The Texas Department of Transportation started construction Feb. 17 on a new lane of I-35 at Parmer Lane that will provide relief to the northbound frontage road at the intersection.

Dubbed a collector/distributor lane, this lane will be sandwiched between the frontage road and the main lanes of I-35 and pass under the Parmer Lane bridge. The collector/distributor lane allows drivers to bypass the Parmer Lane traffic signal and continue on the northbound frontage road.

Drivers can expect lane closures to occur overnight between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. and should allow extra travel time, TxDOT spokeswoman Kelli Reyna said. The project will take 18 months to complete and cost $2.14 million.

Existing collector/distributor lanes are located on southbound I-35 at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and on northbound I-35 at 51st Street. The collector/distributor lanes are longer than exit ramps and allow drivers to merge more safely.

The Parmer Lane project scope also includes widening the northbound frontage road north of the Parmer intersection to better accommodate traffic.

This project has been included in TxDOT's Mobility 35 program to provide short- and medium-term projects that are designed to improve congestion on the highway and cross streets.

Terry McCoy, deputy district engineer for Austin, told Community Impact Newspaper in a previous interview that TxDOT talked with the community while developing the project, which will use Proposition 12 funding.

"Before we actually started [Mobility 35], if we saw something that we thought we could do with a little bit of money, we would start trying to put a project together. It was very piecemeal," he said.

Prop 12 funds are general obligation bonds that were approved by voters and first authorized by the Texas Legislature in 2007, Reyna said. These funds may be spent on highway improvement projects.

Other plans for Parmer Lane in the Mobility 35 program call for converting the intersection into a diverging diamond where drivers would cross over to the left lanes of traffic to turn left onto the I-35 frontage roads or continue on Parmer Lane.