News
Speeding Up Traffic
February 25, 2011
| Part of Fort Worth is broken: its congested highways. And, the tool to fix it, funding roadway improvements, may be lost. | |
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| We snapped Hillwood Properties SVP and 35W Coalition prezRussell Laughlin on Thursday at the 35W Coalition quarterly membership meeting at Texas Motor Speedway. He has three prospective ?mega deals? totaling about $1B in investments and thousands of jobs. But, he's concerned about the 82nd legislative session and if the Comprehensive Development Agreementsauthority will expire, as it's scheduled to do in August. CDAs allow the state to leverage its public investment in transportation infrastructure projects with private capital. Russell says 35W is not financeable without a managed lane component (when CDAs allow the private entity to foot the cost to develop and contract for a number of years as toll lanes). | |
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| The North Tarrant Express project is the top priority of the coalition; construction began at the end of last year. The I-35W/Loop 820 interchange segment is already underway. The challenge is that the NTE is a multi-phased public/private partnership, which was authorized by the state under CDA legislation. Without the CDA re-authorization, the funding mechanisms to finance the project willcripple the efforts, Russell says. If traffic remains at status quo, the region will lose new deals because other states are making thoseinvestments in infrastructure, he adds. Arizona, in particular, is taking down huge deals by leveraging better infrastructure as well as incentives, but it all starts with transportation, he says. Now, the goal is to deliver the message with urgency to lawmakers in Austin. | |
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| North Hills Hospital CEO Randy Moresi, Tarrant County Precinct 3 administrator Carolyn Sims and commissioner Gary Fickes, and county judge Glen Whitley. The judge tells us that it will be crucial for area leaders to keep the pressure on lawmakers to ensure funding for the 35W project reaches fruition. While $135M has been pledged by the Texas Transportation Commission to fund the NTE, Glen says he won't count on it until the check is written and deposited. |
