Texas governor Greg Abbott has announced an $85bn, 10-year road building plan intended to improve transportation safety, address congestion and rural connectivity, and preserving roadways.
The 2023 Unified Transportation Programme will also make $32bn available for maintenance and the development of planning and engineering resources.
Abbott said the plan was “a critical step toward addressing the diverse transportation needs statewide” and would be “a huge boon to our state’s infrastructure and booming economy”.
Bruce Bugg, the Texas Transport Department (TxDOT) commission chair, added that the proposals reflected “a continued focus on improving transportation safety as the top priority”.
Many projects in the plan are roadway segments identified on a list of the “100 Most Congested Roadways” and “critical connectivity corridors”.
The projects will be funded through legislative and voter-approved initiatives that allocate revenue from oil and gas taxes and sales taxes to the state highway fund. These initiatives have increased by more than $50bn in the past 10 years.
The $8.5bn average annual investment over the next 10 years is expected to yield an estimated $15.5bn a year in economic benefits, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. These benefits are a result of increased labour income and business output, as well as the addition of 58,500 direct and indirect jobs.
