Overpass Update

From the Mexia Daily News:

Mexia Overpass work due summer start

By Bob Wright-Editor

One of Mexia’s oldest landmarks - the famous Overpass - will begin to get a new look, beginning this Summer.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has for a long time been formulating the overpass plans.

Widening of the overpass has long been talked. No announcements have been made as to how long the project will take. What is known right now, plans call for two 12-foot driving lanes in both directions (eastward and westward). Also planned is a turning lane, and a sidewalk, making it safer for pedestrians.

Starting date for the project work has not been announced.

In conjunction with the overpass project, the Texas Department of Transportation is due to perform other work in Mexia. A city official told The Daily News that Bailey Street is due to be “re-done,” and TxDOT would also like to eradicate the dangerous intersection at FM 1365 and Tyler Street. Regarding this phase of work, TxDOT hopes to make “more of a curve” in that area, instead of having the sharp turns which dominate that immediate area.

More evidence came that this work is needed when a pickup truck and a car slammed into the barricades behind the home of Jim and Virginia Chatham. The truck wound up recently near the back porch of the Chatham home one morning around 3:30, when the driver apparently fell asleep. A car then slammed into the same area about two hours later. This has long brought problems of vehicles’ jumping the ditch and coming to “rest” in the Chathams’ back yard. The projected TxDOT work hopefully will eliminate these occurrences.

On Highway 84 (East Milam Street), five lanes are being planned from North McKinney Street, and extending on 84 to Beene Motor Sales area.

Hopefully, TxDOT will send additional information concerning the work it is planning for Mexia. Some of the projects are long overdue and will certainly benefit the increased traffic, so far as safety measures are concerned.