The North Texas Tollway Authority board is going to review how it oversees project designs after a design flaw in several Chisholm Trail Parkway bridges was revealed this week.
Our partners at The Dallas Morning News first reported the problem.
The main lanes of Tarrant and Johnson counties' first toll road opened up in May. In the months since, NTTA has regularly opened new connections and ramps as the parkway takes shape.
"Drivers have seen some ramp openings along Interstate 20 in the past couple of weeks and then some elevated areas along I-30, Forest Park area, etc., have come online, so we are making great headway," said NTTA spokesman Michael Rey.
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But one noticeable spot where work continues is over University Drive, and that is partly due to a design flaw in the steel I-beams that make up the bridges.
"And it was discovered that they weren't up to the job, so they had to be modified and had to have braces welded to them," Rey said. "And that's a very time consuming process. That's where the true problem comes in."
Another problem is that it costs about $900,000 to fix the flaw. But NTTA expects to get that money back. The NTTA board, in a meeting on Thursday, made it clear it doesn't want this kind of design flaw to happen again.
"We've heard loud and clear from our board. They've charged us to get involved in the process and to make sure these things are discovered early before they become problems," Rey said.
One of the areas in question is the eastbound connector ramps to Interstate 30. Several of those bridges and ramps are now fixed, completd and open to drivers. It might have opened up sooner though, if not for the flaw.
"We re-sequenced the scheduling of the project to account for it, so clearly it would have gone forth in a different manner if that hadn't happened," Rey said.
NTTA expects to be done by the end of October.
