Are Texas Toll Roads Safer? What Two Austin Sections Show

Nine crashes on the two mainline sections

The pilot covers 1.063 miles of 290 Toll from US 183 to Springdale Road and 2.113 miles of free US 290 from I-35 to US 183. It counts a crash once at its highest recorded injury severity. One fatal crash on the free section killed two people, which is why its four fatal crashes and five deaths are different numbers. Austin crash-level records · TxDOT roadway inventory

I multiplied annual average daily traffic by each segment’s length and the days in the year, then added the results across years. That puts crashes on the same distance basis even though the two roads carry different amounts of traffic. The estimate for the toll section is 64% of the free section’s rate. The exact 95% interval for that ratio runs from about 0.07 to 3.35 under the count model. A much lower rate, a similar rate and a higher rate are all compatible with these data. TxDOT’s crash-rate method · TxDOT traffic-count inventory

Where a crash happened matters more than a decimal place

A frontage road, an entrance ramp and a main lane can share a street name and overlap on a map. I reviewed 70 candidate assignments covering 62 distinct severe crashes before keeping nine on the two mainlines. Road names, coordinates and other location fields informed those decisions. The original officer reports would help resolve the remaining overlaps. Austin crash-level records · TxDOT crash data and CR-3 reports

The ramp row shows how much one decision moves the ratio when mainline traffic counts stay fixed. A true ramp-inclusive rate would also need ramp traffic. And even a precise difference between the two roads would leave the cause open. Speed, construction, traffic mix and how drivers enter and leave each section also affect the comparison. Austin crash-level records · TxDOT crash-rate method

What contracts can tell us about maintenance

The records tell a clearer story about one crash. Six people died in a 130-vehicle pileup on the southbound I-35W toll lanes in Fort Worth on February 11, 2021. The National Transportation Safety Board found that ice on an elevated section caused drivers to lose control. It concluded that the operator’s failure to monitor and address the roadway effectively contributed to the unsafe condition, and that drivers traveling too fast for the conditions made the outcome more severe. The board evaluated the operator’s actions on that day. TxDOT’s separate records would show whether the agency assessed or collected a contractual penalty. NTSB investigation and final report

Maintenance, incident response and pavement quality have their own contract terms. The North Tarrant Express I-35W contract covers work on both the managed and general-purpose lanes. A comparison between those lanes can therefore involve one maintenance contractor. I found no verified payment of a pavement or emergency-response penalty in the records reviewed. The payment ledgers, waivers and contractor deductions needed to check that question remain missing. TxDOT North Tarrant Express executed agreements

How we got this

I used Austin’s crash-level file for 2021–2025, which applies the city’s current Full Purpose boundary to earlier records, and matched it to TxDOT’s roadway and traffic inventories. The confidence interval reflects the uncertainty from small crash counts. It leaves out possible errors in road assignment, city coverage and traffic estimates. A statewide comparison needs crash records that distinguish ramps, main lanes and frontage roads, plus separate vehicle-mile counts wherever tolled and free lanes share a corridor. Without both, a statewide ranking would look more certain than the data allow. Austin open data and coverage notes · TxDOT CRIS access and data notes · TxDOT roadway inventory