DFW Connector
DFW Connector
Plane Mural
Location:
Grapevine, TX
Owner:
Texas Dept. of Transportation
Contractor:
Northgate Constructors
In the spring of 2010, The Reinforced Earth Company contracted with Northgate Constructors (a joint venture of Fort Worth-based Kiewit Texas Construction and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Company) for the design/build project known as the DFW Connector. The Texas Department of Transportation will be the owner of the $1.02 billion project which is being built under a comprehensive development agreement between TxDOT and Northgate Constructors. RECo’s contract includes approximately 600,000 SF of MSE walls with complex geometry, nearly 80,000 SF of Fascia walls and almost 100,000 SF of Geotrel temporary walls, as well as miles of precast Coping and Half Connector.
Planes: Located just north of DFW International Airport, the DFW Connector project encompasses over 8 miles of State Highways 121 and 114. Travelers using the North entrance of the airport will be greeted with Reinforced Earth MSE walls featuring large airplane motifs. Walls will include panels with planes landing and taking off amid rolling hillside scenes. The large take-off plane covers 11 panels while the large landing plane is made up of 10 panels. Also included are small take-off and landing planes that are contained in single panels. The planes and hillsides were created by using a combination of urethane form liners and foam blockouts (which were made in RECo’s Waco plant).
Trains: Grapevine, Texas is home to one of the few remaining steam engine trains in the U. S. With daily runs from the Cotton Belt Station in downtown Grapevine to the Stockyard Station in the historic Stockyard section of Fort Worth, the train is pulled by an 1896 Steam Engine known as “Puffy”. That was the inspiration for a custom "Puffy Train" pattern that will be included on several walls near downtown Grapevine. “Puffy” was created using urethane form liners and covers 5 MSE panels.
And Automobiles: Oh, the automobiles. RECo can supply the aesthetics and wall structures, but it is the travelling public that provides the traffic. And man, do they provide the traffic. Even amid the bustling construction, traffic continues along the corridor at approximately 180,000 vehicles per day. Upon completion, the DFW Connector project will nearly double that capacity to over 300,000 per day. The widest portion of the project will have 24 lanes, which will include 14 main lanes, four toll-managed lanes and six frontage road lanes.
As with all design/build projects, the DFW Connector project has taken on a life of its own. Ever changing and evolving, the challenges of design, production and delivery are ongoing. But thanks to the cooperative effort of the Dallas engineering team, RECo’s Waco and Tulsa plants and our formliner partners, the project is currently on schedule, with 100% of the design finished, approximately 70% of the panels cast and about 40% delivered. RECo’s portion of the project is scheduled to complete in early 2012, with the entire project completing in 2014.