Travis County Commissioners Court

July 31, 2012 - Item 19
Agenda

Now, mr. Manila, let's lay out 19 and let's indicate our intention to call up 20 next.
19, consider and take appropriate action on a request to submit to CAMPO a new amendment to the CAMPO 2035 Regional Transportation Plan to include a new four-lane guided arterial, Maha Loop Road, from Pierce Lane in the financially constrained project list and convert the segment of Maha Loop Road from FM 812 to Pearce Lane from the illustrative project list to the financially constrained project list in Precinct 4.

>> Good morning, judge and Commissioners.
Steve manila from t.n.r., joining me is charlie watts from our planning division to help me answer questions you may have.
A little background about the process and then I can talk more about the road.
As a member of the campo, we are -- we agreed to depict the arterial in the campo plan.
Within that plan he's got it broken into two pieces, the financially constrained portion, which identifies all the roadways we believe we can fund throughout the life of the plan.
Then on the other side you have the illustrious list.
If a developer comes in, he knows he has to dedicate right-of-way where we show that.
Within the financially constrained plan, there's two lists.
One is the federally funded.
The other one is locally funded.
If it's federally funded, we have to get campo approval because we would be seeking federal money at some point in the future.
On the locally funded, it's money that comes from our bond referendums, for example.
So what we have here is actually two actions we're asking the court to take.
The roadway in question is shown on your map in green and white, and it depicts an arterial roadway that we would like to see build a four-lane divided with bike lanes and sidewalks between 812 and 71 and skirts the eastern most portion of the f-1 facility out in elroy.
Part of that roadway is already in the plan but tonight's the illustrate I have list.
We would like to shift to it the locally funded side.
The other piece of that roadway between pearce lane and 71 does not currently exist in the plan.
We want to add to the financially constrained portion of the campo plan.
The next step will be to turn this in to campo.
They already have put notice out they have proposed plan amendments.
Get those in by August 10th and then it goes through the campo process which involves receiving public comment, technical review of the probably and ultimately make itself to the policy board for final approval to put into the plan.
This road itself, t.n.r.
Believes it's a good idea.
We need another north-south arterial and correct between 969 and 12 would provide benefits even if f-1 were not out there.
We believe it's a viable route to what exists today.
You would have to go a long ways to get between 969 and 812.
This will help shorten that.
We would recommend the court approve this so it can be presented to campo and go through that process.

>> This would help not only the movement of traffic throughout that area, but would also help emergency vehicles get around a lot faster between the elroy area and garfield.
There's a large -- it's a large area without the ability to move, you know, fast enough to respond.

>> Right.
Very good point.

>> In fact, in kind of promotes from a more passive approach to a more active approach by having this movement made.

>> Uh-huh, that's right.

>> I'm looking at the map.

>> Uh-huh.

>> I see maha loop road at the top.

>> Okay.

>> And I see the arrows pointing to the gray and white segment.
Right?

>> Right.

>> But the green and white segment is the elroy road too.

>> In the campo plan it's --

>> [inaudible] even though it goes over the existing elroy road.

>> Okay, so when I see elroy road in green and white I should think maha loop.

>> In the campo plan.
On the roadway they -- on this map.

>> What if campo says thanks, guys, but no thanks, we want to let you proceed on your own on this?

>> That's possible for any of our roadways in the locally funded plan.
What this would become a part of.
I don't know why they would have any objection to it.
We've talked to city of Austin, whose e.t.j.
This is in, they are supportive of it.
There is a developer who would like to see the road built and he has talked to all the property owners.
They are very supportive of the project to the point to dedicating right-of-way and they have talked to aisd and they are supportive as well.

>> In del valle as well.

>> Right.
So there's a the lot of benefits to it that everyone can see for a lot of folks.

>> It just seems like -- the other thing is everything seems more regional now than local, even though the local entities still consolidate or pool their resources in order to get some of these projects done.
So I would hope that campo would --

>> Even if campo were to reject it, it could still go forward as a the county project.
It doesn't necessarily have to be in the plan, I don't think.
The only reason we want to be in plan is it leaves open the option of seeking federal funding for some of our projects.
And we do agree that we will depict our arterial network in the plan as participant of campo.

>> I received notice either yesterday or Friday the next campo meeting has been canceled.

>> Okay.

>> So does that throw the schedule off?

>> No, it continues when they release notice of the plan amendment process, they I think took that into account because you'll have a public hearing and a presentation on your September 10th meeting.
The public process was revised.
Now it's called the tier 2 so you don't have that three-month-long process.
It's a shortened process.
So September 10th you will have a public hearing and a presentation of plan amendment at that meeting.
And approval October 8th.

>> Mr. Reason seed, question or comments?

>> Yes, I object to the shortened nature that you just spoke to because we playing with this kind of money we need plenty of time.
Even what we had I don't think is plenty of time.
What could be the logic?
Who is behind that?

>> Well, we approved in campo back in string or they looked at their public involvement process and made these recommendations tier 1 and tier 2.

>> Did the judge just now say that a campo meeting, the next one is canceled?
Is that what you are said, judge?

>> That's what our judge said.

>> Wow, so that's even less chance for the public to be involved.
And maybe if you guys could more efficiently advertise how the public could get in to say something about this.

>> Well, that September 10th meeting will be a public hearing.

>> But you also just said it will be a productive meeting or, you know, you are going to make the decision.
So we're going to have time to say something, but they are not going to have time to think about what we said so in effect making what we say useless.

>> Another opportunity will be at community meetings but they haven't shown where those locations are.
I think they are waiting to see what the applications look like, where the plan amendments are and have meetings closer to where those plan amendment locations are.

>> Right.
We're not the only entity asking for plan amendment.
There are other participants of campo are asking for the same sorts of --

>> And then comments will be taken on the website also at campo during that comment period.

>> The comment period is?

>> September 3rd through October 5th.

>> Though the decision will be made on the 10th of September.

>> No, they will present the projects on the 10th of September and then there will be a public hearing also to receive comment on those.

>> Great.
So the presentation and then a comment period after that one.

>> Then the approval date is October 8th or consideration of the plan amendments.

>> Okay.
So October 8th is the planned decision time.

>> Right.

>> Okay.
All right.
That's very helpful.
Thanks.

>> The technical advisory committee of campo will be making comment and consideration at the September 26th meeting so that's open to the public also.

>> Well, that's better, but still, I personally plead for my fellow members of the public to have more opportunity.
This is such a huge deal here and I want to applaud the judge's suggestion earlier to back out and let these f-1 investors pay for it.
They've got the money.

>> The judge did not recommend that.

>> It sounded like it.
Maybe I'm hallucinating, but it just sounded so good and I just wanted to give you credit for it.
It's too short for us and it smells of f-1.
Anything that we -- the taxpayers are paying for these f-1 criminals is a crime just by nature.
They are investors, they blew into town, primed a few of those so-called public servants in the city and they've ruined it.
You wait and see, Austin is ruined.
Our environment will be destroyed.
The vibration, the noise, the crime.
The petro pollution.
It's all for nothing.
We're getting nothing from this and nothing except heart aches.
So anything that our county does to facilitate this is a mistake.

>> Thank you, mr. Reeferseed.
Questions, comments?

>> I move we submit this to campo.

>> Second.

>> We approve item 19 in its entirety.

>> Yes.

>> Seconded by Commissioner Davis.
Discussion on the motion?
All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote.
Thank you all very much.

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