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TxDOT Goes All‑In as Construction Soars
Excavators demolish an overpass during overnight work on the My35 Waco South project, a $250-million TxDOT effort to widen Interstate 35, rebuild bridges and improve safety.
Every road in Texas is a wager on the future—that the people will come, the freight will move and the economy humming beneath it all will keep outgrowing yesterday’s infrastructure. And the Texas Dept. of Transportation’s job is simply to stay one step ahead.
In 2025, the agency made its case for how aggressively it’s trying to do just that. More than $60 billion in active construction was underway statewide—the largest portfolio in its history—with more than 11,000 projects in planning, design or construction at any given moment. Behind that build-out is the state’s financial engine: TxDOT’s 10‑year Unified Transportation Program (UTP), the annually updated blueprint for prioritizing and funding transportation projects, which reached a record $104.2 billion, the second straight year it has topped $100 billion.
An aerial view of the Cresson Bypass, a TxDOT project designed to improve regional mobility by diverting through‑traffic from local streets.
Photo courtesy Texas Dept. of Transportation
Nearly half of that investment stems from Proposition 1 (2014) and Proposition 7 (2015), the voter‑approved amendments that redirect oil‑and‑gas production taxes and portions of motor‑vehicle sales and rental taxes into the State Highway Fund—revenue streams that have become the backbone of Texas’ long‑term mobility spending. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute estimates that the UTP generates approximately $29.4 billion in annual economic benefits and supports roughly 71,500 direct and indirect jobs.
On the execution side, a fiercely competitive 2025 construction market helped TxDOT stretch its funding further, allowing the agency to advance additional work. “The significant savings … have enabled us to move more projects forward than we originally anticipated,” says Adam Hammons, the agency’s media relations director, “and we expect to accelerate even more later in the fiscal year.” TxDOT expects to issue 768 construction awards in 2026.
Construction nears completion on the Harbor Bridge in Corpus Christi, where TxDOT is replacing the aging crossing with a cable‑stayed structure designed to improve safety, increase capacity and accommodate larger vessels.
Photo courtesy Texas Dept. of Transportation
Projects Reshaping the State
The 2025 construction starts reflect the full range of what TxDOT manages: urban reconstruction, rural safety upgrades, flood‑resilient infrastructure and at least one project that rewrote the record books. The year also brought notable awards highlighting innovation, safety and construction quality. Multiple districts earned the Texas Bluebonnet Safety Award for zero-incident performance, while project quality was recognized through the TxDOT–Texas Asphalt Pavement Association Quality Pavement Awards. TxDOT projects also received regional recognition through the America’s Transportation Awards.
“We expect to accelerate even more later in the fiscal year.”
—Adam Hammons, Media Relations Director, TxDOT
In Corpus Christi, TxDOT opened the new Harbor Bridge in June. The $1.3-billion structure is the longest concrete segmental cable‑stayed bridge in North America, carrying a six‑lane divided roadway over the ship channel with 205 ft of vertical clearance—enough for post‑Panamax vessels.
In the Bryan/College Station area, the $671-million SH 6 Central BCS Expansion—known locally as The Big 6—broke ground Dec. 1. Awarded to Fluor Heavy Civil, the project will widen the corridor from four to six main lanes, reconfigure auxiliary lanes, add collector‑distributor lanes, upgrade interchanges and incorporate shared‑use paths for pedestrians and cyclists.
In Waco, the My35 Waco South project began Feb. 24, targeting roughly three miles of I‑35 between South Loop 340 and 12th Street. The $250-million effort will widen main lanes from six to eight, reconstruct overpasses and frontage roads, realign ramps, add sidewalks and introduce a diverging diamond interchange at Valley Mills Drive. Completion is targeted for early 2029.
Construction crews work along Interstate 35 near New Braunfels as part of a TxDOT project along the rapidly growing corridor between Austin and San Antonio.
Photo courtesy David Salomon Lara
Houston anchors some of TxDOT’s most complex work. The North Houston Highway Improvement Project’s Segment 3 represents a wholesale rethinking of the interchange environment around downtown—rerouting I‑45, widening I‑69 with new express lanes, replacing the Pierce Elevated with downtown connectors, adding structural caps over depressed sections to create potential green space and engineering advanced drainage to reduce flooding.
“We expect to accelerate even more later in the fiscal year.”
—Adam Hammons, Media Relations Director, TxDOT
Flood resilience initiatives are also underway nearby, targeting an area that has flooded 10 times since 1992. The $407-million I‑10 White Oak Bayou Reconstruction and Elevation project includes raising 1.8 miles of the corridor above the 100‑year floodplain, reconstructing main and HOV lanes, replacing the Houston Avenue Bridge and adding a 26‑acre detention pond.
Rural Texas is seeing major investment as well. The SH 21/US 190 West Widening in Madison County will convert roughly 20 miles of two‑lane undivided roadway into a four‑lane divided facility—separating opposing traffic, straightening curves, adding shoulders and installing restricted crossing U‑turn intersections.
The geographic reach extends farther still. In Austin, construction began on both the Capital Express Central I‑35 Lady Bird Lake and I‑35 Tunnel projects. Dallas broke ground on the I‑30 Canyon Project. San Antonio pushed forward with I‑35 NEX South Phase 2. In South Texas, the US 77 New Location Freeway advanced in Kleberg County, and US 281 was upgraded to freeway standards in Hidalgo County. “From helping local communities to providing substantial improvements in our big cities, these projects are helping improve safety and relieve congestion across the state,” says Hammons.
A section of I‑35 is under construction as part of a long‑term TxDOT project to modernize the corridor near Austin.
Photo courtesy David Salomon Lara
Looking Ahead
Every region of Texas is pressing the system in a different way—urban corridors choking on congestion, suburbs outgrowing their infrastructure and rural communities seeking connectivity that fuels economic growth. The priority running through all of it, however, is the same. “Every project has a safety element,” Hammons says, “and the state will continue implementing improvements to reduce crashes and save lives.”
And that emphasis is reflected in the data. In 2025, Texas was on track to record its lowest roadway fatality total in over five years. The progress supports TxDOT’s Road to Zero initiative, which aims to cut traffic deaths in half by 2035 and eliminate them entirely statewide by 2050, backed by $3.8 billion invested in more than 6,900 data-driven safety projects from 2015 to 2024. At the same time, Texans are driving 17% more miles than in 2014 while experiencing a 15% drop in annual delay hours—saving the average driver about $316 a year on TxDOT‑maintained roadways.
Construction advances on I‑35 in San Antonio, where TxDOT is rebuilding and widening the highway to relieve congestion on one of the city’s busiest routes.
Photo by Vince Kong/ENR
Technology is also reshaping how the agency manages its portfolio. TxDOT launched its AI Strategic Plan in late 2024 and updated it in January to keep pace with rapid advances, identifying 230 potential AI use cases to guide the agency over the next three years. “AI is no longer experimental at TxDOT,” says Marc Williams, executive director. “It is a strategic asset that is now embedded in our workflows and delivering measurable results.”
“AI is no longer experimental at TxDOT.”
—Marc Williams, Executive Director, TxDOT
The broader technology initiative involves creating digital twins of finished assets, enhancing real-time traffic management and traveler information systems, using video analytics to detect incidents and implementing a Texas Truck Parking Availability System that provides live data on commercial truck parking statewide.
For an agency managing 11,000 projects across 268,000 square miles, system visibility is as vital as the construction itself. Roads are becoming smarter, and so is the agency responsible for building them. With advanced tools and a record project pipeline, TxDOT is gearing up the network for a Texas that shows no signs of slowing down.
