Rough draft of highway loop design finished

WESLACO -- It took five years and $3 million to draw a squiggly square representing how the Hidalgo County's first highway loop may look.

The Hidalgo County Regional Mobility Authority, an independent governmental agency tasked with finding ways to speed up critical transportation projects, approved the tentative route Tuesday night after eliminating three other options the public reviewed in May.

If everything goes as the authority plans, ground will be broken on the first segment -- from south Pharr to just north of Peñitas -- in about a year and a half. Construction on that 60-mile stretch should wrap up in 2013.

The agency has $456 million in bonds to sell to finance that portion of project but has yet to line up the other $160 million needed to complete it. The authority expects to iron out how much the entire loop will cost and how to pay for it by summer 2009.

By the end of this year, meanwhile, it plans to conduct more public meetings and draft environmental studies and complete traffic and engineering reports before finalizing the highway's path around the outskirts of the county.

While the authority received roughly 177 public comments during an initial round of open houses in May, only one person spoke at Tuesday's meeting, asking for a closer look at the western segment of the planned loop.

Forrest Runnels, a representative of Edinburg real estate firm EIA Properties Ltd., said a roughly seven-mile stretch of highway currently planned without ramps for "reasonable commercial access" would lower the value of the land the company owns.

Runnels also questioned if the project was actually going to be constructed, since the authority hasn't yet secured financing to pay for it all.

Dennis Burleson, chairman of the mobility authority, said the land is mainly ranch property and the highway design could support overpasses if growth called for it.

Current estimates put the cost of the initial segment -- which represents about two-thirds of the overall 87-mile-long project -- at about $643 million to construct.

Burleson said that figure includes land acquisition costs for the remaining 27 miles, which consists of an eastern segment extending north from the Donna area and connecting to U.S. Highway 281 in Edinburg. That portion is the final segment scheduled for construction.

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Jackie Leatherman covers Hidalgo County government and general assignments at The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4424.