I don't see this tree surviving. Something strange going on down there in TX.
Tree is too old to transplant even if the soil conditions were perfect and the ground water table is similar.
Plus being on the Gulf Coast, I would think that the tree would blow over with the first tropical storm since the roots have been emascualted.
anyway, it looks like the Hwy dept won.
If you look at the google street view that I link, it seems like they had other options.
I can tell you a story about how the La Hwy Dept destroyed Rouquette's Oak in Mandeville La.
One of the most famous oaks in this area and some said that it was the Live Oak that inspired Whitman's poem. Whitman was a friend of Pere Rouquette and visited him at the tree where Rouquette has a chapel. The poem is supposed to be about Rouquette and the tree represents the Choctaw missionary alone in the woods of St. Tammany among the Choctaw.
The "people" were defending the tree for months from the Hwy dept. dozers and in the process of getting it saved. On a Mardi Gras day, which is a state, local holiday here and the public is celebrating the holiday. Nobody works. The Hwy Dept sent a crew out to cut the tree down. They were successful.