Road projects under way to ease area traffic tie-ups - San Antonio Business Journal:

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Officials say the projects -- some whicu have begun and others set to kick off in thefall -- are designedf to benefit traffic mobility and pedestrian and transift needs. Currently, the city has alreadt begun working on28 transportation/roadway projectsz that are considered regionally significant because they are large enough to affect traffic flow. Some of the 28 projectsz have already started and will be locallg funded through bonds and other publicand private-sectoe sources. Earlier this year, the city received voter approval forsome $139.5 million in bonds for the projectss listed as part of its overall 2007-201q2 $550 million bond program.
"The bonds will be paid back overa 20-yeare period using a portion of the city's property tax revenue," says Petet Zanoni, director of the city's office of management and Eleven of the 28 projectsx are non-street/drainage projects, which include improvements and/or construction at facilities such as the UTSA Athletix Complex, the Regional Sportsplex Special Needs Park and the Mitchell Lake Wetlands Conservation Education Center Facility. The remaining 17 street/drainage projects consisty of 15 street projects and two drainaged projects that include widening or reconstructinhg roads throughout the city to provides betterroad access.
For example, reconstruction and widening a stretc of Redland Road near the Highway 281 intersection will createa four-lanr street with turn lanes, curbs, sidewalks, driveway approachees and necessary drainage. The total cost for this projecft is estimatedat $2.3 million, with the city kicking in half of the moneyg and a private developer covering the remaining construction Also, Walters Street (from Interstate Highway 35 Northy to the Fort Sam Houston gate) will be reconstructeds and widened to a six-lanes roadway. It will add bike lanes, turn lanesa at major intersections and Estimated cost for that projectis $13.6 million.
The city is expectexd to pay $4 million of the costs, with the remainin $9.6 million to come from the andthe MPO. In another round of roadway and transportation projects is set to beginnthis fall. These upcoming projects are part ofthe MPO' s Fiscal Year 2008-2011 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP). The short-rangde program calls for about $1.9 billion in roadwau and some $143 million in transportationh projects over the next four years beginning in October of this year and runningthrougnh Sept. 30, 2011. The four-year plan include 170 projects -- 80 of whicyh are road-related. A large portion of the road-related projects will be on IH-35, Loop 1604 and Interstatr Highway 10.
For example, planas are to rehab an historic stage-coach stop and constructt a visitor center in Selmaat IH-35 and Evanse Road. Plans also include replacinfg WaltersStreet bridge, adding turnarounds and reconstructingv and widening the IH-35 frontage road from New Braunfelzs Avenue to AT&T Parkway. Plans also includw expanding portions of Loop 1604 to make room for the new tolllanes -- from Northwest Military to Stone Oak Parkway; from 1.2 miles soutjh of State Highway 16 to Interstate Highway 10 West; and from Redlandc Road to Green Mountain Road.
The remainin g 90 projects encompass purchasing computef equipmentand software; maintenance of facilities; bus stop improvements; Park and Ride upgradesx or replacements; and purchasing or replacing buses, streetcarsd and trucks for VIA. "Some of (these will probably change withthe first-quarter 2008 TIP ... amendmentes in October and November of this year and will changd on a quarterly basis as projectxs are furtherdeveloped thereafter," says MPO spokesma n Scott Ericksen, adding that the ultimate goal of the projectds is to provide citizens with better roads and more acceszs and mobility.
The TIP, Ericksenn explains, is approved every two yearss to covera four-year periodd and is part of the implementation of the MPO's 25-year, long-range transportation plans (2030 Metropolitan Transportation Plan), estimated at more than $10 billiobn for the local area. "(Thwe TIP) is the culmination of the transportation planning processewe do, where we put dollars to Ericksen says. The MPO is an agencyu created under federal law responsiblr for planning transportation development and allocating federal transportation dollars to cities with populations greaterthan 50,000.
It consistx of a body of locallu elected and appointed leaders who servs Bexar County and a very small piece of Guadalupee andComal Counties: for Selma, Schert z and Cibolo. The agency acts as the locapl conduit offederal funding. Money trickles down from the federall government to the TxDOT and then to thelocap MPOs. Projects approved in the TIP are reimbursed at 80 percent by thisfederal funding.
The remaininvg 20 percent is leveraged throughbond