Highway shortfall estimate skyrockets

Five highways would cost $2.5 billion, TxDOT says. Without tolls, plan could be as much as $1.7 billion short

August 14, 2007

By Ben Wear AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

The gap between the $2.5 billion cost of five potential tollways in Austin and the money on hand could be more than three times the previous estimate, officials said Monday.

The huge change comes from needing money for about 70 percent of project costs instead of about a quarter because of cuts in government spending and cost increases. That could alter the calculus as the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board moves toward an October decision on which of the proposed highway projects might have to be tollways.

Bob Daigh, the Austin district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation, said in July that the gap between available tax money and the cost of building or expanding U.S. 290 East, U.S. 183, Texas 71 East, Texas 45 Southwest and the Oak Hill "Y" was about $500 million.

On Monday, he told the CAMPO board that the void is $1 billion to $1.8 billion, depending on how badly federal funding falls off in the next few years.

"It's a bigger hole than we thought we were in," said state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, chairman of the CAMPO board.

What changed?

The cost of some of the roads, for one thing.

Daigh now says that building elevated expressways with frontage roads at the Oak Hill convergence of U.S. 290 and Texas 71 would be $411 million. The earlier estimate was $277 million, and advocates for a ground-level parkway (with no frontage roads) argue that it could be done for less than $100 million.

The cost for the Texas 71 East project increased $150 million, to almost $1 billion, for building a multilevel interchange with U.S. 183 and building express lanes and frontage roads from Riverside Drive to Texas 130.

The main difference, however, came from the state Transportation Department headquarters. Daigh said he was told last week that the state could not guarantee that any of the estimated $825 million for right of way, moving utility lines and design of the projects would be available from the state.

Congress, as part of a nationwide move, has withdrawn $666 million of federal money previously allocated to Texas, and more cuts are expected in the coming months and years.

Watson, who took over the CAMPO board when he became a senator in January, has been holding public meetings this year to tease out the real costs and available options for the road projects.

Introduction and quick passage by CAMPO of a similar toll road plan in 2004 caused a sustained public uproar, particularly over charging tolls on roads already under construction.

CAMPO members now say they will not toll all lanes on completed sections of U.S. 183 and Texas 71, though the possibility remains that one lane in each direction could be a "managed lane" with tolls.

Next week, Daigh will outline the possible funding and toll scenarios for the CAMPO board. CAMPO will hold four community meetings on the plan late this month, and the board will hold a public hearing Sept. 10.

The board is scheduled to vote on the plan Oct. 8