WESLACO — The Rio Grande Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization has a number of stalled projects that will be going forward under the direction of the Texas Department of Transportation.
State Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, said that the Rio Grande Valley has numerous fully funded projects that have been stalled, totalling over $300 million.
“For the most part, TxDOT was assigning the blame for the stalled projects to local officials,” Canales said. “I began to pick up the phone and call local officials. Rather than get into a finger-pointing game, I will tell you this. Some of the information that was given to me by the district engineer and TxDOT locally was incorrect, and some of it was correct.
“Nevertheless, it’s my opinion that there’s enough blame to go around for everybody, including local officials and TxDOT.”
Canales said that roughly 90% of the stalled projects began to move forward following his inquiry, many of which have been stalled for upwards of six years.
He said that one of the main problems with having so many stalled projects is that the cost of building roads continues to increase over time.
“So if we had a funded project — making up a number, hypothetical — that was worth $10 million and you wait five years, it’s probably a $15 million or more project,” Canales said. “The problem grows exponentially from a funding standpoint and a process standpoint.”
The Hidalgo County MPO, Harlingen-San Benito MPO and the Brownsville MPO merged in 2019 to form one, unified Rio Grande Valley MPO, making it the fifth-largest MPO in the state. The MPO is charged with selecting and prioritizing transportation projects.
“I’ve spoken with the MPO, and I asked them what their position was on why these projects hadn’t moved,” Canales said. “Their response was, ‘That’s not necessarily our province. We are the people who prioritize the project, but don’t necessarily make sure it’s moving.’ That is absolutely illogical.”
He said that the MPO has the authority to reallocate funding from one project to another, particularly a stalled project to one that is shovel-ready.
“Logic would dictate that if your entity has the authority to reallocate funds, then monitoring the progress of projects is absolutely your job,” Canales said.
Eddie Treviño Jr., Rio Grande Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization chairman, said that the stalled projects are part of what he described as “growing pains” as a result of the merger of the three local MPOs.
“One of our board’s directives when we merged was obviously to make sure that all funds, available funds, that had been either committed to projects were being used, funded and that we were moving those projects forward,” Treviño said. “What we’ve realized as we’ve done the merger is that certain projects that maybe had preliminary funding or had committed funds weren’t as far along as the other projects that maybe didn’t have any funding.”
Treviño said that the RGV MPO has made attempts to implement changes following the directives from TxDOT in order to make sure that projects that are ready are able to get funding, and that the stalled projects also have the appropriate funding to move forward as well.
“If the projects aren’t moving forward, then they themselves (TxDOT) can’t move the projects forward,” Treviño said.
He said that TxDOT’s on-system projects, or state maintained highways, may have been stalled as a result of local entities not providing their share of funding or work to move the project forward.
“If the local entity had not done what needed to be done, their part, whether it’s funding or work or whatever that had delays, the TxDOT project — he now announced that TxDOT is going to move forward without local involvement on the on-system projects, which are the state TxDOT projects,” Treviño said “It’s actually good because, again, those projects that might have been stalled because of either lack of participation or lack of involvement by the local entities, we’re going to get those moving forward.”
