Lebanon Road is being widened from four lanes to six lanes from Parkwood Boulevard to Ohio Drive, giving each side of the road three lanes in each direction. The project includes building the eastbound lanes of John Hickman Parkway and Preston Road, as well as a new traffic signal at Lebanon and Independence Parkway.
“We’re doing some intersection signal improvements, so you’ll see adding of some left turn lanes and some things like that at the intersections,” said Jason Brodigan, Frisco’s assistant director of engineering. “It’s a busy road, so it will help people move east west a little bit.”
Crews have started excavating for the new lanes on the curb of the road. Construction will have an impact on traffic, Brodigan said.
“Residents of Frisco and everybody using Lebanon should expect daily lane closures as we work on those areas,” he said. “It’s just kind of a necessity.”
He added closures on the road are being limited to between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. so people’s drives to work and school are relatively unaffected. The road is not expected to fully shut down as the lanes are added.
“At a minimum there would be one lane open in each direction,” Brodigan said.
Businesses along Lebanon should be relatively unaffected because driveways are not expected to be along the path of construction, he said.
“All of the widening is in the middle of the existing road, so when you're not working on the outside of the road, usually you're not affecting driveways,” he said. “So I wouldn't expect any coordination issues with driveways.”
The project was originally scheduled to start in late July. However, contractor staffing issues due to COVID-19 ended up delaying the project until late summer, according to the city’s October engineering report. Ultimately the project was delayed by a few weeks.
Lebanon construction is being done in one phase that is expected to take at least 12 months. The project is being funded through voter-approved bonds, Brodigan said. He cautioned people to keep the construction in mind as they drive through Lebanon and to pay attention to any message boards along the roadway.
“In any construction zone just slow down a little bit,” Brodigan said. “Things change from day to day sometimes. Give the workers a little bit of a break and just be safe as you go through.”
