TxDOT outlines State Highway 71 median plan to BKF City Council; safety gains weighed against congestion and business access

The BKF City Council on March 11 received an update from the Texas Department of Transportation on a proposed median project for State Highway 71 that TxDOT officials say is designed to reduce severe and head-on crashes; council members and first responders raised concerns about added congestion, access for businesses that move large equipment and impacts on emergency response times.

TxDOT area engineer Willie Samora described layout changes made after public meetings — including restored left-in access at Caprock Summit, additional U-turn accommodations near Duke Covert Drive, a partial-access solution at the Hamilton Pool Road/ Bee Creek Drive area to serve youth fields and a decision to end medians before the second H-E-B driveway — and said the project was driven by a crash analysis and heat maps. Samora said the project is scheduled to be advertised for bid in May or June 2025 and that roughly $3,000,000 has been invested to reach the current design.

Councilmembers pressed TxDOT on trade-offs between safety and mobility. Several members singled out the Hamilton Pool Road intersection as the corridor's most acute problem, asking for clearer level-of-service and intersection-specific modeling and whether storage lengths could be extended rather than providing U-turn movements. Fire department leadership warned that longer backups could impede emergency response. A resident who spoke during public comment urged caution on introducing U-turns, calling them “an accident waiting to happen.” Samora said TxDOT’s underlying study showed one fatality on the corridor in 2021 and that previous installs of similar medians in Lakeway produced an 75–80% reduction in severe crashes, though minor crashes initially increased.

TxDOT prese…