the temperament of the community and make sure that we are serving their needs in their best interest.

And so those two public meetings, one was virtual because it was during Covid.

But they had, I think, over like a thousand people, attend or participate between the two.

And I think an intersection or sorry and exit that is being changed is a direct result of feedback and commentary we've heard.

And that's the southbound Harvey Road exit, kind of near the mall.

So right now, if you look at it, it can be a little challenging.

It's a bit of a sharp, curve sharp exit.

And so we are going to actually move the location of that exit.

It's you you're going to exit onto the frontage road prior to university Drive.

And then you will be taking a frontage road bridge over university to Harvey.

And that just allows us to kind of straighten the exit out a little bit, make it easier for people to maneuver.

But that that's a that was a comment that we heard, several times.

And so that was a direct result of, I guess, changes we're making based based on feedback.

So it's like a flyover, that goes over University Drive.

This doesn't exist at the moment, but it will, and it'll be a long run.

That'll be a long run up to Harvey Road.

Yes.

Wow.

Okay.

It won't fly the whole way.

It comes back to Earth, right?

Right there.

Okay, so on on the subject of exit realignments, it it feels like an I know that I don't have a good grasp of time.

It feels like exits were really not terribly long ago.

But there will be some reworking, of those alignments.

And so I'd like to know more about that and specific examples.

And, and when I think about those, I also think about how, how long is it have you been to make sure that businesses that front those access roads aren't impacted?

You know, that more than, more than a big project like this could affect them?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just it's not going to be super enjoyable at some point.

But, a lot of the public involvement that we did were, was meeting with property owners and businesses.

Prior to, construction starting.

And I think we're going to continue the, now that it's moved into the construction office, they're going to continue meeting with those property owners, making sure that they're informed as soon as possible of anything that may be going on that could impact them.

I'm sure they're going to be communicating about access and, things like that.

Yeah, yeah.

During the process.

Yeah, yeah.

During construction, are there specific things that you're able to do to kind of lessen that impact on them?

Phasing?

Like if you have more than one driveway trying to impact one driveway at a time, things like that.

Yeah, okay.

Makes sense.

So one of the biggest things apart of this project is the expansion of the main lanes.

So you're going from four in total to six.

And before I get into the question, I just want to preface that I am from Houston.

So I know a lot about multi-lane highways and the ability to become so congested and sit in traffic for hours.

So is the, you know, intended outcome of this extra lane to reduce congestion, like you said, and in the future could more potentially be added.

So the third lane is to increase the capacity, reduce the congestion.

That's definitely the intent.

And and the projects that we do, we look 10 to 20 years in the future at the traffic Volume project, projections for the future.

And we incorporate that into our design that way, you know, we don't finish building the road and then already it's it's backed up again.

And so ideally, you know, it'll still be serving as intended, 20 years from now.

And back to the kind of how you mentioned the exit ramps.

We just re I think it was probably about a decade ago that we did those, but, everything we do is to address the current current traffic situation and plan for the future.

And so, yeah, then that those were needed then, now we definitely need to, to widen to three lanes.

In each direction.

But yeah, ideally they're going to keep continue serving as intended in the future.

Okay.

I'm going to reset things a little bit real quickly.

If you just tuned in I'm Jay Socol.

You're listening to Brazos Matters Avery Foster and I are visiting with Sydney Fox, public and engagement specialist at TXDOT And also Blake Knox, a TXDOT transportation engineer, about the massive overhaul to 11 miles of highway six, which will begin in the fall.

Okay, so so we're talking about three lanes on each side.

We're going to be doing some realignment to exits.

We are going to be, either replacing or expanding bridges all along the way.

And, there are shared use parts right on either side of the frontage roads.

Yes.

Would you all talk about that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So a shared use path is essentially a very wide sidewalk.

And they're designed to accommodate, walkers, pedestrians and bicyclists.

At the same time, I think a standard sidewalk is like 3 to 4ft wide, and it's pretty tight if you're trying to pass each other.

And that's to increase pedestrian bicyclist connectivity throughout the town, throughout the corridor.

Like you say, it's 11 miles, in each direction.

So you could probably run the half marathon or marathon on it.

Once we're done.

Yeah.

But yeah, there's already existing pedestrian networks that we're just kind of trying to tie into and just provide another, travel accommodation for, for the community.

Did the cycling community speak out and say this is something they wanted?

I remember these comments.

Yeah.

You were more involved in the public involvement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wasn't there for some of the or the original public meetings, but I in a lot of our projects that have shared use paths, we do typically hear support from the bicycle and pedestrian, community.

It's I mean, they're it allows them to, to get off the roads, you know, there they have a safer, option for travel with the shared use path.

So I think it's appreciated.

Sure.

And like we talked about with most of these, most of the people using highway six or real short trips anyways, I think that you could see bicyclists or pedestrians using it in the same function just to go one exit over where otherwise they would have had to wander through some neighborhood.

Now it's the more direct path.

Yeah, it is pretty much right through the heart of our community.

Can you tell me how these are physically going to be constructed?

Like, would there be some kind of barrier between the vehicle traffic and the shared use path, or how would that actually look?

Most of them are going to be on the edge of edges of the right of way by the driveways and the businesses.

Anyways, separated from the mainline traffic.

Okay, so a physical separation from the side, they'll be on the outside of the frontages.

Okay.

There's sidewalks and pieces like the businesses would put in.

And it's basically just expanding that access and making it continuous for the whole route.

Gotcha.

All right.

So William Joel Bryan Parkway.

So y'all are adding more turn lanes, widening the bridge and adding a turnaround.

So I kind of want to know, are y'all phasing these things in one at a time or are you doing it all together.

And why is all of this useful.

Yeah.

We are phasing everything.

We've pretty detailed, construction, phasing plan for the contractor to follow.

It's also very incentivized for them to, accomplish things as quick as possible.

With William J. Bryan we are actually some of the first work you're going to be seeing done is constructing those turnarounds.

And that's because, that bridge and the Villa Maria bridge are both going to be fully replaced at some point during the project.

So they'll be, completely close.

Not at the same time.

But the turnarounds are to accommodate the closure.

So the traffic, that would traditionally turn on, on the bridge can still, have that, that travel movement, part of the traffic control plan for the 1179.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So whenever the 1129 or Villa Maria bridge is closed, the turnarounds will be in place for them to, to access.

Can you.

And, I think I'm interrupting Avery here, but I am curious.

Can you talk about.

Okay, the construction is expected to start approximately this point.

And here's the kind of phasing that will happen.

Just so we have an idea of what to expect and when construction is expected to start December 1st.

And the first thing that you're going to see is work pretty much on the whole stretch of it.

Setting up for those next phases, getting, walls in place that are going to hold the pavement for the next phase, temporary pavement widening to be able to make, room for traffic shifts.

When we're working on one part of the road and some of the work to driveways and frontage roads along the way, things that we know that we could put in permanently and still work with the rest of the project, or maybe be a part of the traffic control, those are going to be the early things that you see.

You won't see contractors out there.

And then immediately a bridge falls.

I say immediately everything is relative.

And a four year project, right?

It might feel immediate even if it's six months or a year later.

But you're going to see them working most of the stretch of the highway.

So lane closures required during this work.

There's and they're required to keep, during the day hours.

The two lanes that are going through it right now open.

Okay.

So that's why part of that's why part of the reason why the traffic control plan is so extensive, because a lot of the work is about setting up for a place to put those cars while we work on where the the main lanes are right now.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there I think there will be closures possibly at night if you check.

But not during the day.

And I assume the December start is allowing football season to pretty well be done.

And then, then you can impact, fewer traffic, fewer, vehicles coming through.

You say we're not going to host a playoff game.

No, I'm not saying that at all.

I said football season is pretty much done.

Yeah, yeah.

There you go.

Contingency.

Yeah, I think, this is the there's a very active community.

And so I think all of that was taken into consideration, all the events, you know, to just try and put as little burden as possible on the people who live here, the people who travel through here and visit here.

It's a big project.

There's, as we've said, a lot of things happening.

So you're going to feel it.

But ideally we've phase everything and planned everything to feel it as little as possible.

I think we, Blake and I were talking about the the two bridges, the, William J. Bryan and Villa Maria are both supposed to be constructed during the summer.

That's written in the contract that way.

Whenever there's less people here.

Yeah, we can do some of the major work.

So it's less impactful, and it'll still be impactful, but, a little less burdensome.

And when you were talking about Villa Maria, did you mean Briarcrest goes over or.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Briarcrest and and both of those are being expanded.

Yes.

Right.

Okay.

You probably want to talk about another bridge.

Yeah.

So University Drive similar to William J Bryan y'all are adding more turn lanes, widening the bridge.

But there's also something new being added.

It's the diverging diamond.

So why is this needed there?

But not on any other bridge.

Yeah.

So thankfully we do already have a diverging diamond on the other side of university just a couple miles down the road, so hopefully everyone should be, familiar with it.

But that is a major intersection.

If you see traffic there in the evenings, it backs up a lot.

And so we, I guess felt like that was a good opportunity to put something similar.

It's more of an innovative, intersection and something different.

But just the capacity of vehicles that you're able to, cycle through an intersection like that compared to a traditional, like, traffic signal at intersection.

It's just incredibly more impactful and beneficial.

And then also just get a little more technical, like, in a traditional intersection, there's things called conflict points, and that's certain areas where you could be hit and get into a crash at.

Ever do diamond has less conflict points.

So it's also in that sense, safer.

Is there a threshold that you have to exceed to to be a university drive, diverging diamond versus a Bryan Chris Bridge and William J Bryan?

Is there a traffic threshold?

It's about modeling that and seeing what works best.

I'm sure that the wasn't on the design team, but I'm sure that that was stuff that was checked at each one.

It has to do with turning movements and the efficiency of that intersection.

Okay.

So can we talk about the the realignment of the exit if I am coming northbound on highway six and would traditionally exit left to stay, to go to Texas Avenue, not stay on highway six, that's going to be completely redone.

Can you guys talk about that?

Yeah, and that's actually one I should have mentioned earlier.

More public feedback we received on that one was people don't like exiting left onto Texas Avenue.

It's a weird it's a weird movement.

It's not like some of the other exits we have in town.

And so that's that whole intersection is being completely revamped to drive it, right.

When students are moving in.

And, you know, that's their first time and their white knuckle and it looks like they're going to be going college.

And then they see the sign that says university this way.

And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, that's a nightmare.

Yeah, I'm sure I was one of them.

Yeah, I know I was, yeah, I'm from here and I was too.

So, so what are the changes that are going to happen there.

You want to expand.

Oh you guys.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically now you won't be exiting the left, you'll have just a traditional right side exit that you would take to get to Texas Avenue.

You would get onto one of the collector distributor lanes that we talked about a couple minutes ago.

And then from there you would exit and you go under the main lanes of highway six towards Texas Avenue under the existing main lanes.

The proposed main lanes.

Oh, yes.

Tell me more, say more, expand more bridges.

I'm trying to visualize this.

Walk me through.

I would be driving north on highway six.

I'm approaching this area.

And, you've created a new exit opportunity for me on the right.

Yeah, an earlier exit on the right.

I think you get into one of the collector distributor lanes, but I'm going off of memory, too.

Okay?

And I am going under current highway six or over current highway six.

Well, future highway six is going to be elevated.

The main lanes are going to be elevated.

Oh yes.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So you have to use, like, finger puppets to explain things.

Yeah, yeah.

Now I got you.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm not.

I'm not an engineer either.

It takes me.

Blake.

Blake has to tell it to me about five different times.

Five different ways.

This is why you say five years is really too fast.

That's what I'm saying.

Things like this.

Yeah.

Gracious.

Okay.

And then the intricacies of balancing all of that and still keeping our community vibrant, right.

And cars going through an intersection like that is it's tough.

Which relates to my next question.

What do you do to try to control some of the chaos that is created and will sort of be created on every other North-South, roadway, knowing that all of us are going to be looking for time savers and cut through and all that kind of stuff, how do you approach that or is that your problem?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

It was definitely something that was considered and built into the construction phasing plan.

Also, just to make it clear, all of this will not be happening at once, right?

Yeah.

We're not just going to start working on every bridge, every intersection.

At the same time, it's phased efficiently logistically to try and reduce the impact to the community as much as possible.

We are going to do our best to be as communicative as possible with, property owners, just with the traveling public, and just make sure everyone is aware before they leave their house what they may be experiencing that day.

I think that is, going to be a really important thing for us to focus on and, for stakeholders to then share with their networks, with their, their, intimate communities and just make sure everyone knows what they're walking out the door to.

So I think communication is going to play a really big factor in, making sure people don't run into too many conflicts.

While they're out there.

While they're out there.

Communication is key.

So for this being the largest project to ever hit, the Bryan district, and because it has the potential to affect everybody in some form or fashion, how do you, as a public engagement specialist, maybe do even more than you would normally do to to keep all of us posted about what's happening, what's coming?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we, we try our best to be communicative on all of the project.

We do, but this one is intense.

And so ideally we are going to have, well, we do have a web page right now for the project set up.

It mostly has, just kind of detailed information on how the project was developed, what the final product will look like, and records and materials from the public meetings.

We do actually have a video on there, too.

I don't know if y'all gotten the chance to see it, and I watched it a couple of times.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

Me too.

I watched it before I came here.

You know, you just felt myself in the zone.

But that does a really good job of explaining what the community can expect and what the final product may look like.

And so our plan is to keep that website updated with construction related information as it goes.

And then we are just going to send out as many press releases as possible to make sure that they're aware.

Whatever Blake, sends us will then put into words and share it with with the public that.

Yeah.

Not engineering work.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's a big deal.

So what kind of what kind of detour plans?

I mean, can you give any examples of some of the detours that you're helping create to make sure that we're we're moving around town the best way we can during all this?

If there's a specific example or anywhere along that 11 mile stretch.

I don't know how many, and I haven't read the 4000 page, however, page long construction plan.

I don't know how many actual detours there will be.

I think a good example is the Briarcrest 1179 bridge.

Whenever it's closed, the public will then have to use those turnarounds at William J. Bryan, to, to make more of a detour within the the system.

Yeah.

Highway six is going to be functioning the whole time.

Okay.

Yeah.

So we're we shouldn't, any TXDOT detour is on state roadways anyway.

It's not like we would be advertising for vehicles to start cutting through neighborhoods or anything like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

What are some aspects of this project, this massive project that you said, kicks off December 1st?

What are some other things that maybe we need to know?

I think we've covered a lot of it.

I think, those two bridges that we talked about and the fact that they'll be constructed during the summer is a really big, important point.

The fact that will have two main lanes open, it was during the day during construction, I think is a huge, important point to make because I'm sure there's a lot of stress, nervousness in the community about how they're going to get from point A to point B over the next five years, but it's been taken into consideration.

We're going to do our best to make sure it's, as easy and as safe as possible for them to, to get where they're going.

Yeah.

Like I'll jump in the with the collector distributors if they're hard to visualize conceptually, but we're talking about six lanes in those segments where we'll have them.

It'll look like ten spaced out, because you'll have the collector distributors running right next to that six lane highway.

Okay.

So it's going to make a big difference, I think, on how people move around in this community.

Yeah.

And actually, to give an example that we talked about for the collector distributor lanes for people who haven't seen them before, there's a similar concept on I think it's State Highway 288 south of Houston.

And it's kind of in between State Highway six and the Sam Houston Tollway.

So if people want to look that up, there's going to be something kind of similar that that's what you can expect and visualize.

Here Sydney Fox and Blake Knox, really appreciate you guys being here and telling us all about State Highway six and what's to come.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah.

If anyone has questions, give us a call.

Go visit the website.

Give Sydney a call.

Yeah, yeah.

Brazos matters is a production of Aggielands Public Radio 90.9 KAMU-FM.

A member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement, said our show was engineered by Matt Dittman.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Whether you were watching or listening.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

I'm Jay Socol.