TxDOT project making improvements to FM 179 - KCBD

The work covers a stretch of FM 179 that runs through the Wolfforth area, one of the fastest-growing corridors on the south side of the metro. The project includes widening the road to add a left-turn lane, improving drainage, laying a new road surface, adding traffic signals at US 62, and upgrading lighting along the route.

Contractor A.L. Helmcamp, out of Buffalo, Texas, is scheduled to begin setting traffic control and barriers along the project limits on September 8, according to Joe Villalobos, TxDOT Lubbock Area engineer. Villalobos noted the area has grown steadily and continues to do so, which is exactly the kind of pressure that turns a two-lane farm road into a daily headache for the people who live and work out that way.

For drivers who use FM 179 regularly, whether for the commute into Lubbock or to reach businesses along that corridor, the short-term pain of construction zones is the tradeoff for a road that can actually handle the traffic it already sees. The left-turn lane addition alone should ease some of the backup that stacks up when development keeps outpacing the infrastructure around it.

This is one of the larger road investments TxDOT has put into a single stretch of Lubbock County farm-to-market road in recent memory.