Wednesday, May 15, 1996

West Texas Cities Lobby For Highway Projects

By MARK BABINECK
Associated Press

LUBBOCK -- Officials and residents of various West Texas communities lobbied
for attention to their transit needs Tuesday night in the wake of a study that
rejected a new interstate in the region.

The Texas Department of Transportation held its final public
comment hearing in Lubbock before presenting to the Texas
Highway Commission a study that promotes improvement of
existing traffic routes, but no new interstates.
Ross Jones of the Fort Stockton Economic Development Corp. said that even
though some people think his city is so far west ``we import our own
tomcats,'' it can be a valuable link to western Mexico.

Taking that a step further, Midland-Odessa officials lobbied
for their vision of a trade corridor to the Mexican Pacific
coast, which they say would make West Texas a gateway to the
Far East and Pacific Rim.

Eastern markets are the only additions ``that will make a
significant change'' in Texas' world trade position, Jones
said.

Others were more blunt.

``I'm sure that after you give it further study, you'll show
your intelligence and see the westernmost corridor has the most
potential,'' State Rep. Buddy West, R-Odessa, told study
engineers.

Listening to the speakers were Pete Jacobs, senior project
engineer for Dallas-based HDR Engineering Inc., and state
project manager Peggy Thurin. Their two-year study found that
no route leading south from Lubbock or north from Amarillo
demands a full-fledged freeway.

Since state highway funds can support only about 40 percent
of current projects, work on the major West Texas routes in the
study is at least four years away, Ms. Thurin said.

Improvements on the following existing routes will be
considered:
--Lubbock through Lamesa on U.S. 87, crossing between Midland
and Odessa on Texas 349, ending east of Fort Stockton.
--Lubbock through Lamesa, Big Spring and San Angelo on U.S.
87, ending at Junction.
--Lubbock through Sweetwater on U.S. 84, then to San Angelo,
ending at Junction.
--Amarillo through Pampa on U.S. 60 to the Oklahoma border.
--Amarillo through Dumas on U.S. 87 to the Oklahoma border.

The only north-south freeway in the region is Interstate 27,
which runs between Lubbock and Amarillo. Most of the roads
along the proposed routes are four-lane, divided highways,
though San Angelo remains the nation's only city without
four-lane access to an interstate.

The results of the study met with approval in Abilene.

``That's what we asked them to do from the very beginning,'' said Bill
Senter, chairman of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce's transportation
committee. ``We feel like this is a good thing.''

Two people from Colorado City attended the meeting ``to get an update on
what's going on,'' said Nancy Sullivan, director of the Mitchell County
Economic Development Board.

Colorado City is close enough to both Big Spring and Colorado City to still
be considered as a distribution point for increased truck traffic.

``It's not like we would dry up and blow away,'' Sullivan said.
San Angelo city officials stressed an easy solution is the
improvement of a 26.4-mile stretch between Sterling City and
Big Spring. That project was labeled ``imperative'' in a
statement issued by State Rep. Robert Junell, D-San Angelo.

San Angelo Mayor Dick Funk said the city ``desperately
needs'' efficient access to the region's two east-west
freeways, I-20 to the north and I-10 to the south.

The study said that the route from Lubbock to Junction via
Sweetwater had the most potential for a freeway based on a
cost-benefit analysis. Similarly, the U.S. 87 route north of
Amarillo was considered far more important than the one through
Pampa.

But a ``single freeway corridor does not efficiently address
the region's travel needs,'' the study concluded.