NOT I-35!! Which is the key bottleneck.
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Look at a map of all of I-35. My guess is that you live within the urban sprawl of one of our larger cities, and that your "worldview" of I-35 is strongly influenced by your daily commute.
Most of I-35 does, indeed, pass thru rural landscape -- and it has plenty of room to accommodate the only thing that is needed: additional passenger vehice lanes -- made possible by building separate truck lanes.
There definitely should be no ever-widening ROW consumed by idiocy like fenced-in pipelines, power lines, passenger rail, etc., etc. that must be crossed by ever-longer [and more expensive] overpasses on local roads.
Simply moving truck traffic onto separate lanes (or, better, a separate "freight pipeline") designed to handle the overweight traffic and stress would
From an engineering standpoint, nothing in the "corridor" concept makes sense -- except for separate truck lanes.
Example: When was the last time you had to use an overpass to cross over a pipeline -- or under a power line?
“Look at a map of all of I-35. My guess is that you live within the urban sprawl of one of our larger cities, and that your “worldview” of I-35 is strongly influenced by your daily commute.”
I’ve been on I-35 from above Dallas to San Antonio. I dont use any of I35 for daily commute (thank God!)
I know perfectly well the multiple cities, large and small that would make expansion of I-35 an expensive proposition. Not just Austin, where I-35 has about 35 miles from Georgetown to RoundRock to Austin to Buda that is developed, but also Temple, Waco, San Marcos, New Braunfels, and of course San Antonio itself.
What you fail to understand in my point is that even if most of it is rural, you will still need alterante routes to get around the significant amount of urban and outer urban roadway...
So what is the solution?
Well for the San marcos- Austin corridor, it is IH-130, which lays about 10 miles to the east of Austin and connects up at georgetown then down to Seguin. It would cost an enormous sum, easily billions of dollars, to buy out all the 30 miles of businesses along I-35. So IH-130 was a much more cost-effective answer ... now replicate that all along the corridor and what are your choices?
1. Build about 10-12 additional bypasses like IH-130, not very effective but relieves some urban congestion.
2. Expand I-35 even in urban areas at great cost.
3. A parallel highway.
“Most of I-35 does, indeed, pass thru rural landscape — and it has plenty of room to accommodate the only thing that is needed: additional passenger vehice lanes — made possible by building separate truck lanes.”
The problem is that where the extra lanes are really needed, there is no space for expansion. Been there, done that.
the stuff about other infrastructure is another issue. One that, you are right. TTC doesnt need all that extract stuff, it is way over-engineered. I am simply making a point that TxDOT has studied and concluded: Expanding I-35 would cost a lot more and add less capactiy than a separate parallel highway.