By Suze Parker, Contributing Author
Situated just north of Austin, Texas, Williamson County is the sixth-fastest-growing county in the United States. Judge Bill Gravell, who heads the county’s Commissioners Court, calls it the most sought-after region in America, if not the world.
In the past, residents who lived there often had to commute to jobs in Austin, but Williamson County has steadily become its own economic and workforce powerhouse. Major businesses, including Dell Technologies, Apple, Samsung, Amazon and Tesla, have invested billions in recent years to develop national headquarters and large-scale manufacturing facilities within its boundaries.
Dramatic growth has followed. From about 250,000 residents in 2000, the population has rocketed to about 700,000 today. Two cities in Williamson County, Georgetown and Leander, were recently highlighted as the nation’s fastest- and second-fastest growing cities over 50,000 people.
With some 4,000 new residents moving into Williamson County each month, rapid growth – and the transportation demands that come with it – have become the norm.
“Williamson County offers highly rated schools and a wonderful parks and recreation program, so it’s a great place to raise a family,” said Commissioner Terry Cook. “Businesses have transportation access because the railroad and the I-35 corridor run through. And land is available.”
Commissioner Valerie Covey points out that the area is safe and has attracted large numbers of seniors who are drawn by their children and grandchildren moving to the county, as well.
The county foresaw rapid growth more than 25 years ago. Commissioners Court members at that time saw examples of communities around the country that missed the opportunity to plan for expansion, learning too late that the desired right of way was unavailable or the roadway system they needed was too expensive to build. Williamson County recognized the need to take a different approach, Commissioner Cynthia Long said.
Because much of the abundant land was inaccessible, the county had a blank slate on which to develop a long-term transportation vision that would allow infrastructure to keep pace with the expected increase in residents and vehicles. County leaders partnered with HNTB as their general engineering consultant to help plan for that future.
“The county’s priority was to preserve rights of way against development,” said HNTB Senior Program Manager Christen Eschberger. “We partnered with the county to think through financial options that would support its 25-year outlook, which resulted in a transportation plan supported by a bond issue in 2000.”
HNTB provides program support by working with county staff to identify projects the public may be interested in advancing, providing analysis and estimates, developing the bond sale package and accompanying educational materials.
The initial program’s success – achieved because the county started with a manageable program and built public trust by delivering on its promises – drove additional voter-approved bond issues in 2006, 2013 and 2019. The most recent bond package – $825 million and double the size of the 2019 bond – passed in 2023.
Tax revenue from new housing and the major corporations that have established facilities in the area provide most of the bond program funding. Federal and state dollars have supported the program, as well. With more than $1 billion in projects constructed or under development, Williamson County’s Road Bond Program is now one of the largest county bond programs in the United States.
The cadence of periodic bond elections, said Commissioner Russ Boles, has allowed the county to “give our citizens the benefit of safety and mobility, but also to put asphalt on the ground as quickly as we can to avoid construction and land acquisition costs becoming insurmountable.”
Planning with Flexibility
Continued growth requires a progressive planning approach. The county developed a long-range plan that lays out transportation corridors and arterials so that, as development occurs, placement of the main lines is clear, Long said.
Regional corridors are located roughly every five miles and local arterials are spaced approximately one mile apart on a county-wide grid. Final corridor and arterial alignments are then determined through work with stakeholders and through planning and environmental studies.
“The corridor approach maintains adequate right of way so that no matter how transportation changes in the future, the county will be able to accommodate it,” said HNTB Program Manager Kate Wilder. “The county’s goal is to ensure sufficient capacity for the traveling public to get around as the community grows.”
Williamson County’s transportation plan is not necessarily tied to specific timing or to certain roadway alignments. Rather, it is designed to foster county-wide safety and mobility when the county is built out.
The county has stood firmly behind the philosophy that, because the bond program is voter approved and voter funded, input from residents and the county’s partners will guide infrastructure project prioritization.
To that end, Williamson County works closely with its cities, the public, landowners, developers, neighboring counties, the Capital Area Metro Planning Organization, the Texas Department of Transportation and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority to coordinate connectivity throughout the region. Its plan analyzes population and employment data to contemplate land-use patterns and project how and where the county will grow.
“We realized early on that if we just focused on what a county typically does – build roads that connect cities – it wouldn’t get our citizens where they need to be,” Boles said. “We have approached many partners to ask where we can help participate. That has included some of our smaller communities and school districts.”
The most recent bond issue included turn lanes from a state road, providing safe access into a new high school in Granger, Texas, population about 1,100. Partnering with the school district, the Commissioners added the project to the bond issue, allowing the project to stay on track in advance of the school opening.
A citizens’ bond committee established by the Commissioners Court includes two representatives from each of the county’s four precincts and a committee chair appointed by the County Judge.
The bond committee reviews potential project scopes, meets with constituents and works with the county commissioners to identify priority transportation projects based on areas of greatest need. Thus far, Williamson County has completed nearly 300 projects, comprising design and construction of more than 1,000 lane miles of new and reconstructed roadways.
Driving Economic Development
The right of way for State Highway 45 and Loop 1, intentionally prioritized as an economic development tool in the late 1990s, was a large initial project completed at the beginning of the program.
The county’s active, ongoing transportation planning – and quick response under that plan – was a key reason Samsung chose Taylor in late 2023 as the site of its new, $17 billion, 6-million-square-foot advanced chip-fabrication facility.
The county recognized that attracting Samsung was a highly competitive process and wanted to ensure adequate transportation infrastructure was in place to accommodate the plant. HNTB quickly designed four roadway projects that would accommodate Samsung’s specific needs. Those projects were updated on the fly as the company’s site plans evolved.
“The Samsung site expanded quite a bit from what we had originally anticipated, requiring a shift in the proposed roadway alignments by half a mile,” Wilder said. “The team was highly responsive, which contributed to Williamson County’s success in winning the facility.”
Now under construction and scheduled to open this year, the factory will add more than 2,000 jobs in the county.
The county maintains flexibility in its plan to respond to transportation needs as they emerge or change. Already, Ronald Reagan Blvd., the first major roadway constructed under the county’s 2003 bond program, is being expanded under the 2023 bond to accommodate development it spurred on the county’s west side.
Chandler Road, recently expanded from two to four lanes, provides direct east-west connectivity to Taylor, Texas, without requiring motorists to first travel south and drive through Hutto, Texas. The first segment of East Wilco Highway, intended to improve north/south travel in central Williamson County, opened in 2023. The second and third of eight segments are under construction.
The long-range transportation plan also has enabled the county to help fund TxDOT construction of Interstate-35 entrance and exit ramps near Jarrell, Texas, in northern Williamson County, to support increasing traffic volumes in that fast-growing area.
Gravell points out that the total appraised value for all of Williamson County was $81 billion when he joined the Commissioners Court. Six years later, the appraised value has more than doubled to $171.4 billion – and that doesn’t yet include the new Samsung plant numbers.
“The foundational element that has made us attractive for businesses has been our roads and our infrastructure,” Gravell said.
The county is already considering the potential future need to expand its main lanes, electrify its roads or implement multimodal transit. Several cities in Williamson County, including Round Rock, Cedar Park and Georgetown, already are exploring transit options with Capital Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District. Those details aren’t yet known, but whatever the long-term demand, the county is planning and preparing for that future.
Williamson County’s long-range transportation planning process can provide a blueprint for other U.S. counties, the commissioners said. By engaging cities and citizens early in the process to learn what they want their county to look like in the next decade and beyond, leaders can gain public support that informs priority projects, builds trust and sets the stage for funding requests.
Developers follow growth, and counties that have identified ideal transportation projects will be prepared to work collaboratively with developers to fine-tune their plans. RB
Suze Parker is a public relations consultant who frequently writes about roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects.
