A stretch of Hillcrest Road near the Richardson border has been closed for a year for DART Silver Line construction. Thursday, the road’s reopening was delayed.
A stretch of Hillcrest Road near the Richardson border has been closed for a year for DART Silver Line construction. Thursday, the road’s reopening was delayed.
A stretch of Hillcrest Road near the Richardson border has been closed for a year for DART Silver Line construction. Thursday, the road’s reopening was delayed.
DALLAS — A major roadway in North Dallas that was supposed to reopen Thursday will remain closed for two weeks, DART and the city confirmed.
A stretch of Hillcrest Road in North Dallas has been closed for 52 weeks for construction of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Silver Line regional rail project.
“Our deadline to reopen Hillcrest Road on its full closure is actually Jan. 25, but we are actually gonna be opening tomorrow and we’ll be opening up one lane in each direction,” DART President and CEO Nadine Lee told WFAA on Wednesday.
However, on Thursday, the City of Dallas and DART announced the partial reopening will be pushed back two weeks, citing a delay in equipment for a new stormwater pump station and forecasted rain.
“The delay of delivery of equipment for the new Hillcrest stormwater pump station has resulted in the station not being fully operational.,” the joint statement from DART and the city read. “And with the forecast rain over the next 10 days, the City and DART, in abundance of caution, decided to delay the partial reopening of Hillcrest.”
Hillcrest Road was originally closed for one-fifth of a mile between McCallum Boulevard to Wester Way near the Richardson border on Jan. 25, 2024, to allow crews to build a new section of roadway under a rail guideway for the Silver Line project.
Whenever the stretch of Hillcrest Road does reopen, it will be to just one lane of traffic in each direction in the inside lanes before re-opening to multiple lanes at McCallum to the north and Wester Way to the south. Medians will separate the open lanes and there will be a 25 mph speed limit.
Pedestrians will have access to a designated temporary walkway on the east side of the roadway barrier wall. The fully constructed sidewalk is expected to open in February.
The DART Silver Line is a 26-mile commuter rail that crosses seven cities (Grapevine, Coppell, Dallas, Carrollton, Addison, Richardson, Plano) and connects riders from East Plano to DFW Airport’s Terminal B. It’s expected to begin operation in early 2026.
“Yeah, so we’re really excited because the Silver Line is really, it’s about 85% complete right now and we are starting to plan our opening day activities. We plan to announce an opening day sometime in the spring, probably in the March or April time frame,” Lee announced. “We fully anticipate being done by the end of the year, which means we’ll be opening the service going from Shiloh Road in Plano to the airport, and we’re really excited about that.”
DART said it will alert drivers of any upcoming changes with digital road signs now that construction is largely finished.
“Crews excavated down through almost 18 feet of rock and dirt to construct the new portion of Hillcrest Road that will take drivers underneath a Silver Line rail bridge,” a DART press release read. “A pump station, to relieve excess water from the roadway during heavy rains, was added as part of the design, while runners, walkers, and cyclists will benefit from a newly constructed pedestrian bridge that was built adjacent to the new rail bridge.”
Ahead of the Hillcrest reopening, DART said segmented testing within the Silver Line Regional Rail project’s western corridor — between DFW Airport and Carrollton — began Wednesday.
DART said Silver Line trains will begin test runs between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Jan. 22, and Jan. 23 from just east of the DFW Airport North Station to I-35. WFAA has reached out to see if the delivery delay has postponed these test runs.
DART said it started testing the track, signals, operating systems and rail crossings in November to prepare for the upcoming vehicle testing.
“We’re excited to get these new passenger trains running on a different track alignment and show people in the North Texas that are unfamiliar with this project how the Silver Line will operate,” said DART vice president of capital design and construction Trey Walker. “We’re applying lessons learned from our initial test run, from Plano to Richardson late last year, and are making great progress to testing the entire 26-mile corridor this summer.”
Beginning Jan. 26, DART said Silver Line trains will operate simulated test runs between DFW Airport’s Terminal B and the Cypress Waters Station from midnight to 4 a.m. Times for additional test runs reaching I-35 in Carrollton have not been set but are anticipated to occur between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. until mid-February.
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