Construction continues to widen Main Street and will continue for another 10 months before the project is complete.

Main Street is being widened from four to six lanes from FM 423 to the Dallas North Tollway. The project includes burying power lines, installing water lines and improving intersections, said Jason Brodigan, Frisco assistant director of engineering.

Main Street became a topic of conversation in 2016 when the city of Frisco and Brazos Electric entered into an agreement that would allow new power lines from FM 423 to east of Legacy Drive to be placed underground rather than constructed overhead.

Installing the powerlines would happen simultaneously as the city widened the roadway.

As part of that agreement, the city had a May 2018 deadline to place duct banks—groups of conduits to protect and consolidate electric cables underground—so that Brazos could place the power lines. The city has met that deadline, and Brazos is expected to place power lines in late July, Brodigan said.

“Not sure anyone has ever done a project like this [road construction while burying power lines], but it’s going really well,” Brodigan said. “We met the May deadline and are continuing to work on road widening and have that complete by April 2019.”

Construction is being done in three phases.

The first phase of the road project included widening the roadway from FM 423 to just west of Teel Parkway and installing water lines from FM 423 to Legacy Drive, Brodigan said. The first phase was completed in the last week of June.

On June 30 the city closed the intersection of Legacy Drive and Main Street to reconstruct the intersection. The intersection will reopen Aug. 9.

This section is a portion of the third phase, Brodigan said.

“During spring break, we closed a portion of Legacy to [install] the water line and the duct bank, and it went really well,” Brodigan said. “So while school is out we decided we’re going to close [the intersection of Legacy and Main] and reconstruct the area before school starts up again.”

The city will then go back to the second phase that stretches from Teel Parkway to Legacy Drive and widen the roadway from four to six lanes. Brodigan said that should take about four months.

After the second phase is complete the city will finish up the third phase, which will widen the roadway from Legacy Drive to the DNT. The third phase will be completed within four to five months.

During the first phase of the project, the city switched traffic to one side of the roadway for about eight weeks. Brodigan said he is not sure whether there will be more traffic switches as construction continues.

“The reason why we had to do those traffic switches are because it had to do with the amount of bad pavement on the road, and we haven’t had a chance to evaluate how much bad pavement there is in Phase 2,” Brodigan said. “Once we do that we can decide to keep the lanes the way they are while we work or if need to switch them over.”

Brodigan said if there any other traffic switches or lane closures, there will be an announcement through the city’s website and social media. In addition there will be message boards along the roadway a week in advance to let drivers know about any potential traffic switches or closures.