Thursday, October 10, 1996

Loop 322 construction to continue for months By DOUG WILLIAMSON
Business Editor

No pain, no gain.

That's what drivers along Loop 322 should be thinking in the coming months.

A stretch of the highway from Maple Street to Lytle Creek is undergoing a widening project that will last for about a year, said Blair Haynie, Abilene area engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation.

The $2.4 million work is the first of a four-phase project that will take until the year 2003 to complete. When finished, the loop will be a four-lane divided highway all the way up to Interstate 20.

The second phase will be from the creek to State Highway 36. The third will go to Business Interstate 20 (old Highway 80), and the last phase will complete the highway north to the Interstate, he said.

In the next four to six weeks, exit ramps to the east and south frontage roads will be closed for the duration of the project, Haynie said.

J.H. Strain and Sons Construction of Tye is the contractor.

Growth on Abilene's east side prompted the project. The original plans for the loop, back in the 1970s, called for a four-lane, divided roadway. "This is just completing the original plan," he said.
About 5,600 vehicles travel on Loop 322 daily, TxDOT estimates. That should grow to 14,000 a day by the year 2015, Haynie said.

Loop 322 isn't the only TxDOT construction project in Abilene.

In the next 60 days, work will begin on Antilley Road, from Buffalo Gap Road to Wylie High School. The road will be widened to five lanes, at the cost of $850,000 city and state tax funds.
Contract Paving of Abilene will be the contractor.

Haynie said a unique feature of this project will be in the base material. Up to 20 percent will be recycled, crushed glass. He estimates 225 tons of glass will be used.

Construction can be a painful inconvenience, but the finished product is well worth it, he said. Last weekend, the South 27th Street bridge over Lytle Creek was reopened after several months of reconstruction work.

Some striping and guardrail work will be finished in the next two weeks, he said.