With an estimated 1,000 people relocating to Texas daily, clogged and bogged-down highways are commonplace, especially Interstate 35 through Austin, the state capital. For example, roughly 200,000 vehicles travel the Austin stretch of I-35 each day. The Texas Dept. of Transportation (TxDOT) projects a doubling of that number to more than 400,000 over the next two decades. To halt some of that congestion, TxDOT has earmarked more than a billion dollars for the ambitious Capital Express Program, a three-pronged project that will eventually widen and otherwise improve nearly 30 miles of heavily traveled roadway.
In addition to adding needed capacity, the city believes the project will also go far in righting a historical wrong. Originally built in the 1950s, I-35 served as Austin’s racial dividing line. “Austin has long since removed the segregationist language from its legal code and land use plan, but the physical barrier has remained,” the city’s project website states. “The redesign and construction of the new I-35 Capital Express has a role to play in rectifying this historical inequity for Central Texas.”