Anyone who leaves Mira Vista's gate heading north toward downtown has done the same merge for over a decade: onto the Chisholm Trail Parkway, into the stacked interchange near Benbrook where the tollway crosses I-20 and SH 183, and around whatever combination of frontage roads gets you where the direct ramp should be but isn't. So when the $250 million Chisholm Trail Parkway widening project started showing up in local coverage last year, it would have been reasonable to assume relief was finally arriving for that exact stretch of asphalt. It isn't. The project is real, it's funded, and construction crews are actively pouring concrete on it right now. It just happens to be thirteen miles south of the interchange Mira Vista residents actually use every day.
A widening project that starts south of where your commute starts
The North Texas Tollway Authority's widening work covers the corridor from Crowley Plover Road, also known as FM 1187 in Tarrant County, down to U.S. Highway 67 in Johnson County, near Cleburne. That's a 13-mile stretch being taken from two lanes to four, and the NTTA board approved $188.9 million in construction, management, and materials-testing contracts back on May 21, 2025, with the whole project slated for completion by late 2028.
Read that geography again. FM 1187 sits well south of I-20. Mira Vista's daily on-ramp problem lives at the interchange near Benbrook, north of that construction zone entirely. The widening is a genuine, meaningful project for commuters between Fort Worth, Burleson, and Cleburne, and it's part of why cities like Cleburne are excited about the growth it will bring alongside developments like Cleburne Station and the new Amazon operations facility going in nearby. But it does nothing for the specific gap that shapes a Mira Vista resident's morning.
That gap has been there since the tollway opened. When Chisholm Trail Parkway debuted on May 11, 2014, the interchange with I-20 wasn't fully built out. Drivers coming from the south weren't able to use three of the four connections at that interchange right away, a limitation that was described at the time as temporary while remaining ramps got finished. More than a decade later, those direct entrance and exit ramps connecting the tollway to I-20 in southwest Fort Worth are still not built. In 2025, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed to Fort Worth Report that the ramps remain in the planning stage.
"The ramps are in the planning phase with a timeline still being determined."
No funding commitment, no construction date, no completion year. The NTTA widening project doesn't touch this piece of the puzzle because it's a separate TxDOT undertaking, and TxDOT hasn't attached a schedule to it yet.
What's actually moving on the corridor right now
None of this means the parkway is sitting still. NTTA's own project updates for the widening describe active work up and down the southern stretch:
- Bridge deck work underway at the Don Lee Road bridge and the CR 904 bridge
- Buffalo Creek bridge and CR 1015 bridge construction in progress
- Substructure work continuing at the Sparks Road, CR 920, and CR 913 bridges
- Roadway embankment, subgrade, and paving operations advancing throughout the corridor
- The southbound entrance ramp from FM 917 closed in late July for reconstruction of the southbound mainlanes and ramps in that area, with reopening targeted for January 2027
It's a legitimately busy construction zone. It's just a construction zone that belongs to Cleburne and Johnson County commuters, not to anyone driving from Mira Vista into the city core. If you've seen drone footage or road-closure alerts about Chisholm Trail construction and wondered whether it means your own commute is about to improve, the honest answer is that it doesn't, at least not from this project.
The toll went up too, separate from any of this
On July 1, 2025, NTTA raised the TollTag rate on Chisholm Trail Parkway from 21 to 22 cents per mile. At that rate, a full 27.6-mile trip from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne runs about $6.07 with a TollTag versus $12.14 for ZipCash pay-by-mail customers, who pay double. For anyone using even a fraction of that mileage on a regular commute, it's worth confirming your TollTag is current, since the gap between electronic and mailed billing has only widened.
The rate change has nothing to do with the ramp gap or the widening project's completion date. It's simply part of how NTTA funds its capital improvement work, including the very widening project described above, which is being paid for through the agency's toll-revenue fund rather than a new bond or state appropriation.
What's landing at Mira Vista's own doorstep
The one piece of this story that does sit close to home is happening at Oakmont Boulevard, the commercial corridor most Mira Vista residents already use for groceries, coffee, and everyday errands. In January 2025, Fort Worth's City Council voluntarily annexed 152 acres, including right-of-way land, to bring the Clearfork/Edwards Ranch development into the city. That 146-acre site sits near the intersection of Chisholm Trail Parkway and Oakmont Boulevard and is planned to add housing and retail to the mixed-use footprint already established by Clearfork and Waterside nearby.
This is the development actually worth watching if you live inside the gates. It's not tied to the interchange fix, and it's not part of the widening project's construction timeline. But it's the growth happening at the intersection Mira Vista residents cross most often, and it's a reminder that the corridor's changes are arriving unevenly. Some pieces, like new retail at Oakmont, move on a city annexation calendar. Others, like the I-20 ramps, move on a planning process with no calendar at all.
Regional planners see the bigger picture as a long runway rather than a short fix. Dan Lamers, senior program manager at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has pointed out that the corridor has seen substantial growth in population and employment since the tollway opened in 2014, growth that regional forecasts expect to continue through 2050. That kind of trajectory is exactly why the ramp gap matters more now than it did a few years ago. More people are using the same incomplete interchange every year, and the fix for it still doesn't have a date attached.
What this means for the drive out of the gate
If you live in Mira Vista, the practical takeaway is straightforward. The same merge you've been navigating around the Benbrook stack interchange isn't going away this year or next. The widening project you may have read about is a Cleburne-area story, not a Fort Worth-area one, at least for now. The toll increase is already in effect and worth checking your TollTag balance over. And the real estate action worth tracking locally is happening at Oakmont Boulevard, where Clearfork's footprint keeps expanding right at the edge of the neighborhood, not out on FM 1187 where the construction cameras are pointed.
For a closer look at how Mira Vista fits into the surrounding Clearfork and Chisholm Trail corridor, the Mira Vista neighborhood guide covers what the gated community offers beyond its commute, from the golf course to the surrounding shopping and dining that keeps expanding along Bryant Irvin and Oakmont.
If you're weighing a move into Mira Vista, or already call it home and want a clearer read on how the surrounding corridor is shaping day to day life here, the John Zimmerman Group knows this stretch of southwest Fort Worth as well as anyone working it. Reach out and work with us.
