Road & Highway Crossings in DFW
A road crossing is the bread-and-butter bore: 80 to 400 feet, one to a handful of conduits, and pavement that stays exactly where it was. In this metro the crossing itself is rarely the hard part — the permit and the existing utilities are. City ROW rules differ noticeably between Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, and forty suburbs; TxDOT corridors run through the UIR portal with the utility-accommodation rules attached; and any pavement worth crossing already has something under it that needs potholing first.
Our rule for homeowners, stated plainly because it saves everyone a phone call: if your run is open ground on your own property, trenching is cheaper and we'll say so. Boring earns its cost when a road, driveway you can't cut, or finished surface is in the way — and road-crossing projects start at a $10,000 minimum, because mobilizing a rig, crew, locates, and traffic control has a floor no honest contractor can quote under.
For GCs and utilities: send the alignment, the product spec, and the authority whose pavement it is. The quote comes back with permit scope, traffic control, and potholing counted — the version of the number that survives to the invoice.
Straight answers
How long does a TxDOT crossing permit take?
The UIR submittal itself is quick; district review time varies with the corridor and season. We prepare the submittal with the bore plan attached and put the district's realistic review window in the schedule — not the best case.
Can you bore under a driveway for a residential service line?
We can, but under 50 feet on private property it's usually not cost-justified for you or for us — trenching wins. Where the line must cross a public road, that's a real bore project and it starts at the $10,000 minimum.