Public input meetings are expected to take place in El Paso early next year, focusing on the possible updating and modernization of busy Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The Texas Department of Transportation is hoping to launch a full-fledged corridor study of the boulevard, otherwise known as Farm-to-Market Route 3255, in order to get a feel for the throughway’s future traffic patterns.
According to a TxDOT website, the goals of the study include strategies for “accommodating traffic growth, enhancing mobility, and improving pedestrian and bicycle connectivity in the area.”
Running parallel to the Franklin Mountains State Park, north to south, the boulevard includes residential, commercial and rural areas and, says the TxDOT, “serves as the connection for thousands of people who live and work in Northeast El Paso and Southern New Mexico, as well as freight traffic delivering goods in El Paso and beyond.”
Data collection and analysis has been underway on the project since this past spring, with TxDOT hoping to issue a final corridor study that will identify needed improvements for the next two decades by next spring.
Routes labeled farm-to-market are particularly unique to Texas and identify a county road or highway used by ranchers and farmers to connect an agricultural area to a market town. While the El Paso City Council unanimously approved naming the road in honor of King in late 1988, it is still also referenced by the TxDOT as Farm-to-Market Route 3255.
By Garry Boulard
