The explosive growth around Alliance and North Fort Worth has turned I-35W into a parking lot at rush hour. Are the jobs and tax revenue worth the commute misery locals endure every single day?
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Add your commentLived in Saginaw my whole life — 41 years. Watched this town go from a quiet little bedroom community where everybody knew your neighbor to whatever this is now. I sat on I-35W for 47 minutes last Tuesday just trying to get from Saginaw Road to the 287 split. 47 MINUTES. That's not a commute, that's a hostage situation. The Alliance corridor jobs are great if you actually work there, but the rest of us are just subsidizing their tax base with our sanity.
Oh sure, just "leave earlier" — I'll let my kids' school know they should start at 5:45am so their parent can beat traffic. Incredible advice, truly. Not everyone's schedule bends around the highway, friend.
Fun fact for everyone complaining: Alliance Airport was literally designed from scratch in 1989 to be an industrial/logistics hub. Ross Perot Jr. planned this whole thing out. So y'all moved next to a massive planned commercial corridor and now you're surprised there's traffic? The corridor didn't come to you, you came to it.
The economic development argument always wins in Texas until it's YOUR neighborhood getting carved up. I grew up off Blue Mound Road and the character of this whole area has just evaporated. Strip malls, warehouses, hotel chains. I don't think the tax revenue ever quite trickles down to the actual Saginaw residents the way the boosters promise. Maybe I'm wrong. But show me the city budget that proves it before you tell me the traffic is worth it.
Hot take that nobody wants to hear: the traffic was already bad before Alliance even got big. People forget what 35W looked like in 2015. This isn't an Alliance problem, it's a Texas infrastructure problem. We build developments and then play catch-up on roads for the next decade. Classic Texas move.
The jobs at Alliance pay really well and yes the tax revenue has helped Saginaw with some city services so I don't think its all bad. My husband works at one of the distribution centers out there and we finally bought our first house because of that job. Not everyone commuting INTO Alliance is suffering — some of us actually benefit from it being there.
Someone above needs to Google that — Alliance Airport opened in 1989, not 2003. But honestly the commenter making that point isn't wrong regardless of the date. The development was always the plan. My gripe isn't with Alliance existing, it's with TxDOT acting like managed lanes and a few extra on-ramps are going to solve a problem that requires actual public transit investment. Fort Worth is never going to build real rail though, so here we are.
I moved from Keller to Saginaw two years ago thinking I'd have a shorter drive to my job near the Meow Wolf area in Fort Worth. WRONG. The northbound backup in the mornings now reaches almost to Saginaw Blvd by 7:45am. I didn't sign up for this and my realtor absolutely did not mention it. Is that worth $2 billion in economic activity? I genuinely don't know. But I'm mad about it today.
Can someone explain to me why any of you are still driving on 35W during peak hours when 287 exists? Serious question. I work out near Alliance and figured out two years ago that leaving at 6:20am instead of 7am cuts my commute in half. Y'all are not victims, you just refuse to adapt.
okay but Alliance Airport has been there since like 2003 or something, it's not that old
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