page_title: Greater Austin
section_title: Highways
hierarchical_section_title: Greater Austin / Transportation / Highways
caption_attribution_description: English: The interchange of IH-35 and Texas State Highway 45 under construction in Round Rock, Texas, United States
context_page_description: Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos is a five-county metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Texas, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget. The metropolitan area is situated in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, and borders Greater San Antonio to the south.
  Austin–Round Rock-San Marcos is the 29th largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 2,227,083 people and 16th largest GDP per Capita as of the 2019 U.S. census estimate. The metropolitan area is centered on the City of Austin—the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 11th-largest city in the United States with a population of 978,908 people. Austin's largest suburbs are Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown, San Marcos and Pflugerville.
context_section_description: The principal highways in the metropolitan area are Interstate 35 and the MoPac Expressway (State Highway Loop 1), both of which are the primary North/South roadways.  Other important arteries in the city and its immediate vicinity are U.S. Highway 183 (also known as "Research Blvd."), and U.S. Highway 290 which provide East/West thoroughfares. Other important highways include State Highway 71 (also known as "Ben White Blvd.") which connects Austin with Houston to the south, and to Marble Falls and the Highland Lakes chain to the west.  And State Highway Loop 360 is a scenic highway which runs to the North/South on the west side of Austin but curves westward into the hills.  Loop 360 carries special scenic zoning as well preventing billboards and minimizing views of the surrounding buildings. Austin's new toll roads include State Highway 130, U.S. Highway 183-A, and State Highway 45 discussed below. Interstate 10 also runs through the extreme southern portion of Caldwell County.
  In November 2006, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) opened the first segment of the region's first toll road system. Both State Highway 130 and State Highway 45 toll roads run through portions of Austin and provide greatly increased mobility to the city. State Highway 130 prior to 2013 ran just south of Austin Bergstrom International Airport at US Highway 183 and ended at Interstate 35 north of Georgetown.  It provides mobility and access to the easternmost part of Austin and Travis County, and allows residents in Williamson County easy access to the airport.  This project, completed in October 2012, now ends at Interstate 10 just east of Seguin, about 30 miles east-northeast of San Antonio.  The speed limit on the newly completed stretch is the highest in the United States at 85 mph (137 km/h).
  State Highway 45 is part of an eventual partial loop that runs east from U.S. Highway 183 in Cedar Park to State Highway 130 at Pflugerville (east of Round Rock) where it merges with the SH 130 toll road, and then intersects with the southern portion of SH 45 near Buda, south of Austin. SH 45 is one of the very few East/West connectors in Austin, but it also connects to a tolled extension of Loop 1 (also known locally as the "Mopac Expressway") and allows direct access from to I-35 to Loop 1 by use of flyover connections rather than ground level intersections. The toll roads also provide access to the Dell headquarters and its approximately 16,000 employees. Despite the overwhelming initial opposition to the toll road concept, both toll roads have improved mobility in and around the Austin area and are significantly exceeding their revenue projections.
caption: Interchange of Interstate 35 and State Highway 45 under construction in 2004.
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