199 Freeway, Northwest Fort Worth

The 199 Freeway will start at Interstate 820 in northwest Fort Worth and then proceed northwestward. One short section was completed in 1999. As of September 2000, only one future project has been funded - a $15 million section of feeder roads. This freeway will probably be constructed in the 2005-2010 time period.

The recent big news about the 199 freeway is the cancellation of the segment inside Interstate 820. This section would have connected to the proposed 121 bypass around north and west downtown Fort Worth, which was also cancelled. The cancellation of the inner city segment was a loss, but not a great loss. At this time there is not a great need for this freeway, but there probably will be in the future.

I recently drove on the corridor of the cancelled freeway and this corridor actually seemed like a good candidate for a freeway. There were not too many residences in the corridor, and most of the businesses along the corridor were low-grade establishments. In terms of the DFW metroplex, Fort Worth is probably the least pro-freeway municipality. There was some opposition to the 121 Southwest Parkway Tollway, but the project is moving forward and will almost surely be built. But there was enough latent anti-freeway sentiment in Fort Worth to kill the central 199 freeway.

All photos taken September 2000

A short section of freeway was completed in 1999. This section is about 5 miles northwest of Interstate 820.

The existing 199 highway looks like this. Notice that the feeder roads are two-way, and the intersections with the main highway are at grade. This configuration is quite dangerous.