Great news: the 13.3-mile North Tarrant Express $2.5B highway reconstruction project should open by year’s end (at least six months ahead of schedule), says NTE spokeswoman Heather DeLapp. That means congestion relief as the population grows along the I-820 and SH-121/183 corridor between I-35W and Industrial Boulevard in North Tarrant County, she says. The roads are expanding from four to six lanes with four toll-managed lanes—TEXpress Lanes—added. (Now we can remember what it feels like to drive over 35 mph.) Plus, frontage roads and auxiliary lanes will just about double the existing capacity. The project is already 88% complete, she tells us.

Heather says the technical design, construction crews, and subcontractors operate in real-time, allowing them to address issues and make changes in the field quickly so that no production time is lost. This was crucial as they team worked around right-of-way issues and utility movement, she says. Over the almost five-year construction period, the team completed more than 4,000 lane closures and hundreds of major traffic movements, mostly during the overnight hours. Should we assume that Heather's favorite song is Life is a Highway?