Colleyville is getting financial help to maintain State Highway 26/Colleyville Boulevard traffic signals for the next five years.
The Regional Transportation Council approved up to $150,000 for the city to maintain 10 traffic signals on the road.
Colleyville officials worked with the Texas Department of Transportation to convert the corridor from the state highway system to municipal operation.
“As part of this conversion, the city of Colleyville has requested funding to maintain 10 traffic signals within the city along this corridor,” a report from the North Central Texas Council of Governments said.
The Regional Transportation Council, a 45-member independent policy group of the council of governments, approved the measure at its July 10 meeting.
Christie J. Gotti, senior program manager for transportation funding at the council of governments, said Colleyville agreed in 2016 to take over the traffic signal maintenance as part of a deal with TxDOT, Tarrant County, Colleyville and the council of governments following cost overruns on Highway 26 reconstruction.
“Turning over segments of mostly farm to market (roads) and urbanized state highways is not unusual and is done so that local entities can develop a given corridor to their preferences,” TxDOT spokesperson Val Lopez said.
The maintenance funds will total about $30,000 a year, or $3,000 per traffic signal. The intent of the funding is to ensure Colleyville has the staffing to manage and maintain the traffic signals in-house, officials said.
State Highway 26 in Colleyville recently was reconstructed from John McCain Road to Brown Trail into a six-lane roadway with a raised curb median.
The project, launched in 2016 and completed in 2019, included new drainage system improvements, more than 4 miles of 8-foot-wide sidewalks, eight signalized intersections and a bridge over Little Bear Creek. The project had substantial financial overruns, officials said.
Colleyville motorists think improvements can still be made at some of the State Highway 26 intersections.
“Sure wish the light at Brown Trail and 26 had a flashing left turn signal to turn onto Brown Trail,” Adam Owens wrote in a July 25 Facebook post. “I spend a quarter of my life just sitting at that intersection waiting for a green light when there’s no traffic coming.”
Roxanna Berg Edwards posted on Facebook that improvements are also needed at other Highway 26 intersections. Motorists, she said, “come flying down from Center Park in front of Sonic” near the Centerpark Drive intersection at SH 26.
“They need better signage showing the far right lane is only turning,” she wrote. “They run up on it then shoot to the left. Have seen so many near accidents.”
Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
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