State digs in on Hwy 114 for long-term road construction

A collection of heavy road construction equipment and big piles of road material that sprang up recently beside State Highway 114 a few miles west of Olney will probably be there for several years as the state moves forward on its long-range transportation program, Precinct 3 Commissioner Stacey Rogers said.

The contractor settled on that spot to store road materials because “they thought that was a central location,” Mr. Rogers said. The state’s Connecting Texas 2050 plan has a number of road construction projects in store for Young County for the coming 10-plus years, according to the Texas Department of Transportation’s Project Tracker website.

Construction is underway or begins soon on State Highways 114 East, 210 West, and 79 West, the Tx-DOT map shows. The Zach Burkett Co. is now adding lanes to Highway 114 East from State Highway 79 and Main Street to 0.8 miles west of Farm-to-Market Road 1769 at a cost of $10 million, the website showed.

On Farm-to-Market Road 1769 and 3329, and State Highway 251 south of Olney, resurfacing and resealing projects begin within four years, the Project Tracker showed. The highway department also plans to resurface State Highway 114 west of Olney, and Texas Loop 132 between Main Street and State Highway 79 South, starting in 5 to 10 years, the website showed.

TxDOT will resurface State Highway 114 between Avenue C and FM 2178 North at an estimated cost of $2 million, the website showed.

The state of Texas is looking to spend more than $207 million on road construction in the coming 10plus years, and will update its plan every four years, Tx-Dot said.