Lubbock wants to take Interstate 27 south – much further south

[Bobby5280]

If I were to do anything at all I would just build an eastern interstate-quality bypass around Lamesa and have it connect to TX 349 south of town and call it a day. Those roads all have 75 mph speed limits once you are out of town. Building an interstate just seems like a total waste of money and I doubt there is that much traffic there.

Traffic counts have been going up, especially truck traffic. The Permian Basin oil patch has been booming. The drilling companies just keep getting better and better at pulling oil out of the ground. An extension of I-27 through the region would improve long distance traffic safety. However, building an extension of I-27 wouldn't be for just serving local traffic needs in that part of West Texas. The real thing is to establish a longer distance corridor between a couple or more major destinations. That's why I keep repeating the notion of a Denver/Front Range to San Antonio/Gulf of Mexico highway.

That was essentially the conclusion reached by the Wilbur Smith consultants back around 2000 when the Port-to-Plains corridor was previously contemplated -- particularly for the segment south of Lubbock.

Things have changed in that region over the past 19 years. Now, granted, if all that was ever going to built was just an extension of I-27 down to Big Spring or the Midland-Odessa area the project would be tough to justify. The benefits of extending I-27 wouldn't be seen unless the road was connecting big, significant destinations. By the way, that's the chief thing working against the I-14 pork-express highway. It doesn't connect to any major cities. The very crooked mileage/time wasting route being proposed ruins any value of I-14 functioning as a relief route for I-10 or I-20. The route would only be of interest to local traffic. Long distance drivers are not going to go way out of their way to take a zig-zag super highway when the long established routes run far more direct. Worse yet, even if I-14 was built to Midland-Odessa the route has little value to all the oil-commerce business there. They're far less concerned about rural points in East Texas than they are moving back and forth between the Gulf of Mexico or other major Texas cities.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^
Most of the oil will move via pipeline; it's the deployment and maintenance of equipment to pull it from the ground that requires, in the aggregate, a big ass fleet of trucks and the network of highways on which to travel.  M/O is "ground zero" for that particular enterprise (San Angelo is relegated to "branch office" status in that regard); it's understandable that they'd like to have a direct efficient (no slogging through towns) corridor toward the distribution centers in San Antonio and Houston.  Now anything from Lubbock and/or M/O that would hit I-10 around Junction or thereabouts would certainly satisfy the San Antonio end of things.  But one of the things that seems to be driving the West TX interest in the I-14 corridor is the possibility of a more direct route to Houston that avoids any congestion endemic to a city of 1M+ (San Antonio of course) to expedite equipment movements originating there, since that seems to be where most of the bespoke industry equipment originates.  And it's likely that the M/O or San Angelo people couldn't give a rat's ass whether I-14 goes east of I-45 or not, as long as they can shave an hour or two off a shipment of drilling bits.  And they have no compunctions about using the whole "cross the South" I-14 concept to expedite development of that portion of the corridor that benefits them.  But they'll be happy to take what they can get in increments; my money would initially be on an I-27 corridor south from Lubbock to San Angelo and getting somehow to Junction, with a possible outflung segment of I-14 along TX 158 to placate the M/O folks.  I don't see any work further east on I-14 toward Lampasas and Temple until at least 2030 -- by which time a final corridor alignment through the Triangle will have been worked out. 

From the legal (HPC #38) definition of the Port-to-Plains, it's clear that the "ports" that were in the mind of the corridor's progenitors were more "ports of entry" (meaning Del Rio down to Laredo) rather than seaports (remember, that corridor was designated in 1995, at the height of the Clinton-era NAFTA "craze").  But the current realities of commercial needs -- what they are and how they're dispersed -- are informing the situation as it exists today.  With the USA's current trends away from fossil fuel consumption (despite the best/worst efforts of the current administration), most of the future Permian Basin petroleum production will be exports to be shipped overseas; while that will undoubtedly be accomplished by pipelines to tanker loading (probably along the Gulf coast from Corpus Christi all the way to Port Arthur); with Panamax a reality, a lot of that will head to East Asia.  So while direct product shipment won't depend upon commercial trucking (save some "specialty" oil products), it likely will result in prioritization being shifted -- if it hasn't already done so -- from POE's along the border to regional seaports as far as deployment of new or upgraded facilities, including road corridors.           

[Bobby5280]

Now anything from Lubbock and/or M/O that would hit I-10 around Junction or thereabouts would certainly satisfy the San Antonio end of things.  But one of the things that seems to be driving the West TX interest in the I-14 corridor is the possibility of a more direct route to Houston that avoids any congestion endemic to a city of 1M+ (San Antonio of course) to expedite equipment movements originating there, since that seems to be where most of the bespoke industry equipment originates.

As I said earlier, any benefit of I-14 serving as a relief route to I-10 (or even I-20) is totally offset by the wasteful zig-zag, crooked nature of the proposed route. Traffic in San Antonio can get bad. But it's possible for any motorist to time his trip through there to avoid the peak rush hour periods in return for the benefit of using a more direct, faster route.

If I-14 is ever built beyond the tiny stub from I-35 into Killeen I'm not optimistic the powers that be will straighten out that route any. They gotta try to include every town that they can on the whole pork parade. Let's also not forget the potential of legal/regulatory hurdles to make the route even more crooked. I-69 in Southern Indiana and Kentucky is a good example of modern Interstate building. I-14 can set an even more ridiculous standard. The proposed route through the Texas Triangle is a big "W" shape. All that extra mileage does cost in terms of extra time and fuel.

[sparker]

Now anything from Lubbock and/or M/O that would hit I-10 around Junction or thereabouts would certainly satisfy the San Antonio end of things.  But one of the things that seems to be driving the West TX interest in the I-14 corridor is the possibility of a more direct route to Houston that avoids any congestion endemic to a city of 1M+ (San Antonio of course) to expedite equipment movements originating there, since that seems to be where most of the bespoke industry equipment originates.

As I said earlier, any benefit of I-14 serving as a relief route to I-10 (or even I-20) is totally offset by the wasteful zig-zag, crooked nature of the proposed route. Traffic in San Antonio can get bad. But it's possible for any motorist to time his trip through there to avoid the peak rush hour periods in return for the benefit of using a more direct, faster route.

If I-14 is ever built beyond the tiny stub from I-35 into Killeen I'm not optimistic the powers that be will straighten out that route any. They gotta try to include every town that they can on the whole pork parade. Let's also not forget the potential of legal/regulatory hurdles to make the route even more crooked. I-69 in Southern Indiana and Kentucky is a good example of modern Interstate building. I-14 can set an even more ridiculous standard. The proposed route through the Texas Triangle is a big "W" shape. All that extra mileage does cost in terms of extra time and fuel.

Time will tell regarding the precise nature of I-14 across the Triangle.  If the routing gets too "choppy" (i.e., following the series of right angles that is US 190 rather than cutting across the "peaks & valleys"), that wouldn't please the West Texas promoters that are looking for efficiency.  It might come down to which of the involved parties holds sway politically.  The only thing that seems certain is that at least some of the TX 6 freeway around Bryan and State College will be part of the corridor (enough Aggies in TX state government circles to predict that); the rest is up for grabs.  And the only reason for the big "L" on I-69 in KY is the presence of an existing set of upgradeable facilities -- and it seems that in IN just about everyone connected with the project (with the notable exception of Bloomington itself and IU) insisted on running the corridor through Bloomington rather than down the IN 57/67 corridor, which would have been the more direct choice.  Maybe "sticking it" to Bloomington by ramming I-69 down their throat was a poorly hidden agenda in itself -- or possibly there was a cadre of influential Indy folks (IU parents perhaps?) who wanted to ensure that the project included a safer IN 37 between that city and the university town.   But then the original I-69 segment north of Indy was itself rerouted to serve Anderson and Muncie rather than continue in a straighter line toward Fort Wayne -- so there was ample in-state precedent for such an action. 

But aside from the aforementioned freeway along TX 6 there's no existing Triangle facility that is compelling usage like the KY parkways -- just a couple of towns that may or may not piss & moan about being bypassed.  Again, it'll all come down to who is driving the project.  All I can say is stay tuned -- this'll be a very intriguing process.     

[Bobby5280]

Time will tell regarding the precise nature of I-14 across the Triangle.  If the routing gets too "choppy" (i.e., following the series of right angles that is US 190 rather than cutting across the "peaks & valleys"), that wouldn't please the West Texas promoters that are looking for efficiency.

If any of the promoters of I-14 had the slightest bit of interest in "efficiency" they wouldn't have drawn up the proposed route map like they did in the first place. They could push I-14 from the Southern outskirts of Temple to the College Station area in a far more direct manner. The road doesn't have to go to Milano, take a hard left turn up to Hearne and then a hard right turn to finally go down toward College Station. And then there's stupid bit of sending I-14 from College Station up to Madisonville instead of going directly East to Huntsville. Why does the road need to make a stop in Madisonville (much less Milano and Hearne) other than pandering to porky interests?

Much of I-14 through the Texas Triangle will have to be built completely new. Very little of existing US-190 in that region is near current Interstate standards (the freeway in the College Station area). So if it all has to be built new why not build it on a more direct alignment? Less miles of new highway would have to be built. That would actually save money. Ping-ponging I-14 around to include more towns will mean more bypasses around those towns maybe making the route even longer in mileage than existing US-190 through there.

And the only reason for the big "L" on I-69 in KY is the presence of an existing set of upgradeable facilities -- and it seems that in IN just about everyone connected with the project (with the notable exception of Bloomington itself and IU) insisted on running the corridor through Bloomington rather than down the IN 57/67 corridor, which would have been the more direct choice.

The routing in Kentucky is just being cheap. Send the road on two sides of a right triangle rather than building a new terrain route on the direct hypotenuse. In Indiana I didn't mind I-69 going through Bloomington, as opposed to sending I-69 up to Terre Haute (big L shape for I-69 there getting to Indianapolis). Unfortunately the routing through Southern Indiana is crooked as hell. I understand the need to bypass the Crane Naval Depot. But making I-69 an East-West highway from Elnora to Owensburg was a pretty extreme way of making that bypass. It took away most of the mileage savings that would have been gained by avoiding the Evanville-Terre Haute-Indy L-shaped idea.

[vdeane]

In Indiana I didn't mind I-69 going through Bloomington, as opposed to sending I-69 up to Terre Haute (big L shape for I-69 there getting to Indianapolis). Unfortunately the routing through Southern Indiana is crooked as hell. I understand the need to bypass the Crane Naval Depot. But making I-69 an East-West highway from Elnora to Owensburg was a pretty extreme way of making that bypass. It took away most of the mileage savings that would have been gained by avoiding the Evanville-Terre Haute-Indy L-shaped idea.

That looks like the routing got bent to use more favorable terrain.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^
About the only Triangle towns arrayed along the proposed I-14 corridor that would have enough clout to successfully press for service would be -- aside from the Bryan/College Station area -- Cameron, Hearne, and Huntsville (aka the I-45 junction).  As I've averred previously, it's likely the corridor will cross the Brazos River near where US 79/190 crosses it today, simply because they've channelized the river there and there's less in the way of floodplain to cross (less berms/structures=somewhat reduced cost).  Something direct from Cameron to Hearne (that channelization is due west of the latter town) would be a likely prospect, as would something paralleling TX 30 from College Station to Huntsville.  And, yes, TX 6's freeway through the A&M area isn't up to snuff currently; it will require some upgrading (but at least the ROW's intact).  It'll be interesting to see if it is eventually decided to use as much of the TX 6 corridor as possible (maybe down toward Navasota) before turning it east toward Huntsville; that'll depend upon (a) where the TX 249 connection will be made and (b) how much in the way of improved properties in the area TXDOT is willing to usurp for the corridor.  My guess is that it'll depart from TX 6 somewhere around the Speedway and head east from there. 

Even with ongoing development of I-69 north of Houston, it's unlikely I-14 will be extended to meet it anytime soon because of the presence of Lake Livingston, which will have to be (a) bypassed using considerable extra mileage or (b) bridged at equally considerable structural expense.  Either way, it won't be cheap.  Barring LA action toward developing their segment by Ft. Polk, IMO any I-14 projects east of Huntsville will be kicked indefinitely down the road -- it'll remain simply a "line on a map" for the foreseeable future. 

[In_Correct]

Time will tell regarding the precise nature of I-14 across the Triangle.  If the routing gets too "choppy" (i.e., following the series of right angles that is US 190 rather than cutting across the "peaks & valleys"), that wouldn't please the West Texas promoters that are looking for efficiency.

If any of the promoters of I-14 had the slightest bit of interest in "efficiency" they wouldn't have drawn up the proposed route map like they did in the first place. They could push I-14 from the Southern outskirts of Temple to the College Station area in a far more direct manner. The road doesn't have to go to Milano, take a hard left turn up to Hearne and then a hard right turn to finally go down toward College Station. And then there's stupid bit of sending I-14 from College Station up to Madisonville instead of going directly East to Huntsville. Why does the road need to make a stop in Madisonville (much less Milano and Hearne) other than pandering to porky interests?

Much of I-14 through the Texas Triangle will have to be built completely new. Very little of existing US-190 in that region is near current Interstate standards (the freeway in the College Station area). So if it all has to be built new why not build it on a more direct alignment? Less miles of new highway would have to be built. That would actually save money. Ping-ponging I-14 around to include more towns will mean more bypasses around those towns maybe making the route even longer in mileage than existing US-190 through there.

And the only reason for the big "L" on I-69 in KY is the presence of an existing set of upgradeable facilities -- and it seems that in IN just about everyone connected with the project (with the notable exception of Bloomington itself and IU) insisted on running the corridor through Bloomington rather than down the IN 57/67 corridor, which would have been the more direct choice.

The routing in Kentucky is just being cheap. Send the road on two sides of a right triangle rather than building a new terrain route on the direct hypotenuse. In Indiana I didn't mind I-69 going through Bloomington, as opposed to sending I-69 up to Terre Haute (big L shape for I-69 there getting to Indianapolis). Unfortunately the routing through Southern Indiana is crooked as hell. I understand the need to bypass the Crane Naval Depot. But making I-69 an East-West highway from Elnora to Owensburg was a pretty extreme way of making that bypass. It took away most of the mileage savings that would have been gained by avoiding the Evanville-Terre Haute-Indy L-shaped idea.

Keep Interstate 14 as straight as possible. The nearby cities can have Upgraded Spurs.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^
Within the Triangle, the only "city" of a size to warrant any type of 3di would be the Bryan/College Station area -- and the TX 6, presumably the alignment to be utilized (with necessary upgrades) as part of the I-14 corridor, already bisects the area; chances are that any spur won't be necessary.  Now -- how either I-27 or I-14 traverses the San Angelo area, and which of the several existing freeway segments they'll utilize, has yet TBD -- there might be some spur or loop action there, as well as out in M/O; it depends upon final plans that have yet to surface.  Right now determination of an actual West Texas route is the principal task before the planners (TXDOT & local); speculation about auxiliary routes is premature;  the completion of that main task needs to precede any concern with such details. 

[DJStephens]

Time will tell regarding the precise nature of I-14 across the Triangle.  If the routing gets too "choppy" (i.e., following the series of right angles that is US 190 rather than cutting across the "peaks & valleys"), that wouldn't please the West Texas promoters that are looking for efficiency.

If any of the promoters of I-14 had the slightest bit of interest in "efficiency" they wouldn't have drawn up the proposed route map like they did in the first place. They could push I-14 from the Southern outskirts of Temple to the College Station area in a far more direct manner. The road doesn't have to go to Milano, take a hard left turn up to Hearne and then a hard right turn to finally go down toward College Station. And then there's stupid bit of sending I-14 from College Station up to Madisonville instead of going directly East to Huntsville. Why does the road need to make a stop in Madisonville (much less Milano and Hearne) other than pandering to porky interests?

Much of I-14 through the Texas Triangle will have to be built completely new. Very little of existing US-190 in that region is near current Interstate standards (the freeway in the College Station area). So if it all has to be built new why not build it on a more direct alignment? Less miles of new highway would have to be built. That would actually save money. Ping-ponging I-14 around to include more towns will mean more bypasses around those towns maybe making the route even longer in mileage than existing US-190 through there.

And the only reason for the big "L" on I-69 in KY is the presence of an existing set of upgradeable facilities -- and it seems that in IN just about everyone connected with the project (with the notable exception of Bloomington itself and IU) insisted on running the corridor through Bloomington rather than down the IN 57/67 corridor, which would have been the more direct choice.

The routing in Kentucky is just being cheap. Send the road on two sides of a right triangle rather than building a new terrain route on the direct hypotenuse. In Indiana I didn't mind I-69 going through Bloomington, as opposed to sending I-69 up to Terre Haute (big L shape for I-69 there getting to Indianapolis). Unfortunately the routing through Southern Indiana is crooked as hell. I understand the need to bypass the Crane Naval Depot. But making I-69 an East-West highway from Elnora to Owensburg was a pretty extreme way of making that bypass. It took away most of the mileage savings that would have been gained by avoiding the Evanville-Terre Haute-Indy L-shaped idea.

And in Tennessee the opposite seems to be occurring.  Avoidance of upgradeable sections of US 51, in favor of all new terrain alignments.

[Scott5114]

Send the road on two sides of a right triangle rather than building a new terrain route on the direct hypotenuse.

Oh no, not again...

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^
The original mapping effort for I-14 wasn't so much laying out a route as showing something for the sake of the efforts to get the corridor in the federal books (as high priority corridor #84).  That sort of thing was commonplace even in the original '56 iteration of the system -- the corridors were initially shown on maps as following major highways, but when it came to actual development, a lot of new-terrain alignments were substituted for those; I-65 between Indianapolis and Chicagoland was a prime example; the original maps showed it using US 52 from Indianapolis to US 41 and US 41 north of there -- but that isn't what the final configuration turned out to be, of course.  And I-71 from Cincinnati to Columbus originally was shown as using a combination of US 22 and US 62, while the actual construction was more in a straight line between those end points.  I wouldn't be too concerned with I-14 blindly tracing US 190 across the Triangle; as long as Temple, Hearne, and Bryan/College Station are served (which can be done with a minimum of twisting and turning) and there's reasonable connectivity to Houston (likely via I-45 or a TX 249 extension), I don't see an issue with this corridor turning out any different than any other TX interstate effort; by the time final plans are issued, any "sawtooth" alignment profile should be long gone.   And, yes, what I'm talking about could be considered a "hypotenuse" in relation to what's currently on the ground with US 190.  But nobody will be ripping up huge swaths of Chicago to accomplish the task at hand -- so in this case, it's a good thing!

Now if they can just mitigate that "I-14S/I-14N" bullshit out west of Brady; there's no need for a branch running along US 190 west of there (there's even less along that route than along I-10, which is the poster child for "desolate").  If it's really gonna be built, just construct the one leg to San Angelo and maybe M/O -- where there are actually people to be served!   

[vdeane]

After the I-69E/C/W thing, I don't think we can trust Texas to use common sense in implementing corridors in the real world.

[sparker]

After the I-69E/C/W thing, I don't think we can trust Texas to use common sense in implementing corridors in the real world.

At least the existing facilities along all three branches of the I-69 "trident" are presently carrying decent volumes of commercial traffic (who'da thunk it, but US 281/I-69C's present commercial volume is leading the pack).  Of the three, 69W is the most questionable (doesn't save all that much Laredo-Houston over 35/10) -- but that just may change upon completion -- particularly if the Corpus Christi branch (I-6??!!) is on line about the same time.  Besides, the Rio Grande Valley is experiencing outsized growth, so the "E" and "C" branches might well have been prescient.  But US 190 west of Brady?  Really?  No trucker in his right mind would consider using that highway corridor (unless avoiding LEO's) -- if they're delivering to the Permian Basin, they'll use US 87 through San Angelo; anywhere west of there they shoot right down to I-10 and head on out.   Maybe there's both money and the will to spend it on new Interstate corridors in TX -- but chances are, that largess isn't infinite.  When apportioning real $$ for actually building the damn thing, it's likely, at least in this case, that the least useful branches will get pruned!

[vdeane]

They could have at least numbered them something else.  I don't take the view that the corridor being named "I-69 East" requires it to be literally signed as I-69E (which was actually signed as just I-69 originally, so clearly the split wasn't originally intended).  Let I-69E be an extension of I-37, I-69C can be I-69, and I-69W can be I-6, with whatever is going to Corpus Christi being a 3di.

Though it does seem like the amount of mileage may be excessive.

[sparker]

They could have at least numbered them something else.  I don't take the view that the corridor being named "I-69 East" requires it to be literally signed as I-69E (which was actually signed as just I-69 originally, so clearly the split wasn't originally intended).  Let I-69E be an extension of I-37, I-69C can be I-69, and I-69W can be I-6, with whatever is going to Corpus Christi being a 3di.

Though it does seem like the amount of mileage may be excessive.

Back in late 2010 I actually wrote a numbering proposal to the Alliance for I-69 Texas, suggesting the following:  I-69 mainline down what's now I-69E, I-6 along I-69W, and I-169 for I-69C, which would have turned east on what's now I-2 to Harlingen.  Also: I-47 for the I-369 corridor (hey, it's 115 miles long!).  Received a reply after a few weeks stating that as far as numbering, their hands were tied by the legal definitions attached to the original HPC 18 & 20 legislation.  I shot back that those appeared to be simply "placeholder" designations to delineate the three branches (and 69W wasn't even mentioned in the original language), and that any of their "pet" area congressfolks could slip in amendments to specify different numbers.  That got a quick reply essentially inferring that they didn't want to deviate one little bit from the original legislation, since the support for the project was on relatively thin ice at the time (this was around the time of the 2010 midterm elections) and that some of the newly elected conservatives from TX would have to be persuaded to support the concept and its associated expenditures -- and that selling the whole "69" package as is to the new congressional delegation was job #1 in order to maintain what progress was being made.  Thus, to them, every segment of the cluster had to reference the number "69" to avoid confusing those legislators who weren't the sharpest pencils in the box! 

At that point I simply rolled my eyes, figuring any further comment would be pointless.  But if they were dealing with elected legislators, I could -- with some imaginative stretch -- see their POV; they'd put a lot more aggregate effort into their corridor than had I!  But I still think my ideas had some merit -- but the chances of any changes being made is ultra-slim -- now that there is nascent suffixed signage on all 3 branches (plus I-2!).  Still, it would be nice if the Freer-Corpus Christi/TX 44 segment got an I-6 designation rather than a cookie-cutter x69.  Might restore a smidgen of what little remains of my faith in institutional intelligence! 

[Bobby5280]

Freer to Corpus Christi is less than 100 miles. That might make it tough to sell an I-6 designation on that corridor. On the other hand, there is really no other logical place in the nation where an I-6 route could be designated. I would actually prefer I-6 to run from Laredo to Corpus Christi (and maybe even take over the TX-358 freeway to end on the JFK Causeway). Let I-69W end in Freer. Unfortunately the genie is out of the bottle as far as I-69W goes in Laredo.

The Laredo metro is experiencing higher than average population growth, just like the cluster of cities down in the Rio Grande Valley. Over the next 30 years Laredo's metro population is expected to grow from 250,000 people to nearly 500,000. That growth will put pressure on completing I-69W, getting more of I-2 built and maybe even getting the highway between Freer and Corpus built, whatever it's going to be called (I-6, I-269?).

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^
Laredo growth might also prompt the corridor that's the subject of this thread to sashay down in that direction -- whether through Del Rio or simply down US 83 from Junction -- if indeed I-27 intersects I-10 at that location.  If that occurs, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the Freer-Corpus Christi corridor being extended west to provide a "shortcut" from the P-to-P to an actual port rather than a simple border POE. 

And no one actually has to "sell" I-6; the current methodology for such matters is to simply specify that number in authorizing legislation; at that point AASHTO is effectively bypassed; and FHWA would pipe in only to authorize signage on segments up to Interstate standards. 

[vdeane]

Perhaps the fact that support for the I-69 corridors was/is on thin ice should have been a clue to the Alliance that they over-reached in wanting three different corridors to the area.

[Bobby5280]

If any of the legs of I-69 in South Texas are on thin ice I would say I-69W is the one most in that predicament. The "C" and "E" legs can be justified based on the already immense population of the Rio Grande Valley cities. I always thought I-37 should have been extended South to Brownsville, but now that route is I-69E.


Monterrey is not too far away on the other side of the Mexican border. I don't know how much commerce and traffic moves North from there to Laredo versus traveling NE to the Rio Grande Valley cities. Either way all the traffic coming up from Mexico via M-85D and M-40D is one of the primary inspirations for the whole I-69 extension effort.

Laredo growth might also prompt the corridor that's the subject of this thread to sashay down in that direction -- whether through Del Rio or simply down US 83 from Junction -- if indeed I-27 intersects I-10 at that location.  If that occurs, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the Freer-Corpus Christi corridor being extended west to provide a "shortcut" from the P-to-P to an actual port rather than a simple border POE.

I would just as soon end I-27 in Junction, TX at I-10 (going diagonally direct down from San Angelo, of course). I think an I-27 extension to Laredo would only work if the route followed the Ports to Plains Corridor routing, going directly South out of San Angelo, hitting I-10 at Sonora and going down to Del Rio, then follow the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass and Laredo. Connections to Del Rio and Eagle Pass would appear to be simple since both towns have new limited access Super 2 half-loops under construction. I-27 could take over both and bump them from single to dual carriageways.

The folks in Carrizo Springs wouldn't like this, but I would prefer an I-27 route between Eagle Pass and Laredo take a direct, new terrain path closer to the Rio Grande River. Eagle Pass Road (FM-1021, FM-1472) already covers that territory while US-277 does a big curve out of the way to swing over to Carrizo Springs.

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^
I've always wondered what there is about that undeveloped land along the Rio Grande NW of Laredo and west of US 83, and why a more direct arterial corridor -- even a conventional facility -- hasn't been routed through there in the 180+ years Texas has been with us!  GE/GSV doesn't show any particularly impassible topology -- it might have to do with land grants and land ownership -- whomever that may be simply not wishing the land to be developed.

Or maybe it's Texas' version of Area 51!!!!!

[thspfc]

I-27 should extend along future I-2 to Brownsville, which would make it something like an 850 mile Interstate, the 17th longest in the country out of 70. And it doesn't leave Texas!

[Anthony_JK]

Freer to Corpus Christi is less than 100 miles. That might make it tough to sell an I-6 designation on that corridor. On the other hand, there is really no other logical place in the nation where an I-6 route could be designated. I would actually prefer I-6 to run from Laredo to Corpus Christi (and maybe even take over the TX-358 freeway to end on the JFK Causeway). Let I-69W end in Freer. Unfortunately the genie is out of the bottle as far as I-69W goes in Laredo.

The Laredo metro is experiencing higher than average population growth, just like the cluster of cities down in the Rio Grande Valley. Over the next 30 years Laredo's metro population is expected to grow from 250,000 people to nearly 500,000. That growth will put pressure on completing I-69W, getting more of I-2 built and maybe even getting the highway between Freer and Corpus built, whatever it's going to be called (I-6, I-269?).

There may be a good case to be made for an I-6 using TX 44 from Freer to Corpus, then using TX 358 across the Causeway, then running along a new terrain route along the South Texas coast up to at least TX 288 near Freeport or even to I-45 north of the "Texas Wye" (TX 146/TX 6 interchange) north of Galveston.

If I-2 can be extended to Laredo or even further west to meet I-10, that could justify rerouting an extended I-27 south to Eagle Pass. Otherwise, I'd just extend it to meet I-10 near Junction.

[sparker]

Perhaps the fact that support for the I-69 corridors was/is on thin ice should have been a clue to the Alliance that they over-reached in wanting three different corridors to the area.

Back in 2010 funding for the proposal was on thin ice due to a conflict between a couple of South Texas representatives (one R, one D) whose feud over which subregion (lower Rio Grande valley versus further up the Gulf Coast) would be prioritized for initial I-69 developmental efforts threatened to disrupt the project; the designation of I-2 a couple of years later, along with earlier letting dates for some I-69C segments, was part of the compromise reached to maintain both peace among the politicos as well as continuous progress in the overall region.  There has never been a lack of local support, particularly in the Lower Valley, for the construction of multiple corridors into and within the region, which is largely dependent upon jobs in the cross-border trade sector; the issues were always with the various congressional districts attempting to get I-69 (and related) projects in their areas prioritized.     

[Bobby5280]

I've always wondered what there is about that undeveloped land along the Rio Grande NW of Laredo and west of US 83, and why a more direct arterial corridor -- even a conventional facility -- hasn't been routed through there in the 180+ years Texas has been with us!  GE/GSV doesn't show any particularly impassible topology -- it might have to do with land grants and land ownership -- whomever that may be simply not wishing the land to be developed.

Oil drilling and wells is the primary activity in that territory. I don't know if there is any agricultural use of that land. El Indio is the only town out there.