I-35

Democratic State Rep. John Bucy pre-filed two bills in the Texas Legislature that would kick-start a high speed rail line along the I-35 corridor and direct funding to bullet train projects. Bucy said there are no specific plans drawn out for the bullet train to San Antonio. Right now, it’s just a vision.

As part of the interstate expansion, main lanes will narrow from 12 feet wide to 11 feet wide, raising questions about the tradeoffs between safety and highway capacity.

As a high-stakes project to sink I-35 through downtown Austin kicks into gear this summer, city officials and the University of Texas are looking to Dallas for a possible glimpse of the future.

Highways cost billions of dollars in state and federal tax revenue to build and maintain. Then there are the hidden costs: polluted air, traffic congestion and increased greenhouse gas emissions.

The project focuses on a stretch between Loop 410 South and Loop 410 North interchanges on the Northeast Side.

Excavating the 25-year-old time capsule was last on the alt-weekly newspaper's to-do list before the Texas Department of Transportation takes possession of its historic building for the upcoming highway expansion.

TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams said exponential growth in areas like Comal, Hays, and Guadalupe counties prompts a need for ongoing highway infrastructure projects.

The newspaper's building on the frontage road was once home to the 150-year-old Elgin-Butler Brick Co., which supplied bricks for the Capitol and UT.

The agency's preferred design would result in less land seized and fewer people pushed out than a competing proposal, but it would still expropriate almost 42 acres and displace 107 homes and businesses.

Construction is scheduled to start early next year on an I-35 expansion project stretching from Ben White Boulevard almost to the Hays County line.