Where are you going Interstate 14?
That’s a question many Milam County residents would like answered but it appears a firm decision on a route in this neck of the woods may be years away.
Dr. John M. Weed, president of the Rockdale Municipal Development District, recently attended a status meeting on a number of projects with Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) officials and reported to the Rockdale City Council.
NORTH MILAM—For several years there’s been lots of buzz, but little solid information about the route of the new interstate, designed to run from Texas to Georgia.
Dr. Weed said I-14 could take a more northerly route through Milam than had been perceived.
UP-AND-DOWN—It’s generally been assumed I-14 will more-or-less follow the route of US 190 through Texas, including Milam County.
In Milam, west to east, US 190 enters the county west of Buckholts, conterminous with Texas 36.
190 and 36 are together south to Milano. But there 36 continues “on its own” southward while 190 becomes conterminous with US 79, jogs northeast and exits the county at the Brazos River east of Gause.
Dr. Weed noted the up and down nature of 190 as a possible factor arguing against the I-14 route following it exactly.
CORRIDOR—In 2015, Congress created the Central Texas Corridor, a vague route essentially following US 190.
That’s the yellow band in the map on page 1A. If that map, provided by the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition, is to be interpreted literally, the corridor virtually reaches to the eastern city limits of Rockdale.
But there’s nothing firm.
25 MILES—But some of I-14 is already a reality.
Last year a 25-mile stretch of US 190 through Fort Hood was officially designated as I-14.
That stretch runs from Business 190 in Copperas Cove to I-35 in Belton.
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