Travis County Commissioners Court
October 16, 2007
Item 9
This is item number 9. Consider and take appropriate action on candidate projects for fiscal year 2009 through 2010, surface transportation program, stp-mm, to be submitted to capital area metropolitan and planning organization, otherwise known as campo. Mr. Gieselman.
>> for my part I'd like to get focused before I get refocused. This is an application to the campo. They have made a call for projects for stp-mm which is surface transportation metropolitan funds. These are a federal category of funding that are typically used by the local governments for arterial roadways in the campo transportation plan. The call makes available 44.1 million dollars of that 37.4 million for roadway projects and 6.7 for bicycle and pedestrian projects. These in the year fy '09 and the fy 10. So we have put together a list of candidate projects that Travis County would sponsor. They include two projects which request supplemental funding. One is the gillahan creek hike and bike trail. We were successfully awarded a grant years back. The cost of construction has gone up swells once --as well as once we got counsel to getting a path and land acquires for the hike and bike trail, we have a standing policy where we do not condemn property for hike and bike trails. One of the property owners was unwilling to sell so we had to redesign the project to go around that property and that was going to cost us actually two bridge crossings across the creek and that raise the price of that one. So what we are doing is asking on the hike and bike trail for an additional $500,000 out of that 6.7 million. And our match would be $100,000. And this is for gillahan creek from heather wild boulevard to grand avenue parkway. The other projects are all roadway projects. Have you seen all in the past. The first is freight practicer road from brody lane manun check road. After we looked at traffic forecasts and increased volumes as well as the number of accidents occurring on the stretch of roadway, our consultant is recommending that we proceed to construct the four-lane section rather than do it in phases. That would cost another 2.5 million and our match on that would be 500,000. Then there's howard lane, a section of roadway between cameron road and state highway 130. Our section, straddles both the city of Austin corporate limits as well as the unincorporated area. We did request by letter to mayor wynne that the city participate with us in this application of federal funding. We have received a letter back affirming the city's interest in a joint application. That is the purpose of the revised memo that you got this morning. We just received that letter. So we revised our memo accordingly to show that that particular project would be a joint project with the city of Austin and Travis County being cosponsors.
>> joe, would you mention for me what phase of howard lane we are talking about.
>> phase two between cameron road and sh 130.
>> right, exactly.
>> and we initially had this, our section of that in our last bond program, 2005 bond program.
>> right.
>> as a public private partnership agreement. The private property owners were unwilling to enter into an agreement, and therefore the funds we did have were reprogrammed to other projects. We are now seeking federal funding for our section of roadway. We expect that the local property owners will be a partner in the local match. 50 percent of the local match as well as the right of way for the project would still come from those private property owners. But the total amount that they would have to contribute is substantially less because 80 percent of the project would be funded with federal funds. The city of Austin also has a capital improvements dollars available for their section of the roadway within the corporate limits. They would be using those funds as their local match for the project with the city. The city would be responsible for the cost of the project inside the city. The county would be responsible for the cost of the project in the unincorporated area with a proviso that we would be looking for the private property owners for half of the local match. The next project is slaughter lane. We do have a current capital improvements project from lost springs road to the eastern boundary of the good night tract. And that is currently decide. We have a public-private partnership where the property owner will pay for half the road and Travis County will pay for the other half. This particular project then takes from it this term inus over to paxton road. If we are successful we will have a segment roadway all the way along. The local match one two million and it's a federal project. Then we have welch parkway. This was a public private participate ship but at the last minute the developer did not have the economics to go forward and was withdrawn. So we are seeking federal funds because we believe also it's an important segment of east-west arterial that should be constructed. It would be from killingsworth lane to cameron road, a hnds 10 million project, local mash $2 million. As you can see, our total for all of our projects is $40,500,000 which is everything that is currently authorized. We don't expect to be that successful but we thought we would have a variety of projects throughout the county. These will go through an evaluation process by campo staff. They have a point system. We expect all of the other local governments in the metropolitan area also to have applications, some which may be more competitive than ours but we are certainly going to be at the table, striving for whatever one of our projects best meets their criteria.
>> we really can categorize these as being local projects that need to be completed. They were on the bond ballot in 2005 and need to be cop completed. What happens if one of them gets left out in terms of federal funding?
>> we expect that several of them will get left out. I don't expect that we will get all of the federal money that is available. City of Austin is always competitive, so is Pflugerville and Round Rock. Our hope that we get at least one funded. Certainly on the bike trail, since we already have an authorized project, I think it's pretty good chances we will get supplemented funding. For the rest, if we get one funded I think we will be fairly successful.
>> then what would we need to
>> [tkpo] in order to complete without the federal funds?
>> we would need to put them back in a bond program for the next go-around which we expect in 2010. So we'll keep, I think these are all good projects. We wount have submitted them to the voters in 2005 if we didn't think they were viable. I think our bond committees thought like-wise.
>> I think if they don't make it they should be right up there high on the list of priorities to put on the next ballot.
>> right.
>> so joe, in essence, we are looking at about $44 million. A lot of the folks competing for the same money as these projects that you have laid out. Can you just basically tell the public how this works as far as you laid it out to us today but we don't make the final say on what get selected. I guess all the projects get put on the table and once they are done and selected we have a campo board that actually makes the determination of what gets funded under the stp.
>> let me step through that process. I think--
>> could you please do that for the public, or somebody may be saying, hey, I just heard them say da da da on this , da da da, I just heard my project, and they really may get confused if they are thinking something is coming and it may not be coming because, go ahead, joe.
>> all right. First of all, these are federally funded projects, which means every year the federal government forecasts what amount of money they are going to rebate to the state throughout the country. Section as gets its allocation. Feed recall allocations are broken into federal categories. There's an interstate category, a primary hiring category. These particular category is called stp, service transportation program. Metropolitan planning organization, which is campo, has the hort to program the delete--thert to program the federal funds. States initiate the projectage campo has the authority to appropriate the federal . Have you to have their approval to continue with federal projects. They send out a letter to all the programs and and transportation agency that might be interested in applying for the federal . Once they do the call for projects, the local governments like we are today put together a list of candidate projects and submit them back to campo. Campo gathers all the projects in from all the transportation agencies. They evaluate them and rank them. They recommend, make a recommendation to the board of campo. I think March of next year campo board will then choose which one of these candidate projects will get the federal funding. They are then programmed. In the state transportation improvement program or for funding in fy 09 and fy 10. Once a project has been selected we will be notified and we gather our local matching money, which we do not have ly. If we are successful we need to come back to the court in the budget process and seek the local match for these successful projects if they are any.
>> okay.
>> so yes, the campo board ultimately has the final say.
>> thank you, joe, for that public explanation.
>> by the way, the letter from the mayor arrived yesterday.
>> yes.
>> is that the letter you referenced a minute ago?
>> yes.
>> the court has seen this. He says, the city supports construction of the roadway. We sent the city a layer recording howard lane. The city supports any effort on the part of the county to seek federal funding. We will program funding for the local match for the segment that would be within the crit city, ie, between harris branch parkway, cameron road, and the city limits. So good news. Two weeks--two questions. Are these this priority order for Travis County?
>> the staff did not put any priority on the project.
>> all right. If we know that all of them will not be funded, would it make sense to put them in priority order?
>> I think the criterion will do that for you. I look at this as being basically a license to go hunting. I don't know, quite frankly, how one of these may rank better than the other when it gets to the campo staff. I wouldn't necessarily want to say we think this is number one when in fact the campo staff thinks something else is number one. I want to play all the fronts at the same time and say, however these click, with their writing criteria, I out of all of them we get one. So, I mean, that was my philosophy, anyway, but not recommending a priority. Certainly the court, if the court wants to place a priority, that will--
>> I love that campo staff myself. I don't know that we ought to defer to their, seems to me that we ought to have some priority amongst ourselves.
>> okay.
>> freight barker has been around forever. Right? I know it's been kind of problematic. It's been down for two lanes and we think that in view of I guess congestion there that area it ought to be four. If campo says no, they will fund two, why wouldn't we want to go ahead and generate the money for the other two ourselves?
>> certainly a possibility. If federal funding does not come through.
>> when the people came down on brody, I know we didn't promise freight barker, did you that was one of the relief options being worked on. Right? If we know, if you have projects coming from hays county, Williamson county, city of Austin, probably some of the other cities and counties too, the requests will had greatly exceed available funds.
>> exactly.
>> thing about bring or--prioritizing, what does not get funded seems to me we ought to have a strategy to get them done if they are priorities for us.
>> that's why was asking, judge, if the money doesn't come through, what happens to those that have no federal funding. That's why I think prioritizing to put them back on the ballot for 509 --for 09 or 10, whenever we decide to have another election, to be sure wish the projects. We--finish the projects. We would have to go to another bond election.
>> my sense is all will be back on the ballot if we don't seek federal funding. We didn't place priorities on the bond projects. They are in or out. That's how they got in. The other issue in terms of priorities, if we did ask the city to join news an application for howard lane. So not make that a priority also kind of flies in the face of going and getting a partner. So it's difficult. Once you start going to priorities, you have to, say on what basis.
>> some of these voters have approved already.
>> they all have.
>> I don't know that it makes sense to go back to voters for an additional amount. When voters approved them our commitment was we would get them done. If we went back to voters and they approved it, we would just issue voter approved debt. Those would be debt but not voter approved.
>> yeah.
>> what I'm saying. If there's a voter approved project that we expand because we think circumstances require it, if not funded by calm po, then it seems to me that we ought to givesome thought to issuing co's to get them done. Some of these really have been around a long, long, long, long, time, and they were a good case made for them years ago, and that case has gotten more compelling in the interim, you know. And today if it was critical five, ten years ago, it's even more crystal --crystal today. Just think--critical today. Just think about it. If I were campo and running out of money, I would look around for the smallest strong. If we say our priority is this one right here and it costs a little bit more.
>> when does this have to go before the staff of the campo for their consideration? In other words, before placing whatever project we have going before the campo board, when is that supposed to take place, joe?
>> I think our deadline was the end of the month.
>> end of what month?
>> October.
>> October 31 is the deadline for submitting you've got another opportunity to approve this before the deadline.
>> okay.
>> if you wanted to.
>> with regards to any advantage that we could gain through prioritizing, is that something, it seems, is there an advantage to going ahead and getting these in the mix and submitting them noun, and then if we do see an advantage in prioritizing, bringing that back to the court to establish a priority order?
>> I guess the campo staff probably won't do anything until the first of November when they have all of the applications in. So, I mean, putting it in there now probably doesn't have any competitive advantage. In terms of priorities, I think certainly because three of you sit on campo, that is a fairly weighty thing because you are coming and saying these are our priorities in spite of what campo staff may feel about it. So I think there is some merit in having the Commissioners court priority. But I do think that recommendation coming from staff probably will not even look at your recommendation on priority and go distinctly by the book, which is the criteria that they have already adopt znd each one of these, I'm separating out the trail because that is coming out separate. But of the 37.4 million pot, seems each one has unique properties. Freight baker has the accident ratio. Howard lane has the city participation which meeks it unique. Wells branch has been the ongoing, you know.
>> slaughter lane both, those are missing gap.
>> right.
>> a lot of people have finished those up.
>> right. The population is thinking why should that be completed.
>> why wouldn't we be able to take the info and criteria and apply it to them as best we can. I know politics will enter into this but if we know what campo staff members are making these calls, what would keep Commissioner eckhardt from making a phone call to an appropriate one and kind of--
>> we can bring these back with a sense of how calm po staff would prioritize them based on the criteria and then give you some guidance on how other agencies may feel about these projects and you all can call the shots.
>> some of these are as important to other as to us.
>> right.
>> howard lane.
>> that one has been around a long time.
>> yeah. Seems to me freight barker ought to be as important to hays county as to travis.
>> also three of these projects have bearing a Pflugerville.
>> uh-huh. It's not politics when you are collaborating for the residents, joe. Good government.
>> howard lane portion is not within Pflugerville but it has a bearing on the howard lane.
>> would you like the staff to make a recommendation on priorities? We could do that.
>> I don't feel strongly on it, but I certainly would like to see that list. I guarantee you, I will get some phone calls from other campo members before we vote on this. I guarantee you that.
>> yeah.
>> while I'm talking with them about their favorite project, I may as well whip my list out. So it really would be a good conversation.
>> a good collaboration.
>> all right.
>> let's bring this back next week. Let's pull over it. I may change.
>> judge or joe--
>> yes, sir.
>> this is so important to all of us. I'm not comfortable getting there and pitching something on my deal at the expense of one of my colleagues. I mean, I don't really want to do that. I mean, it's easy for me to go out there and talk about how important freight barker is. Can I argue that if somebody says we are not out here arguing strong enough for this, Gerald, and by the way, one of the big, the biggest relever that we are going to have southwest, if we can get the darn thing going, is 45 southwest. I mow that is not without its issues for some people. And I understand that as well. But we are just talking about how upside down this community is with funding of roadways. When somebody, and all of us that sit ano campo, we have gotten, I'm somewhat numbed to it now because there are so many people that come at us from different directions talking about roadways. When I try to explain one of the reasons I voted for the toll plan is because I'm trying to allow something to get started where there's some additional funding, hopefully. Albeit, that may be a number of years down the road before there's any extra dough that gets spun off. But we did with our --amend ments, we did say if you have a toll road in an area, you can take it a mile from that center lane and say o kay, are is there other roads and things that you need. And we know that freight barker would probably qualify tor me for 45 southwest. Think as the crow flies, coming across the water quality land, you can probably can get to freight barker from 45 southwest somewhere out there. I want everybody to understand that when we are looking at all these projects, I think every one of these, whether it's howard lane or slaughter, all of them are needed in this community. And it is a funding issue that we have. And we're going to have this funding issue. I do think we probably are going to have to get to, I mean if you get voter approved debt, then you have at least been told, go, go and build it. And that may necessitate cos out of this. I know that a lot of times we do c--co's because that's how we get things to work. Some of these may have to be co's and I at least can look at somebody and say yes, we issued co's on that because quite frankly, the voters did say go out and billed that road. I think we are going to have to look at some of those mechanisms to get those things done. The fed dollars, which is what these things are, I mean, part of what is affecting this is the recisions that we continue to get out of dc, and there is no indicator that we are going to have less recisions. I mean, unless somebody thinks the war is going to be over next Wednesday. And so that is what we are dealing with here. More road capacity needed. Beyond what we can even begin to play for. And looking for creative ways to say how do you fund them. And every opportunity that I get to tell people that, they need to hear it because it's like people just think that, well, I pay gas taxes and property taxes and sales taxes, why don't I get these core issues taken care of. And roads, I think, are one of them that most people go, you need to find a way Commissioner to get an adequate roadway buil.
>> stp-mm funding is federal gas tax money, correct?
>> correct.
>> I hear what you are saying and I agree with you u Commissioner Daugherty rk this is a matter of how we fund these. It's not just a matter of getting the money anywhere but deciding what is it is the most equitable way to fund. Sincere stp-mm being federal gas tax money which is roughly 20 cents on the gallon from us to the feds which comes back 90 cents on the dollar, we a doner state but not by a lot. So I think that is an appropriate funding source. For all of these projects. And frankly, a more appropriate funding source than the property taxes that would go to back the debt issued to build these roads.
>> for some you have waited long enough.
>> right. Certainly as backup, I would much prefer to pay for these with federal tax money for which we get 90 cents on the dollar which we contribute than to pay with property tax which is just a bad proxy for income tax. A bad proxy for what one's ability to pay is.
>> what people are telling me, I don't care. I mean, go do it. Find way to get it done. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of tools.
>> what you say makes sense. Let's get as much as we can out of the federal money. Brainstorm where we go from there.
>> . We'll have this back on next week. How is that? If we act next week we will still be one week early of the deadline. Okay.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 18:30 AM