Travis County Commissioners Court
May 4, 2010,
Item 17
>> 17 is to consider and take appropriate action on a request to provide resolution supporting travis county's applications for participation in texas department of transportation pass through toll fansing program for a portion of fm 973 in precinct 1 and portions of fm 1626 and fm 2304 in precinct 3.
>> good morning, judge and commissioners. Tnr public works.
>> good morning, steve.
>> good morning. What is presented to you are two resolutions. This is a follow-up. This is to make applications for two projects. One is a piece of fm 973 in precinct 1. The other one is a combination of two pieces of state highways. One is fm 2304, also known man shack record. And 9 other piece between brody lane and the fm 2304 segment. We are in the process of preparing the applications. One of the things the consultants had asked us to do is ask us for support or resolutions for any elected officials or communities. Included in your backup are the resolutions that we would like the court to sign off on today if possible. Again for 973 and 1526 and 2304 in precinct 3. If you have questions i'm available to answer. I do have one person from the shady hallow area that would like to make comments.
>> one question. What we are being handed now, is this different than in the backup?
>> it's a little different, judge. I modified the first paragraph of each of the resolutions. That is the only change. There's just a little change that i made to the top par and i corrected a typo in the second paragraph.
>> . (
>> [one moment for change in captioners] test test test
>> and judge, well, has any transportation expert suggested to anyone that extending sh 45 linking mopac and fm 1626 is no longer needed?
>> well, in fairness, there has been conflicting testimony opinions about that, and in my view the project that's before us hopefully will relieve some of the congestion problem inside west travis county. You know, how much is difficult to say at this time, isn't it, joe, but as to the item before us we did get, i think, testimony from county staff that this would provide some relief. Certainly wouldn't solve the problem, though.
>> does the county transportation staff really believe that that is an acceptable -- the 1626 to manchaca to slaughter going through an extra three school safety zones and then back to slaughter and to mopac, do you really think that anybody is going to take that route? And by -- if you say it will make some difference, what does "some" equate to.
>> by itself i don't believe that it will result in a whole lot of traffic comes up from hays county, brerting away from brodie lane, but what we had talked about in the past and was included in the resolution that the court passed in december, was these would be interlevel improvements and together with restrictions that we could look into putting on brodie lane, restrictions could include adjusting the timing of the signals on brodie, putting in regulations that prevent turning on to brodie during certain times of the day, the types of things that would make it less attractive to cut through traffic to use brodie, and if in the alternative they have a
>> [inaudible] section to get them to manchaca road and manchaca road is completed at a five nine section, they could see that that could get them to where they want to go a little quicker, rather than more traffic signals, delayed timing, traffic regulations that would discourage them from using brodie. So how much impact, i don't know offhand. We presented it in december as interim improvements. It wasn't that we were saying that you could do without 35 southwest at that time, but it's something that we believe we can afford to do at this time. The price estimate for the 45 southwest was 80 to $100 million was what i was hearing. These improvements are less than 20, what we're proposing, and increasing is quite a bit higher.
>> i'd also like to point out this is passed through financing, of which we will be repaid all of this stuff but a small portion.
>> they'll repay us the construction cost, that's correct.
>> the state road.
>> a requirement of this program is that they are state highways, yes.
>> and the same funding could be used for state highway 45. You own the land, you have for 13 years. It's been a point of -- to vote for this. I know we've been over this a million times and don't need to bring up new information, but once again, you're dumping on the neighborhoods, along brodie lane. You're spending what little money you have on pass-through on a project that will not help us at all. We're not opposed to that project. We are opposed to money being -- being told that you don't have money for state highway 45 that you do for this. You know, once upon a time the people in barton hills -- barton skyway, they managed to stop it from being carried across breek, Barton Creek, so it dead ends in barton hills and picks up again just this side of mopac, landlocked that area. But they don't have any through traffic in their neighborhoods at all, and we have discovered that we don't have an official count, but we started talking and surveying and found out that a good portion of the traffic on brodie that is considered to be internally generated, it's because all of our schools are located at the south end of brodie lane. That's our junior high and our elementary. So we've got double-dippers. We've got moms taking kids to school and then coming back. So -- and they said, oh, golly, if 45 was there you better believe i would continue going south another mile and get on that rather than going all the way back to broaty and down to slaughter -- brodie and down to slaughter where the city just approved the construction of a 200 unit apartment complex at the intersection of slaughter and brodie. You've got the bui high school traffic.
>> would the association will willing to consider creating an internal grid? Because one of the issues, which is certainly no fall of the residents was that those subdivisions were originally developed as bottles feeding on to one road only with no connection to the adjoining neighborhood.
>> we are prohibited from doing much of that because the wild -- the natural preserve area that the city owns is just to our west, and so those roads that would have gone through to mopac cannot.
>> i'm not talking about through to mopac. I'm talking about through streets that connect the adjoining subdivisions that abut brodie.
>> yeah, that would bring a lot more traffic on to brodie.
>> no, i'm saying that --
>> going to drive east to go west.
>> perhaps i'm not making myself clear. Because the subdivisions are hermetically sealed and not connected to one another except by brodie, it requires that all residents who live adjacent to brodie must come out on brodie rather than any kind of internal grid that connects the subdivisions, providing an alternative route --
>> we do have -- we do have two roads that access manchaca. Nobody uses it. I would like to read the resolution from our homeowners association, if i may.
>> okay.
>> whereas travis county recognizes and states that northern hays county is one of the fastest growing sectors of the metropolitan area and whereas growth in the northern hays county corridor is creating additional traffic, much of which is destined to travel north to the austin urban area and whereas state highway 45 southwest would connect 1626 to loop 1, mopac, allowing the hays county commuters access to the austin urban area and state highway 45 southwest has been in the planning and design phase since 1985 with the right-of-way purchased by 2003, and whereas commuters currently travel up brodie lane, cutting through a residential neighborhood in order to access loop 1 mopac creating congestion and safety issues, and whereas commuters are not inclined to take the longer route up fm 2304, manchaca, in order to reach loop 1 mopac, and if travis county proposes to offer pass-through funding to help fund the txdot project to improve 1624 to fm 2304, and 2304 to raim raymond's croft. Therefore be it revolved by the shady association, the residents of this neighborhood demand that money be approved for the 45 southwest project, specifically for the completion of the environmental studies needed to get final approval for state highway 45 southwest and for the construction of the road, and request that travis county officials or txdot keep the shady hollow homeowners association board of directors a apprised of the progress made on the environmental clearances and design status on a monthly basis and demand any pass through financing approved for this project on 1626 and 2304 not be at the detriment of the ability to obtain pass-through financing for state highway 45 southwest. There is one other question that we have not been able to get an answer to, and that is, why is it more desirable to have traffic access mopac from slaughter than it would be from the state highway 45? Traffic is traffic. Why not put them on mopac where you can. There's virtually nothing along there, so it would not affect -- adversely affect as many people as it does.
>> does staff have an answer?
>> no, we don't.
>> is staff in disagreement with anything i've said?
>> i think the -- if you look at 45, brodie and 1626 manchaca as a single corridor, as hays county grows, that traffic will probably use all the alternatives that are available to them. I think the staff position is you need all those roadways to serve various functions. Brodie lane was originally constructed as an arterial to serve the corridor of traffic that comes from that area, manchaca likewise except for that the manchaca road, 1624 rsd facility, so they serve a slightly higher level of function in terms of regional traffic. 45 being a state highway, then was to serve the larger regional traffic. We believe the network of roads that are needed in that area require all three to be used in various ways, so i think we'd look at the corridor as a whole and i believe that the capacity ought to be there in the corridor, 1626 being part of it, but 45 also being part of the solution. I mean, your question is, where will traffic go? Is 45 preferable to brodie and manchaca road? I think for regional traffic my answer to that would be yes, it would be more appropriate for that traffic to be on 45.
>> ms. Baganthy, when these two projects -- this one came before us previously, i was left with the impression that because 1626 on the hays county side would be improved and traffic would get to travis county more easily, it would likely exacerbate an already bad situation.
>> no, sir.
>> so for that reason it seemed to make sense to me, plus the $15 million price tag and then in the scheme of road projects it's kind of small, and then the possibility that we would get reimbursed 100% of construction costs by the state, albeit over a pretty long period, 10 to 15 years, it all sort of fell together. And so it sort of made sense. And i don't know that our -- i never thought that our approval of this project would eliminate sh 45 southwest. The problem, though, is you're talking about elected officials voting on various options from time to time, and so you never can say, what will happen when a certain issue is presented to us or campo? But i view this as standing alone, and it seemed to make sense when it was presented to us. The other thing that we learned be was it is not that we can submit this at at any point. There is for this round of pass-through funding a deadline that was coming up fairly soon when is that deadline?
>> next tuesday.
>> may 10.
>> may 11.
>> so in my view it made sense to try this remedy. I think in time this will become more critical than it is today, and the other thing is that in terms of scheduled project completion, we're looking at three to five years. So all those things together, to me, make this project reasonable.
>> well, interestingly, it's not that this is a bad project. It's that it's once again taking money away from an agreed-upon project of long-standing, and campo last year took away some of our money to use on a larger project, and now you're taking away some money to use on a smaller project. Now, if it's going to take three to five years, we understand that, but let's start the clock now instead of every time you push it out that means it's going to be four to six, five to seven. However, we have another more important deadline, and that is the may 10 campo meeting, at which time we expect state highway 45 to be pulled off the -- the 20-35 plan, and that's untenable. Does that -- is that anything that this commissioners court would like to see happen?
>> yes. But that's not the topic of discussion today. The first thing that you said a minute ago was that money was taken from 45 southwest off the tip earlier last year by campo. It was taken offer the tip because there was no way that the money for construction could have been funded in the time frame of the tip given the environmental -- the incompleteness of the environmental study. So that was not anything that was lost from 45 southwest last year. Secondly, you talk about pass-through financing for 45 southwest. That is something that the county, as far as my vote goes, is unwilling to do, because we pay up front for 80 to $100 million. That's a big difference from the 18 million we're talking about on this project.
>> do you expect it to get any less expensive?
>> it's a state highway.
>> 45, yes.
>> the problem is we have a finite amount of tax revenue with which to do our job, and it was never envisioned that local jurisdictions would also pay for the state highway system. That has traditionally been funded from a separate revenue stream called the gas tax. If we were to fund the state highway system as well as jails, courts, county road systems, as well as the vast number of health and human services projects we do, basically we would not fund those other things for which we are constitutionally mandated to do. We would be taking on the state's role in building their highway infrastructure.
>> manchaca and 1626 are state projects.
>> but they're cheaper. That's the thing. That's -- .
>> cheaper than what?
>> i think that it's just -- it's a -- we have to recognize that if we take on $100 million projects on behalf of the state, then we are going to not be able to do $100 million worth of projects for which we actually have responsibility.
>> well, then, why did the county pass bonds and buy that land if there was no intent for the county to build that road?
>> txdot was supposed to build the road. We bought the right-of-way.
>> in order to facilitate txdot building.
>> and why, again, have we not had any county support in getting it built? Any support on campo or any other organization.
>> there's been quite a bit of county support on campo. That's --
>> but not for this project.
>>
>> [inaudible] -- southwest part of the plan. But i think there have been a lot of reasons over the past 15 or 20 years why the project has not been done, and the biggest of which is really the lack of completion of the environmental. When the county --
>> we've already had at least one completion of a state environmental.
>> well, we had an environmental commenced but not completed.
>> is that correct?
>> for 45 southwest, i do not believe the environmental is completed.
>> not only that, but we were looking at a state environmental where it looks like now txdot is saying, the federal environmental is what's required, and unfortunately you're looking at another, they say, three to five years. But what i'm saying, though, is that i think that when voters approve the issuance of bonds to acquire right-of-way for this project, the county was 110% in favor of completing it because we had a fresh consent decree vote of the travis county voters, and we took the money and acquired right-of-way and deeded the land to the state for the project. So we wouldn't have done all of that without the intention of completing the project. The problem, though, is they look at various steps. When we got to completing the environmental, is where it fell through, so today we've done 90, 95% of right-of-way acquisition and spent more than $3 million, as you know, but the environmental has not been done and you can't do the project without the environmental. Now, unfortunately, too, the reality is that the political will and the political participants have changed, and where we will end up depends on how the votes go. So i think you're right in that 45 southwest will be impacted by this vote, but i'm telling you that when it came to me, i saw this standing alone in a possible way for us to provide immediate relief, meaning three to five years, to residents in southwest travis county.
>> well, judge, i appreciate that you think that it would cause -- relieve some of the pressure, but i invite you to come drive it. It's not going to happen. They're just not going -- by the way, at the intersection of manchaca and 1626 is an elementary school that's very close to the road. You see all that traffic going past there. I feel sorry for them.
>> i don't know if the staff told us the situation will get better immediately. I think what staff told us is it won't get worse as quickly. So it will get a whole lot worse without this project. Isn't that staff position?
>> that would be my position, judge.
>> i would also like to offer up that the shady hollow group has not particularly benefit willing to work with us on calming traffic until just recently. Thank you, pam, for getting some of your people involved with us, because they felt like the 45 southwest would be put on the back burner if anything was done to calm the traffic on brodie. And when we know that the majority of the traffic is generated internally, we have to work with the residents there. We have to look at all the options out there. We have to look at what we can do in timely ways. And 45 aside, this is one significant part of moving in the right direction to help deal with some of the traffic congestion and safety issues on brodie. You can't do them all at one time. You have to do them a piece at a time, and i would hope that your organization would continue to work with the county staff to find solutions that will solve your problems or mitigate your problems before 45 southwest is built, whenever it's built, because 45 southwest, regardless of how i feel about it, is a very complex moving project that long before i ever came to office has been tabled for a long time for one reason or another. So you can go on a dream and hope 45 is going to be built in five or six years and preclude over solutions or you can work with us in the interim to try to find the right solutions in the short-term.
>> we are not trying to preclude anything. As you know, i have been working with you, and thank you for my light that's going in at indian point, and that's one of the reason i ran for the board at shady hollow, and i have a lot of support on that. I just don't see that -- well, actually there is one thing that could make a difference if we can't build 45. We would like a toll booth at the south end of brodie.
>> another bad idea.
>> let's see how much money it might bring in to generate -- to build 45.
>> what about a toll booth at the north end of brodie regarding the internally generated traffic?
>>
>> [inaudible] on this particular matter, and if i'm not mistaken, this 973 part of -- from breaker to 290 east. There's going to be a brodie lane that's not even built for the five subdivisions going out there, the thing i'm hearing and the reason i have such a problem with the county, this is the agenda item, pass through financing on these projects, the reason i'm so opposed to this is because we were told 30 years ago, i have the documentation from txdot itself, that we were going to build this y out at the oak hill like a parkway, okay? Then we were told, i don't know, i think it was 20 years, check the records, we were going to get this system completion here, this 45, and so we were told this when we voted on these bond packages that that's what this money was going to. And basically that's why i'm voting republican in november. I just feel that we're being lied to by our county, and judge elshire was at the last meeting and that's why i say, everything is developing or developer driven. Smp something you signed was there were four options for -- the cheapest one was 52 million and here we're spending 48.4 and we're not getting reimbursed 100% of this. Only reimbursed 96% of this if they actually have the traffic count on the financing reimbursement from the county. So we're looking at 50/50, 49/52, we're looking at the same amount of money to build a two-lane road but yet we're going clear out to manor to build this, 973, and what was the other one, blake manor road, which is kind of like their brodie lane now, these future subdivisions that don't even have water, thousands of rooftops going in there, and this is why we're a lot of people. And then we have bill bunch down at the city real recently, within the last month or so, down there and they're arguing against having this commercial development built that's right on the path of 45, and they say, we're fighting this store. We don't want this store being built, and, brian, if we can't win on the store, then build it even bigger. Build it right in the path of 45. And this was a quote from, you know, his comments down at the environmental board and the planning commission. So, you know, it's a bone being thrown to the environmentalists, but this road can be built environmentally friendly. It's a four-lane and there was four options to with the toll -- toll four-lane and the system and stand alone financing and the two-lane road. But, you know, we -- we have people that know that this is what was promised years ago, and then the money for the y was spent on 183 and now we buy this right-of-way, and now we're spending this money on a developer driven agenda to build this stuff out higher. Enough of it, half of it, along with our county roads, and it's just a never-ending nightmare of agenda-driven nonresponsive government, and, you know, quite frankly, i just have to say, you know, i tell you, when you look at the facts and you know what the situation is, i'm just -- it's just a lie. I mean, it's -- you know, some people will call it a mischaracterization, but my commissioner, sarah eckhardt promised over and over and over and was asked 18 ways, are you sure you're not going to vote for pass-through financing -- or paid for toll roads? And she voted for four out of five of them. And then we get these bond initiatives that said this is what this money is going to go to, and it never does go to it. And when we bring it back it's like we get talked down to like you're just stupid, you're just dumb, you just don't understand. We bought this right-of-way, the state was going to build it. That's not the point. We're talking 30 -- there's roads i can show you 70 years ago, and the same thing. I'll close on this point, but it was the same thing about this tack and this tr 4. Those things are insignificant. Okay? We can see from our own county that this is developer driven. And so when we have this situation with those -- the gas tax dollars going to be spent, joe can'ta loop goes up there two meetings, and i told -- we're not going to do this. We're not going to do this. Oh, yeah, you are. And sure enough, we come back and they pulled those two ramps on cameron road on sh 130. And i was at the meeting, dick halgen stein was there, been wear, michael arlick, ben -- all those people were there. When the item came up on the txdot agenda we went back and drank coffee. It was pulled. And campo was so informed that they didn't even know this was going to come up. So the next month i came up, we're not going to do that, we're not going -- yeah, we are, that's not true. And then when you get the vote we hear that item has been pulled by txdot. Well, the reason it was pulled by txdot is because i raised hell with them and they said, we're not going to deal with the gas tax. We'll use stimulus money. So they came back and used stimulus money. They pulled it and then they came back and used stimulus money to build those ramps.
>> thank you, mr. Priest. Ms. Bagin, are you able to leave the resolution you read.
>> yes, sir.
>> is there a motion on 17?
>> i have a little bit more to say --
>> is there a motion on 17?
>> yes, i move approval.
>> second.
>> second by commissioner huber.
>> ms. Baget for final words.
>> we've again getting, i know you hear sometime contrary, but in precinct one we've been getting a lot of support for this pass-through finance situation, and i just wanted to acknowledge that support. John williams is the president of park springs neighborhood association, he emailed steve manila and i was cc'd annual with anna baldwin. That certificate has been supplied to the clerk, who is our record keeper, and he's in full support of the 973 application that's applicable to this agenda item for pass-through financing, and not only that, he of course represents the neighborhood out in that neighborhood, who has been struggling with what we're doing here. Number two is that the city of manor submitted a letter report dated april the 26th, which the clerk also has a copy of that particular document, which actually shows support of -- signed off by the city manager, for the support of the fm 973 as far as toll booth financing. So there is a lot of support for this, and of course in the precinct 1 area, and i'm quite sure support throughout the community on some of these issues. So saying that, let me just ask one person on staff, even though we'll apply for this, does that mean any guarantee this will be approved to receive some of these?
>> absolutely not, commissioner.
>> all right. And that really needs to be understood because there's a lot of competition for this particular set of criteria that's set before us under the guidelines. So this is a statewide initiative; is that correct?
>> that is correct.
>> so we're just -- with county. My goodness gracious, you have a lot of folks that will be trying to acquire the necessary financing. That doesn't mean the county will get it just because we're taking action here today, not by any stretch of the imagination. It may not happen, but at least we're going to do what we can if this vote is approved today to let this go before those particular persons that review the applications, and we have until the 11th of this month to make sure that that information is available for those decision makers. So that's why i wanted to go ahead and move approval of this, judge, so we can go ahead and move forward.
>> ms. Baget?
>> there's a coalition of south travis and north hays subdivisions that are working together. I would think that this commissioners court would like to join in some way with hays county and help us see if we can't make this a joint project, because we all have the same goal. They want 45 as bad as we do, for different reasons, but nonetheless, we're not out to block our neighbors from hays county from access to the city. And a while ago i jokingly said let's put a toll road -- toll booth at the end of brodie, and i was a little insulted by commissioner eckhardt's response that we should put it at the north end of brodie.
>> it was in the spirit of --
>> let ms. Bagette finish. Then we'll let you respond if you have one. Ms. Bagette?
>> and i'm also dpoind and a bit insulted that commissioner huber would think that my neighbors are being misled by some unnamed developers. I'm disappointed. Our biggest fear is on may 10 this project will be pulled from the 2035 plan. Can we have some support to keep that in the 230-35-2035 plan?
>> it would be illegal for us to answer that question today because that's not posted, but that certainly is a threshold question. Commissioner eckhardt, a final point?
>> you said i suggest -- i took it in the spirit in which i believe you gave it, which is as a joke. I have a suggestion to put a toll booth at brodie lane and 1626, and i asked -- what i asked, what about a toll booth at the north end? The reason being is i believe we must recognize that a significant load on brodie is internally generated to the neighbors on brodie. I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to put a toll booth at either end. It's a rhetorical question. We all have to pay for the road improvements. The unfortunate truth is the area around brodie and 1626 was developed at a time when it was outside the etj of the city of austin or any municipality inside hays. There was no planning, and consequently, there's no grid, and consequently brodie is relied upon by a tremendous number of hermetically sealed subdivisions in travis and hays county. That is not your fault or any of your neighbors' faults. It's the fact, it is a ramification of us having no planning authority in the unincorporated areas of travis county. It is an issue that we are struggling with all over travis county, hays county, williamson county and every other major urbanized county in the state of texas. When you don't give counties planning authority you end up with circumstances like this where a road like brodie, that was never intended to be a pass-through for two counties' worth of suburban traffic has become just that. But the issue is -- the issue is how to pay for it and from which source. If we pay for it with a pass-through financing mechanism, you have a broad source that is coming from all those who benefit. That's not a bad deal, but if travis county pays for it entirely, that really appropriate since it is predominantly for hays county residents.
>> that's the suggest, to work with them, because i know they're working just as hard as we are at this end.
>> and that is why i believe you made the joke rhetorically about a toll booth and i rhetorically responded about a toll booth at the other end of this as well. We're all in this together.
>> based on the committee that commissioner huber helped bring together over the summer last year, we came up with obviously our preferred method -- appearance of this state highway 45, but we are willing to accept it completely tolled with no non-tolled area. We believe that the demand is such that if you find somebody who would build a toll road for you, we'll accept it.
>> and i believe that's the only way it would --
>> that's how desperate we are.
>> ms. Bagette, thank you for coming down. If you give her the resolution. Do you need your copy back?
>> no, sir, i have one.
>> okay. Then we'll have it part of the official record. Maybe get court members a copy of it. We appreciate your patience today. All in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote. This morning we indicated our intention to call up item 3 at about 11:00. It's a few minutes after that.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 1:50 PM
