Route information | ||||
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Maintained by NTTA (main lanes) and TxDOT (frontage roads) | ||||
Length | 54.9 mi[1] (88.4 km) | |||
Existed | 1998[2][3]–present | |||
Component highways | ![]() | |||
Major junctions | ||||
Counterclockwise end | ![]() | |||
Clockwise end | ![]() ![]() | |||
Location | ||||
Country | United States | |||
State | Texas | |||
Highway system | ||||
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The President George Bush Turnpike (PGBT) is a 52-mile (84 km)[4] controlled-access toll road running through the northern, northeastern and western suburbs, forming a partial beltway around Dallas, Texas, United States. It is named for the late George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States. At its west end near Belt Line Road in Irving, State Highway 161 (SH 161) continues southwest to I-20 in Grand Prairie. The discontinuous free frontage roads along the turnpike from I-35E in Carrollton east to its end at I-30 in Garland are assigned the State Highway 190 (SH 190) designation. SH 190 signage appears only along the Rowlett, Garland, Richardson, Plano, and Carrollton sections of the frontage road with the undersign "frontage road only". At intersections with city streets, only the Bush Turnpike signs are displayed, not the SH 190 signage. Prior to the construction of the main lanes as a tollway, SH 190 was used as the name of the planned main lanes too. Similarly, the part west of I-35E was planned as part of SH 161. Bush Turnpike is signed as a north–south road from I-20 to I-35E (the "Western Extension"), an east–west road from I-35E to the Merritt Main Lane Gantry (the original sections) and as a north–south road from the Merritt Main Lane Gantry to I-30 (the "Eastern Extension"), as Bush Turnpike makes a nearly 90-degree curve in both places.
The turnpike is operated by the North Texas Tollway Authority. Currently, all maintenance is done under a five-year total routine maintenance contract with Roy Jorgensen Associates, Inc. based in Buckeystown, Maryland, that started in November 2011.
The turnpike passes through three Texas counties (Dallas, Collin and Denton) and nine Dallas suburbs (Rowlett, Sachse, Garland, Richardson, Plano, Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Irving, and Grand Prairie).
Originally the President George Bush Turnpike was equipped with traditional toll plazas for cash payment as well as RFID-based TollTag express lanes. However, on July 1, 2009, the cash plazas were closed and replaced with "ZipCash", an OCR-based camera system which reads the license plate and bills the owner by mail. This made the turnpike the first in the United States to transition to all-electronic toll collection.[5] The ZipCash rates, however, come at a premium being significantly higher than both the TollTag rate and the earlier cash prices.[5]