Loop 360's New Westlake Lanes Were Built For Drivers Passing Through

Since the morning of Sunday, August 30, 2026, a driver heading north on Loop 360 toward the Pennybacker Bridge can pass Westlake Drive and Cedar Street without stopping at a signal. That driver is most likely not going to Westlake Drive. The new lanes help people passing through West Lake Hills. A trip that begins or ends in 78746 still uses the connector roads, the U-turns and a Bee Cave Road intersection that TxDOT has not funded.

That gap is how the whole corridor was designed, and it decides where the next few years of construction land.

What Opened, And How Much Of It

TxDOT opened one new mainlane in each direction. Drivers stay in the left lane to bypass the signals at Westlake Drive and Cedar Street, and anyone who needs those streets exits right onto the connector roads. The work puts both intersections on bridges so that the mainlanes run underneath. With the signals off the mainlanes, the trip through this stretch has changed.

The opening is only partial. On TxDOT's project page, Phases 2 through 4 are still ongoing. Those phases cover the new connector roads and drainage, the shared-use paths, both bridges, and finishing the northbound and southbound mainlanes. Phase 5, which covers final paving, striping and the permanent traffic pattern, has not started. Copasa Group is the contractor. Work began in June 2022, and TxDOT expects to finish in late 2026, weather permitting. That date has already slipped once. In June 2025, Community Impact reported a mid-2026 estimate.

The Design Was Built Around Through Traffic

The reasoning behind the project is on the record. TxDOT spokesperson Katherine Lee Seth told the Austin American-Statesman in May that traffic studies show most Loop 360 traffic is through traffic. Taking out stoplights and moving turning cars out of the mainlanes should keep that traffic moving, she said. The project adds no lanes. Loop 360 remains a four-lane highway, which Fox 7 Austin reported was meant to avoid a bottleneck at the Pennybacker Bridge. The bridge has spanned the Colorado River since 1982, and the plans keep it at two lanes in each direction.

The plan, then, is to separate traffic. Through trips go to the middle, and local trips go to the edges. For someone who lives off Westlake Drive or Cedar Street, the drive home is now a sequence of moves. Here is the current pattern based on TxDOT's notice and KXAN's report on the opening:

1. Leaving the mainlanes. Exit right well before your cross street. Westlake Drive and Cedar Street are reached only from the connector roads.
2. Turning around. Non-signal U-turns on the Westlake Drive bridge give access to both northbound and southbound Loop 360.
3. Heading south from the north end. The southbound U-turn south of Bold Ruler Way is still open, according to TxDOT's press release as reported by KXAN.
4. Driving at night this week. Through Thursday, October 15, the northbound and southbound connector roads between the Pennybacker Bridge and the Shell gas station have alternating single-lane closures from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.

The connector is also where daytime work happens. Construction on the mainlanes between Bold Ruler Way and the Pennybacker Bridge runs through late 2026. Excavation runs weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and trucks haul material at night. The shared-use paths are part of the ongoing Phase 2 work, and TxDOT has not given an opening date for them.

The Light Most Westlake Trips Still Wait At

Locals feel the separation most at the Bee Cave Road intersection, RM 2244. That signal is on the way to Trianon Coffee, Taqueria de Diez and much of the Bee Cave Road corridor, and it is the project TxDOT has made the fewest commitments on. The agency says it will study a possible diverging diamond interchange there. Its schedule section has one sentence: "The project will move forward when additional funding becomes available."

That makes the rebuild uneven. The Westlake Drive and Cedar Street signals, which many through drivers used to hit on the way to the bridge, are coming off the mainlanes first. The intersection that leads to the Bee Cave Road shops and cafes is unfunded. Here is where each of TxDOT's five Loop 360 project bundles stands as of October 2026.

The MoPac-to-RM 2244 bundle sometimes gets confused with earlier work. In January 2017, Community Impact reported that auxiliary lanes at Walsh Tarlton, MoPac and the Barton Creek Square entrance were finished in December 2016. Those lanes are built. The overpasses that would take the signals out at Walsh Tarlton and Westbank Drive are not, and they have no start date.

North Of The River, The Next Phase Has Already Started

The same through-traffic logic is now moving across the Pennybacker Bridge, and it affects where Westlake residents go on weekends. The Courtyard Drive and RM 2222 project costs $68.4 million. The city of Austin is contributing $14 million from its 2016 mobility bond toward that work and the later Lakewood and Spicewood Springs project, according to the Statesman. In its second phase, drivers lose the ability to cross Loop 360 at Courtyard Drive and are rerouted along the highway.

The work also reaches the two best-known places to look at the bridge. As of May, Seth said crews setting up the work zone would install barriers near the trail to the Pennybacker Bridge overlook, which would end parking at the trailhead. The boat ramp was to stay open. Check before you go, since the Statesman described the barriers as a plan and not as installed.

The boat ramp is already operating under construction limits. Travis County Parks says parking at the Loop 360 Boat Ramp, below the south end of the bridge on Lake Austin, is limited to the 10 boat-trailer spaces inside the park. Visitors meeting friends or chartering a boat are encouraged to use rideshare. Entry and amenity fees are cash only. The county also notes that the cliffside overlook is not part of its park.

Where The Local Stops Are This Fall

The places drawing new traffic this year sit along the roads the rebuild has not reached yet. Postino Westlake held its grand opening on September 13, 2026, at 701 S. Capital of Texas Highway, Suite J-760, as an all-day restaurant and wine bar, per Austin Monthly. On Bee Cave Road, Taqueria de Diez opened its third location at 3736 Bee Cave Road, Suite 2, in spring 2026. French Florist opened June 17 at 3801 Bee Cave Road, Suite 140, as reported in Community Impact's August business roundup. Trianon Coffee, at 3654 Bee Cave Road, hosts an Austin Westlake Rotary meetup on Thursday, October 29, from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

The city has its own infrastructure item on the calendar. The City of West Lake Hills calendar lists a community update and neighbor meeting on the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant for Monday, October 19, at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.

TxDOT changes closures week by week. The agency sends a weekly email newsletter through loop360project.com and posts updates on X at @Loop360project. Statewide real-time lane closures are on DriveTexas.

Changes to everyday access, like which streets connect to the mainlanes and how the trip into a neighborhood works, belong in any honest conversation about value. If you live off Westlake Drive, Cedar Street or Bee Cave Road and want to know what your home is worth this fall, Justyn LeFebvre can help. Get Your Instant Home Valuation and start with a figure based on the corridor as it actually works today.