Loop 1604 toll lane funding gets regional OK

The Metropolitan Planning Organization voted to pursue a dozen long-term highway projects, including using tolls to pay for new lanes on a 23-mile stretch of Loop 1604, estimating it would cost drivers $4.10, one-way. Construction wouldn’t happen until 2020 at the earliest. Click on the Phase 1 line (red) to see an artist's rendering of how the toll lanes would be added. The blue line is Phase 2.

Mike Fisher, Express-News

Source: Alamo Regional Mobility Authority

Not a spade of dirt would be turned until 2020, but a regional planning authority took a significant step Monday toward the construction of toll lanes on a 23-mile stretch of Loop 1604, voting to prioritize its funding with 11 other projects.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization also released an estimate that drivers would pay about $4.10 for each one-way trip over the entire proposed stretch between Bandera Road and Interstate 35.

“There is absolutely dread when you have to say the word ‘toll’ in this region,” said Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff after his vote in favor of the MPO funding resolution, which passed on a voice vote. Only a handful of the board’s 21 members dissented.

“I have to oppose this,” Selma City Councilman and MPO board member Kevin Hadas said. “I can’t go back to my constituency and say I supported this.”

“Ditto,” said Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher: “If I support this, I will catch you-know-what when I go home. I have an internal battle here.”

The toll or “managed” lanes, in Texas Department of Transportation parlance, were among 12 traffic projects costing an estimated total of $1.59 billion approved on the MPO resolution, which delineated how the region would use federal funds raised through the gasoline tax that drivers pay at the pump.

The 1604 project would take about $882 million of that, but the revenue from the expected tolls would reduce the funding requirement to about $326 million, officials said.

“We know we will take some political shots, but I would remind people that things can change,” said Wolff, noting that Interstate 10 and U.S. 281 were “always thought of as eventual toll roads, and they’re still free.”

Wolff said the funding approval also was critical to make the Loop 1604 project “shovel ready” in the eyes of a new Congress, which might be called upon to approve hundreds of billions of dollars in highway infrastructure projects promised by President Donald Trump.

Various proponents of the measure told the MPO board that regional traffic planning has not kept up with the area’s enormous growth and that a projected increase of 1.5 million people in the next 20 years required immediate action to relieve congestion.

Some said Monday’s vote should surprise few taxpayers.

“This is nothing new,” said Renee Green, director of public works for Bexar County. “Loop 1604 has been targeted for tolls at least 15 years.”

TxDOT officials say Loop 1604 carries about 145,000 vehicles daily, some 60 percent over its planned capacity, and that without improvements it would be forced to carry some 242,000 vehicles daily by 2045.

“Doing nothing is unacceptable,” said Duane Wilson, president of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “We support all 12 of the projects. Some of them have been held back for years or decades.”

A construction company owner, Charles Poole, who spoke in favor of the proposal, said he moved to the North 1604 area in 2011 thinking it would be a prime location for growth.

“It was,” he said. “But it was a horrible decision (because of the traffic). I’ve now moved to the West Side.”

The first phase of the 1604 project would cover a section from Bandera Road to Redland Road, take about three years to complete and would not be put out for bidding until 2020 at the earliest. The second stretch would extend it to I-35 and would not begin construction until 2027, according to TxDOT documents.

The funding package also includes “improvements and expansions” for I-10, U.S. 281, Wurzbach Parkway, Texas 46, FM 2252, FM 3351, FM 471, and three nontoll projects on Loop 1604.

The MPO’s wish list awaits approval from the Texas Transportation Commission, which is expected to vote on the funding for all 12 projects in March.

bselcraig@express-news.net