The City of League City FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
300 W. Walker May 18, 2010
League City, TX 77573
Contact: Kristi Wyatt
281-554-1025
FM 518 Bypass Public Meeting Set for June 10th
The City of League City will hold a public meeting on June 10th at 7:00 p.m. at the League City Council
Chmabers to address citizen questions and concerns regarding the FM 518 Bypass Project. The project is
intended to help alleviate traffic congestion at the Five Corners, one of the region’s most congested
intersections. The meeting, which was originally scheduled for May 27th, has been postponed to allow the
City to gather additional data.
City Manager Marcus Jahns has set up an internal working group to address community concerns regarding
the project. “Moving forward, we plan to meet with key project partners to ensure that we improve mobility
while being sensitive to all concerned,” said Public Works Director, Rich Oller, who is leading the project.
Oller is also coordinating the flow of information with a citizen group that is being assembled.
Key questions regarding the project, which has been in the planning process for nearly 10 years, revolve
around environmental and neighborhood issues as well as cost-benefit analyses of the chosen route. These
questions and others are to be addressed at the June 10th meeting. Information concerning the 518 Bypass
Project, as well as this meeting, can be found under the FM 518 Bypass Project button on the homepage of
leaguecity.com. Announcements of this meeting and other FM 518 Bypass public meetings will also be made
through the City’s Blackboard Connect phone, email and text system. Residents can sign up for the system on
leaguecity.com to ensure they receive notice of upcoming meetings.
FM 518 Bypass Project Public Meeting
June 10, 2010
7:00 p.m.
Council Chambers, 200 W. Walker
Here is the link to the information page on the city website about the project:
http://www.leaguecity.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=522
19 comments:
Some things to consider,
Is the current bypass plan still relevant given that NASA contracts will be ending or changing, and contractors will unfortunately lose their jobs and have to find new jobs thereby creating a change traffic patterns that wasn't considered when the bypass concept was created?
Taking the bypass off the table for discussion purposes, how much effect will the new Education Village affect morning and afternoon traffic at 5 Corners?
Would a 96 bypass to 45 perhaps be of greater benefit for the dollar?
Shouldn't we take into consideration an impending lunar eclipse?
Give me a break, will ya? The Glen Cove HOA says "we really need this to pass and ... traffic is not going to get better if the City is not allowed to make [this] progress. There is a group against it and we need to support our council as they try to help move forward..."
Jeff Hagen reiterated: "...this has become a very contentious subject..."
Please, let's not overstate objections to this necessary project in progress. We have spent ten years listening to and trying to address every concern. The vast majority know and agree that we need this by-pass. Even Pat Hallisey and I can agree; what more do you want?
There will always be new people who move into the neighborhood yesterday or tomorrow, who have their own self interests that they will place ahead of the needs of all. Been there, done that. We listened, and we considered.
Now there can be only one legitimate question left unanswered: When do we start? To that end, let us confine the discussion to Phase I of the by-pass project. There is no need to address Phase II or Phase III at this time, as they are not integral or necessary parts of Phase I.
Now can we just "git 'er done"?
Paul Moratto
Paul,
It's simple. There's a siginificant event occuring over the next several months that might render the bypass obsolete before construction begins.
Getting it done to get it done is folly and a waste of money. Folks on the East side should try sitting in westside traffic (or worse trying to get out of westside neighborhoods onto 518) to understand that 5 corners, the pain that it is, is not the only pain. Getting it done because it's determined that the need will still exist is valid.
It's not a difficult question to answer, so let's do the due diligence and get it answered before we have yet another example of LC wasted spending (this time courtesy of TxDOT) on our hands.
Revised statement regarding
FM 518 ByPass
From Scott Freudenburg
President GCPHOA
Hello Neighbors,
Need to correct my previous email. After reviewing the data available so far, it appears the Bypass may do more harm than good.
______________________
My comments:
I believe a current traffic study will show a reduction in traffic.
BHL - Do you think the Education Village will increase north south traffic at five corners?
Personally, I think the state should be pressured to eventually fix the problem. After all it is the intersection of three farm-to-market roads. The city does not have the expertise nor funds to complete this project.
First step - a comprehensive traffic study and one is proposed on tonites council agenda.
Paul,
It's my guesstimate that Education Village will have a small effect, I'm guessing about a decrease of 5%at the most. But I'll be honest and admit that I haven't compared school boundaries to determine where the deltas are.
I'm fairly confident that the NASA problem will bear a more significant impact on the order of 30-40%. As time marches on, I suspect that traffic pattern will shift from folks trying to get onto 270 in the morning heading to their NASA contract jobs to folks driving straight thru 518 to get to 45 and their new jobs.
Then it becomes a question of how many folks are willing to take a 5 corner bypass to get to NASA pkwy and jump onto the NASA bypass. That's a fairly big detour, and I'm not sure how much time would be saved by taking it.
It's a conundrum to be sure and I wish it wasn't.
I totally agree it's TxDOTs responsibility. It's a shame they designed such a stupid intersection in the first place. Perhaps it's better if they blow up a few buildings along 270 S of 518 and redirect the SSH portion of 518 elsewhere. (Speaking tongue in cheek to show what I think of this whole mess)
I had to get a couple of items cleared up before I could add the following information.
The citizen's group which the city's notice states that Director of Public Works Rich Oller has convened for detailed consultation regarding this matter presently consists of Dan Becker, Kim Osborne, Jon Osborne, and myself. I will do my best to understand and relay any questions, but the best opportunity for public insight into this matter will be the upcoming public meeting at city hall Thursday evening.
I apologize in advance that I have been called away on business and will be unable to attend this meeting myself. The other citizen's group members should be there.
Jeff Hagen
P. Moratto - "We have spent ten years listening to and trying to address every concern.
You're confusing the addressing of traffic problems for years with the addressing of THIS solution. Not to mention Public Works Director Rich Oller just said Tuesday in reference to the city hiring Occam to conduct a traffic study and traffic count to identify the best solution:
“Honestly we didn’t have any of those numbers on how we generated the design we currently have,”
“We’re going to back up and do our due diligence to make sure we have analytical numbers to support what we’re trying to do.”
Kinda hard (for most) to claim every concern has been addressed when the city's public works director and city engineer both admit there has been no study and evaluation of alternatives to this solution.
How long has Murphy been the CE?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's still like I said. Exactly what I feared and expected has happened, and this illustrates why we've been spinning our wheels in the ditch for ten years, getting nowhere.
Last night, I had a nice chat with councilmen [who might wish to go unnamed here], about a number of things, but notably about the FM270 by-pass. It seems that the only people objecting to it now are a small band of malcontents down on Enterprise Road. Their objection basically amounts to the familiar old "not in our backyard." They cite mainly environmental issues, which they cannot back up. We've done the studies, and we've got the EPA report. We're clean.
It's ironic, because I have been wondering for a few years now how this handful of people who moved in after the by-pass project was already on the drawing board have been able to get away with so much disruption of the creek's environment themselves without USACE coming in and stopping their development.
But I get the feeling that the city might be scared of another lawsuit, and is ready to start looking at alternatives to the by-pass now. They include one or more traffic circles, the main one to be built at the five point disaster. We would be looking at eminent domain, to take out at least the gas station, mattress business and CVS drugs, to make room. A can of worms. They also include looking at Jeff's big idea for building another highway, connecting NASA Road, at Space Center Boulevard (near the Hilton), to Enterprise Road on our side. It might be funny to see the faces on the Enterprise crowd if we did that.
So it looks like my worst fear is coming true. Get ready for another ten years and endless stream of more money down this black hole. Y'all just go on ahead without me, and I'll catch up to you later. Your "big event" on the west side or NASA or somewhere else is not going to fix the problem at Ground Zero, the five point disaster.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's still like I said."
uh...no...not so much, it's actually exactly the opposite of what you said. You said every concern had been addressed. Obviously now, that's not the case.
That's great that you "had a nice chat" with your unnamed council member and he told you about how it's just a "small band of malcontents down on Enterprise Road". The Mayor referred to that "small band" by saying "We've never had this many people turn out for anything," So I guess it's all just a matter of who you talk to. Your continued attempts to speak for "the majority" of league city is duly noted, and equally obtuse.
"We've done the studies, and we've got the EPA report. We're clean. "
Interesting, do you think you could get me a copy of this EPA report that say's it's all good to go? Good luck, (there is no such study/report)
You seem very vocal in support of this bypass, it's also pretty obvious that you're either ill-informed or uninformed. You might try digging a little bit about the subject before chastising those that have made themselves informed on the matter, all because it's just too inconvenient for you to sit at a red light.
I suspect the current council and Mayor after making themselves more informed on what all has transpired (or not actually transpired) in the planning of this project, realized it was time to order some studies that they had previously thought/claimed had been done.
I also suspect the 'unnamed councilmen' you spoke with has this written on the front page of his website:
"My pledge to you, the citizens of League City, is that when I am elected to Council, no project will get my vote until every question has been asked and answered. "
With any luck he'll hold true to that pledge. We'll see....
Okay so hold on. If it is true that the city in fact has not done the proper studies then someone should be holding the engineering's feet to the fire. I was at the meeting where they said they had the reports, just not with them. If I remember they said they were at the library. I suppose that I will find out at the meeting tonight what is going on.
It was three councilmen, not one. The term "malcontents" was my own, not theirs. Those people weren't around, or weren't party to previous discussions, but have spoken up only recently; they hardly represent the diverse crowd of people who came to the meeting last night. As this drags on (and on, and on), more like them will keep surfacing.
The EPA studies, soil testing and results were necessary to determine if the canal contained hazardous materials before it could be filled in for the bypass.
I don't believe I purported to speak for anyone but myself. I don't need to. The majority have said they want traffic relief; it's main priority. I am not significantly impacted or inconvenienced by the five point disaster myself, but have seen that we need traffic relief there within a reasonable amount of time. Ten years is not very reasonable, even for a public works project. We are not talking about a trans Texas corridor superhighway here. But the plan for even a modest project like this one can get so screwed up that it may not take any more objections to kill it.
Like Mr. Edelman, I am concerned that no formal traffic studies on the bypass have been done to date. However, bypasses DO WORK: the NASA bypass, the Highway 35 bypass in Alvin to name just two local ones. They simply bypass congestion; in civil engineering jargon, a connector corridor relieves a flow bottleneck. The burden of proof would be on the opponents of the bypass to show it doesn't work.
The environmental objections strike me as hypocritical. By tearing down the bypass, the "no action" option becomes more likely. Cars will continue to gridlock at that intersection (been there, done that), thereby burning gas and creating smog.
The only con argument that I agree with is indeed the one "not in my backyard"! Amazingly, I haven't seen it yet! (Real names and written words only, please)
Chuck,
Were you at the meeting?
Did you see the presentation?
Paul,
Please post an internet link to it. I've seen a map of the bypass, but no written analysis.
Me too. Jeff is more well read than many on details of the plan, so I hope he will be back here with something to say.
Correction: Soil testing to satisfy EPA was done on the fill dirt we were offered, not on the canal itself. The canal never had contents other than hot water in it.
Would the by-pass displace or relocate wildlife in the canal today? Sure. So?
I have been out of town on business and unfortunately missed the meeting.
The citizens advisory committee is working on a position statement, so I won't go into details just yet.
Chuck, the short answer to your question is that the bypasses in Webster and Alvin bypass entire communities and many intersections in a manner that accommodates through traffic. The proposed '518 bypass' cuts off only a single intersection and does that only for one direction of turning traffic, not through traffic. It is not an analogous situation.
The biggest question right now is that the plan as proposed may not effectively address the problems that it was intended to address. It has become apparent that the necessary work to determine the effectiveness of this proposed solution was not adequately completed to date and does not address present conditions. If the '518 bypass' will not solve the problem well enough to justify the costs, then it should not be done. This question was the central topic at the public meeting Thursday night.
The city has posted a lot of information here:
518 Bypass Information
and details here:
Details of the 518 Bypass Information
The video of the meeting will be replayed here:
leaguecitycouncilvideos
although I don't think it is available yet.
They are also replaying the video on channel 16. (The current rerun just ended a few minutes ago.)
I encourage everyone to review the information the city has made available and especially to watch the video of this meeting.
Jeff Hagen
The channel 16 air times for the traffic meeting are 12:39 p.m. & 8:39 p.m., just after the council meeting reruns. The times are also posted on the city's 518 bypass web page now.
Jeff
Thanks for the links. I see data that I hadn't seen before, but still analysis with written words is absent. I would like to see an executive summary giving the recommended traffic alleviation for the five corners intersection, and the reason(s) for the recommendation. I would also like to see a supporting written (words and paragraphs, not slides and charts) analysis discussing the pros and cons of each option. Cost must be a factor in this analysis. In short, I still haven't seen any good reports about the 518 bypass, or good newspaper articles for that matter.
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