Why are toll roads being built now?
We need them now. The new toll roads and lanes in Central Texas are projects that have long been part of the region’s transportation plans. Today, Central Texans do much of their driving on roads that were built decades ago. We need to build the next generation of highway projects now to serve the region as it continues to grow. Even though highways like I-35 and MoPac were built to serve Austin for generations, the region’s growth has been so fast that the road network hasn’t kept up. More recent projects, like U.S. 183 (Research Blvd.) and Texas 71 (Ben White Blvd.) have taken decades and still aren’t finished. We can build toll projects more quickly than under the traditional gas-tax-funded, pay-as-you-go system. We also need to build those projects before it’s too late — before corridors get developed, while right-of-way is still affordable, before road projects would require displacing and disrupting large sections of the community.
