This is a pleasant surprise!
https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/get-involved/about/hearings-meetings/austin/082621.html (https://www.txdot.gov/inside-txdot/get-involved/about/hearings-meetings/austin/082621.html)
The meeting is for a project to upgrade RM 620 into a freeway-style arrangement for 1.2 miles at Anderson Mill in northwest Austin. I worked along RM 620 a few miles south in the 1990s, and the intersection was a nightmare back then, and I'm sure it's worse now.
Observations
- The east project limit at Little Elm trail leaves a gap of about 1/2 mile between Little Elm Trail and the existing wide (400+ foot) right-of-way which starts at Deerbrook trail. That leaves 2 traffic signals east of this project, at Deerbrook and Lake Creek Parkway
- This will require a major right-of-way clearance, all commercial properties (no residential). The meeting notice says up to 20 non-residential structures.
- Of course this should have been done when SH 45 was built, but there were probably budget and/or local opposition issues.
- Mieeting notice says the plans have "elevated bypass lanes at Anderson Mill Road and El Salido Parkway". These "elevated" lanes appear to be main lane overpasses, and presumably there will be frontage roads to the east.
Let's hope this can move forward, and also the missing link to the east to connect to SH 45.
Speculation: I noticed that the draft 2022 UTP has only two projects on Loop 360. I'm thinking projects on the 360 corridor may be encountering opposition/environmental issues, and this project could be a provisional replacement.
That's good news. Hopefully if they can get that section of freeway built it will create a lot of pressure to fill in the 1/2 mile gap to the North leg of TX-45. And then the finished project needs to extend farther South to get closer to completing the loop.