Lampasas schedules I-14 route meeting for Copperas Cove to Lometa

Landowners along US 190 from Copperas Cove to Lometa will get another chance to challenge or support where Interstate 14 could someday run, as TxDOT opens a second round of public meetings on a corridor study that could influence access, traffic patterns and future development across Coryell County and Lampasas County.

The Texas Department of Transportation’s Brownwood District is studying an approximately 35-mile corridor that generally follows US 190 westward from Copperas Cove to Lometa. TxDOT says the work is part of a long-range effort to determine where future Interstate 14 could be located, and it will examine possible impacts on US 183, US 190, US 281 and the separate Lampasas Relief Route Study.

The virtual meeting will begin Monday, June 22, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. CT and remain available online until Wednesday, July 15, 2026. In-person open houses are scheduled for June 22 in Lampasas, June 23 in Lometa and June 29 in Copperas Cove. TxDOT says each in-person session will be come-and-go, with a brief live presentation at 6 p.m., and residents will be able to review project materials, question TxDOT staff and consultants, and leave written comments. Public comments must be received by Wednesday, July 15, 2026, to be included in the meeting summary report.

For Coryell County residents, the key issue is not a distant interstate ribbon-cutting. It is where a future corridor would sit relative to existing homes, farms, driveways, school routes and business frontages now tied to US 190. TxDOT says the current roadway from Copperas Cove to Lampasas has four 12-foot travel lanes, 10-foot shoulders and a 16-foot continuous center turn lane. From Lampasas to Lometa, the highway narrows to two 12-foot lanes with 10-foot shoulders and intermittent passing lanes with 5-foot shoulders, although that segment is now under construction to match the typical section used between Lampasas and Copperas Cove.

Existing plans already call for interstate-standard upgrades from the Coryell County line to near Kempner, putting that stretch squarely in the public’s line of sight. TxDOT says about 25 miles of I-14 are already designated and signed between I-35 in Belton and US 190E in Copperas Cove, while the larger Texas system is projected to stretch more than 1,000 miles.

The agency says no funding or timeline has been established for the full corridor, and construction is not expected to begin for 15 to 20 years, with full buildout possibly taking more than 20 years. That makes the current comment period critical. Residents will want to press TxDOT on which alignments would take the most land, where access could change for Copperas Cove-area commuters and businesses, and how the I-14 study will be reconciled with the Lampasas Relief Route Study, which TxDOT and the city of Lampasas launched in May 2022 to find a bypass that would move through traffic, including trucks, away from central Lampasas.