The bidding process for a State Highway 48, also known as Boca Chica Boulevard, raised median will take place in April.
Texas Department of Transportation presented the project during Tuesday’s Brownsville City Commission meeting.
Octavio Saenz, a public information officer for TxDOT, told The Rider the purpose of the presentation was to inform local leadership what the project consists of.
Saenz said one of the things medians do is ensure safer rides. The median would enhance safety, reduce congestion and improve mobility.
“It limits cross-section turning,” he said. “That area is one of the state’s most, not only most congested, but has a lot of accidents. If we see several of the major avenues that we’ve had in the Rio Grande Valley … it allows traffic to flow faster because it prevents individuals from making turns wherever they want.”
The median is planned to extend from I-69E to International Boulevard with an approximate length of 1.5 miles. The $3.03 million project involves constructing a raised median where no right of way is needed, sidewalks and to provide signal synchronization.
The next step of the proposed project is the bidding process in April. Construction is anticipated to start in July with an approximate completion length of 14 months.
TxDOT held a public meeting July 2018 in the Oliveira Middle School cafeteria to discuss the proposed State Highway 48 median.
The meeting allowed the public to view and comment on the proposed median, according to a notice of public meeting document from TxDOT.
Due to feedback from the public meeting, changes were made to the project regarding median openings and signal synchronization as well as conducting traffic studies.
Full median openings will be placed on FM 1847, Old Port Isabel Road, Brownsville Plaza/Strawberry Square, Kings Highway, Security Drive and a directional median opening will be placed on North Street. Traffic signals will be removed on Simpson Street Intersection and Los Amigos Plaza/Home Depot Intersection.
In the items for consideration during Tuesday’s meeting, the commission approved a resolution to sign an application requesting financial assistance from the Texas Water Development Board.
The amount is not to exceed $7 million and will be used for “stormwater management projects to reduce the effects of major flooding events throughout the City,” according to agenda binder documents.
David Licon Jr., engineer 1 for the city, said the projects will help to reduce flooding in major areas, such as Four Corners (International and Boca Chica Boulevards) in Brownsville.
“We know that Brownsville floods in really extreme areas and the amount of money that’s needed to do a lot of those … improvements is normally exceeding what the city has available per year,” Licon said. “So, we thought that, really, to start doing some major improvements to our drainage system, we need to go ask for large amounts of money.”
In other business, the commission:
–appointed Olga Gonzalez as a regular member to the Building and Standards Commission and David Diaz and Carlos Martinez as alternates;
–and approved the final reading on a new Code of Ethics with a floor amendment from District 4 Commissioner Ben Neece.
“Section 38-69 entitled subsequent employment, a person who is a former member of the city commission shall not be employed by the city or any other entity of the city for a period of one year after the termination of his official duties,” Neece said. “And then leaving sections 38-70 to 38-95 reserved for future expansions of the chapter.”
