San Antonio Area Freeway System
US 281 North Tollway Project
This page last updated
May 03, 2010
This
project is currently undergoing a new environmental review and study.
The proposed
configuration discussed and shown below was from the previous proposal
and may or may not be recommended at the completion of the current
study. Therefore, the proposal below should only be considered a
possible scenario of how US 281 could be upgraded. This page will
be updated soon to discuss the options currently being studied.
See the "Project status" section at the bottom for additional
information.
Since 2000, TxDOT has had
plans to upgrade US 281 north of Loop 1604 to an expressway. In 2004,
the state updated their plans to include tolling of the new expressway
lanes. Below is complete information about the previously proposed project, including
its tumultuous history, proposed design and renderings, and the latest
status.
SUPER-STREET
Just looking for more information on the plans for the US 281
"super-street"?
See the US 281 "super-street" page.
Project history
Prior to 1987, US 281 north
of Bitters existed as a four-lane surface divided highway with traffic
signals at major intersections. In 1990, TxDOT completed
work to upgrade 281 to a six-lane expressway from
Bitters to Loop 1604. North of 1604, the road remained as a
four-lane surface divided highway with signals at
Encino Rio. Since that time, tremendous
development has taken place along the 281 corridor north of Loop 1604 to
the SH 46 area north of Bulverde. Meanwhile, US 281 in that area
has remained a four- and six-lane surface divided highway with
several more signals added at major intersections over the years due to safety and traffic demands.
In 2000 and 2001, TxDOT
announced plans to upgrade 281 to a six- and eight-lane expressway from Loop 1604 to Stone Oak
Parkway and to build a standalone overpass at 281 and Borgfeld, with eventual
plans to upgrade 281 to a full expressway in phases all the way to FM 306 at the
Comal/Blanco County line. At that time, the section from 1604 to
Stone Oak was projected to be funded and to start construction in 2003.
However, due to a sudden rampant increase in construction costs that
began that year, the
lowest bid for the project came in significantly higher than the amount allocated
to fund it.
With construction costs spiraling upward nationally, the price tag for the for the project continued to increase dramatically and the
ability to fund the project with existing tax funds at the time became
severely eroded.
In December 2003, while TxDOT
was regrouping to find additional funding for the project,
the Texas Transportation Commission, at the urging of the governor and
using tools previously granted by the Legislature and voters, ordered
that "controlled-access mobility projects in any phase of development
or construction must be evaluated for tolling. This includes new
location facilities and increased capacity projects such as adding
additional main lanes or constructing new main lanes." The 281 project
obviously fit that description and TxDOT, therefore, was compelled to evaluate
it for possible tolling.
The evaluation showed that it met the requirements for tolling, so per the Transportation Commission's
order, the project was reclassified as a toll facility and the funding
that had been budgeted for it was reallocated to other highway projects
in the area.
Shortly thereafter, a
consortium consisting of local construction giant Zachary and the
Spanish infrastructure company Cintra, who were working together on a
bid to build and operate one of the Trans Texas Corridor projects, submitted an
unsolicited bid to TxDOT to build the 281 tollway project, as well as
the Loop 1604 project, in
return for a 50-year lease to operate the tollways. Because the
bid had merit, TxDOT was required under state law to fully evaluate the
Cintra-Zachary bid and accept any other bids for the projects. The
Cintra-Zachary bid not only paid for construction and subsequent
maintenance and operation of both roadways
(which freed state funding for other projects), it also paid a large
concession fee to the state that could also be used to fund other
projects. Based on those merits, the Cintra-Zachary bid was accepted
in early 2005.
Consequently, construction
began on the Sonterra to Stone Oak section in December 2005.
Shortly thereafter, workers clearing land for the project accidentally
broke a sewer line at Evans and 281 and the project was suspended in January, 2006, when
environmentalists and toll opponents filed a lawsuit challenging the
project, arguing that it required a full (and costly) environmental
impact statement (EIS), instead of the numerous environmental assessments (EA) that had
been performed up to that time. Federal law only requires an EIS to be performed
if an EA finds significant impacts, which the EAs for 281 did not.
However, TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA), who
were both named in the suit, jointly agreed in January 2006 to suspend work on
the 281 tollway project as well as the planned 281/Borgfeld overpass so
that a comprehensive and definitive EA for the
entire corridor could be
done and a subsequent determination made of whether a full impact statement would need to
be performed. Consequently, the contract with Cintra-Zachary was cancelled. In early 2007, TxDOT
released the new assessment, which showed no significant impacts.
The FHWA approved the new assessment on August 14th, 2007, which authorized TxDOT
to
build the entire 281 tollway in Bexar County from 1604 to Borgfeld
without the need for an EIS.
In the meantime, the
Legislature had passed a moratorium on nearly all new privately built
and/or operated toll roads and passed legislation requiring that local
Regional Mobility Authorities be given the right of first refusal on
toll projects in their jurisdiction. The Alamo Regional Mobility
Authority (ARMA), which was established by Bexar County in 2003, subsequently opted to take control of both the 281 and 1604
toll projects and began planning to build the 281 tollway from 1604 to Borgfeld as
a two-phased project starting in 2008. The Metropolitan Planning
Organization approved toll rates for the
project in December 2007.
In February 2008, toll
opponents and environmentalists once again filed a lawsuit challenging the
latest 281 environmental assessment. After initial arguments, the judge ruled that the
plaintiffs' case had sufficient standing to move forward
with discovery. During the discovery process, TxDOT announced that
they found a document that was omitted from the administrative record for the
federal environmental approval and asked for a 60 day stay to allow time
to submit the document to the FHWA for review to determine if it could
change the overall findings of the study. In early October 2008,
TxDOT then reported that they had uncovered a conflict of interest with
the contractor who performed the endangered species study.
Specifically, it was discovered that a staff biologist with TxDOT was married
to an employee of the company the state had hired to do the a portion of
the study, that the TxDOT employee's supervisor was aware of the
situation and allowed it but that controls put in place to mitigate the
conflict were not enforced. As a result, TxDOT asked the FHWA to
revoke their environmental approval for the project. In November 2008, all
parties involved (TxDOT, ARMA, and the FHWA) agreed to do a more
comprehensive environmental impact statement (EIS) for the corridor and
the lawsuit was dismissed as moot. In April 2009, ARMA hired the consultant to
develop the new EIS and it is expected to be completed by 2012.
Meanwhile, in May 2008, ARMA had selected Cibolo Creek Infrastructure
Joint Venture to design and build the 281 project. The consortium
was
headed by Fluor Enterprises of Irving, Texas, and Balfour Beatty
Infrastructure Inc. of Atlanta, and included several San Antonio
subcontractors. (Contrary to public perception, the consortium
included no foreign companies.) Design work was 30% completed when it was stopped
due to the aforementioned litigation and subsequent decision to do a full EIS. ARMA had planned to start
construction in late 2008 or early 2009 on the first segment, from Loop
1604 to Marshall Rd., with estimated completion in late 2010.
However, those plan have been scrapped and a new project will be
recommended as part of the
environmental impact statement process.
While the EIS work is completed, ARMA and TxDOT proposed several
short-term fixes that do not require environmental clearance.
These improvements predominately consisted of additional turning lanes
and auxiliary lanes. Then in February 2009, a new proposal was made public that would upgrade
281 to a "super-street" from Encino Rio to Marshall. Under the
plan, the intersections of Encino Rio, Evans, Stone Oak, and Marshall
would be redesigned to eliminate straight-through and left-turn
movements on those intersecting roadways. Instead, traffic would
turn right and then use a downstream turnaround on 281 to either turn
back the other way on 281 or get back to the intersecting road and then
turn right to continue through on it. While the plan does add
additional signals and forces some drivers to travel out of
their way, the plan would reduce overall congestion in the area because
it would reduce signal cycles from five or six phases to just two, thus
allowing additional green time for 281 traffic. This proposal is
considered a short-term "band-aid" until the environmental studies for a
more significant upgrade of 281 are complete. For more information
on the super-street proposal, click here.
Also in February 2009, Congress approved a national economic
"stimulus" plan that would pour additional federal money into road
construction projects. The Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO)
approved allocating San Antonio's share of transportation stimulus
funding to be used as matching funds to leverage state funding for the first
half of a 281/1604 interchange. This project would build all four
of the ramps connecting to 281 south of 1604, i.e. northbound 281 to
both directions of 1604, and both directions of 1604 to southbound 281.
The use of the federal funds will allow the ramps to be toll-free.
It was determined that ramps connecting to 281 north of 1604 could not
be built until lingering issues stemming from the lawsuits and
associated environmental studies for 281 north of 1604 are resolved.
The Texas Transportation Commission (TTC) approved the funding request
on March 5th, 2009, and construction is expected to begin in late 2010.
For more information on the 281/1604 interchange, click here.
Long-range plans are still on
the books to upgrade US 281 to a full freeway all the way to FM 306 at
the Comal/Blanco County line, possibly also as a tollway depending on
the future funding and political climate. The first phase of that
eventual plan would upgrade 281 from a two-lane road to a four-lane
divided highway from the Guadalupe River to FM 306, although no
funding or timeline has been identified for that project as of yet.
(Sidebar: A common public misconception is that simply synchronizing
the signals in the corridor would resolve or at least ease congestion.
However, due to traffic patterns and volumes in that area,
synchronization is not the panacea that many people believe it to
be. A future article on this site or my blog will explain why.)
Proposed design
This
project is currently undergoing a new environmental review and study.
The proposed
configuration discussed and shown below was from the previous proposal
and may or may not be recommended at the completion of the current
study. Therefore, the proposal below should only be considered a
possible scenario of how US 281 could be upgraded. This page will
be updated soon to discuss the options currently being studied.
See the "Project status" section at the bottom for additional
information.
The new tollway will look and
function just like a regular toll-free expressway. In other words,
the current expressway inside 1604, consisting of
mainlanes with overpasses, access roads on each side, and
entrance and exit ramps, will be extended northward. There
will be no toll booths and, other than a few overhead
gantries for reading electronic toll tags, will have no other special features that will differentiate it
from any other expressway.
How the toll lanes will be
added To build the new tolled lanes, the two existing
surface-level, signalized roadways will
be shifted outward where they will function as toll-free access roads for the
tolled expressway lanes that will then be built down the middle. Additionally,
several improvements will be made to the new toll-free lanes including an
average of one additional lane in each direction throughout the project,
turnarounds and additional turning lanes at intersections, and a
toll-free overpass at Redland Rd. Including the tolled lanes, the
project will provide an average of three times the number of lanes as there are
today.
It is
important to note that the design of this project is virtually identical
to the previously proposed toll-free project. The only difference now is that
drivers who opt to use the new expressway lanes will pay a toll.
Animated graphic
showing how toll lanes could be added to the existing US 281.
The Alamo Regional Mobility
Authority has a computer simulation on their site
hereshowing how the toll lanes will be added.
Simulation and still shots of proposed improvements
This
project is currently undergoing a new environmental review and study.
The proposed
configuration shown below was from the previous proposal and may or may
not be recommended at the completion of the current study.
Therefore, the proposal below should only be considered a possible
scenario of how US 281 could be upgraded. This page will be
updated soon to discuss the options currently being studied. See
the "Project status" section at the bottom for additional information.
Below is
computer simulation of the planned upgrade to US 281 from Loop 1604 to Borgfeld
showing the proposed configuration of the project. All animations
are courtesy of TxDOT.
Obviously, these are proposed designs are almost certainly subject to
change.
Below that you
will find a link to a page with annotated still shots from the
simulation of key intersections showing the location of the tolled and
non-tolled lanes and other important features.
At present, the project is on hold pending a new full environmental
impact statement (EIS). It is expected that the EIS will not be
completed and approved until 2012 at the earliest. It is an important footnote that
until the EIS is completed and approved, no major improvements, tolled or not,
can be made to the 281 corridor. This is because the
settlements to the lawsuits filed by toll opponents voided all previous
environmental clearances for the corridor.
NOTICE
The information provided on this website is provided on an "as-is" basis without
warranties of any kind either express or implied. The author and his agents
make no warranties or representations of any kind concerning any information
contained in this website. This website is provided only as general
information. The author expressly disclaims all liability with respect to
actions taken or not taken based upon the information contained herein or with
respect to any errors or omissions in such information. All opinions expressed
are strictly those of the author. This site is not affiliated in any way with
any official agency.
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