“Where is Interstate 14 going to be?” has been the question asked in more than a few calls to The Reporter over the past couple of years.
Our answer of “we don’t know?” may not satisfy every caller but a Texas Department of Transportation executive confirmed last week that TxDOT doesn’t know either.
“We’ve gotten a lot of those calls, too,” Chad Bohne, Deputy District Engineer of TxDOT’s Bryan Office told the Rockdale Noon Lions Club.
“It’s true, we don’t know,” he said. “There’s no map under lock and key in some engineer’s office that we just can’t show you.”
While a section of the new I-14 is open from Copperas Cove to Belton, a lot of work remains before a route from Belton to Jasper, which would include Milam County, is chosen.
US 190—It’s already been announced the new interstate—which will run from Central Texas to South Carolina—will essentially follow US 190 through most of its route in Texas.
That includes Milam County. But Bohne noted US 190’s path is a zig-zag route in Texas and that definitely includes Milam County. See adjacent map.
“It looks like (the pattern on) Charlie Brown’s shirt,” he joked to the Lions.
In a more serious vein he noticed the practical impossibility of exactly following US 190.
“We’re not going to run it through downtown Cameron, for example,” Bohne said.
He also pointed out an interstate corridor would not have the zigzag pattern of US 190 which enters Texas (traveling west) near DeRidder, Louisiana, jogs northwest to Jasper, northwest again over Lake Livingston, west to Huntsville, where it runs conterminous with Interstate 45 for several miles, southwest to Bryan, northwest to Hearne, southwest to Milano, then northwest to Killeen and the only current section actually named I-45.
“We will solicit the public’s comments on a probable route when we get closer to preparing this project,” Bohne said.
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