Should Highway 6 be widened to 3 Lanes each way within B-CS?

I have lived here my whole life and have seen traffic get worse on Highway 6. And so I was wondering when if ever will they add an extra lane to each side on the freeway.

What do y'all think?

nah its fine

Yes and it should of been done already, since TxDot had 10 years to get it done, same story with Hwy 190 (Centex Expy) in Killeen-Harker Heights.


[This message has been edited by TheDro (edited 11/18/2006 4:18p).]

Yes I hate how two slow betty's will be driving in both lanes seeing who can go the slowest.

Probably- according to TxDOT, that section of hwy is already at capacity. Might as well start now- but we all know that they'll wait another 10 years after it's too late and just horrible traffic.

waste of money to expand that road in B/CS.

If they do widen it they will wait until the situation gets just like Hwy 6 South and we start having fatality after fatailty. You know that TxDot has more important projects like the over pass at Nantucket. They had to handle the horrible horrible traffic at that subdivision entrance where people waited forever to enter and exit. It was far more important to deal with the traffic problems at Nantucket than to worry about little 'ol Rock Prairie Road and the Barron Road over pass, especially when nobody uses those roads. Not!

[This message has been edited by mostlysunny (edited 11/18/2006 5:03p).]

We'll eventually need it, but we don't have enough deaths on it yet, according to Tx DOT criteria.

I am confused on why they felt they needed a over pass at Nantucket. Are the residents that precious they couldn't drive 1/4 mile down to the race track overpass to get on the highway.

Me too, coyote.

And we don't need to widen 6.

My guess is that someone SPECIAL lives in Nantucket. Don't know who that may be but there has to be some reason like that because we know for sure the traffic count didn't warrant it.

what's the old expression? Follow the money

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as an aside, is highway 6 thru BCS considered a hurricane evacuation route? or does that designation end on Hwy 6 near Hempstead/Navasota?

Like politics, you need to call the Bryan District TxDOT office and make your complaint. Many complaints will stir up some action, but also, alot of improvements are usually determined by Traffic Counts. I have not been back to BCS in a while to see how bad the traffic is. Last time i was there, there was not much to fuss about, that is coming from a Houstonian though

I sure wish i was able to perform the planning (NEPA) work on this and other Bryan District projects. Sure would be great to work and live in BCS again.

As I understand it, the Nantucket area was given an overpass because there are too few roads that allow traffic to run in/out of the area or parallel with the highway. This is a key factor in TxDOT’s evaluation.

This was explained to me during a discussion with a CS transportation planner as to why Nantucket got the overpass before Barron (which, presumably, has much more traffic).


[This message has been edited by ooshwa (edited 11/20/2006 8:15a).]

BCS, imho, has seen the increase in traffic on 6 because of the construction on Texas Avenue.

Widening Wellborn wouldn't hurt, either.

Wellborn is going to be widened to six lanes from 2818 to Hwy 40. I believe construction will begin sometime next year.

widen it 6 lanes (each way) and we'll have plenty of capacity for years to come.

The probably put an overpass at nantucket because the growth in that area will make it a major road later on.

I say.. YES! No one here knows how to move over or use the on/off ramps correctly. PLus, with all the lights on 2818 more people use Hwy 6 for their commute.





Home of the Free.. Because of the Brave..

I'd like to see it widened as well.

Visit: http://www.handgunforum.net/

Would it be possible to re-direct the railroad out of town?
It would make widening Wellborn a lot easier.

jamesf - That may be the reason but it doesn't make sense. Why build an overpass for future traffic when you have an area (like Rock Prairie and Barron Road)that needs an overpass now. Rock Prairie backs up horribly and has for several years. The traffic at the intersection of Rock Prairie and Hwy 6 causes a back up not only onto Hwy 6 but back through the Longmire intersection. Just can't help but believe that someone with pull lives in or owns property in Nantucket.

jamesf - i don't think it has as much to do with growth as it does road layout. areas north of nantucket will have a much denser population growth

mostlysunny - i doubt its someone's "pull" in the subdivision. most residents actually spoke out against the overpass, not wanting to invite additional traffic... they like the removed/isolated feel

http://www.dot.state.tx.us/BRY/projects/sh6-barron-ic.htm

Well, according to that link, an overpass at Barron Rd. is in the works. Who knows when it will be finished though.

yeah, i was told there are a number of projects ahead of this one (barron)

Barron is a cluster... They never should have let developers build so close to that road in the first place- now you don't have room to widen, etc. Also, whoever was in charge of planning let Shenandoah build right where Longmire could have been extended to. I've never understood the maze of roads that is College Station. Is there a straight road in the whole city (ie no true grid)?

I digress. The problem with the Barron overpass is probably the creek that runs on the other side of 6. The design faze is taking longer than expected because they don't know the best way to negotiate the other side. However, every road is crooked in this town (see above) then I'm sure they'll find a way to divert Barron to the north or south on the other side..

AS I understand it, there is a dump of some sort on the east side of the Hwy 6 feeder road directly across from Barron. For years, the city planners thought they would be prohibited from building an overpass at Barron and continuing Barron to the east because of the dump. Recently, they seem to have found out that they can in fact build over there.

I don't recall if they plan to relocate the stuff in the dump or work around it.

Regarding the Rock Prairie Rd/ Hwy 6 Intersection, heres a modification to the current layout which wouldn't require a wider overpass over Hwy 6.

Traffic should move quicker, since I've noticed the reason RP gets backed up is because of people waiting to get onto Hwy 6 NB, but with this layout people would only have to wait at one traffic signal (not including Longmire).



Also another layout of the Texas Ave, Hwy 6 interchange, this layout gets rid of the left lane exit.



[This message has been edited by TheDro (edited 11/21/2006 9:59a).]

Oh, thank God. EVERY time I'm on Hwy 6 north and I go past the left exit only for Texas Ave., I shake my head at the stupidity of the entire interchange.

One thing, though- Why does an overpass need to be built? Wouldn't it be easier to keep the left exit (but don't make it EXIT ONLY) and then just move the entrance ramp from Rock Prairie further north? That way, you wouldn't have the people from RP trying to cross two lanes of hwy traffic and you wouldn't have to merge from two lanes to one on a highway (like you have now).

In addition, you know there's going to be another light at Woodcreek and the frontage road for people coming from RP. Just seems like a complicated design and one that will take a long time to build. Hopefully it will make things smoother in the long run (apparently, a really long run).

Do you have sketches of the Deacon exit interchange that will funnel the exit for RP onto the southbound frontage road?

[This message has been edited by Ron Burgundy (edited 11/21/2006 10:53a).]

TheDro, is that first one actually what TxDOT's proposing? It looks like it eats up a lot of real estate, even on the Marriot's corner....

Those are just some sketches made from altering some maps from the CSTX GIS website, I don't work for TxDot or CSTX but I wouldn't mind if I did.

As far as leaving the left lane exit to Texas Ave, and just placing the onramp from RP further away from the Texas Ave interchange, yeah that would be the cheaper option, but not the safest imho. The way most people drive, such as slowly reaching a safe speed to enter the freeway, or even just entering the freeway 10mph below the limit then having those folks merge into the far left lane to prepare to exit for Texas Ave will still create a bottleneck, even if the onramp from RP was placed further from the intersection.

Also I just hate left lane exits, and onramps that merge onto the freeway from the far left, unless the lanes merging from the left are the priority highway or interstate.

Harv, theres another Marriott now? The southernmost corner would lose alot of real estate, the northern corner would eat some property up from the office building next to the Woodcreek entrance, but it shouldn't alter the parking lot of that building I think.

Oh the office building I was referring to... thats the Marriot? I just now noticed the pool behind the building, and characteristic shape of a hotel from Google Maps, heh never knew wth that was until now.

Heres a satellite view.


[This message has been edited by TheDro (edited 11/21/2006 11:20a).]

There's also a 16k sqft building going up right in front of the Marriott. They might get a bit mad with a frontage road going right through their building.

dave, doesn't surprise me something is being built there now.

Just wanted to bring this thread back to life temporarily with some more drawings.

An overpass for Nantucket Dr at this point in time is a waste imho. Reasons being no development on the other side of the freeway, and the close vicinity of a creek and the speedway, I'd doubt anything being built there, specifically residential development.

This layout just shows a new stretch of road from the frontage rd to Old Arrington Rd, which could convert the existing stretch of the Frontage rd from Old Arrington to the Speedway exit into a two way traffic road like it was before. Except with this layout, NB traffic would join old Arrington and end at Grand Prairie Rd. Much cheaper option than going with constructing a new overpass.


Now heres where the money saved could be spent, a new interchange for Hwy 6/ Texas Ave.

This layout is similar to the one I posted earlier, except in this one Sebesta Rd is extended to Deacon Dr.


With the ability to use Deacon Dr/Sebesta Rd to get to Hwy 6 NB, this configuration could alleviate traffic from the RP interchange, that being if people take Welsh to Deacon, Rio Grande to Deacon, Longmire to Deacon, etc.