They've got the money - now let's see if the roads get built.

Saw some more interesting news in the paper today, about how much money is rolling into central Texas for road projects. According to the article in the Statesman, the "Central Texas transportation planning board approved $56 million dollars for road projects. That amount includes almost $5 million for a new bridge for cyclists. It would be paid for by money out of TxDot's Proposistion 12 fund, borrowed dollars that by law are dedicated to highways".

Well, I'm glad cyclists are getting a new bridge, but $5 million? Is it gold plated? And why is it being paid for out of money that BY LAW IS DEDICATED TO HIGHWAYS? Last time I checked, a bicycle bridge is NOT a highway.

But wait, there's more (italics are mine):

"The decisions were occasioned by Central Texas receiving two infusions of transportation cash. The board had $78.7 million in federal metropolitan mobility funds, about $34 million more than normal, to apportion for the next three years. AND, TxDot, which got an ADDITIONAL $3 BILLION from the Legislature under Proposistion 12, alloted $47.6 million of that to Campo, along with ANOTHER $6 million. The area will get ANOTHER $91 million in Proposition 12 funds."

That's a lot of money. 78.7 million, 3 BILLION, plus ANOTHER $91 million. Total = $3,169,700,000.
Three BILLION, one hundred sixty-nine million, seven hundred thousand dollars. You've heard that old saying, "A Billion here, and Billion there, pretty soon you're talking about some real money." Well, there's more than 3 Billion, right there. Is that "real" enough for you?

You think maybe, just possibly, they could afford to build an overpass or two? Add a lane here and there?

It kills me when I hear "there's just no money to build any roads".

If they can spend almost $5 million to build a bicycle bridge, then they can certainly spend at least that much to construct an overpass to take Ben White/71 over Riverside Dr and alleviate the traffic backups that occur there on a daily basis. They could spent 100 times that - A HUNDRED TIMES THAT - in other words, $500,000,000 (Five Hundred Million dollars) to continue the 290/71 freeway west through Oak Hill and alleviate the bottleneck that has existed there for decades, and still have BILLIONS of dollars left over.

We NEED the roads. We HAVE the money.

BUILD the damn roads, already.