Central Expressway (Dallas)

"NCX" redirects here. For other uses, see NCX (disambiguation).

Central Expressway at Fitzhugh Avenue

Central Expressway is a north–south highway in Dallas, Texas (USA) and surrounding areas.

North Central Expressway

The best-known section is the North Central Expressway, a name for a freeway section of U.S. Highway 75 between downtown Dallas and McKinney, Texas. The southern terminus is at an intersection with "hidden" Interstate 345 (signed as Interstate 45) and Woodall Rodgers Expressway.

South of US 75's terminus, North Central Expressway briefly continues south in the median of I-345, then becomes a surface street through the eastern side of downtown Dallas. The surface street section south of Pearl Street was renamed for César Chávez in April, 2010.

The North Central Expressway is near high-income neighborhoods and enclave cities such as Highland Park and University Park. The freeway is also adjacent to popular districts including Uptown, Cityplace, Lower Greenville, NorthPark Center, and the Telecom Corridor. Near the intersection of Central Expressway and Mockingbird Lane is Southern Methodist University, and Mockingbird Station.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail system has a tunnel underneath the North Central Expressway between downtown Dallas and Mockingbird Station.

History

The Central project was first proposed by Dallas City Planner George E. Kessler in 1911, who suggested that the city buy the right of way of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad (H&TC) to remove the railway tracks and construct a Central Boulevard (later renamed the Central Expressway project) in their place. The Central project became a real project in the 1920's (with first mention in The Dallas Morning News in December 1924), but resistance from the Southern Pacific railroad company proved to be a serious obstacle that delayed the project for decades. Southern Pacific opposed the use of their railroad's right of way to construct the Central Expressway, and it was this opposition and lobbying of political forces that caused the significant delays in the construction to the early 1950s.

Parts of the North Central Expressway were opened in 1950. The route from Downtown to Mockingbird Lane was fully functional by the end of 1952, and the whole route to Campbell Road in Richardson was opened for traffic in August 1956. By the time the Central Expressway opened for traffic, North Dallas and Richardson had already expanded beyond expectations, and the new highway was already hopelessly inadequate by the 1960s. The Expressway did not reach the city of Anna and the northern Collin County line until late 1969 or early 1970.

Reconstruction

Prior to reconstruction, the North Central Expressway was considered to be one of the most poorly designed freeways in the nation. Though initially an engineering marvel as Dallas's first freeway when it opened to traffic in 1950, the explosive growth that soon hit north Dallas and the nearby suburbs quickly overwhelmed its design and capacity. By the 1980s, the four-lane freeway had acquired a reputation for severe rush-hour traffic jams.

In the early 1980s, the TxDOT floated plans to build an elevated structure above the existing freeway^{[citation needed]}. After considerable study and debate, elevated structures were eliminated. Construction started in 1992 and was finally completed in November 1999. Total reconstruction cost was around $600 million.

Current state

The facility has 8 continuous general-purpose lanes from downtown Dallas to Legacy Drive in Plano except for a six-lane segment where it passes under Interstate 635 (two additional lanes are present but are only entrance ramps/exit ramps for Forest Lane and Midpark Road). For the six miles (10 km) north of downtown Dallas, the freeway lies more than 30 feet (9.1 m) below adjacent and partially cantilevered frontage roads.

Aesthetic treatment

The freeway's architecturally distinctive design distinguishes it as one of the nation's most attractive urban freeways. Every structure and element along the highway right-of-way was given aesthetic attention during the design phase. Support columns for overpasses and bridges have been designed to be as visually appealing as possible. The beige concrete columns which form the support structure for the retaining walls contrast with the brown, textured infill panels of the walls to create a multicolored and articulated edge to the freeway. Two million square feet^{[citation needed]} of these walls along the nine mile (14 km)-long project distinguishes the freeway.

Freedman's Cemetery

Central Expressway's 1940s construction methods would come to represent inadequacies of both civil engineering and social engineering. The southern end of North Central Expressway passed through a historic African-American neighborhood, displacing 1,500 black residents. But the full scale of the injustice was not revealed until preparations began for the 1990s expansion of the route. The living weren't the only ones displaced; a quarter of the 4-acre (16,000 m²) Freedman's Cemetery, with graves dating back to Emancipation, had been paved over. Archeological excavations uncovered the remains of over 1,100 men, women, and children under existing and proposed roadways. After their reburial, the site was turned into a memorial to the working-class black residents of the area, which after the expressways were built, became the upscale Uptown Dallas neighborhood.

South Central Expressway

From south of Main Street and its crossing under the Interstate 45 overhead in downtown Dallas, Central Expressway became the South Central Expressway. The road met Interstate 30 at a three-level interchange and continued south as a surface road down to I-45. This section was renamed in honor of César Chávez in April, 2010. Upon crossing under I-45, it becomes U.S. Highway 175 and is signed both as South Central Expressway and S.M. Wright Freeway (named for a local minister). Where US 175 turns off to the east, the road continues south as State Highway 310; the S.M. Wright Freeway name ends at Loop 12, past the end of freeway standards. The South Central Expressway continues past a partial interchange with Interstate 20 to end at a merge with I-45 north of Hutchins. This section through and south of downtown mainly serves local traffic. I-45 was built roughly parallel to it. However, the parallel section of I-45 north of the Trinity River is completely elevated, and is often difficult to traverse when ice storms hit Dallas (about once per year); thus, South Central often takes over some of the traffic during this time.

Future changes

The US 175 section is due to be rerouted in the future, off South Central/S.M. Wright onto a new alignment, further extending C.F. Hawn Freeway west to I-45; it has not been reported whether or not the State Highway 310 numbering would replace US 175's when it is rerouted. Meanwhile, TxDOT is preparing to redesign the portion of South Central/S.M. Wright (between I-45 and US 175's current east turn) into a surface-street boulevard, and has held meetings with local residents about the project. Many have differences of opinion; some want a 4-lane arrangement, others want 6 lanes. Some even think TxDOT is to blame for dividing the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, there is not current funding for the project, and even if there were, it would be 2015 at the earliest before US 175's rerouting could be finished .

Exit list

South Central Expressway

County	Location	Destinations	Notes
Dallas	Dallas	Lamar Street	northbound exit and southbound entrance
		Municipal Avenue; Lamar Street	northbound exit and entrance
		Haven Street	southbound exit and entrance
		U.S. Highway 175 east - Kaufman	no southbound entrance
		Hatcher Street	no northbound exit
		Pine Street
		Metropolitan Avenue
		Pennsylvania Avenue	northbound exit and southbound entrance
		Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard	northbound exit only
		Interstate Highway 45 to U.S. Highway 75 - McKinney	northbound exit and southbound entrance
		Good-Latimer Expressway	northbound exit and southbound entrance

At this point South Central Expressway becomes a surface road through Downtown Dallas.

North Central Expressway

North Central Expressway is the only highway in Texas to use a consecutive-numbering system as opposed to a mile marker system. The numbering system south of I-635 changed drastically when several exits were consolidated; north of I-635 the system remained the same. When US 75 was rerouted west of Sherman and Denison, additional exits took the next available numbers.

North of McKinney, US 75 is not referred to as Central Expressway, giving way to other names such as Collins Freeway (Howe) and Sam Rayburn Freeway (Sherman).

County	Location	#		Destinations	Notes
Dallas	Dallas	Old
				Bryan Street; Good-Latimer Expressway	southbound exit and northbound entrance
				Interstate Highway 45 south - Houston (Interstate Highway 345 south)	southbound exit and northbound entrance
			285	Ross Avenue	southbound exit only; exit no. corresponds to I-45
			1A	to Interstate Highway 35E - Denton; Waco (Spur 366 west)	southbound exit and northbound entrance; northbound where I-45 becomes US 75, exit 286; no. corresponds to I-45 north
		1		(Hall Street)
		2		(Lemmon Avenue)
		3	1B	Haskell Avenue; Blackburn Street; Fitzhugh Avenue; Lemmon Avenue
		4		(Fitzhugh Avenue)
		5	2	Knox Street; Henderson Avenue; Monticello Avenue; Fitzhugh Avenue
		6		(Monticello Avenue)
		7		(McCommas Boulevard)
		8	3	Mockingbird Lane; University Boulevard; Monticello Avenue
		9		(Yale Boulevard)
		10		(University Boulevard)
		11	4A	Lovers Lane; Southwestern Boulevard; University Boulevard	exit 4 southbound
		12		(Southwestern Boulevard)
		13	4B	Caruth Haven Lane	southbound exit is combined with 5A
		14-15	5A	Loop 12 - Caruth Haven Lane
		16	5B	Northpark Boulevard; Park Lane
		17	6	Walnut Hill Lane; Meadow Road
		18		(Meadow Road)
		19	7	Royal Lane; Meadow Road
		20A	8A	Forest Lane	exit 20-20A southbound
		20B	8B	Coit Road	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			20B	Frontage Road	northbound exit only
			21	Interstate Highway 635
			20A	Churchill Way	southbound exit and northbound entrance
			22	Midpark Road
	Richardson		23	Spring Valley Road
			24	Belt Line Road; Main Street
			25	Arapaho Road
			26	Campbell Road	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			27A	Galatyn Parkway; Renner Road; Campbell Road	exit 26 southbound
Collin			27	Renner Road	southbound exit and northbound entrance
			28A	Plano Parkway
			28B	President George Bush Turnpike
	Plano		29	15th Street (former FM 544)	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			29A	Park Boulevard; 15th Street
			30	Parker Road
			30A	Frontage Road	southbound exit only
			31	Spring Creek Parkway
			32	Legacy Drive
			32A	Frontage Road	northbound exit and southbound exit
	Allen		33	Bethany Drive
			34	McDermott Drive (former FM 2170)
			35	Allen Drive	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			36	Exchange Parkway
			37	Farm to Market Road 2786 - Stacy Road
			38	Ridgeview Drive
			38A	State Highway 121 south; to State Highway 5 - Fort Worth (Spur 399; former Farm to Market Road 720)	SH 121 joins northbound and leaves southbound
	McKinney		39	Eldorado Parkway
			40A	Farm to Market Road 3038; Spur 359 - Louisiana Street; Virginia Parkway
			40B	White Avenue	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			41	U.S. Highway 380 - Greenville; Denton
			42	Wilmeth Road
			43	Farm to Market Road 543 - Weston Road
			44	Telephone Road; Davis Road
			45	State Highway 121 north - Bonham	SH 121 joins southbound and leaves northbound
	Melissa		46	Melissa Road
			47	Throckmorton Road; Foster Crossing Road
	Anna		48	Farm to Market Road 455 - Anna-Weston Road
			49	Mantua Road
			50	County Line Road
Grayson	Van Alstyne		51	Farm to Market Road 121 - Van Alstyne	due to confusion between this exit and State Highway 121 (a few miles to the south, which leads to DFW Airport), southbound highway signs are marked "DFW TRAFFIC DO NOT EXIT"
			52	Farmington Road
	Howe		53	Spur 381 - Howe
			54	Farm to Market Road 902; State Highway 5
	Sherman		55A	Frontage Road	southbound exit and entrance
			55	Frontage Road
			56	Farm to Market Road 1417
			56A	South Travis Street	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			56B	Frontage Road	northbound exit only
			57	Park Street; Center Street
			58	State Highway 56 - Lamar Street; Houston Street	Lamar Street is one way eastbound; Houston Street is one way westbound
			59	Washington Street	no southbound entrance
			60	Farm to Market Road 131 - Travis Street; Taylor Street
			61	State Highway 91 north — Texoma Parkway	no southbound exit
			62	Lamberth Road	northbound exit and southbound entrance
			63	U.S. Highway 82 - Bonham; Gainesville
			64	Loy Lake Road; Fallon Drive
			65	Farm to Market Road 691 - Grayson County Airport; Grayson County Junior College
	Denison		66	Spur 503 - Denison
			67	Loy Lake Road
			68	Crawford Street Road
			69	Farm to Market Road 120 - Pottsboro; Lake Texoma
			70	Farm to Market Road 84
			71	Randell Lake Road
			72	State Highway 91
			73	U.S. Highway 69 south - Greenville; Denison	US 69 joins northbound and leaves southbound
			74	Texas Travel Info Center

Images of Central Expressway

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  Central Expressway heading southbound, towards Downtown Dallas

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  Central Expressway near NorthPark Center

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  Central Expressway near Southern Methodist University and Mockingbird Lane

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  Central Expressway at Haskell Ave