Kathleen Cawthon does a lot of driving. She says Interstate 10 between San Antonio and her Houston office is her second home.
“We have a Texas cheese company, and we market all over Texas and all over the nation, but our sales are really good in the San Antonio area, so we travel back and forth,” she said.
Semi-trucks are a common sight.
“If I can, I avoid I-10,” Cawthon said. “Sometimes there's so many truckers, and if the weather conditions aren't good, you feel sandwiched in.”
The Texas Department of Transportation says in 2010, an average of 33,000 vehicles traveled I-10 near Seguin every day. By 2013, that number jumped to over 36,000.
The department wants to ease congestion by expanding I-10, adding one lane in each direction from Loop 410 in San Antonio to Texas 130 in Seguin.
"We'll be doing some bridge work also, clearances, updating a lot of the bridges in that stretch of highway,” TxDOT’s Laura Lopez said. “Traffic has grown, and with the truck traffic, definitely this is something we need to look forward to."
Lopez says the added lane would likely be tolled and mainly used for transit and carpool. Cawthon says she wouldn't mind.
“It doesn't bother me,” she said. “I mean, I'm using the roads."
Lopez says nothing is set in stone, but TxDOT needs to be ready.
“Of course funding is always an issue, but we need to plan,” she said.
Cawthon says she believes the plans are moving in the right direction.
“I think it's a great idea,” she said. “If they're going to expand any road, I think the I-10 corridor from Houston to San Antonio would be money best spent."
The project would require cooperation for TxDOT's district offices in Yokum and Houston.
The plan to expand the 200-mile stretch of highway is still a few years away, and studies need to be done to get exact estimates on the project.
In the meantime, TxDOT says motorists can expect to see some improvements to I-10 East near Loop 410.