Developer helps TxDot save $5 million on 1-10 frontage road project
There is new information on a stretch of the frontage roads TxDOT is building along I-10 in west El Paso.
TxDOT reports the department is saving $5 million dollars on one of its projects thanks to a local developer. The developer of Aldea El Paso project, Geltmore LLC, had a lot of leftover fill material and turned it over to TxDOT. The result is the I-10 Mesa Park Interchange will no longer have to built over arroyos.
TxDOT held a public meeting with diagrams, video presentations and employees to explain the latest construction project. The aim is to ease the future flow of west El Paso traffic.
Mesa Park will soon connect a very busy Mesa street with a new frontage road. The I-10 Mesa Park Interchange will then connect the road to the east and westbound frontage roads via an overpass.
Bob Bielek is the El Paso district engineer for TxDOT.
“Today we don’t have frontage roads from Mesa to Copia. That’s about 10 miles where we don’t have any frontage roads at all, which means if we are doing maintenance on I-10, or we have an incident on I-10 we have no place to put people,” said Bielek.
City representative Peter Svarzbein was at the meeting and said the 1-10 Mesa Park interchange will be part of the solution.
“It increases mobility on the west side and allows for the development that is occurring around Monticello and with the new Aldea proposal as well. Rather than all that traffic going onto Mesa you now have a direct entrance onto I-10 for that traffic to get across the city,” said Svarzbein.
The project could start by the end of the year. It is slated to be completed at the same time as the Go 10 project in 2019.
“El Paso sometimes gets destroyed under the stick when it comes to its transportation dollars from the state. So now we are getting our share. Short term there is a little bit of a pinch with traffic. But long term we are going to be setting ourselves up for better mobility and better economic development for the city and region,” Svarzbein said.
