A lot of the discussion at Monday night’s transportation meeting held at the Kyle public library revolved around the condition of the roads currently being repaired/reconstructed as part of the 2013 bond package. One attendeee said one of these roads was in such bad shape she is forced to drive on it upside-down (slight exaggeration) and, by gum, she wants that fixed right now.
So after the meeting was over, I asked Mayor Todd Webster what is it the public should know about the progress to date on these roads.
"We know the community expects those roads to be built as quickly as possible and we’re doing everything we can do to get those roads built as quickly as possible," the mayor said. "I fully expect construction to start on Goforth when school’s out, but we have to deal with right-of-way issues.
"The second message is that there are things involved in building a road that are not necessarily beyond our control, but they impact it. Property owners alongside those roads have a right to just compensation for giving up their property to build them. So when you widen roads and you move utilities, that takes time. I wish we were further along. I’ve been here (in office) eight months and the truth is we shaved a year off the process and got them back within the plan budget.
"Another thing: the bonds were sold as a sequential series — we’ll build this one first, then this one second, this one third. They prioritized the ones that needed repairs the worst. But we’re working on all of them simultaneously. That’s different than what a lot of people expected of us. That’s going to have a tax impact, but that’s what I believe and that’s what the council believes the community wants. Expediting the building of those roads is a priority. But there is going to be a tax impact because we’re going to have to sell the bonds all at once rather than over a period of time. The good news is by doing that the inflationary costs of building the roads is less. We get more roads for our money by doing them faster. If we had done it the other way we wouldn’t have received as much road for the money we are spending.
"The most frustrating thing is just watching it and it can’t move fast enough for me either. I live there. I’m surrounded by all three of those roads (Goforth, Bunton Creek, Lehman). My car takes the same beating as their’s does every single day. Every single day I drive Bunton. Every single day I drive Goforth. I’m not on Lehman all the time but I travel Lehman quite a bit.
"We’ve looked at everything to fix Bunton. But the problem is what happens if you spend $50-60,000 on a temporary fix and then you’re having to tear all that up as part of the bond repairs. It’s a catch-22. I even talked about what if we closed it. I definitely don’t think the road is safe and I would like to do something. Whether we do something temporary to Bunton hinges on whether things fall into place to get that road done. If it looks like it’s going to take longer to get Bunton done because of things like right-of-way acquisition and utilities — if it looks like there’s going to be some unanticipated delay in getting that road built — I’ll bring forth some proposals to make some temporary fixes to it. But they will be temporary. They could be there for six months and then get torn up."
So there you have it.
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