From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...nge_could.html
Ben White/I-35 interchange could be completed
By Ben Wear | Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 06:10 PM
The Ben White/Interstate 35 interchange, which has frustrated southside commuters because its four southern bridges remain undone, would be completed under a proposal the Texas Transportation Commission will vote on Thursday.
Construction could begin in about a year but no completion date has been determined.
Aside from the $41 million for the interchange, the commission’s $1.6 billion list of projects includes $171.5 million to complete almost all of the expansion of Texas 195 from I-35 to the Bell County line south of Killeen. The road, which the U.S. Army considers a critical route for troops and equipment headed to Gulf Coast ports, has seen a considerable number of fatal accidents over the years in sections where there is no median separating oncoming traffic.
Given the focus in recent years on using whatever urban construction dollars that TxDOT has as seed money for toll roads, the decision to seek funding for those two projects represents something of a changeup. But State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who had worked with TxDOT’s Austin district engineer Bob Daigh to formulate the Central Texas request, said he was looking for “long-promised, clearly needed projects” that could be done relatively quickly — without tolls.
As for the five pending Austin toll roads, which have been hung up at least in part after TxDOT pulled back a promise of several million dollars, Watson said “we’re going to have to keep dealing with that. This comes from a different pot of money.”
That pot, or at least most of it, will be $1.5 billion that TxDOT intends to borrow from the bond market, with the rest of the money coming from existing TxDot funds. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick had sent a letter to the agency this summer strongly urging it to go ahead and borrow up to $3 billion that the Legislature had authorized. The money to pay back the bonds, the leaders said, would come from the Legislature deciding next spring to fund the Department of Public Safety using general state revenue rather than money from the gas tax.
Doing so would give TxDOT what amounts to an instant infusion of $600 million a year. The law only allows TxDOT to borrow $1.5 billion a year against the gas tax, so the rest of the $3 billion would become available later.
Construction on the four remaining Ben White/I-35 bridges could begin in a little over a year, Daigh said Tuesday. The department has to amend a federal environmental document approved years ago.
How long would construction then take?
“I don’t even want to hazard a guess,” Daigh said. But he added that the project will be done on an accelerated schedule, one complicated by the work occurring over the heads of tens of thousands of daily motorists on I-35.
Texas 195, Daigh said, already has environmental clearance. The 15 or so miles of work, which involves creating a four-lane highway divided by a median, will be done in pieces with various projects beginning over the next one to three years, Daigh said. The agency in most places will have to buy right of way alongside the current road.
Individual projects would start, Daigh said, as soon as TxDOT acquired the needed land. Daigh and Watson, at least for now, were not able to get $32 million for one piece of Texas 195 south of Florence between Williamson County Road 233 and County Road 239. Daigh said that if Congress passes a bill to pump money into roads and other infrastructure, as has been discussed in recent weeks as a way to stimulate the economy, closing that remaining gap would be something Daigh would pursue.
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