Travis County Commissioners Court
October 17, 2006
Item 1
1. Receive comments regarding a request to temporarily close elroy road between fm 973 and proud panda drive for roadway reconstruction and widening starting October 18, 2006 and continuing for one year or until construction is completed. Move to open the public hearing.
>> that passes by unanimous vote.
>> [indiscernible] our project manager for this project. If you -- if you can bear with me, I would like to make a short presentation about this detour. We have received a lot of phone calls from folks, we want to get some background information. This is a completion of a bond project, the reconstruction of elroy road between f.m. 973, right here, what is currently ross road right here. 973 cuts through here, elroy road cutting across in this direction, east-west direction. What the bond project involves is taking this existing two lane roadway, elroy road, converting it to a four lane divided roadway. That's per the campo 2030 plan. In order to do this, we are proposing to -- to close the road from [indiscernible] right here to 973. From proud panda. There are other ways of getting this done. We have in some of our projects worked the roadway, traffic on existing lanes, two new lanes, shift traffic back and forth. That was not considered here because we know that when s.h. 130 is built through this area, they are going to -- to close elroy road as well. We have been kind of planning to do our closure with theirs. S.h. 130 comes through, about like this. Right now their current schedule, you see where it crosses, the current schedule is to start that construction around elroy in November. It could go into December. We were going to start last June, but they've had problems with utilities, that sort of a thing. They are a little bit behind what our plan is. Bottom line is we were intending to to have this section of the road closed, this is closed for 130. What the folks -- the term constructors are telling us is when they do close elroy, they are going to build a temporary road along 130 and connect it to pierce lane up here. So that when you are coming through, you can go north on the temporary road, get back to pierce, come back over to 973. We don't have any guarantee that's they are doing that. That's what they are telling us, though. For our detour, what we are proposing to do is anybody that's travelling east-west trying to get to 973 or back of this area, they will use elroy, directed to either go up ross road to pierce, down to 973, burleson on into town, go down mcangus road, back to the west to 973, either back up to burleson or get on [indiscernible] 12 and go back into town. We are going to encourage them to use this route because today there's a lot of activity up on pierce lane. There is -- there is 1:30 under construction right now, traffic -- construction traffic crossing that road. This area happens also to be in a floodplain area, this is onion creek, the whole timber creek area is. We would like to encourage the through traffic to go this way. Still people using that road, but we would like to -- to encourage them to go the other direction. When we do start construction, close our road, from proud panda over to 973, we intend to start the construction from proud panda and the eastbound dear of 130 -- east boundary of 130 first. That means the local traffic that's going into this subdivision, this is stony ridge, here's a blowup of that down here. Will continue to have access to their subdivision. And -- and here's elroy road up here, coming across, here's the blowup of stony ridge, 130 is over here, ross road is over here. They will continue to have access into their subdivision either at proud panda. During construction we are going to have to close down these one at a time in order to make the connection to elroy. One of the concerns that we heard if you do that we only have one way in and outlet of our subdivision. We talked to the developer, bill gursage here, he is maintaining this road over here until it gets accepted. He made a connection between morris crossing, tipford and elroy road completed today. It provides two ways in and out of the subdivision during construction. That hopefully will address that concern. Flipping from -- from closing proud panda to closing that back and forth until this road gets built. 130 again we think is going to kick in in November. When they truncate elroy road, people will be able to go through that temporary road or back out the other direction. I -- some of the comments that we have received from folks. In putting traffic into this subdivision, which when this road is closed, concerned additional traffic is going to come through, again we are going to divert the through traffic around to the north and south before it gets here, the same from this side. So the people using this subdivision, should be the local residents only. There's probably going to be some strays out there, but for -- the most part I think it's going to be the local traffic. They are concerned about -- about if you did get more traffic on it, what are now quiet streets, may not be so quiet and -- and I don't know how to address that. Other than to say that it's -- no matter what we do up here, if we -- if we were to do phase construction at elroy road, traffic down at the neighbor hood, people try to avoid this mess if he were phase construction. If you do phase construction, longer, more expensive, a safety risk at well. No, ma'am for the workers on the road next to the traffic but for the traffic -- not only, for the traffic itself. To eliminate as much through traffic if we can, limit it to the local traffic, provide them multiple ways in and out of their subdivision.
>> [indiscernible] a lot of e-mails forward them to -- to make sure that there was enough communication between tnr staff and the residents out there who had concerns about sign -- signage and then other -- other -- the routes and -- and so -- so I think that we -- that we had -- you and I are -- t.n.r. And I had, you know, enough communication to -- to be able to keep everything updated for all of the residents who were calling, so thanks very much. For that.
>> working with the school once in a while, the principal has called us several times, so we are in direct communication with the school because we know that is going to be a big concern. And a caveat is in the construction, we -- black base at the entrance there of proud panda to try to minimize the down time of -- of access to that school. And the less -- the in-- lessen the inconvenientence of the parents going to and from that school site.
>> your name for the record.
>> roger shook, the project manager for Travis County.
>> the main concern we are hearing from the community is increased traffic through the neighborhood and -- and our response to that is -- is the traffic that will be in the neighborhood will be mostly folks from the neighborhood. The traffic that's normally coming from the east, travelling from elroy to get to 973 is going to be diverted around the neighborhood.
>> if they follow the detour.
>> if they follow the detour signs.
>> that will hopefully be the path of least resistance for them. We have given them options to ebb courage them to go to the north, this way. One constituent a while ago, she said in her mind the easiest or least congested way is to go north, cut back to the east, go out on ross road, get on 71, there's a signal there. I think folks will come to the same conclusions as she did. They will find the path that is the -- of least consist tans to them. Anyway, they can go this way, around this way. The neighborhood we are talking about is right in the middle.
>> I guess for the -- during the construction period, you add to the distance that you have to travel if --
>> that's correct.
>> okay.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's true.
>> all right. We think that the project will take -- will take a year or less to construct?
>> actually, we are thinking our project, t.n.r.'s will be a nine-month project. But during that nine-month window 130 will kick in. They are going to have their temporary detour in which could go another year beyond that. So if 130 gets delayed any further, we could actually be in and out before they ever start. But I don't want to -- to let folks know that once we get done with that, that's the last of the headaches, they still have to deal with 130 construction.
>> the thing is that this just got postponed a little bit because it is a 2001 bond project and I remember there was some difficulties getting everything worked out and so -- so while this could have happened earlier, it is happening now. But nonetheless now will be complicated by s.h. 130 coming through as well. And so -- but it is a 2001 bond project that we need to get done to -- to address the -- the growth in that area and -- and so which is the main reason that we put it on the bond election ballot in 2001 to meet the needs of that growing area.
>> I think once folks see how fast s.h. 130 is going in, they would be amazed. We have had to deal with the exabt same situations in Pflugerville, not only on s.h. 130 but s.h. 45 come east, west, so we had north, south, east, west, it was quite interesting out there. But I got done a whole lot faster than everybody thought.
>> we will try to coordinate our project with the -- with the state's construction of s.h. 130 as much as possible.
>> that's right.
>> [indiscernible] communicating with them throughout this process.
>> we will have detour signs to make sure that the safety of everyone is assured as much as possible.
>> yes, ma'am. I will add to that that the detour plan that we are showing here, what we think is best. But if something doesn't quite work right, we are just not going to walk away from it. We will make adjustments to it. As needed. There's going to be a little hectic at first, two people get used to finding our way through, but I think that if -- if the problem continues to occur, we can make adjustments as we go.
>> thanks. Any other questions?
>> this is posted for public hearing. Roger and steve will be in two of those chairs, if we could get for residents to come -- if two would come -- appreciate that. If you hear for the public hearing, would like to give testimony at this time, on item no. 1, please come forward. If you will give us your name, we will be happy to get your comments. Anybody else, person number 2, if you could just come sit on the end here, give yourself a little elbow room. As one finishes, if I could get the next speaker to come forward, we would appreciate it. Yes, ma'am, your name?
>> ms. Higgins, if you could speak right into that microphone for us.
>> I live in alpine village in del valle. So I use elroy road. I'm not against the construction of elroy road, but I am very, very concerned about the consequences. There are many alternative routes. The one that I'm worried about the most is where I live we have -- we actually have a choice of going left or right on elroy road. If we go left, we are going to avoid all of this that he was just -- steve was just talking about. It would go left, though. We are going to end up at the intersection of 812. This intersection of 812 and f.m. -- f.m. 812 I'm sorry and elroy road, there's a stop sign on elroy road, there's a huge stop sign, it's flashing lights, it's -- it's dangerous at that intersection, the posted speed limit for the cars on 812 is 55. While they are going through elroy at 60 on each side of elroy. 812 is deceptively hilly. It has a limited site and -- sight and you don't really realize it, a vehicle travelling -- a vehicle travelling towards elroy east -- west into elroy will suddenly pop up. It -- appears -- as if from nowhere. This is a problem for coming out of elroy and for turning back into it. If we close this other intersection where there's a really nice light and helps the traffic continue, we are going to desperately need -- I think desperately, a light at f.m. 812 and elroy road. I think that we will get more traffic coming this way. It could be a problem. I think we need to think of the -- of the -- of the -- on elroy road not far from 812. I don't know if that would be a problem with them or not. I think that road will, a detour will be a poor substitute. It comes out at 973, right before the 73 hits 812. There is no light at 973 and 812 either. Just a stop sign. If you turned back towards burleson road on Friday that happened work. If the car in front of you want to turn left, then you are going to be stuck on mcangus road. There was too short of a space, when you come out, on 973, just what, four or five car lengths to 812. 71, 973, I don't think it's an alternative, because it's too inefficient. More cars, more inefficient it becomes. Those are my concerns.
>> thank you so much.
>> so what's -- elroy road and 812 now, is that a four-way stop?
>> I guess it's a t intersection.
>> there's a road on the other side, not elroy road. Not straight across. More like a three-way stop.
>> thank you. Yes? Somebody else that plans to get testimony today? If you could sit right there on the end, ma'am, for us.
>> good morning, my name is lili reyes, I'm one of the persons that lives in stony ridge, I have a major concern about that. One being the school, the other -- his students having to ride buses in that area. And the convenience of shutting down and them having to be rerouted to give to our students to get them to school. Another thing mcangus is pretty messed up as far as -- as far as the -- the road that exists now and there's just a lot of concern. I mean it's cracking and breaking and then you are going to put a bunch of traffic on to that street that's -- that's a major concern. Ross road has been being maintained by Travis County, in the stretch between -- between the new ross and pierce, it's pretty bad, too. And they keep resurfacing but when you put those big trucks on it, it's -- it's destroyed the street and it's a two lane and to add that much more traffic to it or to mcangus, which is a two lane as well, it's -- that means just a major concern, I mean, I can see a lot of more accidents coming out of there. All the traffic from 812 is diverted to 973 at this time. In fact they had to shut down the lights just last week because there was a major accident over there. They had to shut down the lights at 973 and elroy, just to get the traffic off of 812 to -- to avoid all of that mess that was up there. If you send everybody to ross to get to 71, over off of ross, directly from ross, you are going through three different schools, getting that much -- putting that much more havoc on that roadway. The light at 973 and -- and 71 is not sufficient enough to -- to maintain that traffic either. I mean, that's a bottle neck at both of those places.
>> so what in your view is the best option?
>> I don't know.
>> I mean, we have -- I have lived there for 11 years, I'm one of the first people that moved out there, there's a bunch of empty promises out in that subdivision. We finally have morris crossing just opened this weekend. There's -- there's talk about -- about opening a temporary road to pierce from -- from morris crossing. I mean -- I don't see that until the end of the construction for Travis County. I mean it's being prepared. I don't see that temporary road coming into alleviate any of that congestion or that problem.
>> well, we are committed to doing the improvement. We promised voters that we would do it in 2001. The money is available. And -- and often, you know, we sort of look at the situation and try to put in place the best option. We have had projects where -- where the best option, 90 days later, has turned out not to be the best option, so we've had to do some stuff. I do recall on 290 and one other cross streets we installed a traffic signal, it was a state road. Several months into the project because it became clear, 90 days later, that we needed to do so. So it seems to me that we really ought to monitor traffic situation out here during the construction, so if we need to make additional improvements we can do 'em. Those traffic signals come at about $60,000 a pop before you have public safety at issue then, you know, we have put those lights up in the past. And so -- so in my view, I'm willing to do it in the future if we need to do that. It's kind of hard to project the need, though, until you really see the problem. And so what we are trying to do is put in place measures that we think would deal and problems as we anticipated them, but how we play -- how they play out, really, we don't know until they play out. We do think that they ought to be flexible enough at that point, though, though address whatever issues come up.
>> also another issue that I have is they just opened up tigford there at morris crossing. Which is going to cause some problems. No lightage over at the intersection of the new morris crossing opening and it's very small. If -- if any big vehicles are coming through there. Somebody is going to fall off that ditch because it's -- it's not wide enough to allow for -- for two vehicles come be coming in and out in my opinion. I have been coming in it just to see what it's like since Sunday. And union it's -- it's real narrow to me, in my opinion, it needs to be widened a little bit more so that nobody falls into that ditch. Without being able to see it, if you are not aware of it, that that's there already, somebody is going to end up in that ditch, that's a concern.
>> where is that, now? Morris crossing? A major thoroughfare at the beginning of this whole project, if we were told construction could be done on any other side for any subdivisions for this bond in 2001, it was required that -- that our road be widened then before any construction could happen. You have already got 100 houses on the other side. That -- I mean, that's a concern, we keep adding to that, you know, when bonds are passed and we are not following through, immediately to handle that, to alleviate any problems in the future, that's a big concern. We are -- we are voting for stuff and then we are not coming through on it until the end to convenience some other project.
>> judge, this is where the surface road right across from this morris crossing is the surface road [indiscernible] [inaudible - no mic] planning to build. The track would be able to go right straight across, I'm sorry. It's shown right here.
>> is morris crossing too narrow? I think what she is saying, right now the developer went out here and made a connection which put a culvert in and some base across the existing bar ditch of -- of elroy. And that's not wide enough for turning movement. We can look into that. If it needs to be widened it's minor problem that I think we can address that very easily.
>> that's a very good observation. I think the thing that we need to think about here also is that whether we do the elroy road project or not, s.h. 130 is going to shut down elroy road for probably more than a year. Period. Whether the elroy road project gets done or not. So there's going to have to be major rerouting of folks and their traffic habits until that happens. It will be lovely when it's finished, but it's not going to be pleasant. I will be the first one to tell you it wasn't pleasant up in the Pflugerville area. People had to allow for more time. The school buses had to allow for more time. But if I heard you all correctly, you are coordinating with the del valle schools. So this is not a surprise to them. It's always lovely in the summer months when you don't have the schools going, but they can get a lot of work done, less inconvenience for parents.
>> I think we and you will see a down side now due to the construction that's happening out there. Once we get elroy, and 973 also has an underdrawing board to make some left turns at that intersection, 973, all of this construction gets completed, I think that it's going to greatly enhance the traffic flows in this area.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, ms. Reyes. There's a seat available for the next speaker. And your name -- any of those three chairs will be fine.
>> my name is melissa casanova, I also live in stony ridge. I think regardless construction timing, the road are going to need to be done, period. It's not an option, we are not here to discuss, you know, under have closed them here or there. But a concern and maybe -- maybe these gentlemen here can answer my question is the traffic lights at pierce lane and 973, since that will be an alternate route and 71 at ross road, will those traffic lights be extended to allow the additional traffic to my traffio cross. The sign that's posted out at burleson, states that the closure is going to be taking place tomorrow. Is that something that can be done in 24 hours, so that way there's something alleviating all of the -- all of the additional cross traffic that's going to be happening at those two intersections.
>> what is the answer.
>> > first of all, no, the closure will not happen tomorrow. We anticipate a few more weeks. We have an agenda item on today with mr. [indiscernible] that needs to be finalized. But even if that gets approved today, it's probably a few weeks out before the actual, physical closure of the roadway occurs. Regarding two intersections, both of those signalized intersections are under the control of text dot. We can talk to them and ask if they can alleviate the timing of them to -- time them to alleviate some of the congestion on these side streets.
>> how do they determine whether or not -- how do they determine how to respond to a request that the timing be adjusted?
>> well, we would have to -- to explain to them that the amount on the congress investigation on the side streets trying to get on to those highways is unacceptable. And we could go to them, send out their traffic engineer, they would do like a study of that to determine whether or not they can adjust the timing on their signals without creating a worse problem for the folks on the main road. So it's a little bit of a balancing act, but they may have some room to give a little bit more time to these folks in off of pierce and ross, a little bit less green time to 71 and I 73. I'm not so sure 71 is doing, but 973 perhaps.
>> the state will send an engineer out to look at the situation. They would try to figure out what's causing the problem how to fix it.
>> that's correct.
>> if timing, if change the timing of the lights will -- will help, then typically they will do that. They say hey there's a problem here's what's happening, what time it happens, when school starts, let's out, they normally will send an engineer out to observe that situation, been pretty responsive about adding issues that come up.
>> thank you.
>> my name is donald bowman, I'm a resident of stony ridge. I have a comments, I guess a couple of questions. I like the idea of going ahead and closing the road completely as opposed to trying to create temporary flow. Seems to me that's the most logical way to do it and probably the most cost effective so I just wanted to say that I'm in favor of that. My questions are mcangus being an alternative route, s.h. 130 is also crossing that road. They have to close mcangus at some point during the construction of elroy and cut that off as an alternative route? Do you know?
>> no. I don't. I believe s.h. 130 might be going over the top of mcangus, so therefore they may be able to keep that open longer because at the elroy road, s.h. 130 because of that hill is going underneath. So elroy has an overpass. Elroy is going over the top of s.h. 130. I don't have the plans in front of me on mcangus, but I'm speculating that it's a different configuration and they may have to close mcangus, but I don't think that it will be for as long as -- as they will have on elroy road. They begin have to address the traffic problems and closure of elroy road.
>> once the construction of elroy is completed, will that be -- prevent any major concerns as far as s.h. 130 coming through because it will be a flyover on s.h. 130. Does that mean take we will have clear traffic -- that we will have clear traffic flow once that's completed.
>> clear traffic flow will be based-- based on lsi's completion of the overpass. In other words, elroy is going over the top of s.h. 130. So once that is completed, then elroy would have its connection to 973.
>> but there will be an interchange of 130 at elroy.
>> correct.
>> with off ramps.
>> there will be toll booths there, off ramps, stuff like that. But if you are talking about the functionality of elroy to get down to 973, once the overpass is completed, that would be opened up irregardless of the construction of the main lanes of 130 [multiple voices]
>> correct.
>> okay.
>> that's all that I have.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much, mr. Bowman. Anybody else to give comments during this public hearing? Okay. Anybody else? We are about to get -- about to get -- miss higgins a second time. Then this will be our last person unless there's somebody else. Last call. Okay. Ms. Higgins.
>> this is just a short thing that I wanted to bring up about -- about elroy road between stony ridge and the other housing development is that -- are you planning any -- any bicycle lanes?
>> we have a bicycle planned route out there, not right at this time on elroy road, this would be from the park coming in and tying up to the existing bicycle lanes on ross road, we are in planning stages on that, which would be coming up on the old reside road. Burleson road when you cross the bridge. Then it would go along the west side of 973 to the new burleson intersection there at the existing four way now. Cross burleson, go up into the airport property to pierce, go up pierce and tie into the ross bicycle system up there. So we do have that on the drawings boards. When that's going to be finalized in the construction phase right now I don't know.
>> the funding --
>> we have submitted a grant application that we weren't successful this year. We will need to resubmit.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> and I just -- judge, I just want everybody to know that even though the public hearing may be closed today, at the end of the -- of these comments please feel free to e-mail at any time during the construction of the project, any time just feel free to e-mail me and -- and -- of course e-mail steve or don ward at any time so that we can keep those lines of communication open. And we make sure that we improve whatever issues that come up. While the project is underway. Move that the public hearing be closed. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thanks to the residents for coming down, we appreciate it, we will strongly consider all of the recommendations and monitor this project so if there are problems that surface, we can address them.
>> absolutely.
>> okay. Thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 4:29 PM