By GORDON DICKSON

Commuters who travel through Grapevine during the workweek should brace themselves for about four years of dodging orange barrels and perhaps traffic jams beginning Feb. 15.

But the good news is that long-awaited reconstruction of seven Grapevine highways, a project known as the DFW Connector, is scheduled to begin in just two months, officials said Tuesday night.

The project, which will bring badly needed traffic relief to Tarrant, Dallas and Denton counties, includes the reconstruction and expansion of Texas 114/121 on the north end of Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, one of the region’s busiest freeways.

"They’ve opened the floodgates and said all our plans are approved," said Selma Stockstill, a spokeswoman for NorthGate Contractors, the developer hired by the state to fast-track the $1.02 billion project. "It is a pretty firm date."

The Texas Department of Transportation issued a final notice Tuesday to proceed, the last bureaucratic hurdle giving NorthGate and its vendors legal authority to take possession of the roads, Stockstill said.

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