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San Antonio Area
Roads & More
State Highway 130
(Pickle Parkway) |
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This page last updated
February 06, 2010 |
 Interstate
35 is currently the only freeway tying the San Antonio/Austin
region together and, as a consequence, it is the busiest inter-metro
Interstate in Texas and is overloaded on many sections. Most traffic counts have increased well over 100% since 1990.
All counts in the corridor now exceed 80,000 vehicles per day, with over
100,000 VPD now reported at the southern and northern ends of the
corridor as well as in New Braunfels and San Marcos. In addition
to local growth, NAFTA has put an additional strain on the corridor in
the form of dramatically increased international truck traffic.
To help alleviate the growing traffic problems on Interstate 35, a
parallel highway, SH 130, is being built. This 91 mile tollway had been on
the drawing boards since the late '80s but looked to be dead a decade later.
However, the surge in traffic along the I-35 corridor during the late '90s
sparked a renewed interest in this highway. While development of the
highway continued as a regional project, state officials also proposed including
most of the SH 130 corridor as part of the TTC-35 route of the now-defunct Trans-Texas Corridor project.
When the TTC was abandoned in 2009, development of the remaining segments
continued as a standalone regional toll project.
The first two segments of SH 130, from I-35 at
Georgetown east around Round Rock to US 290 east of Austin, opened in late 2006.
The third segment, from US 290 to SH 71 near Bergstrom Airport, opened in mid
2007. The fourth segment, from SH 71 to US 183 near Mustang Ridge south of
Austin, opened in 2008. The remaining 40 mile section from Mustang Ridge
to Lockhart and from there to I-10 near Seguin, known as segments 5 and 6, began
construction in April 2009 and is projected to be completed in late 2012.
Segments 5
and 6 are being built under a Comprehensive Development Agreement by the SH 130
Concession Company LLC, a consortium of Spanish infrastructure company Cintra
and San Antonio-based construction giant Zachary American Infrastructure, who
will operate the tollway for 50 years under a revenue-sharing concession
agreement with the state. The remainder of the SH 130 tollway is operated by TxDOT
as part of the Central Texas Turnpike System.
Unlike the first four
segments, segments 5 and 6 will not have any toll booths; all toll collections
will be electronic. Toll rates are expected to be 12.5 cents per mile for
passenger vehicles.
There has also been
discussion about including a future railroad right-of-way in the SH 130 corridor.
Freight train traffic, like its counterpart truck traffic, has also
increased substantially in the region. The existing railways go
right through the hearts of the cities in the I-35 corridor, causing
recurring congestion problems. A railway along SH 130 would
provide a rail bypass, thus reducing congestion in the cities on the
corridor. This would also free the existing rail line for a
planned San Antonio-Austin commuter rail system.
The route is named after
former US Representative J.J. Pickle who served the Austin area from 1963 to
1995.
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