Highway 75 and 82 gap project construction planned for January

The Texas Department of Transportation broke ground Wednesday for improvements on Highway 75 and 82.

It is TxDOT's largest project in Grayson County since highway 75 was rerouted in the 1980s.

The project is four miles long. It will go from highway 75 and FM 1417 to highway 75 and state highway 91.

"This is the largest project in TxDOT Paris district's history," TxDOT Paris district engineer Noel Paramanantham said.

TxDOT said the US 75 and US 82 gap project will improve safety on Grayson County's aging roadways.

Construction will take place in phases, totaling about three years.

"At any given time, it'll be a short distance, you won't have to drive four and a half miles through construction," Paramanantham said.

According to TxDOT, the plan is to widen the roads from FM 1417 to State Highway 91 from four lanes to six.

TxDOT plans to improve the US 75 and US 82 intersection by adding frontage road lanes and U-turn lanes.

"Safety, ease of travel, economic development, there's just a hundred different reasons why this is so important to the city of Sherman," Sherman Mayor David Plyler said.

TxDOT said the project will also reconstruct the bridge at Travis Street and will lift the traffic lanes between Lamar and Washington Streets out of the floodplain.

"We've had several accidents along that portion of 75, so it'll raise it up out of the floodplains so we'll no longer have backups due to water," Plyler said.

The project costs $154.6 million.

"Grayson County is issued $10 million in bonds, the City of Sherman is spending $8 million, and the Metropolitan Planning Organization is spending $27 million of federal dollars," Grayson County Judge Bill Magers said.

The remaining amount is funded by TxDOT.

TxDOT said construction is expected to start in early January.