DART Silver Line bridge over US 75 gets steel arches this summer

Drivers on US 75 should prepare for two four-night shutdown windows this summer as crews install steel arches on DART’s Silver Line bridge in Richardson, bringing a high-profile finish to one of the corridor’s most visible construction sites. The south arch is set for June 4-7 and the north arch for July 16-19, with nighttime closures planned on the freeway and nearby frontage roads each time.

The work was laid out during the May 11 City Council meeting, where mobility program manager Daniel Herrig updated city leaders on the bridge and on continuing Cotton Belt Trail construction. During each arch installation window, DART service across the bridge will be paused and bus bridge service will be used to keep riders moving. That matters in a corridor where US 75 already carries heavy daily traffic and where even overnight lane closures can spill over into early-morning congestion for commuters, transit riders and nearby businesses.

The arches are more than decoration. DART and city documents say the bridge over US 75 spans almost a mile, and each arch will be about 400 feet long and rise about 80 feet above the roadway at its highest point. Richardson expects white and blue accent lighting on the arches and columns, a design choice intended to make the crossing read as a gateway into the city after dark. DART board materials put the aesthetic arch work at about $44 million total, with roughly 63% covered by the City of Richardson and 37% by DART and contingency funds through the interlocal agreement that shaped the project.

The visual payoff comes after a long construction runway. The Silver Line began passenger service on October 25, 2025, and DART describes the 26-mile regional rail line as linking seven cities across three counties and connecting to DFW Airport. In Richardson, the bridge arches are meant to give the US 75 crossing a more finished look and reinforce the station approach near CityLine, rather than leaving it as a purely functional rail structure.

The bridge project is unfolding alongside Cotton Belt Trail work that is pushing east and west through Richardson, including segments near the University of Texas at Dallas area, the Spring Creek bridge and CityLine. The city says the trail corridor follows a portion of the Silver Line rail route and stretches about 57 miles from Shiloh Station in Plano to Fort Worth. Richardson also says construction on the trail in the city began in May 2025, with the local segment estimated at more than $24 million and funded primarily through federal awards. Together, the bridge arches and trail buildout signal that the Silver Line corridor is moving from active construction into a more legible regional system, even if the summer will bring a short stretch of disruption first.