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Last Major Project of the Year

I-30 South on Saturday

By Charles GrayPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Last major construction project completed on this stretch of I-30.

It has been one hell of a headache for the past 5 years on the stretch of the freeway in Sand Hills. Drivers are pleased to drive on the reconstructed stretch of I-30 for the 4th time after so many failed projects over the years. At one point, this stretch used to be a tunnel until the end of last month when RDOT got the approval to tear down two houses and a police station long South Lake St, which is now South Lake Pkwy to make way for the I-30 & South Lake expansion project.

The project also includes a new entry ramp to I-30 south, to give motorists enough time to merge onto the freeway unlike the old freeway entrance which caused major accident since the 2015 reconstruction project. In 2017, the James St exit ramp was removed and replaced with the South Lake exit ramp (Which wasn't apart of the 2 week reconstruction project recently).

When the freeway was first built in 2012, it was known as the Arcadia Freeway. The freeway used to start from Arcadia street and end about 3 miles north of the city (due to the size of the map). A month after the freeway was built, the city officials made plans of turning the entire Arcadia St into the Arcadia Freeway (I-30) but was petitioned against and had to be rerouted because of the homes and buildings that were gonna get destroyed, yes, the entire city almost got destroyed because of this freeway, but officials had to go back to the drawing table and compromise a route that would be suitable for motorist.

The city got the approval to curve I-30 around downtown Sand Hills as a bypass route for Arcadia St, which is still here today, and it's the same stretch that has given us headaches. The reason is because the residential neighborhoods were under development at the same time as the development of I-30, which gave officials no choice but to curve the freeway around downtown instead of ending it at Arcadia St.

The very first house that was built has been demolished recently to make way for the I-30 & South Lake expansion. It took nearly 3 years for the approval to be granted as the project was planned out after officials realized that the 2015 reconstruction project wasn't a good fit for this portion of I-30. This portion used to have local lanes that were about a half mile long until the Arcadia bridge exit. The local lanes were removed during the 2015 project to make way for the 6 lane expansion.

Officials have decided to expand South Lake because of the high volumes of traffic from I-30 and Arcadia St. South Lake is now stretched for a mile, and there's plans being made for another expansion project for South Lake, extending it for another mile.

Another proposal was developing a Mile Road System starting with South Lake as 0 Mile Rd and development of the mile road system to be north of the city. This might not be a successful system because of the terrain, which is gonna limit some of the mile roads and may even cause them to be a dead end in the middle of no where...

The city plans on developing up to 10 Mile Road. Other main roads will also be a mile apart from each other, so it's much of an easier pattern for the road system. The same thing is expected to happen south of the city, but the roads won't be mile roads. It's gonna follow the same pattern.

Downtown Sand Hills Feb 10, 2018

I-30 2 months after completion December 2012

Downtown Sand Hills August 2016 1 year after the 2015 project

adventure games
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