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Follow TURFTxDOT plans road with developers - leave public, elected officials out
Once again, TxDOT threatens to yank funds from a region if they don't do what TxDOT says. What's more egregious is TxDOT hashed out the whole road plan behind closed doors with DEVELOPERS, not in an open process with the public and elected officials. The Transportation Commission, which Ted Houghton sits on, adopted new rules to prevent such strong arm tactics with local officials who TxDOT is supposed to coordinate and collaborate with on its projects. But this shows that it was window dressing. The leopard can't change its spots and the Texas Legislature just gave this out of control agency a license to continue such behavior by passing a statue quo sunset bill instead of adopting recommended reforms.
City left out in emails between developers, TxDOT on Trans Mountain Road project
By Chris Roberts / EL PASO TIMES
Posted: 06/21/2011 12:04:00 AM MDT
Helping developers lay the groundwork for a profitable strip of big-box retail stores appears to have been a priority for state highway officials working on a plan to widen Trans Mountain Road's western reach, according to emails obtained by the El Paso Times.
Texas Department of Transportation officials worked closely with those property owners and their representatives, which included Hunt Companies, Plexxar Industrial Realty Group, and Desert View Homes.
More than a year later, when the plan became public, it was a full-blown freeway project with four interchanges and sweeping ramps connecting to Interstate 10. As objections arose and modifications were proposed, TxDOT officials and others made it clear that delays could mean $85 million in state funding would be diverted to other Texas highway construction projects.
Emails obtained by the El Paso Times through a Texas Public Information Act request indicate that developers had open access to TxDOT officials and actively participated in the design process. There is little communication with city representatives or staff until late 2010, when the design was essentially complete.
That design presented to the El Paso City Council in March was solid when it came to access for mall shoppers and commercial traffic. It had problems with the proposed entry to the Franklin Mountains State Park, hike and bike lanes and protection of mountain vistas.
Two City Council members also challenged the data used to support
the preferred freeway option. Nonetheless, the City Council approved the plan, and the Federal Highway Administration is now reviewing it to ensure there are no violations of the National Environmental Protection Act.
"When we got it, all of the deals had been made," said city Rep. Susie Byrd, who supported an alternative to the freeway. "We and members of the public could not influence the design.
Property owners, they certainly should have a say-so, but should they be the only ones to have influence?"
Texas Highway Commissioner Ted Houghton and Chuck Berry, TxDOT's El Paso District engineer, declined to be interviewed.
"The new work product is in draft form at this time," Berry wrote in an email. "Not even a portion of it should be released or its contents discussed for public review at this time. I look forward to sharing the information when it has been approved for public review."
Hunt Companies also declined to comment. Messages seeking comment from Brent Harris, with Plexxar Industrial Realty Group, were not returned Friday. Emails and subsequent interviews provide insight into how the road was designed and pushed through the City Council. TxDOT withheld some documents for various reasons, including the fact that the local Sierra Club has threatened to sue the department over the expansion plans. Debate on what to do with Trans Mountain Road began when city leaders decided in 2008 to make it part of a loop around the city. Although it will be used mostly by local traffic, congestion was already a problem where the road narrowed to two lanes on the West Side. There was little disagreement, particularly in light of recent fatal accidents, that the road needed to be widened. A $17 million project was proposed.
Then about $85 million from the sale of Texas general revenue bonds was approved for the project by the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT. Houghton is on that commission.
"Ted Houghton is looking out for El Paso's interests," said city Rep. Beto O'Rourke. "He picked up what he thought was the city's mandate, which was to complete the loop - most Texas cities have an unbroken loop - and he made it part of his mission. He really pushed some of this stuff through and did it in the most efficient and effective way he could."
Developers were consulted regularly throughout the concept and design phases of the project, with one of the first meetings scheduled in July 2009, according to the correspondence provided. The first query from a City Council member asking for more detail on the project came more than a year later, in August 2010.
Among the ownership groups involved are Hunt Companies, with billions of dollars in real estate investments nationwide; Desert View Homes, which already is building a residential development on the far western end of Trans Mountain; and Plexxar Industrial Realty Group, which helped develop the Northwest Corporate Center industrial park in the Trans Mountain area. Plexxar's Harris has also been involved in the Downtown renovation.
Early in the process, correspondence shows, property owners asked to fast-track the project.
"We no longer can plan and design these types of projects in a vacuum, the issues of hike and bike trails and other amenities need to be addressed by all parties," Houghton wrote in an August 2009 response to property owners and others, including city Rep. Steve Ortega, chairman of the Metropolitan Planning Organization's Transportation Policy Board. Houghton said some of those elements were out of his control. "There was give and take on both sides," Ortega said in an interview. " The development looked as best as it possibly could given the fact that development was going to take place whether the widening was going to take place or not."
In a November 2009 email, Harris objected to the design of on and off ramps connecting to an interchange on the 3.6-mile strip of highway. About two weeks later, a state highway engineer in Lubbock sent emails pleading for a final decision from property owners on the "Plexxar bridge" so it could be included before a deadline passed.
" We are going with the Plexxar underpass (overpass) option," Harris wrote on Dec. 8, 2009.
That interchange, however, was not a part of the city's Master Transportation Plan. Previous engineering studies indicated that it was not needed, Byrd said in an interview. State highway officials, in the correspondence, said the purpose of that structure was to handle commercial traffic. It would keep most of the commercial traffic off other arterials.
It was not until late 2010 that emails begin to regularly include city staff other than El Paso Water Utilities officials who supported the plan. An Oct. 20 meeting was scheduled to "set a course and strategy" for such things as right-of-way donations and desired zoning changes, according to an email from Hunt's Justin Chapman. "TxDOT has encouraged us to include the city because they are an important piece of the puzzle and an interested stakeholder," he wrote.
One of those staff members was Mathew McElroy, deputy director of the city's Planning and Economic Division.
The city planning department "was not involved until the design was done by TxDOT and they had an agreement" with property owners on zoning, McElroy said in an interview. And when the El Paso City Council began to consider the plan, City Manager Joyce Wilson told council members that her staff had limited input.
And as early as October, state officials were warning that any delays could result in a loss of funding. The state money was much in demand, they said. TxDOT officials also warned in emails that the property owners might withdraw about $5 million in donated rights-of-way if the plan was changed. If the land had to be taken by eminent domain, the email said, that could result in delays of a year or more.
"They really had the city over a barrel," O'Rourke said. "We were not very sophisticated or savvy."
In mid-October, Ortega sent a detailed email to TxDOT asking whether a number of issues - including adding 10 feet to the freeway buffer, making open space designations and removing the Plexxar overpass - would cause delays that could endanger the project.
Three days later, an email from TxDOT El Paso's Eduardo Calvo to other department personnel stated, "The key here is to provide an answer if anything that the city is proposing would result in a delay of the NEPA process. In my opinion, yes, anything council proposes will provoke a delay."
Council members still were waiting for a TxDOT environmental assessment that would provide details of the plan. It was supposed to have been released in October, but it had been delayed.
A draft copy of the assessment was circulating among state agencies connected to the project, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Kathy Boydston, leader of the department's Habitat Assessment Program, said at the time she was asking for wildlife crossings. But, she said, TxDOT was not bound by those recommendations.
"We have a lot of responsibility and very little authority with them," Boydston said at the time.
A copy of the environmental assessment was provided to the city in February, according to an email. It contained data on projected traffic growth, conflict points - where traffic, pedestrians and bicyclists meet causing safety problems - and other information supporting the need for a freeway.
One of the problems for Byrd was that alternative concepts had not been given serious consideration, which is required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Byrd and O'Rourke were interested in a boulevard design expected to support more sustainable and desirable development. O'Rourke said in a council meeting that the concept had been used successfully on high-volume roads in other cities.
And observers digging into specifics found safety, environmental and aesthetic problems with the plan. Entry into the Franklin Mountains State Park required drivers to cut across oncoming freeway traffic. Biking and hiking lanes were either too close to fast-moving traffic or repeatedly intersected by driveways. There was no provision for wildlife crossings. And it appeared that towering overpasses and nondescript buildings would block unique views of the Franklin's peaks and crags.
Critics said the additional interchange was unnecessary and would create pollution and traffic congestion by adding unneeded capacity. The four interchanges also pushed the freeway's footprint closer to the Franklins, obstructing views, they said.
Ortega proposed keeping all city-owned land on the eastern end of the project near the Franklin Mountains State Park as open space to protect views and arroyos. That proposal ultimately failed amid concerns it would cause delays that would threaten funding.
Meanwhile, TxDOT officials conducted public hearings and took comment - both oral and in writing - they said would be included in material sent to the Federal Highway Administration.
But there was more. Traffic growth projections and conflict points appeared to have been miscalculated in ways that favored the freeway concept.
During a City Council meeting, O'Rourke asked why the plan used a 2007 traffic estimate instead of a recently completed one.
The variance was large - about 70,000 car trips per day by 2035 in the older estimate to 31,000 trips in the new estimate. The old estimate was based on a healthy economy, which anticipated development in Santa Teresa and the northern areas of El Paso, Byrd said in an interview.
Berry, at the time, said it was like worst-case and best-case scenarios, with the reality somewhere between. The new estimates, he said, were available only as the Trans Mountain plan was being finalized.
And it did not matter anyway, he said, because the basic requirements, including conflict points and other issues still supported the freeway design.
Then Byrd found problems with the way conflict points were identified. TxDOT, she said, had underestimated the dangers of the freeway model.
Byrd, in emails, asked TxDOT numerous times to rerun the models using the different data on traffic projections and conflict points.
"They haven't done that," she said last week.
Property owners tracked the process closely, emails show, monitoring an Open Space Advisory Board meeting and asking to speak with Berry after Byrd called one of them. One email from Harris to Hunt colleagues, Berry and others under the title "Trans Mountain" stated, "The protesters are out on Resler."
They also solicited support from City Council members, noting in one email that they "might be able to switch a few votes pretty quickly by explaining it more clearly."
Hunt's Chapman notes in an email that he is being pressured to go to City Hall and canvass the members.
"On the city side, I think we were caught asleep at the wheel," Byrd said at a City Council meeting earlier this year. "If we had more time to influence the design on this, I think you'd have a different outcome."
O'Rourke, who will leave office in the coming weeks, said constituents in his district are facing a similar issue with the proposed southern relief route, also part of the loop around the city. He said he uses his experience with the Trans Mountain Road project to advise them.
"I am telling them, 'Do not wait for the public comment period,' " O'Rourke said. "Once you get to the public comment period, it's a done deal."