Texas State Highway 289

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State Highway 289
Length: 53.703[1] mi (86.42 km)
Formed: 1939[1]
North end: SH 56
Major
junctions:
U.S. Route 380

PGBT
I 635

South end: Loop 12 in Dallas
Highways in Texas
< SH 288 SH 290 >
SH 289 sign on Maple Ave. in Oak Lawn. The sign is left over from the pre-1989 routing; this street is no longer part of the Texas state highway system.
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SH 289 sign on Maple Ave. in Oak Lawn. The sign is left over from the pre-1989 routing; this street is no longer part of the Texas state highway system.

State Highway 289, known for most of its length as Preston Road, is a north-south Texas state highway. It begins at the intersection of Preston Road and Loop 12/Northwest Highway.

Prior to 1989, it began north of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA) in the Oak Lawn neighborhood at an intersection with Pearl Street. From there, the highway designation followed Cedar Springs Road northeast for less than a block, and upon an intersection with Maple Avenue, ran northwest up that street. Less than a mile later at an intersection with Oak Lawn Avenue, the highway designation turned northeast up Oak Lawn, which it followed into Highland Park. There it was known as Oak Lawn Avenue until an intersection with Armstrong Parkway, where it became Preston Road.

The road is known as Preston all the way north through the remainder of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to a junction with State Highway 56 west of Sherman, Texas, near the Oklahoma border.

The Preston Road designation comes from the fact that the highway generally follows the course of an older road known as the "Preston Trail", which ran to the town of Preston Bend. Preston Bend is now completely submerged by Lake Texoma.

Preston Road passes through many of the fast-growing northern Dallas suburbs, including Frisco and Plano, as well as Prosper and Celina, which have started seeing new housing developments along Preston.

Preston Road is one of the most congested highways in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex; however, due to urban growth along the highway there is minimal room to add additional lanes, and no means to upgrade the road to freeway status without incurring significant cost to demolish businesses along the path. Instead, the nearby Dallas North Tollway generally parallels Preston Road.

Plans have been made to extend SH 289 north to connect with Farm to Market Road 691 near Pottsboro, Texas, another segment of the old Preston Trail which ends on the south shore of Lake Texoma. This would provide another access route to Grayson County Airport, which has been proposed as a third airport for the DFW area. According to unconfirmed reports, construction on the connection would begin sometime in 2007-2008.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Texas Department of Transportation, [1]