Harlingen road work nears completion

HARLINGEN — Five miles of repaving on North 77 Sunshine Strip should be completed this week, a Texas Department of Transportation official said.

TxDOT began work on the section of roadway stretching from the north end of 77 Sunshine Strip down to Tyler Avenue in late April, with work crews grinding down the surface of the roadway to prepare it for new pavement.

The preparations have left the affected portion of Sunshine Strip rough, noisy and uncomfortable for motorists to drive on.

Arnold Cortez, a local TxDOT engineer overseeing the project, said Harlingen’s Sunshine Strip is one of 11 roadways that TxDOT is repaving around the Rio Grande Valley, with four others in Brownsville and six in Hidalgo County.

Foremost Paving Inc. of Weslaco was awarded the roughly $5.4 million contract for those projects in December 2009, Cortez said.

Crews could be seen laying blacktop on large sections of the roadway between 13th Street and Washington Avenue Thursday afternoon. Repaving on the stretch from Washington to Harrison avenues was under way Saturday.

Cortez estimated that the 77 Sunshine Strip project should be finished by the middle of this week, given good weather conditions.