I-69 in Texas

Current Status

Segments being designed:

Description

The I-69 corridor starts on the Texas-Mexico border with crossings of the Rio Grande at Laredo, McAllen, and Brownsville. The corridors proceed north and east along U.S. 59, U.S. 281, and U.S. 77 to near Victoria, Texas, where they join and follow U.S. 59 northeast to the Houston area.

From the Houston area, Interstate 69 will continue to follow the U.S. 59 corridor north, bypassing Cleveland, Shepherd, Livingston, Lufkin, and Nacogdoches. From the Nacogdoches area, I-69 will continue to the northeast, passing near Carthage and crossing into Louisiana to the east, and then continuing eastward to I-49 around Stonewall.

There are some existing freeway sections, but most of the existing routes along the I-69 corridor through Texas are rural 4-lane expressways. The U.S. 59 bypass of Nacogdoches and Lufkin is being designed to be part of I-69; other local freeway bypasses may be built before the rural segments are upgraded.

Texas' route also includes a freeway spur between I-69 near Nacogdoches and the west side of Texarkana, which presumably would follow U.S. 59's general path. However, it seems unlikely that both this spur and I-49 (between Texarkana and Shreveport) will be built in the forseeable future, and the I-69 spur may eventually be discarded due to this duplication.

During 2002 and 2003, it was decided that Gov. Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor proposal would be the basis for developing Interstate 69 in Texas. Accordingly, the original division of the route into 15 SIUs is being treated as preliminary, and the entire corridor in the state (as well as the connection to national SIU 15 near Shreveport, La.) will be studied using a unified, two-tier Environmental Impact Statement process.

What I'd Do

Links

I-69 Home | Shreveport Area


Chris Lawrence <i69@lordsutch.com> (14 Jun 2004 at 01:02 CDT)