Help may be on the way for people stuck waiting in long lines to get a driver’s license.
The Texas Department of Public Safety broke ground Thursday on a 25,000-square-foot “mega center” in Fort Worth.
It’s the first new driver’s license office in Tarrant County since 1978. Another is being built in Garland.
"I would like them to speed it up,” said one woman who waited more than an hour at the DPS office in Hurst.
The new buildings will include state-of-the-art technology designed to speed up the process.
"It's much more like getting an airplane ticket at DFW (Airport),” said developer Jerry Reed. “You come in, you punch in your name, you swipe your old driver's license, and the in-and-out time is designed to be much less than it's previously been."
The new goal is to serve people in less than 30 minutes.
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"That would be very handy,” said Daven Croskey, who had to get a Texas license after moving from Oklahoma. “It would have saved me an hour and a half of my life."
In addition to the two new centers in North Texas, two others will be built in the Houston area, one in Austin and one in San Antonio.
The “mega centers” will not replace existing driver’s license offices, which will remain open.
The Fort Worth center is expected to open in January.
