The overview
The reconstructed bridge has 12-foot-wide lanes, 4-foot-wide shoulders and 5-foot-wide sidewalks on both sides.
The bridge will close again before the end of the month for a few days for final surfacing, Colleyville City Manager Jerry Ducay said at the July 1 City Council meeting. The work includes cutting grooves into the surface, which will improve tire traction, Assistant City Manager Adrienne Lothery said.
“We didn’t want to wait for that day, so that’s why we’re opening it early,” Ducay said.
Zooming in
There are no sidewalks leading to the bridge right now, but it is the city’s intent to add sidewalks to connect Jackson Road Bridge to existing trails within Colleyville, Ducay said.
City officials applied for a grant to add sidewalks along Jackson Road, but the project didn’t qualify for the grant. At the moment, there is no funding dedicated to adding sidewalks along the road, Ducay said.
“One of the challenges is if you build the bridge and don’t put sidewalks in and later on you put a trail in, you’ve got a challenge of bolting [the sidewalk] to the side of the bridge and retrofitting,” Ducay said.
Additionally, the bridge improvements were not outside the 100-year flood plain, meaning the road may still close when large storms hit that could lead to flooding.
“In order for the bridge to be elevated [for] the 100-year [flood plain], you would have [to] elevate it about 1,200 or 1,300 feet ... it would have been a substantial amount of work,” Ducay said. “The bridge improvement was to improve the bridge but not to perfect it.”
The backstory
Jackson Road Bridge was delayed a few times due to a utility conflict with the water line and the redesigning of an additional bridge column, Community Impact previously reported.
Construction started in January 2024 and cost $1.75 million, which was fully funded by the Texas Department of Transportation, according to the city’s website.
