Texas Department of Transportation Says It Could Cost $100 Million to Fix Interstate 345
For months, the Texas Department of Transportation has said it will cost $100 million to repair Interstate 345, the 1.7-mile slab of elevated highway linking Central Expressway with Interstates 30 and 45. That figure appears in story after story after story about the decaying stretch of interstate, which Patrick “Car-Free” Kennedy has been trying to tear down since long before it became the subject of much hand-wringing and think-piecing.
But according to figures TxDOT officials presented last week to the agency’s governing body, the five-member Texas Transportation Commission, that $100-million figure could double once TxDOT is done with its study of 41-year-old overpass. Add up all the could-bes and might-needs down the road, everything from construction costs to potential change orders to “indirect costs,” and the I-345 repairs could cost as much as $242 million.
Michelle Raglon, a spokesperson for TxDOT, says that $242-million figure is just a “plan for the worst-case scenario” after a study’s completed.
Article Credit
“Texas Department of Transportation Says It Could Cost $100 Million to Fix Interstate 345 … Or, Maybe, $242 Million.”
By Robert Wilonsky
Transportation Blog. The Dallas Morning News, 3 July 2014. Web. 09 July 2014.