Texas State Highway 360
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|||||||||
| State Highway 360 |
|||||||||
| Length: | 28.00[1] mi (45.06 km) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formed: | 1955 | ||||||||
| North end: |  SH 121 at Grapevine |
||||||||
| Major junctions: |
 I 30 |
||||||||
| South end: |  US 287 near Mansfield |
||||||||
|
|||||||||
State Highway 360, known as Texas 360 and SH 360, is a short but heavily used north-south state highway in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. It has its northern terminus at State Highway 121 in Grapevine as a freeway. It follows the western boundary of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to its interchange with State Highway 183 near Euless, and then takes a nearly north-south course through Arlington roughly on its boundary with Grand Prairie, with complicated access to Interstate 30, the former Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, and an interchange with Interstate 20 on the south side of Arlington.
South of Interstate 20, Texas 360 has been extended as an addition to the highway. The old divided highway that was the highway until the new portion opended in late November 2006 is now an access road.
The original alignment south of Highway 183 was called Watson Road. The freeway was constructed in different stages over the course of several decades. For the most part, each section's frontage roads were built first, handling all of the traffic years before the actual freeway portion was completed (or even begun). Similarly, the interchanges at Interstate 20, Interstate 30, and Highway 183 were in place long before the freeway lanes were completed.
The interchange at Interstate 30 is a holdover from when that freeway was a toll road. The design was such that any traffic moving from one freeway to the other was routed through one common, bi-directional ramp. This was a cost-saving measure as it required fewer toll booths. However, this remains a major bottleneck, compounded by the fact that it intersects with surface streets, and is near one major tourist attractions, Six Flags Over Texas.
The segment through Arlington is officially designated as the "Angus G. Wynne Freeway" (after the founder of Six Flags); however, neither the official designation nor the older Watson Road name are locally used, the road is generally called "360".
