State gets green light for study of MoPac
Texas Department of Transportation must give regional planners a say

MoPac Boulevard is headed into territory that could decide how the freeway is changed -- provided the Texas Department of Transportation meets some new requirements it does not like. Hundreds of residents sought for months to halt a federally required environmental study of improving MoPac (Loop 1) until it included provisions designed to protect their neighborhoods near the freeway. Nothing can happen until the study is completed. Now the study can proceed, once the Transportation Department agrees in writing to changes approved Monday night by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. CAMPO must still accept the state's version before the study gets under way. The state is not certain whether it will be able to meet the new requirements, which include giving the regional planning agency a more active role in the federal study than is usual.

CAMPO, which decides how federal and state transportation money is spent locally, briefly faced the prospect of ending the MoPac project altogether Monday but voted to keep working on it. The Transportation Department proposes adding two or four high occupancy vehicle lanes and redesigning some ramps, changes that could require demolition of dozens of homes. CAMPO's ideas include only two HOV lanes and revamped ramps built so no homes are taken. The federal study will take one to two years. No money for construction is available until 2008 at the earliest.

The MoPac project has absorbed CAMPO since March, when the state asked the group to endorse its ideas. Monday night, Bill Garbade, the state's Austin district transportation engineer and a CAMPO member, ripped open an envelope, pulled out a letter and tried to withdraw his request for the group's approval. "Perhaps the time has arrived to move this project and this route back into the local court, from whence it came," Garbade said, referring to the 1960s request by the City of Austin for the state to take over MoPac. His gesture went unheeded. CAMPO members quickly emphasized that they want MoPac to be better equipped to handle expected traffic growth but want better protection for neighborhoods. The meeting was filled with confusion as the 20 members present haggled over competing versions of motions and resolutions, leading to Garbade's complaint that everything was "so convoluted" it took an hour to discern what was being voted on. "I don't know what they want," Garbade said after the meeting, during which he voted against proceeding. "They are going to do what they want anyhow. It really doesn't matter."

Another key decision on the future of MoPac will come in February, when CAMPO is to consider prohibiting construction of Texas 45 South between Interstate 35 and FM 1626 until Texas 130 is open in Williamson and Travis counties. MoPac would be linked to I-35 with that connection, and residents fear heavy traffic increases would result. CAMPO did vote Monday to be more involved than is usual in the Transportation Department study. The group will try to have itself named a cooperator to the study, so CAMPO representatives will be privy to the work. Normally, such groups learn results when the study is completed and released. "Nobody has come up with any reason it can't be done," said Sid Covington, a member of a CAMPO committee on MoPac, who suggested the idea. "It's just never been done before."

A problem with a different highway that proved contentious in the past slipped by with little comment on Monday. Bids to improve Koenig Lane came in 37 percent over budget, with a low bid of $4.9 million. CAMPO had approved $3.6 million. The group voted to add $1.3 million for the project, which will add medians and left-turn lanes to Koenig from Lamar Boulevard to just east of Airport Boulevard. Travis County Commissioner Karen Sonleitner, a CAMPO member, spoke of her "severe displeasure" at the higher cost and wondered afterward, "Are we going to have gotten $5 million of value in such a small stretch of roadway?" But she stayed silent during the voice vote, which passed without an objection. The Koenig work came in over budget once before, almost killing the project. The state needed $1.2 million more in April, but suburban representatives on CAMPO coaxed the entire $3.6 million for Koenig away by a single vote. Austin won the money back in June after extensive politicking.