The Texas Department of Transportation’s $48 million plan to add frontage road bridges over the Colorado River in Bastrop has hit a delay.

The project, which was expected to be bid out to contractors this month, has been pushed back two months due to “design changes to ensure the agency gets the most valuable low bid,” a TxDOT spokesperson said.

The transportation agency now says the project will be bid out in May, with construction beginning in summer. It will take about three years to complete.

The project is being broken down into six different subprojects. The costliest, at $24 million, will construct two new two-lane frontage road bridges over the Colorado River. Another $13 million subproject will convert the existing two-way, two-lane frontage roads on College Street into two-lane, one-way frontage roads. The transportation agency will also replace and rehabilitate the frontage road bridges over Gills Branch, less than a half-mile east of the Colorado River.

During certain construction projects, TxDOT will close the Lovers Lane connection to College Street, which is what many Tahitian Village residents use to access the highway. The closure will allow for the concrete pours and beam sets of the new Texas 71 frontage road overpass to be completed. During that time, local traffic will be redirected to exit and enter the Tahitian Village subdivision through the Tahitian Drive and Loop 150 exit on Texas 71. The agency has not said when these detours will take place.

“These detours are designed to occur during off peak nighttime hours and will be coordinated with local officials, emergency services and the school district,” said TxDOT spokesman Brad Wheelis. “We will give a minimum of seven days advanced notice for local users to adjust their nighttime routes.”

No traffic from Texas 71 will be detoured through the Tahitian Village subdivision at any point during construction. And though the project will also rehabilitate the highway's overpass bridge crossing the Colorado River, two lanes of traffic in both directions will remain open throughout construction.

The frontage road project is part of TxDOT’s larger goal of creating a seamless route between Austin and Houston. The agency still has five stoplights interrupting Texas 71 between Austin and Bastrop, and many of those are in its crosshairs.

TxDOT has allocated $48 million to build overpasses at Ross Road and Kellam Road in Del Valle — work is set to begin as soon as this fall and be done by summer 2021. Another $52.6 million has been earmarked for overpasses at Tucker Hill Lane and Pope Bend Road near Cedar Creek, a two-year project tentatively expected to begin in 2020.

That would leave the stoplight at FM 1209, about five miles west of Bastrop, as the sole stoplight along Texas 71 between Austin and Bastrop without an overpass. The agency estimates that an overpass over FM 1209 would cost $35 million.