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TX Highways |
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| The Interstate Highways (ih) are all
owned and maintained by Texas. The Texas Department of
Transportation (TxDOT) is the agency responsible for the
day-to-day maintenance and operations of the ih. The
Interstate Highway System (ihs) in Texas covers 3,239.7
miles and consists of ten primary routes, six auxiliary
routes and Interstate 35 (i35) which is split into two
branches, i35E and i35W, that provide access to both
Fort Worth and Dallas. The longest segment of ih is i10
at 878.6 miles; the shortest is i110 at 0.9 miles. |
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| The construction of the ihs in Texas
began well before these routes were designated as ih. A
50-mile stretch of i45 between Galveston and Houston was
opened in 1951, eight years before it was designated
i45. It was also the first urban expressway in Texas. In
1962, 43 miles of i35 opened in Bexar County, the first
section of ih to open from county line to county line in
a large metropolitan area. Portions of i10 west of San
Antonio took much longer to complete due to the vast
open spaces and lack of nearby labor. The majority of
the construction of this section of i10 occurred in the
1970s and 1980s and was complete by the early 1990s. The
section east of San Antonio was completed 20 years
earlier in 1972. The opening of a 6-mile section of i27
in 1992 completed the ihs in Texas. |
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| Planning is ongoing for a proposed
extension of i69 southward from its current terminus in
Indiana through Texas to the United States–Mexico
border. If complete as planned, i69 will extend about
650 miles across Texas, from the Louisiana state line in
the Texarkana-Shreveport area to South Texas. The first
6.2-mile portion was approved in 2011, with signage
posted December 6, 2011. |
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