Plans remain, for the moment, in the discussion phase for the building of a highway extension that will go through several towns to the south of El Paso.
As proposed by the Texas Department of Transportation, a portion of the project will extend the Cesar Chavez Border Highway near the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park.
But for months now, area residents have voiced their objections to the wetlands park part of the project. Greatly valued by locals, the wetlands park, noted the Texas Tribune several months ago, “attracts hundreds of bird species and local universities rely on the park for fieldwork.”
Transportation Department officials have said that an extension of the highway is needed due to population growth and increased traffic in the cities and towns of Socorro, Clint, San Elizario, Fabens, and Tornillo.
The roughly 25-mile Border Highway East Corridor is designed to serve an area characterized in a Transportation Department document as one “experiencing a change from its primarily agricultural and rural communities to one of residential, commercial, and industrialized urban communities.”
While the project remains in the talking stage, reports indicate that the Texas Transportation Department may be on the verge of officially deciding on one of several proposed routes sometime early next year.
It was earlier estimated that the project could cost as much as $711 million to complete.
December 13, 2024
By Garry Boulard
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
