Published: July 08, 2009 11:29 am      

I-35 project continues to spark complaints

The Elm Creek Bridge repair project on Interstate Highway 35 is creating a treacherous situation and things aren’t getting any safer according to some Cooke County officials.

Sgt. Ray Sappington of the Texas High Patrol and Justice of the Peace Dorthy Lewis said they fear more accidents will happen unless workers contracting with the Texas Department of Transportation step up their efforts to finish a repair job on I-35’s aging Elm Creek Bridge.

A traffic jam caused by the I-35 construction project is thought to be at least partially responsible for an accident that took the lives of two people and injured seven others Sunday afternoon.

DPS trooper and area public information officer Mark Tackett said the accident happened around 2:30 p.m. near Mile Marker 491 when a semi-tractor trailer truck driven by Harrah, Okla., resident Randy Crume slammed into the backs of several vehicles stopped in heavy traffic in the northbound lanes of I-35.

“Multiple collisions occurred due to this impact,” Tackett said in a news release Monday.

Crume’s failure to control his speed was apparently also a factor in the fatal accident, he noted.

The dead were identified as Gervious Hinkle and his 13-year old grandson Casey Ishak who were traveling in a 1996 Ford Explorer when Crume plowed into their vehicle near Valley View.

Another passenger from the same vehicle was in the hospital in critical condition earlier this week, Tackett wrote.

Traffic tie-ups and their accompanying hassles on I-35 have been a regular occurrence since the Elm Creek repair project began after Memorial Day, Lewis said.

Hundreds of traffic citations are also a fact of life for the judge and her staff who process tickets written by officers within their jurisdiction.

“In one month, close to 500 tickets have been filed in this particular court,” Lewis said.

That number does not include tickets written within Valley View city limits and citations written by city officers on C.R. 1306 — a detour designed to relieve crowding on I-35.

Above all, Lewis said the chain reaction pile-up is a tragedy that was bound to happen.

“We expect this (an accident) to happen in this kind of situation in which there is such a tremendous amount of backup in a project that channels all these vehicles into one lane. Everyone’s in a hurry. Motorists are sometimes fatigued from driving long distances, not paying attention, visiting, texting or using a cell phone. Nobody intends for an accident to happen,” she said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.

Sappington said he’s witnessed firsthand how dangerous the traffic backups are, and like Lewis, he’d like to see construction crews finish the project and get off the highway.

He said he has complained to the Texas Department of Transportation several times.

“I’ve complained to TxDOT on about a weekly basis,” he said Tuesday.

The longtime state trooper said the crew working the Elm Creek project seem to be absent from the construction site a lot.

“They (the road construction crew) don’t even work a full day. They were not out there Thursday or Friday or Monday. They’re not getting the job done. We’re (troopers and other officers) dealing with the people stuck in the back up. I’m just sort of relating the feedback we are getting from drivers,” he said.

Sunday’s traffic jam was intense, he said.

“The day of the accident, traffic was at a standstill,” he said. “The main factor (causing the accident) was that the truck failed to stop. But you don’t expect interstate traffic to be at a standstill,” he noted.

Sappington said he understands that the construction workers are not TxDOT employees.

They are employees of KKM — a road construction company headquartered in Texarkana, Ark.

“I know it’s a contractor,” he said.

Still, he said he hopes complaints compel TxDOT officials to light a fire under the crew.

TxDOT officials say they are aware of complaints about the progress of the Elm Creek Project.

“Basically, by law, we have to let the contract and the low bid gets the contract. Therefore, we are at the mercy of whoever gets the contract,” said assistant area engineer Mike Hallum.

Hallum said the original contract provides 45 days for competition of the project.

After 45 days, the contractor is fined around $800 per day.

“Our main enforcement (tool) to make the contractor work and to provide quality work is money,” Hallum said. “That’s our enforcement.”

Hallum said TxDOT has created “a significant paper trail” and held meetings to try to get to the heart of the problem.

Some of the delay is the result of problems TxDOT didn’t anticipate.

“When we took part of the (bridge) deck out, we noticed some problems we didn’t know about before,” he said. “Our own maintenance forces are going to address those problems. That’s going to save some significant time there,” he said.

Hallum said he understands why troopers and motorists are becoming annoyed.

“The troopers are putting in a lot of time and effort and we greatly appreciate that. When you’ve been in traffic two hours and then find out the crew is not even working at the site, it’s frustrating,” Hallum said. “We’ve done things to try to get the crew to work longer hours, to work on weekends.”

Fed up with delays and traffic jams, Sappington said he has a simple solution.

“I think I could get out there with a wheel barrow and a shovel and do a better job,” he said.