I-10 Widening Project Continues in Texas

Drivers who travel between Houston and Austin are familiar with exactly where traffic usually slows down. "Coming from Houston, it is just past Katy," says Kristina Hernandez, a resident who makes the drive frequently. Now, reports Dug Begley for the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is expanding Interstate 10 there as "part of a generation-long goal of having three lanes in each direction along I-10 from Houston to San Antonio." The current project, which will cost close to $570 million, will shift the bottleneck that now occurs in the area near Sealy farther west. "When the work is completed in mid-2022, drivers will have three lanes in each direction through Sealy, as opposed to the well-known bottleneck west of Brookshire."

Local leaders hope the expansion will benefit Sealy's economy by making the 50-mile trip to and from downtown Houston faster. "The work comes with changes in Sealy’s appearance, however. New freeway lanes and frontage roads — in many spots the work is replacing rural two-way frontage roads typically on one side of the interstate with more urban and suburban styled one-way boulevards on both sides — will mean new businesses and intersections."