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TxDOT advances border highway study along Rio Bosque [1]
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Date: 2024-12-05
The Texas Department of Transportation is in the process of choosing a concept to extend the César Chávez Border Highway in El Paso’s Lower Valley without a second round of public comment as previously planned.
The transportation agency presented three alternatives at public meetings in May for its Border Highway East Corridor Study. After holding a first round of public comment, TxDOT scrapped a second round of public comment that was scheduled for the end of this year or early 2025, the agency recently confirmed to El Paso Matters.
The study will not have additional public meetings because it received many comments on the highway’s possible impacts to Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, TxDOT spokesperson Lauren Macias-Cervantes told El Paso Matters. Residents worry about how the proposed highway extensions would affect Rio Bosque, a city park near Socorro and one of only two wetlands in El Paso.
The Border Highway East Corridor encompasses part of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Southeast El Paso, Socorro, Clint, San Elizario, Fabens and Tornillo. The area has been beset with traffic congestion as El Paso’s development sprawls east. Bottlenecks at the railroad crossings in the Lower Valley have exacerbated the problem.
Eduardo Calvo, executive director of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the congestion stems from land development happening faster than transportation infrastructure. Transportation projects take a much longer time to develop, he said. The El Paso MPO is a federally funded group that oversees long-term transportation planning in El Paso County and parts of southern New Mexico.
“That’s one of the disconnects that’s happening everywhere, the disconnect between transportation decision making and land-use decision making,” Calvo said. “Municipalities have zoning powers, but developers and private property owners are really the ones who are driving growth patterns.”
Macias-Cervantes stressed that the concept is not final. TxDOT is still in the early planning phase and has not yet initiated the project, which would kick off a more in-depth environmental analysis and review of alternatives – including the possibility of not extending the highway.
Residents urge prioritizing environment, public transit
The study received more than 100 public comments in forms, emails, letters, voicemails and surveys, according to a summary report published by TxDOT.
An El Paso Matters review of the comments showed more than half mentioned protecting the Rio Bosque wetlands. Commenters questioned the potential highway’s impact on air pollution, water access, climate, plants and animals, though they were not all opposed to roadwork in general to alleviate traffic.
One of the three concepts shows an elevated highway that would hover over the wetlands. Another concept shows the highway’s legs constructed on the edge of the wetlands.
A painted stone left behind at Rio Bosque Wetlands Park urges visitors to protest a planned highway in the area. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
“Improving mobility should not come at the expense of the ecosystems in place,” wrote commenter Mariana Carrasco in an email. “With climate change on the rise, the last thing we need to [do] is expedite the destruction of nature.”
Lois Balin, an urban wildlife biologist, recommended a No-Build Alternative in one comment.
“The alternatives that parallel the Riverside drainage canal will greatly disturb the wildlife, especially the birds,” Balin wrote. “Even if elevated, the noise from traffic and the pollution will disturb them and anything elevated will be a death trap for any birds flying into the park.”
Wetland ecosystems once flourished along the Rio Grande until damming, paving and developing altered the river’s movement. Efforts to recreate the Rio Bosque wetland began in the 1990s with the goal to bring back habitat that was lost when the federal government constructed a concrete canal.
Various entities, including the federal government, city of El Paso and University of Texas at El Paso, invested more than $2.5 million into the Rio Bosque wetlands by 2012, according to a summary by former park manager John Sproul, who retired in August but will still be involved with the park.
Aside from being a recreation site with walking trails, the park provides a home to a diverse array of flora and fauna, including more than 200 species of resident and migratory birds, plus mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects.
John Sproul, manager of Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, stands over one of the original Rio Grande channels with the park on May 3, 2024. The channel is now fed by runoff from El Paso Water. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
One commenter described Rio Bosque as an “outdoor classroom” – volunteers regularly host guided walks and class trips, while students from El Paso Community College and UTEP conduct research there.
“For too long, our species has been degrading the natural environment of the river Valley,” Sproul wrote. “Rio Bosque represents an effort to reverse that trend. To compromise the substantial progress that has been made in this regard at the park is unacceptable.”
Read more The quest to save El Paso’s diminished wetlands Environmentalists want to protect Rio Bosque Wetlands Park in El Paso, but the Texas Department of Transportation may extend the border highway along the forest to ease traffic concerns.
More than 15 comments mentioned the need for better public transportation in El Paso, such as adding a light rail. This summer, the city of Socorro ended its agreement with El Paso Area Transportation Services to launch its own bus system.
El Paso’s population growth has flattened in recent years, driven in part by a decline in births, slowing immigration and people moving out of the county. But El Paso’s stagnant population continues to spread farther out, leading to a sprawling, car-centric layout with limited public transit connectivity.
“One of the things we are trying to do is reverse trends … to make our growth more sustainable,” Calvo said. “When you have a sprawling pattern like we have now, public transportation is not efficient. That’s why everyone ends up driving. It’s sort of like a vicious cycle.”
Concern over heavy traffic, loss of homes
Even if TxDOT decides against a potential highway extension, the state and relevant stakeholders still need to address congestion in the study’s area, Macias-Cervantes said at a May public meeting. The agency received dozens of comments voicing support of a project if it would reduce traffic.
“San Elizario esta creciendo mucho,” Luz Elena Caro wrote in Spanish on a comment card. “Es bueno muchas casas nuevas pero el trafico de la Socorro esta muy pesado en horas de trabajo y llegando a tu casa. Es mucho tiempo para llegar en la mañana a Isleta con nuestras citas de doctor o ajunto y que navegar.”
“San Elizario is growing. It’s good to have lots of new homes, but the traffic at Socorro is real heavy during work hours and going back home. It takes a lot of time in the morning to get to Ysleta doctor appointments.”
A traffic analysis by TxDOT projects a 5% decrease in traffic on Interstate 10 and a potential 60% decrease on Socorro Road if the highway extension is constructed alongside all potential interchanges and extensions of local roads, such as Nuevo Hueco Tanks Road and Tiwa Boulevard.
A member of the audience listens to speakers during a forum sponsored by the Community First Coalition on the proposed renovations for the Bridge of the Americas, Saturday, June 24. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Luz E. Ramirez wrote on a comment card that the project is needed to make the work commute faster and to address commercial traffic from the ports of entry.
“Socorro Rd. is very congested both in the AM and PM,” Ramirez wrote. “Aside from that it would help the flow of commercial vehicles.”
TxDOT projects an increase in international trade across the Bridge of the Americas and Zaragoza bridges, but a federal project to renovate BOTA could affect the potential border highway extension.
El Paso City Council and County Commissioners support the federal government’s preference to remove commercial trucks from BOTA, though estimates suggest this would increase passenger vehicle traffic going northbound. The incoming Trump administration may also alter current BOTA plans.
Some commenters voiced concern over losing their homes or farmland. TxDOT will determine which properties will be affected when a specific concept is chosen, according to the agency’s response in the public meeting summary.
“Once a specific alignment has been identified, TxDOT will follow state and federal guidelines in working with affected property owners regarding impacts to their properties,” the response reads.
Farmers comment on a TxDOT proposal to build a highway in the Rio Bosque and Socorro area, May 2, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
What’s next for Border Highway East Corridor?
The transportation agency plans to publish the study’s final report in summer of 2025 with the chosen concept, which it refers to as the “technically preferred alignment.” The transportation agency has not identified funding yet and the entire 20-mile highway extension, if initiated, could take 40 to 50 years to complete.
The proposed concept will be similar to the three concepts shown to the public earlier this year, but “will be modified as much as possible to reflect the comments that we received during the public meetings held in May of 2024,” Macias-Cervantes said.
TxDOT plans to meet with groups in the study’s affected area by late 2025, Macias-Cervantes said. The agency’s list of stakeholders include the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, city and tribal leaders and El Paso Water.
El Paso Water, which supplies water to Rio Bosque, opposes the highway concepts. In May the board voted in favor of placing a conservation easement on the park. The utility company also leases land near the park to Jobe Materials, which is establishing a permanent concrete plant.
A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement to limit the use of land for conservation purposes. The easement could influence TxDOT’s plans, but would not block the transportation agency from moving forward with a potential highway extension. TxDOT’s eminent domain, the power to seize private property, would supersede the utility’s conservation easement, according to the Texas Land Conservancy.
The Border Highway East Corridor remains early in the planning phase. Any project would still need to go through the National Environmental Policy Act process, which reviews if projects will have significant effects on the environment. The NEPA process includes public participation.
Many transportation projects are competing for federal funding, but the Border Highway East Corridor is a critical area, Calvo said.
“The more we wait, the more complicated it’s going to be,” he said. “With more houses and development, it’s going to be more painful to acquire more properties when TxDOT decides to do something. We should not let it sit for too long.”
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2024/12/05/el-paso-border-highway-rio-bosque-study-moves-forward/
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