BY MARY JANE FARMER

HERALD DEMOCRAT

SHERMAN -- With the west side of two bridges on U.S. Highway 75 having been completed, Texas Department of Transportation contractors are making the move to the east side.

TxDOT Assistant Area Engineer Noel Paramanantham said that currently the contractors are picking up the concrete barriers placed to funnel traffic into one lane and are placing them on the north U.S. Highway 75 lanes. At first, the outside lane will be closed and, once bridge work over Houston and Lamar is completed on the east side, traffic will be diverted to the west side, using the same concrete barriers.

TxDOT has also contracted with law enforcement to control traffic in the area. Southmayd police handled that task Monday, controlling the traffic signals on the east, or northbound, service road at Houston and Lamar, to allow for the smoother flow of traffic that had gotten off the highway. Paramanantham said another is stationed about one-half mile north of the FM 1417 overpass, and others elsewhere in the construction zone.

Paramanantham said that TxDOT is expecting about a month of work on the highway's northbound east side, and that will depend a lot on the weather. Bad-weather days prohibit work on pavement.

Paramanantham said TxDOT will begin a research project on U.S. Highway 75, expected to begin in about a month. This project, he said, is to add a overlay, adding about 7-8 inches of concrete to pavement. The original design of U.S. Highway 75 was decades ago, he said, and with today's increased traffic volume, TxDOT is having to make repairs yearly in places.

This experimental project is one way TxDOT is looking alleviate those yearly repairs. It will be on the highway's south lanes, around the Sherman Town Center area.