City plans overhaul of this ‘unsafe’ road in far north Fort Worth. Here’s what’s planned
Fort Worth plans to break ground on a long-anticipated overhaul of West Bailey Boswell Road next fall, according to project updates shared with the public Monday night.
City officials hope to wrap up the $29 million reconstruction, originally slated to begin this winter, by April 2027.
Long a country road linking patches of farmland across far northwest Fort Worth, West Bailey Boswell must today accommodate traffic from swelling subdivisions and the coming-and-going of thousands of high school students. The city intends to remake a 1.79-mile segment of the street running from Boat Club Road to Wind River Drive.
Traffic fatalities and concerns about student safety prompted city leaders to rebuild the strip. Demands for change gathered momentum in late 2021, after two brothers studying at Boswell High, Isaiah and Elijah Lopez, died in a car wreck near campus.
“The main reason we have this product here is not because of capacity or timing. It’s because of safety.” Raul Lopez, a senior engineer at city hall, told residents over a Monday night Zoom call. “It’s an unsafe corridor, so we have to strike a balance between speed and safety.”
The Transportation and Public Works Department intends to mark designated turn lanes and split the road’s existing four lanes with a 16-foot median. It also plans to replace the stretches of unprotected grass lining either side of the street with sidewalks, and install stop lights at intersections with Centerboard Lane and Silo Drive.
Fort Worth planners don’t expect the tweaks to significantly affect traffic along Bailey Boswell.
“We’ll have better flow at the intersections, but it’s not going to impact the level of service that you see out there now,” Lopez said, citing a traffic study commissioned by his department. “It will impact safety significantly.”
The city sourced the bulk of the project’s budget from the 2022 bond program fund, bankrolling the rest with transportation impact fees and developer contributions. City officials said Monday $22 million of the revamp’s $29 million bill would be dedicated to construction alone.
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 1:03 PM.
