I-35 LANE STRIPING DRIVES CONFUSION
Problem should be fixed by this morning, according to TxDOT.
Flummoxed by the jumbled lane striping that has infuriated drivers heading south on Interstate 35 around the Oltorf Street intersection?
It should be fixed by Thursday morning, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.
TxDOT crews have been working since February on that stretch of I-35 as part of a $42.6 million project to remake the highway interchange with Oltorf Street. At some point in the recent past — an exact date was not immediately available — contractors restriped the lanes but did what many consider a poor job by not getting totally rid of the old striping.
A Reddit thread posted Monday gives a taste of drivers’ frustration. The original poster described an 18-wheeler veering into an adjacent lane and nearly causing a pileup as a result of an apparently confused driver.
“I don’t want to die trying to drive my daily commute,” the poster noted, garnering 118 responses. One poster stated that the “reflectors are barely visible.” Another noted that: “I almost died there on Friday. Super fun moment when suddenly two lanes of cars don’t know what lane they are actually in!” Yet another chimed in: “How this kind of (expletive) is allowed to
happen at all is absurd, but the fact that it’s been this way for so long is mind-boggling.”
A few likened the situation to the yearslong, well-behind-schedule expansion of MoPac Boulevard. The Austin Police Department is now gathering information about whether collisions have increased on I-35 around Oltorf as a result of the lane striping, a spokeswoman said.
Contractors spent late Tuesday and early Wednesday blacking out the remaining parts of the old lane markers to clarify where drivers should be traveling, TxDOT spokeswoman Diann Hodges told the American-Statesman. The rest of the lane markers should be blacked out by Thursday morning, Hodges said.
“It’s a big construction project, and it will be a great project when it’s done, and in the meantime there will be growing pains,” Hodges said. “We know construction is not easy to deal with. Please bear with us.”
She cautioned that more inconvenience is in the works, though. On Friday and Saturday nights, crews will begin closing I-35 in the Oltorf area in both directions at 9 p.m. The road will be completely closed by 11 p.m. with crews working overnight. All traffic will be directed to the frontage roads, Hodges said.