Drive Bee Cave Road on any weekday morning right now and you'll pass at least four different kinds of orange cones, a crew installing something in a metal box at an intersection that already had a working signal, and a stretch near Courtyard Drive that looks nothing like it did in June. If you've caught yourself assuming this is all one big road project that will eventually just be done, you're not alone, and you're also not quite right.
What's actually happening in West Lake Hills this fall is three unrelated funding streams landing in the same few months, each with its own budget, its own timeline, and its own finish line. Knowing which bucket you're looking at changes how you plan around it. A crack-sealing crew on your street will be gone in a week. A TxDOT interchange that just broke ground will still be there in 2029.
Three Different Kinds of Money, Not One Road Project
The first bucket is the 2026 Street Maintenance Project, which the city council awarded on June 24, 2026, and which sent crews out starting July 6 for crack sealing and mill-and-overlay work on 31 streets across the city. This is preventive maintenance, paid for out of the street maintenance fund, meant to seal small cracks before they become potholes and refresh the asphalt surface before it needs a full rebuild. If your street is on the list, expect a few days of minor delays and temporary traffic control, not months of closure.
The second bucket is Proposition B, the $11.8 million road and drainage bond that West Lake Hills voters approved back in 2021. That money went toward capital-level rebuilds on Redbud Trail, Westlake Drive, Yaupon Valley Road, Laurel Valley Road, Camp Craft Road, and Eanes School Road, including new culverts and a raised roadbed at the Eanes Creek crossings. That work is largely behind the city at this point. If you remember Camp Craft Road being closed for months, that was Prop B. What's happening on your street this summer almost certainly isn't.
The third bucket belongs to the Texas Department of Transportation, not the city, and it's actually two separate projects that keep getting merged into one in people's heads because they're both labeled "Loop 360."
The Two Loop 360 Projects Are Not the Same Project
The segment at Westlake Drive and Cedar Street, priced above $70 million, is the one residents have been watching evolve from a signaled intersection into an underpass, and it's the one nearing completion. The segment at Courtyard Drive and RM 2222, priced just under that, is a separate interchange build that only started this year, after the city's own updates noted that crews needed to stabilize the west cliffs before construction could begin.
That distinction matters because the two projects are on opposite ends of their timelines. One is closing out. The other just got started and, based on the scale of interchange work TxDOT typically undertakes on this stretch, is realistically a multi-year build. If your mental model of "the Loop 360 project" is the Westlake Drive bridge, you've been tracking the one that's wrapping up, not the one a mile away that just broke ground.
If your street had orange cones in June and different orange cones in August, there's a decent chance you watched two unrelated projects hand off to each other without noticing the transition.
What's Actually New on Your Street
Here's a rough map of what's converging on West Lake Hills right now, and which agency's checkbook each one comes from.
| Project | What's Actually Happening | Paid For By | Where It Stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Street Maintenance Project | Crack sealing and mill-and-overlay on 31 streets, including Yaupon Valley Road, Sundown Parkway, Wood Trail, Westhaven Drive, Forest View Drive, and Reveille Road | City street maintenance fund | Started July 6, 2026 |
| Bee Cave Road AI Traffic Signals | 9 signal upgrades using NoTraffic's vehicle and bicycle detection system | City and TxDOT joint venture | Council approved April 22, 2026 |
| Eanes Creek Trail Feasibility Study | Planning study only, no construction, assessing a path parallel to Bee Cave Road between Loop 360 and MoPac | CAMPO ($416,000) and city ($104,000) | 12 to 18 month study, likely wrapping in 2027 |
| Loop 360 at Westlake Drive/Cedar Street | Signaled intersection converting to an underpass | TxDOT | Nearing completion |
| Loop 360 at Courtyard Drive/RM 2222 | New interchange, cliff stabilization completed first | TxDOT | Just started, multi-year |
If you drive Bee Cave Road daily, the item most worth watching is the trail study. It's easy to assume a nine-figure road project matters more than a planning document, but the Eanes Creek Trail is the one thing on this list that could change how people move through the city on foot or by bike rather than by car. The interlocal agreement between the city and the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization was approved on October 8, 2025, and it's studying whether a dedicated route along or near Eanes Creek could give walkers and cyclists a safer, more comfortable parallel option to Bee Cave Road itself. This isn't a shovel-ready project. It's a feasibility study, budgeted not to exceed roughly half a million dollars split between CAMPO and the city, expected to take 12 to 18 months once work formally began. The city's May 2026 budget amendment added another $20,000 toward the Eanes Trail grant match, which tells you the study is still funded and moving, not shelved.
The Signals Aren't Just New Traffic Lights
The nine intersection upgrades along Bee Cave Road are worth separating from the rest because they're not really about replacing broken equipment. The city council moved forward with the AI traffic signal funding on April 22, 2026, using a system built by NoTraffic and furnished through Texas Highway Products. The technology adds vehicle and bicycle detection, real-time video, and turning-movement data at intersections that TxDOT technically owns and operates, since Bee Cave Road is a state highway. The city can't unilaterally retime its own state road, so this is a joint venture the two agencies worked out under West Lake Hills' broader strategic plan for mobility partnerships. If you notice a signal that seems to be timing itself differently than it did last spring, that's likely why.
The Smaller Stuff Worth Knowing
A few other items landed in the same stretch of time without needing their own headline.
- Taqueria de Diez opened its third location in West Lake Hills this past spring, following locations in downtown Austin. It runs an open kitchen where you can watch food prepared to order, which is a small but real addition if you're looking for a casual weeknight option that isn't a drive to Bee Cave.
- The city is currently accepting proposals through a request for proposals process for a ground lease at 911 Westlake Drive, inviting a development partner to reshape a well known site under city ownership. The process is competitive with no predetermined outcome, which means the site's future is genuinely undecided right now rather than a done deal waiting on paperwork.
- The West Lake Hills Art Committee's "Celebrating America" exhibit ran at City Hall through August 21, a reminder that the same civic calendar producing all this road and trail activity is also producing the smaller community touches that make the city feel like a city rather than just a collection of subdivisions.
Why the Distinction Actually Matters
None of this is complicated once you separate the three funding streams. The street maintenance project is short and local, and it will be done in weeks. The Prop B bond work is largely finished, so if you're still waiting on something from that list, it's worth checking with the city rather than assuming it's coming. The Loop 360 work is the one that deserves the most patience, because the segment that looks unfinished right now isn't behind schedule. It's simply a different, newer project than the one you've been mentally tracking, and it's going to be part of the landscape for years rather than months.
The trail study is the one item on this list that isn't really about disruption at all. It's about whether West Lake Hills gains a genuine walking and cycling option along one of its busiest corridors, and that answer won't arrive until the feasibility study wraps sometime in 2027. Worth watching, not worth waiting on.
If any of this changes how you think about a specific street, a specific commute, or what a property near Bee Cave Road might be worth once the dust settles on all three projects, that's exactly the kind of hyperlocal question Propertysmith Realty spends its time answering for West Lake Hills homeowners. Request your personalized home valuation and we'll walk through what's actually happening on your block, not just what the city's press releases say is happening.
