MAROON said:

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I-10 to Hwy 71 is the way you get from Houston to Austin. No one would ever take I-10 to Toll 130 unless they were lost

Now TXDOT needs to build some overpasses between Bastrop and Austin to get rid of the lights to make it a fully functional highway (same scenario as 290 in Elgin).

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I live in west austin.

I go 71 to Houston.

I go 79 to College Station.

I try to avoid 290 to CStat or Houston. But sometimes I have to.

How this was ignored for 25 years but 183 at Liberty Hill was fully funded and completed in amazing time is a crime against 1/3 of the state that travels to and from Austin/Houston every week.

The Chicken Ranch said:

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290 should be an Interstate between Houston and Austin.

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AJ02 said:

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I've been gone from Austin 15 years now. I haven't been back since, but just hearing about all this....I can't even imagine!! I used to have a view of downtown skyline from my apartment off Southwest Parkway. From pictures online, I wouldn't even recognize downtown anymore.

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The Downtime skyline from SW Parkway looks bigger than Houston or Dallas's skyline...it's likely not...but it looks like it. Complete with the state's tallest building.

TxDOT is one department that severely needs to be DOGE'd.

Lots of wasteful spending on "contractors"

Solutions;
1. Plow the interstate like divided and raised highway through Manor
2. Bypass Elgin completely on the south side.
3. Bypass Giddings completely on the north or south side.
4. Fix the interchange between 290 and 36 in Brenham


Just a start.

aggiehawg said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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Let me guess: you sold the vehicle or traded it in and didn't take the plates off. Same thing happened to me about a year ago.

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No. We still had the same vehicles back then. The Hubs is one of those guys that never sells anything and I keep my vehicles for 14-15 years. And they were all registered in our home county. But the toll authorities still tracked us down with threatening letters about unpaid tolls.

As I said, when The Hubs did call about one and had the gal pull up the vehicle description on the registration and then the picture associated with that toll notice, she finally got it. License plate aside, how does a black one ton pickup truck with a huge brush guard on front turn into a VW Beetle? They were going off of either license plate numbers nor vehicle registrations.

Just weird.

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I sometimes get a toll invoice from that authority even though I have a TexTag. After paying a couple of them I now just throw them in the trash. I avoid that toll road if at all possible.

Bunk Moreland said:

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The run from 290/130 all the way to Elgin is an absolute nightmare. They're 15 years behind the needed infrastructure for the population growth out there and by the time they get something done it'll be 25 years behind.

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As a consultant, worked with TxDOT on signal timing in Liberty Hill and Elgin.... can't agree more. Just one of those areas in need of further upgrades... like US 380 up here between Denton and McKinney has been jammed for a decade+ now. We have a partial freeway on 380 now with overpasses at key intersections.

The Texas Highway Department was great. TXDOT sucks and is a cash cow for their road building butties.

WestAustinAg said:

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AJ02 said:

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I've been gone from Austin 15 years now. I haven't been back since, but just hearing about all this....I can't even imagine!! I used to have a view of downtown skyline from my apartment off Southwest Parkway. From pictures online, I wouldn't even recognize downtown anymore.

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The Downtime skyline from SW Parkway looks bigger than Houston or Dallas's skyline...it's likely not...but it looks like it. Complete with the state's tallest building.

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The Waterline is the tallest building west of the Mississippi! Which I thought would be in LA, but Austin beat them by 3 levels

Bigballin said:

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The Giddings paper (the hard times and bad news) had a report about a year or two ago about TXDOT reviewing options to bypass the funk (IFYKYK) and held an information session at the silos with the local community. Now, haven't heard a peep about it since.

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That is how those projects work. They will announce a project and get all the "public input" meetings out of the way. Then they sit for years until funding becomes available. By the time, everyone forgets about the project. Then they start turning dirt, and people scream, "Why didn't we know about this? No one asked me!". And then they have to be reminded about the public meeting 8 years ago.

Going to be similar issues with 79 east of 130. Hutto and Taylor are exploding in growth. Hutto is a 6A now which is crazy!

Sims said:

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Rule of thumb is, if it's obvious what the need is, TxDOT is planning to start planning it. If TxDOT has approved a plan, the need has doubled. If the plan is constructed, the current demand has already overwhelmed the new infrastructure.

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Then they say nobody could have ever predicted that more lanes would have been needed! Well everyone could have told you and they are not on the payroll.

Think of the money wasted building and then tearing out and rebuilding.

These large infrastructure projects have public outreach events for people to provide opinions/comments during the early and later stages of design

https://290extensionproject.com/project-news/events/

Did any of y'all attend and provide your input? Why not?