[Scottolini]

All I will say, is that if in early 2000 someone told me that downtown Austin would look like it does today, or that 183-A, Loop 1 extension, 45 North, 130, 45SE, along with the other highway projects completed in the 2000s would be built, I would have told you something along the lines of, "Yeah right."

I'm not saying I-35 will be expanded in the coming decade, but I do think at some point it will. Whether that involves a viaduct, a trench, a tunnel, double decking, or a combination of all of the above I do not know, but it will happen.

I don't buy that the government of this country will be too poor to build infrastructure in the coming decades. Even third-world countries still build new highways, and mass transit systems. Look at our neighbor to the south as an example.