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Other San
Antonio Area Roads
State Highway 130 (Pickle
Parkway) |
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| This
page
last updated January 2, 2018 |
 Prior
to 2012,
Interstate 35
was the only major highway linking the San
Antonio and Austin areas and, as a result, was becoming
increasingly congested. As early as 1986, local officials began
planning a parallel reliever highway for I-35, but the idea gained
little traction at the time, especially as I-35 was in the process of
being expanded. However, by the late '90s, with the tremendous
population growth
of both cities as well as increasing truck traffic resulting from NAFTA regularly
clogging I-35, state and
local officials dusted-off the plan and christened it SH
130. While development of the route continued as a
regional project, state
officials also proposed rolling most of the SH 130 corridor into the "TTC-35" route of the now-defunct Trans-Texas Corridor
project. When the TTC was abandoned in 2009, development of the 86 mile
SH 130 continued as a standalone regional project. Due to limited funding, the project was developed as a toll project.
The
first two
segments of SH 130, from I-35 at Georgetown east around Round Rock to
US 290 east of Austin, opened in late 2006. The third
segment,
from US 290 to SH 71 near Bergstrom Airport, opened in mid
2007. The fourth segment, from SH 71 to US 183 near Mustang Ridge south
of
Austin, opened in 2008. These projects are owned and operated by the
Central Texas Turnpike System, a subsidiary of the Texas Department of
Transportation (TxDOT.)
The remaining 41 mile section from
Mustang Ridge to Lockhart and from there to I-10 near Seguin, known as
segments 5 and 6, were built under a Comprehensive Development Agreement between the state and the
SH
130 Concession Company LLC, a consortium of Spanish infrastructure
company Cintra and San Antonio-based construction giant Zachary
American Infrastructure.
The agreement called for the consortium to build and maintain the
roadway for 50 years in exchange for keeping a portion of the tolls
collected. Construction began in April 2009 opened to
traffic on October 24, 2012.
Unlike
the first
four segments, segments 5 and 6 did not have any toll booths. Instead, all toll
collections have been electronic since opening, one of the first tollways in the nation to
do so. Segments 1-4 have since also gone to all-electronic tolling.
There
has also
been discussion about including a future freight railroad bypass in the
SH 130 corridor. Freight train traffic, like its counterpart
truck traffic, has also increased substantially in the
region, and the existing railways go right through the center of the
cities in the
I-35 corridor, causing recurring congestion problems. A
railway
bypass along SH 130 would help reduce congestion in
the cities on the corridor and would also free the existing
rail line for a long-planned San Antonio-Austin commuter rail line.
 In
early 2012,
TxDOT approved increasing the speed limit on the original segments of
SH 130 east
of Austin to 80 mph. In September 2012, approval was given
for an
85 mph speed limit for Segments 5 and 6. This is the
highest
speed limit in the United States.
Despite
the presence of SH 130, I-35 between San Antonio and Austin continues
to be overloaded and is
the
busiest inter-metro
Interstate in Texas. All
traffic counts in the corridor now exceed 100,000 vehicles per day. The
toll rates on SH 130 combined with the 40 mile
distance from I-35 in San Antonio to SH 130 at Seguin is often
cited as a reason for low usage of SH 130 between Seguin and Austin.
(In reality, a trip from south San Antonio to Georgetown using SH 130
only adds a little less than 20 miles to the total mileage.) This low
usage led to the
company operating Segments 5 and 6 to file for bankruptcy protection in
2016. However, reports are that traffic counts have been
increasing in recent years and the traffic volumes on the four segments
east of Austin are generally healthy topping out at around 50,000 in
2016.
To
help provide a more cohesive bypass route to drivers, the
Texas Transportation Commission in 2011 approved extending the SH 130
designation from the southern terminus of the SH 130 toll road east of
Seguin westward along I-10 to Loop
410, then
south along Loop 410 to I-35 South, thus allowing drivers to follow a single-numbered route. Signage was installed in 2013 along
with signs advertising the "SH 130 alternate route to Austin/Waco" at
strategic locations in San Antonio.
The
route is
named after former US Representative J.J. Pickle who served the Austin
area from 1963 to 1995 and was instrumental in obtaining funding for
planning studies for SH 130.
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