Road beneath Addison Airport opens to commuters

02/15/99

By Tony Hartzel / The Dallas Morning News

ADDISON - Beginning about noon Thursday, the Addison Airport Toll Tunnel opens for business - 50 cents to go a third of a mile.

But what a shortcut.

"This will be a very successful project," Addison Mayor Rich Beckert said. "There is a lot of pent-up demand [for this tunnel]."

Two years in the making, the $26.8 million tunnel under Addison Airport is a sorely needed east-west thoroughfare. Indeed, the densely populated area from LBJ Freeway north to Trinity Mills Road has only one other east-west route - Belt Line Road - to carry cars uninterrupted between Interstate 35E and the Dallas North Tollway.

"This is the first step to create east-west travel corridors to handle the growth," Mr. Beckert said. "We've got an awful lot of pressure being put on Trinity Mills and Belt Line roads." Belt Line, for example, handles about 60,000 cars a day, 50 percent more than it was designed to carry.

The North Texas Tollway Authority, which built the tunnel, predicts that 12,500 drivers a day will ante up to use its fourth major toll project in the region - one of about nine toll tunnels in the country.

"It gives a connection," said Jerry Shelton, director of operations and maintenance for the tollway authority, which also operates the Dallas North Tollway, the President George Bush Turnpike and the Mountain Creek Lake toll bridge in Dallas.

The Addison tunnel project was proposed in 1990. Construction began in June 1997 and took 20 months to complete. A burrowing machine chewed about 20 feet of Austin chalk per day.

The entire project is about 3,700 feet long - half being the tunnel itself.

A few problems delayed the project, though none was serious. About two-thirds of the way through the digging, 10 tons of rock fell. On another occasion, a rock slide covered an approach ramp. No one was hurt in either incident.

In an act of efficiency, the tollway authority saved all the dirt and chalk removed during construction. The 170,000 tons will be used as fill dirt to build overpasses on the George Bush Turnpike across Midway Road

and other major streets.

Some officials predict that the new Addison tunnel will relieve nearby congested roadways, and tollway officials say immediate relief should be notable at the Dallas North Tollway plazas at Belt Line Road.

Conversely, traffic at the Keller Springs toll plaza - the route to the Addison tunnel - should increase by about 4,000 vehicles per day.

The tollway authority already has the right-of-way and the design specifications to build a two-lane tunnel adjacent to the current one.

Meanwhile, the town of Addison is planning more traffic improvements. The town is working on extending Arapaho Road to provide another east-west link. In a few years, Arapaho should be extended from its current end at Addison Road to Midway Road and then to Marsh Lane.

For now, town and tollway authority officials are set to celebrate. They will hold a dance at the tunnel Wednesday night, hours before the tunnel traffic begins to roll.