“Life-changing” is not often a phrase associated with road construction, but the residents of Vista Ranch aren’t using it lightly.
For 20 years, the only way in and out of the 220-home subdivision was Tinsley Lane, a two-lane road that is cut by a busy railroad crossing. Trains often would fully close off access to the neighborhood, which sits in the quiet, sprawling ranchland of Fort Worth’s far north unincorporated territory.
“Sometimes I’ll see a train on the block, and I won’t attempt to leave,” said Deb Watkins, who has lived in the neighborhood for 16 years. “I’ll just wait.”
So, the newly built, train-track-skirting Shelton Ranch Road offers the community more than just convenience. It fully remakes their routines, residents said.
The new route runs south for about 1.4 miles before connecting to Peden Road. The project cost the county just under $2.5 million, county officials said.
Watkins described being delayed by trains for up to three hours, adding that trains often stop for long periods of time.
She attended a Dec. 18 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the road, where Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez, the community’s sole local representative, celebrated the road’s construction crew and the change it will bring to the neighborhood.
“Roads and bridges aren’t usually the most sexy topics, and they don’t catch headlines,” Ramirez said. “But I’ll tell you, it’s the most important thing I do.”
In recent years, the subdivision has been a filming location for Taylor Sheridan’s “Landman,” as the fictional home of Tommy Norris, played by Billy Bob Thornton. This provided another motive for having the road built fast, said Tracey Knight, Ramirez’s chief of staff.
“It was kind of fun the first year that they were filming, but the second year, (residents) kind of got tired with only having one way in and one way out, and then having the film crews in here,” Knight said.
The road wasn’t just wanted for convenience, Ramirez said; it was necessary for safety.
In an emergency, a stopped train is a significant barrier to first responders. While no such emergency has happened yet in the neighborhood, it remained a risk, said Clint Magee, a resident of Vista Ranch for 20 years.
Magee has long fought for the new route. He was convinced a new road was needed a few years after moving in, when, on his evening commute home, he was stopped by a train for eight hours from about 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., Magee said.
“People have missed flights and work,” Watkins said. “Kids coming home from school, they’re stuck, and they’re on the bus.”
Neighborhoods that only have one route in and out, such as Vista Ranch, are pervasive in unincorporated land, Ramirez said. The areas aren’t subject to regulation by any city, and no governing body can deny a development or how it’s built.
Ramirez said building the new road became a priority shortly after he was elected in 2022. He started digging into the thick “Tinsley Lane” folder sitting among the pending projects in his office and saw the years’ worth of residents’ complaints.
It took about two years to purchase the land for the road from the private landowners. After breaking ground, it took seven months to build, he said.
The road also paves the way for anticipated development, Ramirez said, as the ranchland to Fort Worth’s north is increasingly being filled with new subdivisions. While the road is currently two lanes, there’s room to expand it into four lanes later on.
“Eventually, this entire area is going to be built out,” he said. “So if we can control the pace of infrastructure installation, that’s our biggest responsibility. It’s to make sure the roads come before the rooftops.”
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
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Great Job Drew Shaw & the Team @ Fort Worth Report for sharing this story.
