Southwest Parkway Funding

By Faith Chatham - DFWRCC - August 29, 2009
Funding of Southwest Parkway is still an issues in Texas. Planning for the freeway began in the 1960ies. By the 1990ies it was fully funded. Construction was delayed as some state and county "leaders" "identified it as a good candidate for tolling." As some in Austin began to dream of "creating revenue streams" from some of our public tax-payer financed infrastructure, the citizens of Fort Worth got shafted. A necessary freeway to serve that section of Tarrant county was planned, funded, affordable as a non-toll state highway. With George Bush and Rick Perry in charge, construction was delayed. Local leaders were shown that the only way to get necessary maintenance and expansion of state highways was as private public partnership toll roads. Road maintenance was delayed. Designated highway funds were transferred to other uses in the state budget. Dedicated funds in highway accounts were kept in the state treasury and not appropriated, showing false surpluses while roads all over Texas deteriorated. A crisis in road construction, congestion and air quality was created by planners and elected officials who were "sold on the advantages" of private investments in toll projects. The state and federal highway administration literally turned off the faucet on funding for road and highway and bridge projects to convince local leaders and citizens that there was a crisis in infrastructure maintenance and construction.

Now in 2009 funding of the Southwest Freeway is still being discussed (er red-stamped). Citizens in Fort Worth who paid for the right-of-way with tax money, who paid for the planning with tax money, who paid with their homes, land and businesses and suffered the strain of relocation, will have opportunity to use the Southwest Freeway...that is when they pay a toll.

Yes, it is good that it is nearing completion. It is a crime that those entrusted with the public good chose to rip off the residents of Fort Worth by delaying construction on a fully-funded non-tolled highway because it was "a good candidate for tolling!"

Toll Projects (continued from Minutes of Texas Transportation Commission, Aug. 27, 2009)
b. Tarrant County – Consider the approval of funds to pay certain construction and
right-of-way costs related to the crossing of the Southwest Parkway, a toll project
from I-30 to Altamesa Boulevard in the City of Fort Worth, over the Union Pacific
Railroad’s Davidson Rail Yard in Tarrant County, and to pay a portion of the costs
of a traffic and revenue study prepared for the Southwest Parkway (MO)
By Minute Order 111557 dated October 30, 2008, the commission approved a term sheet authorizing NTTA to develop the Southwest Parkway, subject to NTTA establishing its feasibility. By Minute Order 111889 dated July 30, 2009, the commission approved NTTA’s application for a toll equity grant of $49.87 million to be used to pay for a portion of the right of way and other costs to obtain access to the Davidson Rail Yard. The current order concerns three matters. The first is approval of $45.13 million to be used to pay the balance of the right of way and other costs to obtain access to the Davidson Rail Yard. The payment would be made if NTTA elects not to develop the Southwest Parkway. The second is approval of an amount not to exceed $40 million for the initial construction phase (as provided for in the Formal Agreement of January 2009 with the Union Pacific Railroad) of bridges crossing the Davidson Rail Yard, construction of retaining walls and other structures. The payment would be made provided the department develops the Southwest Parkway. The third is directing the executive director to enter into an agreement with NTTA under which the parties share equally in the costs of the preparation of a traffic and revenue study for Southwest Parkway.

Ft Worth: Protesting Too Much - Who’s really acting the monarch on the Trinity?

By CLYDE PICHT - Fort Worth Weekly - Oct. 31, 2007

Fort Worth Star Telegram business writer Mitchell Schnurman called it “petty politics” and suggested maybe someone forgot to kiss a certain person’s ring.

He was talking about U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson’s recent refusal to include money for Fort Worth’s Trinity Uptown pie-in-the-sky project in a federal water projects bill, intimating that the Dallas congresswoman was acting like a queen.

If so, I have to say, God save the Queen for saving us! And further, I think it is Fort Worth’s own member of Congress, Kay Granger, who has been acting autocratic and undemocratic over this project, not Johnson.

In fact, Fort Worth leaders seem to have become fixated on a rather regal approach to the Trinity River Vision boondoggle, applauding Granger’s efforts to do an end run on the usual congressional appropriations process in order to get this project — which her boy J.D. has been hired to direct — off the ground ahead of other improvements that have been in the pipeline longer. Voters have had virtually no say in the process.

Perhaps Johnson’s actions will give us all the breathing space we need to ask ourselves why we are doing this. If we answer honestly, I think the “nays” will have it. Does Trinity Uptown solve a flooding problem? No. Do we need to create those thousands of jobs to pull us out of a depression? No. Do we need another mass of housing next to downtown? No. Will we realize so much economic gain that our street and drainage problems will be resolved? No. Will contamination from toxic waste products be abated? No. Will the property gained by developers be worth the losses to current property owners through the use of eminent domain? No.

Dallas has its own Trinity River vision. Ten years ago they set out to at least partially alleviate flooding and asked the voters to approve spending. They now want to change direction somewhat, but at least that city is asking for the voters’ approval. Compare that to Fort Worth.

Fort Worth leaders have become starry-eyed over the grand image of Uptown, created by Vancouver urban designer Bing Thom, that has been promoted by the Tarrant Regional Water District and a variety of other groups. The total price tag of $435 million in tax dollars includes $345 million for diversion of the Trinity River and $90 million for economic development of some sort. The price has escalated three times since the plan first surfaced.

The so-called flood control will protect the 800-acre Uptown area only when some of our effective levees are taken down. There is no flooding there now. The canals that Thom considered so essential to a waterside development are not funded and probably never will be. Digging canals requires relocating utilities and intruding on areas of contamination — a very expensive can of worms.

We were told in 2005 that the funding was set and that work could begin as soon as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed the environmental impact statement. We are fast closing in on 2008, and the EIS still isn’t complete, and a new consortium of companies has been hired to plan the construction and refigure the cost.

That new cost figure could be sobering. Other projects started at around the same time — 2005 — are seeing appreciable increases in construction costs. The Omni Hotel started out as a $90 million project and now is expected to cost $170 million. The downtown campus of Tarrant County College should have been priced at $75 million and located somewhere else, but this Trinity Taj Mahal is now coming in at $336 million, with less space than originally planned — and still may end up being moved.

Then, consider how many other economic development projects in this town have been dismal, money-losing failures. The Evans Avenue project, Mercado I, and Mercado II all cost the taxpayers a bunch, and they are still in the doldrums after too many years. Then there is Fort Worth’s finest hour, when somebody convinced a majority of the city council that we should sell certificates of obligation to finance our very own $150 million hotel. Is there anyone out there who thinks for a nanosecond that the city-built hotel would have been of as high a quality as the Omni? Fortunately the citizens revolted, and that albatross flew south.

In the Trinity project, we’re talking about spending half a billion dollars of our money so someone else can profit from that “gorgeous waterfront property.” Schnurman claims that Johnson’s action “has no clear benefit for her or her district.” To the contrary, since it has been documented that the planned bypass channel would increase the potential for flooding downstream, I say the best benefit is no TRV.

Tarrant County Democratic Party chair Art Brender is concerned that Trinity River Vision is a scheme favoring Granger and the Republican Party. That’s not quite accurate. A scheme it may be, but most local Republicans abhor pork-barrel spending and the abuse of eminent domain. On the other hand, they probably appreciate Johnson being concerned about their interests on an issue where their own representative is AWOL.

Picht, a former Fort Worth City Council member, is helping gather signatures for a referendum to cap city spending on the TRV at $143 million unless voters approve an increase. He can be reached at 817-294-0396 or at cpicht@landslideclyde.com

Dallas lawmaker stalls funding for Fort Worth's river project - A Trinity tug of war

By MARIA RECIO - Star-Telegram Staff Writer - Oct. 17, 2007

Much of the area to the northwest of downtown Fort Worth would be redeveloped as part of the Trinity River Vision. The $435-million project would create an urban waterfront on the Trinity, opening it to recreation, green spaces, and residential and commercial development.

WASHINGTON -- For the first time in seven years, Congress has approved a massive $23.2 billion water projects bill that includes years of backed-up requests for flood control projects and improvements to rivers and harbors by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The bill includes funds for an $80 million Johnson Creek restoration project in Arlington, but there is something missing from Tarrant County's wish list: funding for a key aspect of Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision project. That's the city's $435 million showcase effort to redesign itself by creating an urban waterfront on the Trinity River, opening it to recreation, green spaces and residential and commercial development.

The tangled tale involves some political miscalculations, confusion over the changing nature of the project and the always baffling congressional funding process.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, the central figure in the case, has worked tirelessly to promote the project in recent years. But this year she ran into a formidable obstacle: Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, the new chairwoman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee.

The roadblock put up by Johnson is unlikely to stall Fort Worth's project for long. But it's a reality check and a reminder that nothing is certain in Congress and that local opposition to a local project can make things more difficult. Tarrant County Democrats oppose the project, and they are taking their complaints to new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Granger and others pushing for Trinity River Vision are confident that they will prevail and get full funding for Fort Worth's signature project.

Project history

Beginning in 2000, Granger, a former Fort Worth mayor, used her position on the House Appropriations Committee to direct funding, initially in small amounts, for environmental studies on the Trinity River project. Then, in 2004, after a water resources bill collapsed, she bypassed regular channels and obtained congressional authorization of $220 million for the Central City project, which is the Corps of Engineers' name for the flood control work in Fort Worth.

Granger's 2004 move was something of a coup because she succeeded in getting the Central City project "authorized" on an appropriation bill.

Congressional committees are split into authorizing panels, which set policy and overall funding levels, and the appropriations committee, which amounts to check-writers who direct the specific annual amounts that agencies can spend.

Members zealously guard their turf, as Granger discovered this year.

Johnson, who became chairman in January after the Democrats won control of Congress, blocked Granger's request for an authorization for the full cost of the Central City project, which incorporated $27.3 million for a neighboring project called the Riverside Oxbow. Under the plan, flood controls involving costly easements in west Fort Worth could be replaced by diverting water to the 600-acre Riverside Oxbow, which includes a dry bend of the Trinity in east Fort Worth.

But Johnson did not consider the Fort Worth Central City project to be one that was already in the works for Corps funding. Rather, she declared it would be considered a new project.

"We had taken a vote on our committee and unanimously said we would not consider any new projects," Johnson said in an interview. "We'll consider it when we start a new bill."

Johnson said that work will begin shortly on a new bill, assuming that the current water projects bill becomes law. Congress appears to have the votes to override a threatened veto from President Bush, who believes the bill is too costly.

Granger said she talked to Johnson about the Central City project in March, although the Dallas Democrat said, "I wasn't even aware of it until the day we were doing a mark-up," or vote, on the water projects bill.

Help from Hutchison

Stymied on the House side, Granger turned to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who inserted $247 million for the project in the Senate version of the bill -- the amount approved in 2004 plus the $27.3 million for the Riverside Oxbow.

When the bill went to a conference committee this summer to work out the differences between the House and Senate bills, Johnson again opposed the Trinity project and the funding was removed in the final conference even though the overall bill grew from $14 billion in the Senate and $15 billion in the House into a $23 billion projects bill.

"That was a problem on the House side," Hutchison said in an interview. "We definitely tried and Kay [Granger] tried very, very hard to get it in." Neither Hutchison nor Granger was on the conference committee.

Johnson, for her part, said, "I didn't want to add any new projects" and said she had the support of the leaders of her panel in the negotiations.

Johnson was successful in securing funds for her own Trinity River project in the bill: $298 million in authorization for flood control, wetlands and bridge modifications for Dallas' Trinity River Corridor. The Dallas project is separate from Fort Worth's but one House aide said that Johnson was clear "that there would be one Trinity River project" in the bill.

Johnson also did not block the $80 million Johnson Creek project in Arlington.

By Aug. 1, when the House passed the conference report bill on water projects, Granger was already looking ahead to next year's Water Resources Development Act. The conference report did not include the Central City funding and could not be amended on the floor.

In August, Granger brought Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the ranking Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to tour the project area.

"I have a very strong commitment to put it in whatever measure I can," Mica said Wednesday in the Capitol. "I guess there was some conflict with Ms. Johnson." Of the project, he said, "It makes a lot of sense, in my opinion. Hopefully, we can get a meeting of the minds and get it in the next measure."

Granger was upbeat in a recent interview. "It will be in the second WRDA bill," she said of the Fort Worth project.

"I don't consider it a setback," she said. "The next WRDA bill won't be so huge," making it more likely the project could stay in.

As for Johnson, Granger said, "She had a briefing -- absolutely." And the Central City project, said Granger, "is not a new start."

Although Granger stressed that the entire $435 million Trinity River Vision project, which splits costs 50-50 between federal and local sources, will have to be authorized "at some point," she said the Corps will continue to get funding for it through the appropriations process.

"I'm not worried about it," said Granger, noting the project is ahead of schedule. "We're in fine shape. There's no concern."

In the appropriations bills for fiscal year 2008, House-passed bills include $8 million for construction, $1 million for bridge construction and $550,000 for economic development for Central City Fort Worth. The levels will still have to be negotiated with the Senate.

JOHNSON CREEK

The Tarrant County project that did receive funding in the recent water bill is the new Johnson Creek restoration project that has been more than a decade in the works. The project, expected to start soon, will help stabilize creek banks, add trails and other recreational amenities, and a new pedestrian bridge between the new Cowboys stadium and the future Glorypark development. Local officials have said the total cost of the project is expected to be $50 million. But the water bill said the overall cost is $80 million, with as much as $52 million coming from the federal government.

Read more in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

In 1984, Fort Worth driver watched as bridge fell in front of her car

By BUD KENNEDY - Star-Telegram staff writer -Sun, Aug. 12, 2007

Carol Solberg still remembers the day the bridge came down.

But it was in Fort Worth, not Minnesota.

And the falling concrete that 1984 day just missed the Arlington woman's station wagon -- and along with it, her pregnant sister.

Almost a quarter-century later, Solberg can recall every detail of the day she was driving a bakery delivery to Fort Worth when a bridge over Interstate 20 collapsed.

A water truck's trailer came loose and slammed into pillars supporting the Campus Drive bridge near what is now Tarrant County College.

The bridge fell behind the front seat of a Chevy sedan just ahead of Solberg's car. It flattened the back half of the car but missed the driver, Eldora Caffey, 25, of Fort Worth by scant inches. I couldn't reach her last week.

At the time, state highway officials called it the worst bridge collapse in modern Texas history. Since then, eight motorists were killed in the 2001 collapse of the causeway to South Padre Island, and one toddler died in 2002 when a bridge fell onto Interstate 45.

Solberg, now 55 and retired as an owner of Austin Bakery in Arlington, was delivering cakes to a Target store on South Hulen Street on July 11, 1984.

Riding with her was her sister, Patty Conti, who was three months pregnant.

"It didn't come down with a 'Bam!'" Solberg said. "It unrolled, like a ribbon. It just rolled down."

"I remember being scared," she said. Not about the bridge, but "about all the people behind me and whether they could stop."

All she could see ahead was a chunk of bridge, in pieces only a foot above the Interstate 20 pavement. Then she figured out why the bridge didn't drop that final foot.

Somebody shouted: "There's a car under there!"

Rescuers freed Caffey from her half-crushed car and reported that she was only slightly hurt.

"I remember thinking, 'God, I'm really going to die,'" Caffey told reporters.

The runaway trailer came from a water truck owned by a Dallas company and struck the bridge at just the right spot to knock a pier loose, engineers said back then. In 2002, a similar crash caused the fatal collapse of the Texas 14 bridge over Interstate 45.

"One piece fell, then another, then another," Solberg remembered this week, describing the collapse in almost exactly the same words she used in 1984 interviews. The bridge fell from north to south, burying the westbound freeway lanes.

No cars were on the bridge, and no Campus Drive motorists were quoted in the story. As it does today, the bridge linked the college and car dealerships along the north access road of Southeast Loop 820 with shops along the south access road. The bridge wasn't busy until 1987, when a wholesale club went up nearby. The overpass was only 15 years old and was later redesigned and rebuilt as part of freeway widening.

"It doesn't bother me to go through there anymore," Solberg said. "But I still think about it."

The collapse "definitely wasn't anywhere near as bad as in Minneapolis," Solberg said. "Nobody was up on top."

A moment sooner, she said, and "we would have been trapped underneath. There was just a tiny gap between us and that bridge."

Six months later, Patty Conti gave birth to a daughter.

Anna, 22, now has a finance degree from Texas Christian University.

And a story to tell for years to come.

Read more

SH 114 Improvements Cleared Environmentally

TxDOT - June 7, 2007

Planned improvements to State Highway 114 (SH 114) from 0.22 miles west of County Line Road to 0.45 miles west of FM 156, in the city of Fort Worth, has received environmental clearance from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

The clearance allows the state to advance the project into final engineering and to begin property acquisition negotiations which would offer motorists a vital transportation improvement to a congested roadway in Denton County.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) obtained a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) from the FHWA on May 24, 2007.

The approved FONSI was based on an Environmental Assessment submitted by TxDOT that was independently evaluated by the FHWA and determined to “adequately and accurately discuss the environmental issues and impacts of the proposed project.’’

“This is a major milestone in the development of this roadway,’’ said William L. Hale, TxDOT’s Dallas District Engineer. “We now look forward to finalizing negotiations with our local partners to make this project a reality.”

SH 114 is proposed to be widened from a two-lane, undivided rural road to a four-lane, divided facility that follows the existing alignment.

Additional improvements would include the construction of two bridges and nine drainage culverts for an overall estimated cost of more than $30 million.

The project is 4.56 miles long and is tentatively scheduled for construction in 2009.
NEWS RELEASE

FW residents protest over dilapidated street

By DARLA MILES - WFAA-TV - Thursday, June 7, 2007

People in a Fort Worth neighborhood are growing impatient after scheduled repairs to their roads were delayed.

Two dozen residents in the historic Morningside district of south Fort Worth took to the streets this morning in a bid to get the city's attention.

The patchwork is particularly noticeable on Ramsey Street.

Families say they have lived on the street for 46 years and this patchwork was all that has ever been done during that time. They say there has never been any comprehensive paving.

Residents say they have been negotiating with the city since November to get the road improved.

They said they were told street repairs would begin this March but construction hasn't started yet.

Read more and see photos