McALLEN — Funding came from the future for the Texas Department of Transportation’s 23rd Street expansion, a $14 million plan to widen the road to six lanes between the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge and Military Highway.

When it looked like a lack of revenue would keep much-needed highway projects across the state stalled, TxDOT used its voter-approved bonding capacity to finance almost $2 billion in projects in late October.

The 23rd Street expansion was a project TxDOT officials decided simply couldn’t wait.

But unless lawmakers change the agency’s funding in the legislative session beginning Tuesday, Hidalgo County might be waiting a while before any more major mobility projects are green-lighted.

The 23rd Street expansion is the only Hidalgo County road construction project included in TxDOT’s proposed 2009-2019 Unified Transportation Plan, said Jody Ellington, the local district’s director of planning and development.

The plan, a huge financial document compiled every two years, outlines planned TxDOT spending on development, maintenance and construction in the next 11 years.

Over the past two years, the agency revised its revenue projections for new construction from about $7 billion in the 2007 plan to only $3.2 billion in the latest plan.

TxDOT’s Pharr District, a collection of eight counties that include the Rio Grande Valley, took the hit hard. All of the funding for Hidalgo County projects other than 23rd Street expansion disappeared.

An independent group reported earlier this month — in what some interpreted as political maneuvering ahead of a crucial legislative session — that the state’s transportation needs over the next 20 years will exceed $300 billion.

The report comes as the legislators who blasted TxDOT in last year’s sunset review — calling it an “out of control” bureaucracy intent on advancing its own agenda — convene to try to figure out the funding mess.

However it shapes up, it’s going to be a big legislative session for transportation.

“The past few years sort of culminated into a scenario that is going to cause us to examine our transportation system,” said Andrew Cannon, the director of the Hidalgo County Metropolitan Planning Organization, the developer of the county’s long-term transportation plan. “We’ve had sessions where~other things are~focal, but I think this one is going to be all about transportation.”

FUNDING OPTIONS

Immediate relief will come in the form of tolls or taxes.

A long-term solution is more convoluted.

Canon said the Legislature will consider and likely take action on several options that officials have often discussed.

One proposal that has garnered much debate is raising the state’s 20-cent-per-gallon gas tax, which hasn’t been touched since 1991, Canon said. An increase in the state gas tax would mean immediate relief for the state’s highway fund, which was battered by record fuel prices over the summer.

Ending the diversion of about $2 billion — or nearly 25 percent — of gas tax revenue away from roads would also solve some of the problems, said Mario Jorge, TxDOT’s local engineer.

About $1.2 billion in gas tax money goes to fund the Texas Department of Public Safety each year. Lawmakers pledged in August to work this session to return that money to transportation funding.

And then there are the new options.

Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, plans to introduce legislation this session to expand the vehicle registration fee enacted in

Hidalgo and Cameron counties to every county in the state, adding another option for counties trying to fund transportation projects.

In addition to registration fees, legislators could also expand toll projects by extending TxDOT’s option to enter into private-public partnerships; give local governments ways to raise funds through new taxes; and add bonding capacity.

“We do have options,” Canon said. “None of them are painless.”

MOVING FORWARD

The state’s transportation funding shortfall didn’t come as a surprise to Jorge, the local district engineer.

He recalled making a presentation to his district’s metropolitan planning organizations — when the last federal highway bill was passed in 2005 — at which he told them Congress’ reluctance to increase the gasoline tax meant a future shortfall.

That shortfall came in September when the nation's highway trust fund, which sends money to states for construction projects, teetered on insolvency and Congress sent $8 billion to shore it up.

Jorge and other local transportation officials expected future funding problems but few expected their extent.

A combination of low gas taxes, decreased fuel consumption, an emergence of fuel-efficient vehicles, a sputtering economy and increases in inflation and raw material costs created what Jorge called a “perfect storm of a funding crisis.”

“No one could predict how deep the bottom was going to be,” Jorge said. “We’re there now, I hope.”
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Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.