The Herald-Zeitung

There remains no foreseeable cure for the congestion on Texas Highway 46 through Bulverde, after the City Council again shot down a funding deal with the state to upgrade the busy highway.

As it did in 2006, Bulverde’s City Council voted earlier this month to back out of a potential pass-through agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation to widen the state highway from near the rural town’s city limits to beyond the intersection of U.S. Highway 281.

Pass-through agreements are structured to have local government shoulder much of the up-front cost of construction with the promise it will eventually be repaid by the state.

But unlike the deal offered in 2006, Mayor Ray Jeffrey said signing this agreement would have meant millions of dollars for which the small city would not be reimbursed.

“Given their funding situation, this was the best deal TxDOT could offer,” he said. “But it would have required a little-bitty, 10-year-old city with 5,000 residents to come up with $9 million.”

The pass-through offered in 2006 would have paid the city for 100 percent of the cost of upgrading Texas 46, and Jeffrey said the decision to vote it down was “clearly a mistake.”

In this instance, TxDOT would not pay back the full amount, and Jeffrey said issuing debt to pay for the acquisition of right-of-way and additional construction costs would have left too much of a burden on local taxpayers.

“It’s kind of hard to tell your taxpayers you’re going to double or triple their taxes during the worst recession since the Great Depression,” he said.

TxDOT Area Engineer Greg Malatek said the department is handcuffed by a lack funding. He said TxDOT asked the legislature for $1.2 billion to pay for similar pass-through agreements throughout the state, and it received around $300 million.

“There just not a lot of money to go around,” he said.

After being turned down by Bulverde in 2006, TxDOT offered the pass-through deal to the City of New Braunfels, and the agreement is currently funding construction on Texas 46 west of Loop 337.

And although improvements to Bulverde’s portion of Texas 46 aren’t in the works, the problem isn’t going away, according to Comal County Commissioner Jay Millikin.

“Development and growth is going to continue in that area whether you upgrade the roads or not,” he said. “I fully supported this project, and I fully supported it a couple years ago. But I understand that if you’re Bulverde and you’re not fully capable of funding it, there’s not a whole lot you can do.”