Texas’ transportation priorities were on display in March—a few days after the gutting of a transit plan, a highway expansion broke ground depite years of local opposition.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) broke ground on the I-35 Capital Express Central Project, a $606 million project to add a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane in each direction on an eight-mile stretch between U.S. 290 East and Texas State Highway 45.
According to an article by Nathan Bernier, the groundbreaking took place with local officials on hand to praise the investment and protestors in the background chanting in opposition of the environmental damage and loss of useable land as a result of the project. Earlier in March, Bernier also reported that the project would seize land from Waller Beach Park for construction.
“State and local officials gave speeches praising the project outside a TxDOT office in North Austin. They were heckled throughout by a group of about 20 protesters with the nonprofit Rethink35, which calls for replacing the highway with a boulevard. Demonstrators stood at the edge of TxDOT's property, chanting over the roar of I-35 traffic behind them,” writes Bernier of the scene at the groundbreaking.
The Austin City Council and local advocates repeatedly tried to block the plan to widen I-35 where it cuts through the city’s core, but TxDOT announced its final decision to move forward with the HOV lanes in November 2022.
The groundbreaking took place just a few days after the Austin Transit Partnership and Capital Metro announced a drastic reduction of the Project Connect transit investment plan due to rising costs.
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