June 24, 2009
The El Paso City Council voted 7-1 Tuesday to go ahead with a controversial study of the need for a new international bridge in the Mission Valley area but to consolidate it with a second study of the feasibility of expanding the Zaragosa bridge and the Bridge of the Americas.
In doing so, the council rejected the requests by city Rep. Eddie Holguin and Mission Valley residents that the city abandon the $905,000 consultant’s study of the need for and feasibility of a new commuter port of entry between the Bridge of the Americas and Zaragosa ports of entry.
The council, however, repeated its promise to Mission Valley residents that the city will not build a new international bridge in the Valley that that would send traffic onto Yarbrough Drive or into residential neighborhoods.
Before the vote, the council heard a presentation from Roy Gilyard, executive director of the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, on the Camino Real Corridor Border Improvement Plan that was commissioned by the MPO in 2004 and led to the recommendation for a new port of entry that the city is now studying.
Gilyard said the six international bridges from Fabens to Santa Teresa in New Mexico are a critical component of the city’s transportation system. Keeping the international traffic running smoothly as the El Paso-Juarez region grows is vital to the area’s economy and competitiveness.
El Paso’s population doubled from 1967 to 1997 and will double again in the next 26 years. El Paso is the second busiest port of entry in Texas and bridge traffic between El Paso and Juarez is seriously congested.
“We have to look at the future today if we’re going to get a hold of the situation,” he said.
A new, 10-lane international bridge devoted to commuter traffic in passenger vehicles would take 57 percent of the cars off the Zaragosa bridge and12 percent off the Bridge of the Americas, he said.
“Improvements to existing bridges will only buy some time,” Gilyard said. “Widening and adding lanes are a temporary fix.”
“The (2004) study said as long as we continue to grow, we’ll have to build another bridge.”
City Rep. Emma Acosta questioned whether the assumption that a new bridge is needed is based on the existing bridges being fully staffed.
“Even if you fully staff the bridges, it won’t solve the problem,” Gilyard insisted.
Acosta, in response to her questions, was told that funding has been identified for a study regarding the expansion of the Zaragosa bridge and that there are also plans for a feasibility study of a new entry at Sunland Park.
When Acosta asked if it would be possible to combine all of the studies, the Engineering Department’s Terry Quesada said that could mean abandoning the current bridge study and starting over, which could set the city back six to nine months.
The information from Gilyard’s presentation and about the other bridge studies was not shared with more than 700 residents who attended last week’s meeting at Riverside High School to hear about the bridge study.
Noting that, Acosta called for more public meetings and for a joint meeting between City Council and the Ysleta school district’s board of trustees, which has taken a stand against any new port of entry in the Mission Valley.
There are plans by the consultant on the bridge study to conduct more public meetings on the issue starting in September.
Ysleta school board President Marty Reyes made it clear to the council that no additional information would change the board’s position, leading to a sharp exchange with city Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
Reyes called on the council to cancel the study into the possibility of a new bridge because of the impact it would have on neighborhoods and on the Ysleta’s districts schools, particularly a new pre-kindergarten school for more than 700 children on Yarbrough Drive.
“We stand untied against any international bridge in the YISD boundary because it will have a devastating impact on our schools,” she said, urging the council to study the expansion of the Zaragosa bridge instead.
Acosta reminded Reyes that her brother-in-law, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, doesn’t want to see the neighborhoods disrupted either but does want to see the bridge feasibility study completed.
“If it says there’s no way to build it, it will be off the table … forever,” Acosta said.
Reyes responded, saying, “We ask you to listen to the community. Sometimes you only hear what you want to hear.”
O’Rourke said he would be interested in having the joint council-school board meeting Acosta proposed but not if the board is taking a non-negotiable position.
“Where does the conversation begin?” he said. “If there’s a negotiable position the YISD board can put forth, I’m all for it.”
O’Rourke recited a list of schools in the El Paso school district that have stood in the neighborhood of the Bridge of the Americas and the Downtown bridges for decades.
Reyes said the Ysleta district has its children to consider, and suggested that the city look into building the bridge on the West Side “our children are not for sale.”
With that, she walked away from the speaker’s podium.
“You’re making your point by walking away,” O’Rourke said.
Among the Mission Valley residents who addressed the council was Minerva Acosta, who questioned why so many of the bridges are in the Valley now and why there are projects or proposals under way for new ones in the Fabens-Tornillo area, Socorro and around Yarbrough.
If all those plans go though, she said, there would be nine in the Valley with the possibility of only one new one on the West Side at Sunland Park.
“I would welcome a port of entry on the Westside,” he said. “I would be proud to be the city with 20 bridges, not 10.”
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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30, or 630-6622.