Trolley tracks to be moved after encountering AT&T lines
The agency in charge of building the downtown trolley system has reported that the project is still on track and on budget, but there will have to be some changes to where exactly the rails go along part of it.
The downtown trolley system is being built by the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority with money from the Texas Department of Transportation.
It will run from Father Rahm Avenue just south of downtown to Baltimore Drive and the Glory Road transfer center near the University of Texas El Paso.
What the CRRMA board heard during a meeting Wednesday is that the tracks going up Stanton Street will have to be changed because of AT&T lines running there as well.
To keep the project from being delayed, the mobility authority will pay for the work to relocate some parts of the lines, but will otherwise change the streetcar line from the far right hand side of the street from Montana Avenue to Baltimore.
Otherwise, the good news is the underground work on the trolley route is now conservatively estimated at 85% done.
This is the phase where the most unpredictable changes have come from, with CRRMA officials arguing you can never be positive of what you’ll find until you start digging.
Overall, the project is reported to be on target, having spent about $22.6 million of it’s $97 million dollar budget so far, split between refurbishing the old streetcars themselves and the ground work. There is still a lot of street work to go before the project’s completion in mid-to-late 2018.
“The way that we approached this program was really in separate phases that actually overlapped each other,” said CRRMA Executive Director Raymond Telles.
“In the first main phase was underground utility relocation. So that included everyone from the water utility to the electric company to AT&T and anyone else that you can think of that’s underground or hanging on a pole somewhere.”
As the underground and utility work finishes up, that will clear the way for the rest of the above-ground work to move forward all along the route.
