U.S. Route 75 in Texas


U.S. Highway 75 is a part of the U.S. Highway System that travels from I-345 in Dallas, Texas northward to the Canadian border in Noyes, Minnesota. In the state of Texas it runs from I-345 in Dallas and heads north to the Oklahoma state line, a distance of about.

History

In the initial assignment of state highways in 1917, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston were connected by a branch of State Highway 2, which ran via Waco and Bryan and continued on to Galveston. The more direct route followed by US 75 was not initially part of the system between Richland and Huntsville. This Richland–Huntsville cutoff was added by 1919 as SH 32, and US 75 was assigned to the alignment, as well as SH 6 north of Dallas, in 1926. The branch of SH 2, which US 75 followed between Houston and Galveston, eventually became part of SH 6, and these numbers were dropped in the 1939 renumbering.
Prior to the coming of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, the only improvements to US 75 in Texas beyond building a two-lane paved roadway were in the Houston and Dallas areas. However, the highways in and near these cities included some of the first freeways in the state: the Gulf Freeway and the Central Expressway. When I-45 was built in the 1960s, its alignment bypassed many of the towns and built-up areas between Downtown Dallas and Houston. The bypassed routes retained the US 75 designation until the designation was truncated to Downtown Dallas in 1987. Many of the original alignments continue to exist under other designations.
In Dallas, the route followed what is now the Good Latimer Expressway southeast, out of downtown, along US 175 and south along SH 310.
Near Ferris, Trumbull, Palmer, Ennis, and Corsicana I-45 veers east to avoid the more populated areas. The old US 75 alignments through these towns, decommissioned in 1987, now carry the following designations:
Through Streetman, Fairfield, Buffalo, Centerville, Madisonville, Huntsville, New Waverly, Willis, and Conroe, US 75 followed what is now SH 75.
In Galveston, the alignment of SH 87 from 20th Street to the southern terminus of I-45 was also part of US 75 until its 1987 truncation.
In other cases alignments were bypassed while US 75 remained in existence; they now carry the following designations:

Route description

US 75 begins at I-345, an unsigned auxiliary route of I-45 and heads north, first interchanging Spur 366 in the northeastern part of downtown Dallas. The highway then interchanges with SL 12 before forming the High Five Interchange with I-635. Then, it interchanges with the President George Bush Turnpike as it continues north through Plano. It then interchanges with the Sam Rayburn Tollway, becoming concurrent with SH 121 and then heads through McKinney and interchanging with US 380. The stretch through McKinney is largely unchanged from its original design except for its intersection at the Sam Rayburn Tollway. to replace the original interchange. Plans to upgrade the facility through and north of McKinney are under way with the reconstruction of the US 380 bridge. US 75 then splits from SH 121 in Melissa and continues north. In Sherman, the route crosses over SH 56 and then US 82. North of Denison, it becomes concurrent with US 69 for the next before crossing over the Red River and into Oklahoma.
The exit numbers for US 75 are not based on mile markers; instead, the exits were numbered consecutively. As the bypass route was completed around the Sherman–Denison area, the numbering system was continued for the new exits. Upon completion of the widened Central Expressway through Dallas, the exit numbering was changed for the section south of I-635 to correspond with the new exits, based on mileage, but the numbering system north of I-635 was left unchanged, thus explaining the gap in the current numbering system.