"I wonder how this is going to affect lufkins growth..."
Kiss your boom days goodbye. If I-69 were to have been a freeway, you would have continued to grow like crazy. Now, with the existing US-59 about to be locked down in a non-compete clause with Cintra (or whatever private company gets the contract), and the toll road being so expensive that the few regular people that do use it wanting the shakedown to end as quickly as possible and therefore never exiting until absolutely necessary - you will now become, as the Dems like to say: "Flyover Country". [a bit of a run-on sentence, but you get the point]
...and the people who own land in these corridors agree with me, otherwise they wouldn't be screaming down the doors against this plan at every public meeting they can get to.
But the governor sits in Austin, apparently oblivious to this uprising, while his poll numbers sink to what is now just a 5-point load over (Democrat) Chris Bell.
"locked down?" Sounds sinister. So folks won't be able to use one road, and won't use the other because it's too expensive?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! /darth vader