Trinity Tollway News

I just left a meeting with Paul Lehner, director of planning and development- Trinity River Corridor Project and Rebecca Dugger, director of the entire Trinity River Corridor Project, both of whom explained the urban and natural lakes that are part of the future transformation of our city. What I learned, and what I think is important to note, is that as the plan stands now, the tollway is to be built inside the levies, which will be raised to two feet above the 800-year flood mark (higher than they are now.)

Now, because the embankments must be raised to that new height, a lot of dirt will have to be excavated to build up those walls and if the tollway stays inside the levies then all this dirt will be taken from the bottom of the Trinity– essentially this means that the tollway authority will be digging the two planned lakes for us, no charge.

If the tollway moves to outside the levy, which is the call for those who signed the recent petition, the city–that’s you and I as taxpayers– will have to find a way to pay an extra $25M to dig those lakes as this version of the tollway would most likely go to/around Industrial Blvd. And that money won’t be coming from the Army Corps of Engineers, they never do a 100 percent payout on any project and, besides that, this extra money is not in the federal budget and would have to be appropriated out in what could prove to be a lengthy process.

“It would be more expensive to build the tollway outside the levy,” Dugger said.

Full disclosure: I am a member of the River Rats, the young members of The Trinity Trust, whose mission is to raise private funds supporting the “balanced vision” development plan. Also, Lehner and Dugger are merely foot soldiers in this project, they don’t influence decisions and must not speculate on motives behind the pro- and anti-tollway sides, so these numbers are not politically motivated.

“We’re trying to be factual and objective,” Dugger said. “We’re just moving forward right now as the plan was voted on in its last iteration as approved by the city council.”