TxDot Update

was this Monday's speaker.  He told us that today we are facing a reduction in funding for highway construction. 

FM 365, the two-lane highway from Hwy 69 to West Port Arthur, is scheduled for expansion to 4 lanes with a bridge over the railroad.  Every thing is cleared except the funding.  No date for construction has been announced. 

Hurricane Ike lelf 100 thousand cubic yards of debris on our area roads.  TxDot has been tasked with its removal and is managing to contracts for this.

The swing bridge between Texas and Louisiana is being replaced because it has been moved several inches by both Hurricane Rita and Ike.  It will be 65 feet high (higher than any boat in the Port Arthur Marina).

The Trinity River Bridge near Anahuac is being replaced.  This will give three lanes on both the east and west bound roads.  It should be completed in late 2010.  We will eventually have a three-lane road from Winnie to Houston.  This will leave the Winne to Beaumont section to be done sometime in the future.

The highway from Beaumont to Highway 62 is behind schedule at this time.

The 2030 Committee has projected that Texas will need to spend $313 billion dollars to have the highway infrastructure that will be needed.  Unfortunatley a great part of this is funded through fuel taxes and our automobiles are becoming more fuel effecient.  Something will have to be done.  Toll roads and increasing fuel taxes are in our future.

In answere to a final question Marc said that he doubted that highway 87 from Sabine Pass to High Island will ever be replaced.