Excess money from Harris County toll roads to fund hikes, bike trails

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Harris County toll roads are the spine of the Houston space and a shortcut for drivers who’re keen to pay. 

The cash helps to keep up toll roads however when there is a surplus, state code permits for additional toll cash to cowl transportation, freeway or air high quality tasks inside the area. 

“The neighborhood doesn’t need simply extra concrete and extra lanes. We’ve got to be far more strategic,” mentioned Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Adrian Garcia. 

He has voted in favor of utilizing surplus toll cash to increase Harris County hike and bike trails. 

“Earlier surveys have instructed us that millennials need to stroll or bike to inexperienced house inside 10 minutes of the place they dwell,” Garcia mentioned. 

Harris County’s “Tollways to Trailways” undertaking is geared toward creating 236 miles of bikeways and sidewalks, connecting neighborhoods separated by tollways at a time when fuel costs, inhabitants and visitors are rising. 

The primary leg of the undertaking prices $53 million. 

Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey is towards it saying, “There are too many unknowns. Security is my primary concern and I’ve not seen sufficient of the idea to confidentially say it is correctly being addressed in these tasks.”

Commissioner Jack Cagle, who frequents the hike and bike trails in his personal district, voted towards the undertaking too.

He believes it units a nasty precedent of diverting toll street cash to tasks not initially envisioned when toll roads had been pitched to Harris County voters. 

Cagle needs the county’s parks price range to cowl extra trails. 

However Cagle and Ramsey had been outnumbered in the newest vote which occurred Tuesday. 

With the primary spherical of the undertaking now accredited, it is going to fall on county residents to voice their opinions over plans, that are anticipated to come back quickly. 

“This funding is totally going to undertaking us into the standing of being a way more modern neighborhood, which can appeal to extra progress, which is what we would like,” Garcia mentioned. 

Learn extra on the “Tollways to Trailways” undertaking beneath:

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