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[TheBox]

So i decided to make a topic about US-290 between Austin and Houston, cause why the hell not?

From the past decade, TxDOT focused more on updating TX-71 more than US-290, even when the overall the traffic between the 2 kinda splits

the most US-290 got from the past decade is, US-290 Toll, a grass median in certain rural areas in between, and the US-290/Northwest Freeway expansion + the notorious I-610/I-10 intersection overhaul in Houston
EDIT: and the underpass under TX-21

We could be doing more with it (since Houstonians are more used to US-290 than TX-71 i'm guessing................and vice-versa, again i'm guessing); the re-aligned Brenham bypass, the Giddings bypass, the Manor-Elgin overpass (w/frontage roads), and then minor adjustments for the rest of the way that can come after these 3 major obstacles.

it looks like TxDOT may be finally doing the long overdue re-alignment or the Brenham bypass soon (D or E are most valuable to me, whiling B is the most realistic if they want to be cheap and quick with it)

[Bobby5280]

This topic has been on-going in a couple or so different Austin-related threads.

It would be stupid for TX-DOT to "upgrade" the US-290/TX-36 intersection into a DDI. They really need to give US-290 a freeway quality escape route West out of Brenham. There are problem spots between Brenham and Hempstead (where the US-290 freeway going out of Houston currently ends). The US-290 ROW narrows considerably West of the TX-6/US-290 interchange. The road immediately gets sandwiched by a golf course to the South and convenience stores to the North. There's a traffic signal stop in Chapel Hill.

The Austin and Houston metros are enormous enough in population to justify building out both the US-290 and TX-71 corridors to Interstate standards. The Houston metro covers a lot of area. Anyone in Austin heading to the Northern half of the Houston metro would likely use US-290. If they're driving to Southern areas of the Houston metro then TX-71 would be a better alternative.

[longhorn]

It is odd why TxDot has not upgraded more sections of 290. TxDot rebuilt the infamous highway of death, 195 between Killeen and I-35( at one time GIs were forbidden from using the old two lane road because it was so dangerous). One would think the 290 corridor is a slam dunk unless the towns along 290 like Giddings do not want an upgrade.

Frankly, it should be a 6 lane divided highway. If one is going to rebuild it, build in growth from the get go. 290 is six lanes to Waller from Houston.

[texaskdog]

It is odd why TxDot has not upgraded more sections of 290. TxDot rebuilt the infamous highway of death, 195 between Killeen and I-35( at one time GIs were forbidden from using the old two lane road because it was so dangerous). One would think the 290 corridor is a slam dunk unless the towns along 290 like Giddings do not want an upgrade.

Frankly, it should be a 6 lane divided highway. If one is going to rebuild it, build in growth from the get go. 290 is six lanes to Waller from Houston.

We'll send you to war just not down 195!

[Bobby5280]

The situation with US-290 from Austin to Houston is indeed really puzzling.

US-290 going West out of the Houston metro has long been limited access. In recent years that segment of US-290 has largely been completely re-built and substantially expanded to Waller, 9 miles East of where the freeway ends in Hempstead.

US-290 going East out of the Austin metro thru Manor is a whole other story. None of it has freeway-wide ROW. A number of commercial businesses built next to the roadway will have to be bought and cleared for any freeway (or toll road) expansion. US-290 thru Elgin is so encroached by development that a new-terrain bypass would likely be the only realistic solution. Giddings will need a freeway bypass.

Austin has been a legitimately big city for a long time. I don't know why more work hasn't been done to expand US-290 over the years, even if it just meant spreading apart the main lanes to preserve a freeway-wide median. TX DOT could have phased that in a long time ago before US-290 had so much development built up alongside it.

[Plutonic Panda]

TxDOT just doesn’t seem to have the money. It’s not hard to figure out when you see much needed like I-345, I-30(Canyon), I-35 Austin central, and NHHIP not starting until later this decade or even the 2030s.

[MaxConcrete]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I've *never* heard or read of any organization advocating for highway improvements between Houston and Austin, both SH 71 and US 290. That includes business interests, transportation/logistics interests, governments, cities (Houston, Austin and everything between) and TxDOT itself. No advocacy, ever. The only place I've seen the idea promoted is in this forum.

In the meantime, there are well-organized advocacy groups for I-69 and all those pie-in-the-sky Interstate proposals in West Texas. For example http://i69texasalliance.com/, which has been lobbying for I-69 for a very long time.

As Plutonic Panda noted, there's never enough money to meet all needs. Politics and advocacy steer a lot of the available funding. Nothing is steering funding to highways between Houston and Austin.

I drive between Houston and Hempstead on an occasional basis, and I'm nearly always surprised by the heavy traffic. Traffic does seem to drop substantially west of Hempstead. Looking at the TxDOT traffic charts, it is around 40k vpd east of Hempstead, 25k vpd west of Hempstead, and around 13k vpd east and west of Giddings.

[Bobby5280]

What about the traffic counts on US-290 in the Austin area from Manor to Elgin? I'd bet there is considerably more than 13k vehicles per day using that segment. I'm surprised there appears to be no effort on improvement that highway segment compared to some spot upgrades taking place on TX-71 just to the South. The Manor to Elgin segment of US-290 has similar levels of development compared to TX-71 between the Austin airport and Bastrop.

Even without a specific, concentrated effort on creating one or two 100% limited access freeway corridors from Austin to Houston it's still surprising to see the lack of effort going East out of Austin compared to the far greater efforts going Northwest out of Houston.

[rte66man]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I've *never* heard or read of any organization advocating for highway improvements between Houston and Austin, both SH 71 and US 290. That includes business interests, transportation/logistics interests, governments, cities (Houston, Austin and everything between) and TxDOT itself. No advocacy, ever. The only place I've seen the idea promoted is in this forum.

In the meantime, there are well-organized advocacy groups for I-69 and all those pie-in-the-sky Interstate proposals in West Texas. For example http://i69texasalliance.com/, which has been lobbying for I-69 for a very long time.

As Plutonic Panda noted, there's never enough money to meet all needs. Politics and advocacy steer a lot of the available funding. Nothing is steering funding to highways between Houston and Austin.

I drive between Houston and Hempstead on an occasional basis, and I'm nearly always surprised by the heavy traffic. Traffic does seem to drop substantially west of Hempstead. Looking at the TxDOT traffic charts, it is around 40k vpd east of Hempstead, 25k vpd west of Hempstead, and around 13k vpd east and west of Giddings.

I would assume the majority of that traffic is heading north on TX6 to College Station and Waco.  I go that way when I have to be in the west Houston metro. Anything to bypass I45.

[Bobby5280]

Austin is a far larger metro than College Station. Austin has nearly 1 million residents just for its city limits population and over 2 million in its metro area. The Austin metro is almost as populous as the San Antonio metro, and the Austin metro might be growing faster. Houston has direct Interstate links with DFW and San Antonio but not Austin. San Antonio has its own N-S and E-W Interstates (I-10 and I-35), but not Austin. I guess various planners think Austin is no bigger than Waco.

Regardless if there has been no public cheer-leading effort to get an Interstate link built between Austin and Houston it's still weird as hell just from the perspective of highway network management. The northern part of the Austin metro has all sorts of wishful plans for super-highway corridors in the future (with not nearly enough effort put in to preserve ROW). But the main arterials going East out of Austin toward Houston (US-290 and TX-71) don't have a lot of future-proofing being done, especially US-290. It's a mess and it's weird as hell.

[TXtoNJ]

Houston and Austin have two 75 mph, four lane highways between them already. Outside of safety concerns, there’s no need for further upgrades. That’s why nobody is pushing for them.

[ski-man]

Houston and Austin have two 75 mph, four lane highways between them already. Outside of safety concerns, there’s no need for further upgrades. That’s why nobody is pushing for them.

If I had political clout I would be yelling to the masses for one or two interstates or interstate standards. The speed limit may be 75, but all the side streets, red lights, and non-divided parts of the road on both 290 & 71 are dangerous, partly because you are going 75-85 and someone pulls out in front of you.

[Bobby5280]

Houston and Austin have two 75 mph, four lane highways between them already.

No. Not really. It's a joke to suggest TX-71 and US-290 going East out of Austin are anything comparable to an actual Interstate quality highway. Both corridors are not free-flowing. They do not sustain a 75mph speed limit. There are numerous speed zones along the way. Both corridors even have a decent number of traffic signal controlled intersections along with a far greater number of uncontrolled at-grade intersections (and driveways too). On TX-71 some of the traffic signaled intersections in Bastrop were converted into freeway exits. But there's still at least four traffic signals on TX-71 between the Austin airport and Bastrop. US-290 from Manor to Hempstead has even more traffic signals and speed zones than TX-71.

[TXtoNJ]

These are things that only matter to roadgeeks. To the highway engineers and logistics companies, the status quo is fine. That's why there's no organized effort to change it.

Downtown Houston to Austin is 2.5 hours without traffic, and has been for 50+ years. People are happy with that. Getting that down to 2h 15m isn't going to move the needle with anyone who matters, because Houston-to-Austin isn't on any national distribution network. It's all O&D traffic.

[armadillo speedbump]

Thank you for starting this thread.  Hopefully all the whining about it from the Money Grows on Trees! Party will now be contained to here.

Some nitpick facts:

Manor has gotten some minor lane and intersection improvements in the last 5 or so years.  But if you do some research on Google Earth, the amount of new homes in that area is surprisingly small given how close it is to Austin and the huge jump in housing costs.  I don't know if the school district stinks or Travis County is slow rolling outer growth or primarily something else.

Converting 290 to a divided highway was a big deal for safety.  I've gone out of my way before to take 71 instead when there was heavy rain expected or late at night.

Agree on the heavy traffic for the 2+2 section east of Hempstead.  I'm hoping the aggy tollway may divert some of that, but probably won't be much.  Looks like the gap to widen is 9 miles and 7 sets of bridges.

290 doesn't need to be a freeway, but I'm all in on a Giddings bypass and converting the stoplights to overpasses in Manor, Elgin, and Chappell Hill.  Glad the Brenham project is advancing.  Getting it to no stoplights free flow like 71 will soon be is 90% of the needs.

[Bobby5280]

TX-71 still has some traffic signals too.

Downtown Houston to Austin is 2.5 hours without traffic, and has been for 50+ years. People are happy with that. Getting that down to 2h 15m isn't going to move the needle with anyone who matters, because Houston-to-Austin isn't on any national distribution network. It's all O&D traffic.

It's about more than just shaving minutes off drive time between the Austin and Houston metro areas. Safety plays a big part in that too. Limited access freeways are generally quite a bit safer for high speed driving. You don't have to worry about Cooter Brown hauling a junk trailer and whipping out in front of you from some side road while you're driving 70mph.

[thisdj78]

TX-71 still has some traffic signals too.

True but at least they are in the process of removing most of them and they are all in the Bastrop to Toll 130 stretch.

[thisdj78]

Manor has gotten some minor lane and intersection improvements in the last 5 or so years.  But if you do some research on Google Earth, the amount of new homes in that area is surprisingly small given how close it is to Austin and the huge jump in housing costs.  I don't know if the school district stinks or Travis County is slow rolling outer growth or primarily something else.

I think that will change quickly with Tesla to the south and Samsung being built to the north. I could see families preferring Manor over say Taylor for example. There are plans to built a limited access bypass from 290 to Toll 130, wrapping around the southeast-south side of Manor. Near the south end of where the bypass will meet 130 and at the intersection of Parmer just to the north, there are many new homes being built. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is where the next big shopping area is built.

[ski-man]

Manor has gotten some minor lane and intersection improvements in the last 5 or so years.  But if you do some research on Google Earth, the amount of new homes in that area is surprisingly small given how close it is to Austin and the huge jump in housing costs.  I don't know if the school district stinks or Travis County is slow rolling outer growth or primarily something else.

You are correct. I heard it was the liberal NIMBY whorns that moved in and now live in that area.

[texaskdog]

I just drove to Houston from South Austin on 71 this afternoon.  Honestly with two lanes traffic is not bad at all.  It was far worse when I go on to I-10 in Columbus.  10 needs expansion far more than 71 needing to be a freeway.  Houston was a total abomination for traffic heading INTO town.

[thisdj78]

I just drove to Houston from South Austin on 71 this afternoon.  Honestly with two lanes traffic is not bad at all.  It was far worse when I go on to I-10 in Columbus.  10 needs expansion far more than 71 needing to be a freeway.  Houston was a total abomination for traffic heading INTO town.

Fortunately, there are plans in place to expand I-10 all the way to San Antonio.

The last remaining piece of SH71 that has no plans is the segment through Ellinger. If they can either make the section through town grade separated or bypass the town completely, SH71 would be completely free flowing (when you include the work being done to remove the last remaining stop lights between Bastrop and Toll 130).

[thisdj78]

For the SH71 route, here is the project page for the removal of the last stop lights. Looks like with exception of the Ross Rd and Kellam Rd intersections (which are under construction), the remaining intersections are in the final design/ROW acquisition stage:

https://www.txdot.gov/content/txdotreimagine/us/es/home/projects/projects-studies/austin/sh71-east-corridor.html

[jgb191]

You know I'm okay with US 290 not being redesignated as an interstate highway by TxDoT (although my preference is to do so).  But stil several things need to be changed:  1) Get rid of the cloverleaf continuation at Brenham, 2) Bypasses around Giddings, Manor, and Elgin, and 3) Upgrade Chappell Hill from a traffic light intersection to a diamond interchange underpass.

[Some one]

An Austin to Houston interstate would definitely be more useful than I-2 and I-14, maybe even I-69. Connecting the capitol with the 4th largest city in Texas. However, from an article I've read, the reason TXDOT hasn't considered upgrading US 290 or SH 71 to interstate status is because of all the properties on the highway. Although, TXDOT does plan on removing all the stoplights on SH 71, so soon we'll see a stoplight-free corridor from Houston to Austin.

[thisdj78]

TxDOT PUBLIC MEETING TUESDAY ON HIGHWAY 290 – FM 1155 INTERSECTION

https://kwhi.com/2023/01/16/txdot-public-meeting-tuesday-on-highway-290-fm-1155-intersection/