Update on the Monday night CAMPO meeting:

Here's an update on the Monday night CAMPO meeting:

According to Aulick the January 2005 TIP has "lapsed" and so CAMPO needs to approve a new TIP for the Plan 2 toll roads. This includes a bigger price tag up by $121 million. Most of this increase is at the intersection of US 183 and SH 71. In the original Plan 2, this interchange stayed as configured. The new TIP is calling for this interchange to be rebuilt.

The new TIP no longer includes US 183 A and SH 45 SE, presumably because these projects are already underway.

Here's the quick summary:

SH 45 South: Was $39M, now $51M because claims to now have non-tolled lanes added. Note the July 2004 ammendment has a "where feasible" clause for adding the non-tolled lanes. It's unclear if they are really serious about adding non-tolled lanes. Given the $12M cost bump-up and the environmental concerns, I could imagine TxDOT or CAMPO later deciding its "not feasible".

US 290 East: This was $297M in the toll feasibility analysis, but $400M in the original tip. The new TIP scales the cost back to $360M, in between the two earlier estimates. The $360M price tag, assume no revenue or toll increase, would put US 290 East in the "financially outlandish" category like Loop 360 since the revenue bond capacity would be just be just 10.5% of the total cost.

US 290 West: This goes up from $120M in the 2004-2005 TIPs to $139M. I'm not sure why. The original toll feasibility analysis had $178M.

SH 71 and US 183: This is confusing. SH 71 East goes up from $211M to $366M in the new TIP. There's talk of a "multilevel interchange at US 183". There's a $4M increase for SH 71 West ($64M to $68M). Costs on US 183 seem to have shifted around. Was $477M, now $466M but this appears to be because some of the interchange cost is shifted to SH 71 East.