TXDOT consults developers, not City of El Paso

City wanted walkable boulevard

Jay Blazek Crossley, Jun 28, 11.

The Texas Department of Transportation left the City of El Paso out of discussions about a proposed loop road around the metropolitan region and instead consulted developers and land owners who stand to benefit from the decision to increase land values and encourage sprawl with a proposed loop road, according to emails obtained through a FOIA request by the El Paso Times.

City officials and representatives were brought into the decision making process long after private interests and too late to change the plan, according to the El Paso Times and Texas Watchdog:

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.

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“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?”

The City of El Paso recently passed a comprehensive plan calling for walkable boulevards, smart growth, and implementation of a Bus Rapid Transit system, but City Council Members expressed that these alternatives were not realistically considered by TXDOT or the Texas Transportation Commission:

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.