LOS INDIOS — The $3.9 million rehabilitation and widening of U.S. 281 from FM 509 west for more than a mile and a half is rapidly nearing completion.
The project is the latest section of work on one of the Valley’s oldest east-west corridors, and widens the narrow two-lane road also known as Military Highway to four lanes.
“In addition, they’re also constructing driveways, they’re pouring the concrete driveways as well as the asphalt driveways throughout the project length,” TxDOT engineer Candido Bocanegro told members of the Harlingen-San Benito Metropolitan Planning Organization this past week.
At the job site just west of Los Indios, three of the four asphalt lanes are already in place, and TxDOT lists the project as being 72 percent complete.
But crew members with Foremost Paving Inc. of Elsa said yesterday they are rapidly accelerating their work on the 1.65-mile project, which began in January.
Workers paved the fourth and final lane of the roadway on Thursday. Then, they said, they planned to repave and finish the intersection of U.S. 281 and FM 509, a key crossing to the Free Trade International Bridge at Los Indios.
By this week, they said they would be striping the roadway and it should be fully open to traffic soon after that part of the job is completed.
Most of the private driveways have been laid with asphalt. Some are constructed of concrete.
Some 6,283 square yards of asphalt has been laid for 34 driveways affected by the project, said TxDOT spokesman Octavio Saenz. The number of concrete driveways was less, about 14, with approximately 1,200 square yards of material used.
The newly refurbished and widened highway extends from FM 509 west to .05 miles west of FM 1479.
The border highway connects Brownsville to I-69C in McAllen.