by SEAN KIMMONS
Some of Buda and Kyle’s dangerous two-way interstate frontage roads, a relic of the region’s rural past, will switch to one-way on May 4, the Texas Department of Transportation announced this week.
The move is expected to improve safety but also create traffic headaches for Buda commuters headed into Austin.
The east side frontage road of IH-35, from FM 2001 in Buda to Kyle Parkway, will convert to one-way northbound while the west side frontage road, from FM 2001 to Kyle Parkway, will convert to one-way southbound.
Next year, Kyle frontage roads south of Kyle Parkway will also convert to one-way, said TxDOT spokesperson John Hurt.
In decades past, Texas constructed two-way access roads through rural areas where interstate overpasses were spread miles apart. But Buda and Kyle have urbanized rapidly in recent years, adding a heavy traffic load to the interstate and making the two-way frontage roads a deadly design.
“That’s something you can get away with in rural areas, but that in urban areas is too dangerous,” Hurt said. “Two-way access roads are becoming a thing of the past.”
The area has seen multiple traffic fatalities in recent years caused by drivers on the frontage roads failing to yield to high-speed traffic entering or exiting the interstate.
Additionally, the two-way access roads make it possible for motorists, especially those under the influence of drugs or alcohol, to enter the interstate on the exit ramp and drive the wrong way down IH-35, a scenario that typically ends in multiple deaths. Since 2008, Buda and Kyle have recorded at least three fatality wrecks caused by drivers traveling the wrong way on the interstate.
Though the move will make the interstate safer, it will also create mobility headaches in a region that for decades has built itself up around two-way access roads.
Drivers who live on the west side of Buda and commute north on IH-35 are expected to face traffic snags with the one-way adjustments.
Currently, residents who live along Goforth Road travel north on IH-35’s western access road, crossing over to the northbound entrance ramp at FM 2001. But in May, the one-way frontage roads will tack about 5 – 10 additional minutes onto their commute, requiring either a three-mile u-turn detour to the overpass at south FM 967 (formerly south Loop 1), or a two-mile detour through the residential Sequoya neighborhood and backtracking south again on Cabela’s Drive to the FM 2001 onramp.
Buda city staff had proposed a new road that would connect Goforth Road to Cabela’s Drive, giving drivers IH-35 northbound access. To date, the city has taken no action on the proposed connector.
Buda City Manager Kenneth Williams said that city staff had believed it would take TxDOT a year or so to make the changes.
“We were surprised to find out that it be in a matter of weeks,” Williams said. “[The road] will have to become a high priority for discussion with the city council now.”
On the other hand, Williams welcomed the safety strategy.
“It has its advantages for making the access roads safer,” Williams.
