How to write a comment that gets a response

TxDOT must respond to substantive comments. It does not have to respond individually to a form letter. The difference is mostly a matter of being specific, and it costs about ten minutes.

The four things that make a comment count

1. Say exactly where you are. An address, an intersection, or a pin on the comment map. “Near the proposed route” cannot be mapped to anything; a location can be checked against the corridor and has to be dealt with.
2. Name the route. C1–C7 for the loop, E1–E5 for the eastern approach, W1–W5 for the western one, and say which sub‑area you are in — Central, East or West. TxDOT publishes a separate comment card for each. The map tells you which routes cross your address.
3. State one specific effect. Not “this will hurt property values” but what it does to your access, your well, your fields, your school route, your business's frontage. One concrete thing beats five general ones.
4. Ask a question they have to answer. A question creates an obligation a statement does not. “How will livestock cross between the two halves of a bisected property?” needs an answer. “This is a bad idea” does not.

What weakens a comment

• Copying someone else's text. Agencies must respond to substantive comments, but identical text gets one grouped response no matter how many people send it. Fifty people writing their own three sentences carry far more weight than fifty copies of a good paragraph.
• Claims you cannot support. One checkable error lets everything around it be set aside. If you are unsure, ask it as a question instead of asserting it.
• Arguing the wrong project. This study is CSJ 0917‑00‑050, Rogers to Huntsville. The SH 30 Harvey Road plan and the county's Inner Loop East are separate projects with separate comment periods.
• Only saying no. “Not here” is legitimate and you are entitled to say it. It carries further when paired with something the study can act on — a route you prefer and why, or a condition that would reduce the harm.

A shape to fill with your own facts

Not a script. If you send this as-is it will be grouped with everyone else who did.

• Who and where. Your name, your address or pin, and how long you have been there.
• Which routes. “My property is inside C2 and C3 and about a mile from C6.”
• The specific effect. One paragraph on what actually happens to you.
• Your question. One thing TxDOT has to answer.
• Your preference, if you have one, and the reason for it.

Questions worth asking

These are open at this stage of the study, which means they are answerable and worth putting on the record. Ask the ones that actually bear on your situation.

• How will properties bisected by the corridor keep access between the two halves?
• What happens to a well, a septic field or a stock pond inside the right of way?
• Which existing roads will be closed, and where will the replacement crossing be?
• How were floodplain and cemetery constraints weighted against displacement counts in the screening?
• What traffic forecasts is the need for this corridor based on, and how current are they?
• Is an upgrade of an existing facility being evaluated alongside new location routes?

What happens to what you send

Comments filed on the map are public record — you can read all 326 of them on this site. TxDOT's own service also collects names, addresses, phone numbers and emails, which this site never requests and never republishes.

Round 3 closes Thursday 10 September 2026, but the study continues for roughly three more years and routes will narrow before a preferred one is chosen. Filing now puts your property on the record while the bands are still a mile wide.

Find out which routes cross your address → · Read what others have filed