Interstate 69 in Texas

Interstate 69
Route information
Maintained by TxDOT
Length:	155.8 mi (250.7 km)
Existed:	December 5, 2011 (2011-12-05) – present
Major junctions
South end:	US 59 in Rosenberg
	I-45 in Houston I-10 in Houston
North end:	US 59 near Cleveland
Highway system
Interstate Highway System Main Auxiliary Suffixed Business Highways in Texas Interstate US State Toll Loops Spurs Park Rec FM ← SH 68 US 69 →

Interstate 69 (I-69) in the U.S. state of Texas is an extension of that existing Interstate Highway that will pass through the eastern part of the state and along the Gulf Coast to Victoria, where it will split into multiple segments with I-69E terminating in Brownsville, I-69C terminating in Pharr, and I-69W terminating in Laredo.

As of March 2015, a 74.9 mile section of US-59 has been designated as I-69 through the Houston Metropolitan Area.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has approved an additional 53 miles (85 km) of US 77 from Brownsville to Raymondville for designation as I-69, which will be signed as I-69E upon concurrence from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). FHWA approval for this segment was announced on May 29, 2013.^[1]

Route description

The congressionally designated I-69 corridor begins at the Mexican border with 3 auxiliary routes:

• I-69W begins at the entrance to the World Trade International Bridge, which connects to Mexican Federal Highway 85D, near the border in Laredo. It is co-signed with both US 59 and Loop 20 and extends 1.4 miles to I-35 (which connects to Mexican Federal Highway 85 south of the border). It will continue on US 59 east to George West, where it will intersect I-69C and it will then intersect I-37 east of George West, and then continues to Victoria.
• I-69C (with connections to Mexican Federal Highway 97) begins in Pharr at I-2 and is designated for 18 miles through Edinburg and co-signed with US 281. It will continue north along US 281 to George West, where it will intersect I-69W and terminate at this point.
• I-69E begins just north of the Veterans International Bridge, which connects to both Mexican Federal Highway 101 and Mexican Federal Highway 180, near the border in Brownsville and continues for 53.3 miles through Harlingen, where it intersects I-2 and past Raymondville and co-signed with US 77, it is also co-signed with US 83 from Brownsville to Harlingen. The route will follow the US 77 corridor north to Corpus Christi, where a 7.8 mile segment is already designated as I-69E and co-signed with US 77, it intersects I-37 there, and then continues north to Victoria.

I-69/US 59 in Houston looking east

What is now I-69/US 59 (Southwest Freeway) in 1972

I-69W and I-69E will merge just south of Victoria, Texas, where mainline I-69 will follow US 59 northeast to Fort Bend County. In the Houston area, I-69 follows US 59 (Southwest Freeway) from Fort Bend County to the west loop of Interstate 610 (I-610). I-69 then follows US 59 (Eastex Freeway) from the north loop of I-610 to the Liberty-Montgomery county line. The segment of US 59 inside Loop I-610, through downtown Houston, was approved for designation as I-69 by the FHWA on March 9, 2015 and approved for signage as I-69 by the Texas Transportation Commission on March 25, 2015.^[2]

I-69 will follow US 59 to the north, serving Cleveland, Shepherd, Livingston, Lufkin, Nacogdoches, and Tenaha. At Tenaha, I-69 will head into Louisiana along the US 84 corridor. The segment of US 59 from Tenaha to Texarkana will be signed as Interstate 369 (I-369).

Since the first section of US 77 between Corpus Christi and Robstown has been signed as I-69, it implies 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 from Victoria to Laredo and the branch along US 281 from George West to Pharr are to be signed as either 3-digit spurs of I-69 (I-x69) or as separate 2-digit interstate routes. 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 Special Committee on Route Numbering rejected the Texas Department of Transportation's request for these three designations along the proposed I-69 branches, citing that AASHTO policy no longer allows Interstate highways to be signed as suffixed routes. Stating that the I-69E, I-69C, and I-69W designations for the three I-69 branches south of Victoria, Texas were written into federal law, the initial denial of TxDOT's applications were subsequently overturned by the AASHTO Standing Committee on Highways, and the approval for the I-69E, I-69C, and I-69W branch designations were confirmed by the AASHTO Board of Directors, pending concurrence from the Federal Highway Administration during the AASHTO Spring Meeting on May 7, 2013. During this same meeting, the section of US-83 between Harlingen and Palmview was conditionally approved to be designated as Interstate 2 (I-2), with FHWA concurrence. The US-83 freeway in south Texas was widely anticipated to receive an I-x69 designation instead of I-2. 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

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.

Status

TxDOT reported in June 2011 that over 230 miles of the proposed 500-mile I-69 route through the state has been completed.^[5]

As of July 2011, Texas has been proceeding with upgrading rural sections of US 59, US 77, and US 281 to interstate standards by replacing intersections with interchanges, and converting 2-lane stretches to 4 lanes by adding a second carriageway to the existing roadway.

A stated goal of TxDOT's I-69 initiative is that "existing suitable freeway sections of the proposed system be designated as I-69 as soon as possible."^[6] A bill was introduced and passed by the House of Representatives that allows interstate quality sections of US 59, US 77, and US 281 to be signed as I-69 regardless of whether or not they connected to other interstate highways.

Meanwhile, TxDOT has submitted an application to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to designate 75 miles of US 59 in the Houston area and 8 miles of US 77 near Corpus Christi as I-69, as these sections are already built to interstate standards and connect to other interstate highways. In August 2011, TxDOT received approval from FHWA for a six-mile segment of US 77 between I-37 and SH 44 near Corpus Christi, and was approved by the AASHTO in October 2011.^[7] Officials held a ceremony on December 5, 2011 to unveil I-69 signs on the Robstown-Corpus Christi section.^[8] On May 29, 2013, the Robstown-Corpus Christi section of I-69 was re-signed as I-69E.

At the May 18, 2012 meeting of AASHTO, 35 miles of US-59 (Eastex Freeway) from I-610 in Houston (on the loop's northern segment) to Fostoria Road in Liberty County were also approved as ready for I-69 signage, pending concurrence from the Federal Highway Administration.^[9] FHWA later granted concurrence and with the final approval of the Texas Transportation Commission, the 35-mile stretch was officially designated as I-69.^[10] It was announced on February 6, 2013 that FHWA had approved a 28.4 mile segment of US-59 (Southwest Freeway) from I-610 in Houston (on the loop's western segment) to just southwest of Rosenberg,^[11][12] The Texas Transportation Commission gave final approval later that month and signage was erected on April 3, 2013.^[13][14] The remaining segment of the original 75-mile submission (the section within Houston between the northern and western sections of I-610) is still in the review process as of February 2013.

On May 29, 2013, the Texas Transportation Commission gave approval to naming completed Interstate-standard segments of US 77 and US 281 as I-69. On July 15, 2013, the interstate shields were unveiled.^[15] US 77 through Cameron and Willacy counties are signed as I-69E. That includes 53 miles (85 km) of existing freeway starting at the international boundary in the middle of the Rio Grande in Brownsville and running north past Raymondville. The 13 miles (21 km) of US 281 freeway in Pharr and Edinburg are signed as I-69C.^[16]

On November 20, 2014, The Texas Transportation Commission voted to add two new sections totaling 6.1 miles to Interstate 69 in South Texas.^[17] The first section is 1.6 miles of newly finished freeway near Robstown in Nueces County and was co-designated as I-69E/US 77 ^[17] and the second section is a 4.5 mile section of new freeway on the north side of Edinburg in Hidalgo County which was co-designated as I-69C/US 281.^[17] The designations were recently approved by the Federal Highway Administration and by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials -- the organization which determines highway designation numbering (this action makes a total of 192 miles of the I-69 System route (including Interstate 2) in Texas have been added to the Interstate Highway System).^[17]

Exit list

All exits are unnumbered.

County	Location	mi	km	Destinations	Notes
Fort Bend	Rosenberg			US 59 south / Spur 529 north – Victoria	south end of US 59 overlap; at-grade intersection; no northbound entrance
				Bamore Road	Northbound entrance only
				SH 36 – Rosenberg, Needville
				FM 2218 – Richmond
				Reading Road
				FM 762 – Richmond, Rosenberg
				Williams Way Boulevard	Access to Oak Bend Medical Center
	Sugar Land			SH 99 (Frontage Road) / FM 2759 (Crabb River Road)	Access to Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital
				Brazos River Turnaround
				University Boulevard
				First Colony Boulevard / Sweetwater Boulevard	Access to Methodist Sugar Land Hospital
				SH 6 – Sugarland Airport
				Sugar Lakes Drive / Williams Trace Boulevard	Access to St. Luke's Sugar Land Hospital
				Dairy Ashford Road / Sugar Creek Boulevard
				Alt. US 90 – Sugar Land, Stafford
	Stafford			Kirkwood Road / West Airport Boulevard
Harris	Houston			Wilcrest Drive / Murphy Road (FM 1092 south) / West Bellfort Avenue
				Sam Houston Tollway
				Beltway 8 (Frontage Road)	no direct southbound exit (signed at Wilcrest Drive)
				Bissonnet Street
				South Gessner Road / Beechnut Street	Access to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
				Fondren Road / Bellaire Boulevard
				Hillcroft Avenue
				Westpark Tollway east	Northbound exit only
				Westpark Tollway west	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
				Westpark Drive	no direct northbound exit (signed at Hillcroft Avenue)
				Fountainview Drive	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
				Chimney Rock Road
				I-610 – IAH Airport, Hobby Airport	I-610 exit 8A
				Newcastle Drive	no direct northbound exit (signed at Weslayan Road)
				Weslayan Road
				Edloe Street, Buffalo Speedway
				Kirby Drive
				Greenbriar Drive / Shepherd Drive
				Richmond Avenue / Downtown Houston via Louisiana Street (Spur 527)	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
				Main Street	Northbound exit and southbound entrance, access to Texas Medical Center
				Fannin Street	Southbound exit and northbound entrance, access to Texas Medical Center
				SH 288 south – Lake Jackson, Freeport
				McGowen Avenue / Tuam Avenue	Southbound exit and northbound entrance, access to St. Joseph Medical Center
				Gray Avenue / Pierce Avenue – Downtown Destinations	Northbound exit and southbound entrance, access to St. Joseph Medical Center
				I-45 – Dallas, Galveston	I-45 exits 46A-B, access to George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport
				Polk Street – Downtown Destinations	Northbound exit only
				Jackson Street – Downtown Destinations	Southbound exit and northbound entrance
				I-10 (US 90) – San Antonio, Beaumont	I-10 exits 770A-C
				Lyons Avenue / Quitman Street
				Collingsworth Street / Kelley Street
				Cavalcade Street	no direct northbound exit (signed at Collingsworth Street)
				I-610	I-610 exits 20A-B
				Crosstimbers Road / Kelley Street
				Laura Koppe Road	no direct southbound exit (signed at Tidwell Road)
				Tidwell Road
				Parker Road / Jensen Drive / Saunders Road
				Little York Road
				Hopper Road	no direct northbound exit (signed at Little York Road)
				East Mount Houston Road
				Aldine Mail Route
				Lauder Road	no direct northbound exit (signed at Aldine Mail Route)
				Old Humble Road / Lee Road (FM 525 Spur)	Northbound exit and southbound entrance
	Houston			FM 525 (Aldine Bender Road)
				Beltway 8 (Sam Houston Parkway)
				Beltway 8 (Frontage Road)	no direct northbound exit (signed at FM 525)
				Greens Road
	Humble			Rankin Road
				Will Clayton Parkway – Bush Intercontinental Airport
				FM 1960 / Bus. FM 1960 – Humble	Access to Memorial Hermann Northeast Hospital
				Townsen Boulevard	no direct southbound exit (signed at Hamblen Road / Sorters-McClellan Road)
Montgomery	Kingwood			Loop 494 / Hamblen Road / Sorters-McClellan Road
				Kingwood Drive
				Northpark Drive
				FM 1314 – Porter, Conroe	No northbound entrance
				Community Drive	future SH 99
				FM 1485 / Loop 494 – New Caney
				Loop 494 / Roman Forest Boulevard
	Patton Village			SH 242
				Creekwood Lane
	Splendora			FM 2090 – Splendora
				East River Drive
				Fostoria Road	Northbound exit to Fostoria Road
				US 59 north – Cleveland	Montgomery County / Liberty County line -- north end of US 59 overlap
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Concurrency terminus       Incomplete access

References

External links

Route map: Bing

Interstate 69
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