HURST -- Terri Fonville and her neighbors call Plainview Drive "the street that Hurst forgot."
Residents on the street, which overlooks Airport Freeway between Norwood and Hurstview drives, say the company building the North Tarrant Express not only has destroyed their tranquillity over the last 18 months but also continues to inflict indignities.Homes on the south side of Plainview were razed long ago to make room for what will be a dozen or more lanes of freeway, tollway and frontage roads. That left the residents on the street's north side with a narrow dirt buffer between them and the wide swath of asphalt."We never realized we were on the freeway until they took the trees and fences out," Fonville said. "Now, we live right on the freeway."The situation along Plainview is unique among residential properties bordering the project, said Lara Kohl, spokeswoman for Bluebonnet Contractors, the company building the project.Elsewhere along the project, sound walls will separate the right of way from back yards. Kohl said houses on Plainview are the only ones that face the highway.Standing on her front porch, Fonville said it feels as if she's closer to the frontage road than to her back yard.A sound wall that neighbors expected before now has not been installed. Recently, a rumor circulated that the city wanted the narrow strip of dirt bordering the frontage road to be covered with concrete.That was too much for Patsy Willingham to bear."I think of my neighborhood in the past, and it was so beautiful," she said. "Lara Kohl said they were going to landscape the area, and to be patient. I don't think it's going to happen."Kohl told the Star-Telegram in January 2011 that when the rebuilt main lanes and frontage roads and new toll lanes are finished, "hundreds and hundreds of trees, bushes and other plants will be planted" along the highway.The rumor about the concrete, Kohl said recently, is unfounded."While a final project aesthetics plan [including landscaping] has not been approved, if the city doesn't want concrete, then it won't be placed," she said.The city does not want concrete, Public Works Director Ron Haynes said. He said Hurst will make sure that some of those hundreds of trees are planted along Plainview.In a meeting last week, the contractor proposed putting down hydromulch grass, Haynes said."I said we'd like to have more than just grass," he said. "They said to have our parks department draw something up and they'd consider it."About $11 million is budgeted for beautification elements like landscaping, special materials and decorative treatments along the entire project. But Haynes said the developer has never said how much each city will get."They're getting the aesthetics committee back together next Wednesday," Haynes said. "Meanwhile, we're going to submit the plan" or Plainview.Kohl expects the sound wall to be installed in four to six weeks. But landscaping will likely have to wait until near the project's mid-2015 completion to reduce the chance that plants will be damaged by construction.Meanwhile, residents grow more frustrated, Willingham said."There are great big trucks going up and down that frontage road all the time," she said. "It's a nightmare."This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.Terry Evans, 817-390-7620Twitter: @fwstevansHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
