SH 45 SW, a 3.6-mile roll road connecting southwest Travis County and northern Hays County, has been open to traffic for a year.
The road, established by the Central Texas Mobility Authority in June 2019, was first proposed as a project in 1985, and broke ground in 2016. According to the Mobility Authority, SH 45 SW is the first road of its kind in the Central Texas region to implement "wrong-way driving technology" which detects cars that enter the roadway incorrectly and notifies drivers and first responders.
Work on two connecting projects continues: the MoPac intersections project, which creates diverging diamond overpasses from Slaughter Lane and La Crosse Avenue over MoPac and is slated for completion in 2021, and the MoPac South express lane project, which does not yet have a groundbreaking date.
Recently, SH 45 SW has seen decreased usage during the coronavirus pandemic, with a 41.2% decrease in traffic reported from March to April.