The nation’s fastest highway: SH 130 opens today in Texas.
The speed limit on sections of the road is 85 miles per hour.
SH 130 is a stretch of road between San Antonio and Austin that hopes to alleviate traffic congestion on existing roads like Interstate 35, which has seen its traffic load skyrocket more than 100 percent since 1990. In fact, I-35 has become “the busiest inter-metro Interstate in Texas and is overloaded on many sections,” according to the Texas Department of Transportation. It reports more than 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles traverse the corridor daily.
“In addition to local growth, NAFTA has put an additional strain on the corridor in the form of dramatically increased international truck traffic,” TxDOT reports.
The new tollroad, SH 130, is a 91 mile expressway that has been on the drawing boards for decades. The route is part of the now-defunct Trans-Texas Corridor project.
The tollroad is free until Sunday, Nov. 11th. Rates will be 15 cents per mile and will be billed with a Texas toll tag or by cameras which will record license plate numbers and bill the owner by mail.
The idea for a light community rail between Austin and San Antonio is not dead. Discussions continue about establishing a railway along SH 130 as a rail bypass that would “also free the existing rail line for a planned San Antonio-Austin commuter rail system,” according to TxDOT.