Interstate 69 in Texas - Route Description

Route Description

Current plans have I-69 entering from Louisiana to the east and intersect with the US 59 corridor near Carthage and roughly follow US 59 to the south, serving Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Livingston, Shepherd, and Cleveland. The segment of US 59 from Carthage to Texarkana is being considered as a spur segment.

In Lufkin, I-69 would intersect with US 69, presenting some interesting directional signage; to avoid confusion, a redesignation of US 69 from its intersection with US 175 southward (as an extension of US 175) is a possibility.

In the Houston area, Interstate 69 follows US 59 (Eastex Freeway) from the Liberty-Montgomery county line to the north loop of Interstate 610. The segment of US 59 from the north loop of I-610, through downtown Houston and into Fort Bend County has been submitted for designation as Interstate 69 and is awaiting approval.

South of Rosenberg, I-69 is expected to follow the US 59 corridor southwest to Victoria, Texas. From there, the congressionally designated corridor splits into three possible "legs":

• West along the US 59 corridor to the Mexican border in Laredo via George West (where it will intersect I-37). This leg will also intersect I-35 in Laredo, which connects to Mexican Federal Highway 85 south of the border.
• Central along the US 59 corridor to George West, then turning south along the US 281 corridor to the Mexican border in Pharr.
• South along the US 77 corridor to the Mexican border in Brownsville, Texas (with connections to Mexican Federal Highway 180), intersecting I-37 northwest of Corpus Christi.

Since the first section of US 77 between Corpus Christi and Robstown has been signed as I-69, it is implied that the I-69 mainline will follow the coastal (US-77) route from Victoria to Brownsville. This also implies that the branch along US 59 to Laredo and the branch along US 281 to Pharr will be signed as either a 3-digit spur of I-69 (I-x69) or as a separate 2-digit interstate route. While federal legislation designating the south Texas branches as I-69 suggests that these routes may be designated as "I-69E" (east, following US-77), "I-69C" (central, following US-281), and "I-69W" (west, following US-59), the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials no longer allows Interstate highways to be signed as suffixed routes. Thus, one branch will carry the I-69 designation, while the other routes will either be a 3-digit I-x69 route or a separate two-digit interstate.

In any case, Texas is proceeding in the same fashion as Indiana, conducting environmental studies for its portion of I-69 in a two-tier process. The mainline route through Texas will be approximately 500 miles (800 km). On June 11, 2008, TxDOT announced they planned to limit further study of I-69 to existing highway corridors (US 59, US 77, US 84, US 281, and SH 44) outside transition zones in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, Houston, and Texarkana.

Texas originally sought a public-private partnership to construct much of the route through Texas as a privately operated toll road under the failed Trans-Texas Corridor project. However, on June 26, 2008, TxDOT announced that they had approved a proposal by Zachry American and ACS Infrastructure to develop the I-69 corridor in Texas, beginning with upgrades to the US 77 corridor between Brownsville and I-37; the Zachry/ACS plan calls for the majority of the freeway to be toll-free; the only two tolled sections would be bypasses of Riviera and Driscoll.

Original plans for the route included a potential overlap with the "TTC-35" corridor component as well, but the preferred alternative for that component follows I-35 south of San Antonio instead of entering the lower Rio Grande Valley.