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County outlines bond strategy, tight timeline to fund Master Thoroughfare Plan projects
Summary
At a March 14 workshop, county leaders and consultant TMP discussed prioritizing five corridors from the Master Thoroughfare Plan, a strategy to use local bond funds to finance preliminary engineering (about 10% of project cost) and leverage federal grants, and an August deadline to place a transportation bond on the November ballot.
The County Commissioners Court met March 14 in the Central Jury Room to begin implementation planning for the newly adopted Master Thoroughfare Plan, focusing on which corridors to advance, how to pay for design and engineering, and a timeline for a possible transportation bond.
Consultant Ryan Jones of TMP said the plan is intentionally high level and that each corridor will need further alignment studies, cost analysis and design before construction. "For example, Granbury Road, we've talked about that project before. We've we've done some cost estimation on that project, and we're looking at about $60,000,000 for construction," Jones said. He added the county would likely need to fund preliminary engineering first — roughly 10% of construction cost — to make projects competitive for federal grants.
Why this matters: the court identified five priority corridors (including Old Granbury Road, Fall Creek relief route, the Mitchell Bend Highway extension and Strouds Creek access) that aim to improve evacuation routes and mobility as local development accelerates. Jones said using a local transportation bond to pay for preliminary engineering and planning would let the county leverage COG and TxDOT to pursue larger federal construction grants.
TMP described a strategy used by peer counties: the county would issue a bond to pay for design and right-of-way work (an example: a $6,000,000 local investment on a $60,000,000 project), then pursue federal funds to cover construction. "There's a little bit of urgency in terms of timing on this," Jones said, noting an August deadline to place a transportation bond on the November ballot.
TMP recommended hiring a bond manager via an RFQ to develop the bond package, coordinate consultants and manage election timing; TMP said the firm would not serve as bond manager because that would create a conflict, but it can perform design and engineering under separate work authorizations. County staff said the auditor would be asked to assess the county's capacity so commissioners can set a bond amount.
No formal vote was taken at the workshop. Commissioners signaled intent to put a procurement item or authorization on an upcoming court agenda to initiate cost estimates and RFQs for bond management and preliminary engineering.
Next steps: county staff will cost out the five or six priority corridors, evaluate county capacity with the auditor, draft RFQs for a bond manager and design work, and return to the commissioners court for formal authorization; no projects were authorized for construction at the workshop.
