Alvarez: $303 million Pharr Interchange project is nearing completion

LA JOYA, Texas – Pedro “Pete” Alvarez, Pharr district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation, says the big $303 million Pharr Interchange project is almost complete.

In a video interview with the Rio Grande Guardian, Alvarez said the bulk of the construction work on I-2 should be finished by December of this year, with a ribbon cutting ceremony coming in the Spring of 2025.

“Typically, a project of this magnitude will take approximately ten years or so to design and construct. By doing it (the way we have), we’re pretty close to finishing, right around the five-year time frame,” Alvarez said.

“So, we’re delivering actually five years ahead of schedule, if you want to think about it that way.”

Recently, TxDOT opened the westbound main lanes. Alvarez explained the importance of this.

“It basically allows us to shift the traffic. We’re able to split the traffic that was utilizing the older section, the eastbound section. We were able to move that traffic over to the westbound lanes, which will now allow us to actually reconfigure and repave the eastbound main lanes. Westbound main lanes were recently done,” Alvarez said.

“There’s some work that’s still pending. We are not 100 percent complete on the westbound lanes, but this is going to allow us to do themain lanes on the eastbound side. We anticipate mid- to late-October to have the eastbound main lanes complete.

“Now we still have some work on the frontage roads and some cosmetic landscaping, things of that nature. We anticipate those will be completed the latter part of this year, in December 2024.

“So, we’re really, really excited for this project and we hope that you are enjoying a new improved safety, improved mobility, improved connectivity in our region. I see a lot more people utilizing it now. They’re coming back to the interstate. A lot of folks avoided that area due to construction.”

Editor’s Note: Here is the video interview with Pete Alvarez:

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