By Gene Davis

Friday, 02 December 2011

More than $8.7 million will go to Williamson Co.

WILLIAMSON COUNTY — An ambitious long-term transportation plan for Central Texas that incentivizes the development of highly populated hubs faces a potential detour after community leaders voted to consider distributing federal transportation dollars based on counties’ populations.

Williamson County will receive $8.73 million out of $36.374 million in federal transportation dollars under the plan tentatively approved by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board on a 10-7 vote. Williamson County CAMPO board members will select the proposed transportation projects that will be funded in the county, and the CAMPO board will have final approval under the plan.

Debate between CAMPO board members, which mainly consists of elected officials within CAMPO’s five-county jurisdiction, intensified as they attempted to select which projects should receive federal funding. The process marked a first attempt by the board to apply policy set forth in the 2035 Regional Transportation Plan they approved in 2010.

The 25-year transportation plan requires 50 percent of federal transportation funding to be allocated for transportation projects that support concentrated, mixed-use areas referred to as activity centers by CAMPO and 15 percent of funding for pedestrian/bikeway projects. Federal law requires CAMPO to update its 25-year plan every five years.

Counties and cities covered by CAMPO were able to submit transportation projects for consideration for federal funding. CAMPO staff then assigned each project a score based on safety, mobility, and environmental and economic impact. The score also considered whether the project would apply for activity centers or a pedestrian/walkway project.

The construction of pedestrian and streetscape improvements to the Intermodal Transit and Parking Facility in downtown Round Rock was among the projects that scored high enough for funding and met the activity centers concept under CAMPO’s original proposed plan. The facility currently has 110 parking spaces, a bus loading/unloading area, a transit pavilion, bike racks and lockers, and pedestrian amenities. The proposed plan recommended $640,000 in federal funds to be used to improve the facility.

Objections to the plan

The proposal to fund projects based on how they scored was delayed and then altered after objections from some board members, including Williamson County Commissioner Cynthia Long, over whether the right projects were being selected.

Long and fellow board member Hays County Commissioner Will Conley proposed plans to allocate the federal money to the counties based on their population size. The plan that was approved by the board Nov. 14 would:

• Distribute $1.5 million to CAMPO for CAMPO programs
• Distribute $1 million to each of the five counties covered by CAMPO
• Distribute $960,000 for a Bastrop fund that could help rebuild roads damaged by the fire
• Distribute $16.09 million to multi-county projects to be determined by a joint decision among counties
• Distribute $8 million to fund a freight rail bypass study for the Lone Star Rail District
• Distribute additional funding to each county based on population
• Have projects be selected by CAMPO board members from the respective county

Long said she was concerned with the CAMPO scoring system after a project to extend a bike path on Toll 183A in Cedar Park scored higher than a project to improve Bagdad Road in the same city. Long said the Bagdad Road project would have done a much better job of relieving traffic in the area, though the Toll 183A and not the Bagdad Road project scored higher and was recommended for funding.

“To me, the system and the scoring criteria is completely out of whack when it causes something like that,” she said.

Long added that counties have a better idea than CAMPO’s scoring criteria of what transportation projects are needed. She said the improvements to the Round Rock Intermodal Transit and Parking Facility is still high on the list of possible projects to fund because the city says it is important.

However, allowing counties to decide how to spend CAMPO-allocated transportation dollars could create conflict with the CAMPO 2035 plan’s requirement that 50 percent of federal transportation dollars be spent on the activity centers concept, Travis County Commissioner and CAMPO Board Member Sarah Eckhardt said. She said the geographic funding distribution is a step away from the regional-oriented mindset that CAMPO is supposed to have.

“It might be within the letter of the law to do it, but it’s certainly not in line with the spirit,” she said of the funding plan.

CAMPO’s activity center–based funding approach laid out in the 2035 plan is an attempt to accommodate past and expected future population growth for Central Texas. The population of the five-county region covered by CAMPO increased by 114 percent between 1980 and 2000.

Long said many transportation projects that counties would pursue with their allotment of federal funds would fulfill the vision of the 2035 plan goal by connecting activity centers. Improving connectivity within and between centers was a stated goal in the 2035 plan.

“I think the spirit of the plan would be met, perhaps in a different way,” she said.

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