SAN ANTONIO – If you travel between San Antonio and Austin, you probably cringe thinking about the traffic on I-35, but developers want to cut down travel times for commuters.
Both cities are working together to make a 120-mile stretch of I-35 bigger within the next 10 years.
“What we will be doing is adding an additional four lanes in total between Austin and San Antonio, even further than that. We'll be going north of Austin and all the way to downtown San Antonio,” said Kevin Wolff, chairman of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, .
There will be elevated lanes that could accommodate self-driving vehicles.
“Even if that hasn't made it here by the time we have the lanes built, we can still use them for other things — HOV lanes or regular general purpose lanes — which is what you and I drive our cars on today,” Wolff said.
The hope is that there are enough lanes to accommodate the growing population among the two cities, which is expected to grow drastically by the year 2040.
The price tag for the project is between $8 billion to $9 billion. The money will come from both metropolitan planning organizations in San Antonio and Austin and public solicitations.
A groundbreaking is scheduled for the beginning of next year.
Researchers say the expansion project will let you get from San Antonio to Austin in an hour or less.