TxDOT announces $15 million safety upgrade for Jim Wells County roads
TxDOT set aside $15 million to remake SH 359 in Jim Wells County, adding passing and turn lanes to cut crashes on a corridor carrying about 31,688 vehicles.
TxDOT’s Corpus Christi District announced a $15 million safety improvement project in Jim Wells County centered on SH 359, where the agency plans to add passing lanes, dedicated turn lanes and other roadway improvements aimed at reducing crashes and easing congestion. The changes are designed to give drivers safer places to pass slower traffic and turn off the highway, two pressure points on a rural route that serves daily local travel, farm traffic and commercial deliveries.
The project is part of a broader district push to reduce roadway deaths and serious wrecks across the Corpus Christi area. TxDOT project materials place Jim Wells County work in the Rural Transportation Improvement Plan and other district lists, showing that the SH 359 upgrade is not an isolated fix but part of a longer planning effort inside the Corpus Christi District.
Safety planning in the region also moved through the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization, where the Transportation Policy Committee approved a Regional Safety Action Plan on October 3, 2024. TxDOT’s own Regional Safety Action Plan for the Corpus Christi area was prepared by a Joint Safety Task Force that included district staff, tying the county project to a larger crash-reduction strategy already on the books.
The scale of the work matters in a county whose roads carry heavy vehicle use. A TexasInsurance.org page says Jim Wells County roads are home to approximately 31,688 private and commercial vehicles, a reminder that SH 359 is serving much more than through traffic alone. The corridor also fits into a pattern of recurring TxDOT attention in the county, including bridge projects in the Ben Bolt-Palito Blanco area and an earlier presentation on proposed US 281 improvements between BU 281R North of Alice and BU 281R South of Alice.
TxDOT’s crash-data resources and statewide fatal crash tables show how closely the agency tracks death and injury trends by county and road type, and Jim Wells County has remained inside that larger safety conversation. On SH 359, the practical test will be whether the added passing lanes, turn lanes and other upgrades reduce crash risk while making the route work better for the drivers who use it every day.
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