The City of College Station continues to experience exponential growth, especially to the south and west. As a result, Wellborn Road has become an increasingly critical highway to serve the area's booming population.
A connectivity challenge to the west is the Union Pacific railroad tracks, which parallel Wellborn Road for the entire length of the roadway. Due to operational efficiency and safety, limited crossings exist to provide access to Wellborn Road from the west. The crossings tend to be undersized and don't require Wellborn Road traffic to stop. The city is starting to improve these crossings to increase traffic capacity and connectivity, and improve safety at the crossings and the intersections with Wellborn Road.
One of the crossings is Capstone Drive, which crosses the railroad then intersects and dead ends at Wellborn Road from the west. It intersects within 350-feet of the Barron Road intersection that connects and dead ends from the east. The offset intersection created by these two roadways causes safety, capacity and efficiency issues for the Wellborn, Capstone, and Barron roadways.
The Capitol Improvement Citizen Advisory Committee recommended a project to realign Capstone and Barron to meet at the same junction along Wellborn Road. The project would widen Barron Road and the railroad crossing at the intersection to increase capacity.
In the spring of 2016, the city hired Halff & Associates, an engineering consultant, to perform an analysis of the intersection and potential routes for the realignment of Capstone and Barron. A public meeting was conducted on March 23, 2016, to gather community input before the analysis. Halff then performed its analysis and produced a preliminary engineering report of their findings. A second public meeting was conducted on June 28, 2016, to discuss the report.
Please see attached the links for the finalized Preliminary Engineering Report and the presentation slides from the June 28 public meeting.
NEXT STEPS
Halff & Associates and city staff will make a presentation to the city council about the analysis and the report's recommendations so that council can give direction on how to move forward.
DOCUMENTS (PDFs)
If you have any questions about the project please contact:
James Smith, PE
Public Works Department
City of College Station
979-764-3877
[email protected]