TxDOT plans highway projects
By Kathy Thomson
The Texas Department of Transportation has several road repair projects underway or in planning stages in Shackelford County, including rehabilitating and widening the roadway on Highway 283 north of town and resurfacing and roadway construction on Highway 6 south.
State Highway 6, where it heads south of Albany toward the county line, was resealed a few years ago, but the stretch of road is in need of more work sooner than many expected.
This week, TxDOT northwest Texas communications director Shawna Russell was able to explain what repairs are currently planned for Highway 6 and how these repairs will differ from the last attempt to resurface the road. She also shared an estimate of the expected time line.
“The project will be new hot mix,” Russell said. “They will remove the existing surface and replace it. This will be a different type of material and operation from the previous work.”
The project involves additional work, not just replacing the pavement, she added.
According to TxDOT Abilene area engineer Paul Norman, construction crews will also replace a bridge near the Callahan County line and repair some other bridges.
“The project crosses the county line and will therefore be funded as two projects, but it will actually be done as one project,” Norman said.
The let date for bids on the Highway 6 project is September of this year.
If there is an acceptable bid, the contract would most likely be awarded at the end of September.
“There will be a 90-day lead time prior to any work occurring,” Russell said. “That means the project will likely begin in January or February of this coming year. The work is scheduled for 18 months.”
Rumble strips, shown as a separate job on the TxDOT project tracker due to a different source of funding, will actually be performed under the same contract, according to Russell.
Russell also said that all of the work on this project will be performed by a different contractor than the one who did the previous work on Highway 6.
