The correspondence of the Texas Department of Transportation District Engineers document the planning, design, building and maintenance of roads and other modes of transportation in the region served by each office. These records are the administrative correspondence files of the Austin District Engineer, dating 1966-2006, bulk 1997-2004. The district engineer serves as the director of the agency's district office in Austin, which covers the central Texas area (Travis and surrounding counties and portions of the Hill Country). The bulk of the files are from the current engineer, Robert Daigh, and his immediate predecessor, William Garbade. Other Austin District engineers represented in these records include Robert A. Brown and William G. Burnett. Types of materials are incoming and outgoing letters (and emails), internal memoranda, project proposals, planning documents, environmental reviews, internal newsletters, manuals, policy statements, minutes from internal meetings, and reports. There is a box of files titled "signature correspondence" - letters or memos from the engineer to other agency officials/offices or to outside parties, usually accompanied by the incoming letter or memo which initiated his response. The remaining files (bulk of this series) are correspondence with other Department of Transportation offices and officials, including the executive and deputy directors, assistant directors, and most of the divisions and offices in the agency. Correspondence with the executive officials (and some division directors) often consists of letters sent to that official and then forwarded to the district engineer for a reply or comment on the issue involved; also present are memos sent to the executive officials (or directors) from the district engineer regarding a query the engineer received or an issue he wished to discuss. There are also internal memoranda sent out from the executive offices or a division head to all district engineers. The files from the 1960s to the mid-1990s consist primarily of interagency memos and letters between the district engineer, executive offices, or divisions. The files from the mid-1990s to 2006, the bulk of the records, contain this same type of interagency memos and letters, as well as correspondence with outside parties, including legislators, congressmen, other state offices, local officials, contractors and companies working on projects, universities (such as the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas) and the general public. A small amount of routine correspondence is present in the late 1990s "signature correspondence" and a few topical files are present in group I. Topics covered include the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of roads in the area covered by the Austin district, such as the construction of a toll road at US 183A, the State Highway 45 turnpike extension, expansion of FM 1626 and building State Highway 130; appeals on construction decisions (such as road expansions and closures, driveway allowances, turning lane changes); right of way issues; metropolitan mobility planning; regional implementation plans; toll roads and toll booth construction; the Trans-Texas Corridor; airport improvements; construction and maintenance of roads and bridges; research and technology issues; environmental reviews and issues; proposed projects; agency policy changes; proposed legislation and other legislative issues; bonds; federal funding for construction projects; change orders; access management for cities; transfer of maintenance and jurisdiction of roads to local governments; vehicle registration issues; vehicle safety; litigation or legal issues; local participation rules; and bidding schedules. Some general correspondence is present for the 1970s and 1980s, generally consisting of interagency memos and directives sent out to all district engineers, discussing issues such as budget and finance, training, equipment and supplies, contract management, fuel adjustments, changes in procedures, etc. To prepare this inventory, the described materials were cursorily reviewed to delineate series, to confirm the accuracy of contents lists, to provide an estimate of dates covered, and to determine record types.
