The Texas highway windfall has begun wafting Austin’s way.

Central Texas would see more than $1.3 billion in new spending on highways in the next five to 10 years, most of it on Interstate 35, Loop 360 and Texas 71, under a program of specific projects due to come before the Texas Transportation Commission by February. That would include $250 million, about 80 percent of it from the Texas Department of Transportation, to replace traffic signals on Loop 360 with overpasses and almost $900 million for Interstate 35 changes.

"We’ll see things happen a lot more quickly," said Terry McCoy, the district engineer for TxDOT’s Austin office, who said his funding for road expansion will basically double in the coming years. "More money to the table, more projects."

The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board, which oversees the area’s long-range transportation blueprint, Monday evening voted unanimously to support that first set of projects.

Beyond this initial infusion of money, the TxDOT staff has recommended sending to the Austin district an additional $830 million over the next 10 years. CAMPO will decide in the coming months on other projects that would be done with that money, officials said.

TxDOT has benefited from two amendments to the Texas Constitution, approved by voters in 2014 and 2015, allocating state sales taxes as well as oil and gas taxes to highway spending. In addition, the Legislature stopped spending some gasoline tax money on other state needs, sending it to TxDOT instead. And a 2015 federal transportation law also boosted TxDOT coffers.

Taken together, those changes will give TxDOT an estimated $48.6 billion in added money over the next decade.

The I-35 money in the new program includes about $477 million that essentially will be set aside, waiting for specific projects to be designed and given environmental approval. The agency in 2014 completed a big-picture look at I-35 through Central Texas that included dozens of projects, several of which are underway.

The program on the CAMPO agenda also includes $119.5 million to add flyover bridges at the U.S. 183 and I-35 interchange and $159 million for a variety of changes to I-35 between Holly Street north of Lady Bird Lake and Oltorf Street south of the river.

And TxDOT, under the program, would set aside $102 million to install overpasses on Texas 71 between Austin and Bastrop at five intersections, including Ross Road and Kellam Road. Those projects, along with overpasses already under construction or nearing construction, McCoy said, would mean that a driver in a few years will be able to travel Texas 71 from MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) in South Austin to Interstate 10 in Columbus without encountering a traffic light.

The bulk of Loop 360 (Capital of Texas Highway) would become stoplight-free as well under the program. TxDOT would add $204 million to the $46 million that Austin voters in November approved (as part of a $720 million bond proposition) and build overpasses at nine locations along the four-lane road. When all that work is done several years from now, the western Travis County highway would have traffic signals at MoPac on its south end and U.S. 183 to the north, but none in between on its primary lanes.

The Austin contribution was critical to TxDOT’s decision to throw its financial weight behind Loop 360.

"That type of cooperation, that type of participation, goes a long way with us," McCoy said.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler, whose office conceived the bond proposition, said it "is already paying dividends. Because Austin is bringing money to the table, we stand to get a 4-to-1 match in our transportation dollars to relieve congestion on Loop 360."

CAMPO documents show construction on the Loop 360 project not beginning until 2024, but McCoy called that date only a "placeholder" and said pieces of it would happen as soon as overpasses and accompanying ramps accessing the cross streets can be designed and get environmental clearance.

"There’s nothing that would stop us from pushing a segment through whenever it is ready to go," McCoy said.