Will 121 Be Among Most Congested in America?

Survey predicts highway will be "choked with holiday shoppers."

The nation's largest traffic reporting service ranks state Highway 121 in Collin County ninth on its list of the Top 10 worst holiday traffic tie-ups.

According to Metro Networks' list, the highway "will be choked with holiday shoppers heading to Stonebriar Centre." The list was compiled by a team of experts in New York.

"It's a great problem to have, frankly, with the tough economic times," said Maher Maso, Frisco mayor. "We know Stonebriar mall and that whole area with over 5 million square feet of retail is going to be really busy."

Maso said he suspects the survey didn't take recent improvements to state Highway 121 into account.

"The main lanes of 121 have opened," he said. "We have an operations center; we can make changes remotely to traffic signal timing."

UPS driver Ryan DeSimone said he agreed traffic moves much more smoothly.

"Honestly, I think it's gotten a lot better since they've opened up the tollway over here, but the service roads are still pretty bad," he said.

Frisco recently added extra turn lanes leading off the toll road to keep traffic moving and plans to place traffic pylons in the perimeter road surrounding Stonebriar to keep cars moving in the right direction.

"We don't expect any delays," Maso said. "We don't expect any congestion."

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