{"id":419679,"date":"2026-08-28T23:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419679\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T23:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T23:24:16","slug":"texas-4-highway-to-spacex-starbase-getting-192m-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419679\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas 4 highway to SpaceX Starbase getting $192M upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The project is part of the \u201c2027 Unified Transportation Program,\u201d or UTP, which TxDOT officials approved during a meeting on Wednesday, August 26. The plan greenlights some $138 billion in spending over the next 10 years<\/a> for road maintenance and new highway projects across the state, including several major expansions of highways across the Rio Grande Valley. MySA first reported on the expansion<\/a> of Texas 4 \u2014 known locally as \u201cHighway 4\u201d \u2014 in late-March.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexas\u2019 booming economy and growing population demand a transportation system that keeps people and products moving safely and efficiently,\u201d Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis $138 billion investment will strengthen our roadways, reduce congestion, improve safety, and support growing communities across Texas,\u201d Abbott further said.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0TxDOT said the plan represents its commitment to road safety by increasing \u201cfunding for rural corridors and key economic hubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Highway 4 is one example of how quickly highway needs can change. A decade ago, the two-lane highway, which lacks shoulders in many places, was sufficient for the sparse amount of traffic that used it to traverse from\u00a0Brownsville to Boca Chica Beach, the undeveloped stretch of sand that meets the mouth of the Rio Grande at the southernmost point of the Texas coast. It wasn\u2019t uncommon for beachgoers to park their vehicles where the highway ends, quite literally, in the sand drifts of the beach. But now, one of the most advanced space launch operations in the world lies just a few dozen yards away with an entire city that has grown up around it.<\/p>\n

Since\u00a0Starbase incorporated last summer<\/a>, the city has continued to expand, as have SpaceX\u2019s activities<\/a>. Over the last year, SpaceX has built a second Starship launchpad\u00a0and is currently building a $500 million spaceship factory called \u201cGigaBay<\/a>.\u201d Both projects have brought thousands of new workers \u2014 and vehicles \u2014 to the town via the only highway that reaches it.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0MySA previously reported, between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2023, average daily traffic on Highway 4 increased from 645 vehicles per day to 4,683. But that data was collected long before Starbase became a city and even before SpaceX built its five-story-tall headquarters. As traffic has grown, the aging highway has struggled to keep up. Much of its 14-mile span is marked by large potholes, cracks and crumbling asphalt edges. TxDOT admits the highway has become a safety hazard \u2014 one where crash rates are \u201c1.5 to 2 times higher than similar Texas roadways,\u201d the agency said in March.<\/p>\n

But the $192.4 million project aims to fix that. Starting in 2027, crews will begin expanding the highway to four lanes with continuous shoulders and a dedicated median. The road surface will also be made of concrete, which will be better able to accommodate the heavy truck traffic that\u00a0SpaceX relies on to supply its rocket manufacturing facilities. Inside the Starbase city limits<\/a>, crews will also build a 3.75-mile-long bike path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The project is part of the \u201c2027 Unified Transportation Program,\u201d or UTP, which TxDOT officials approved during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2319,2320,820,59494,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-419679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysacoast","tag-mysasotx","tag-mysastaff","tag-mysatranspo","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}