Planners back east route for highway
Group says its favored path for Texas 130 is safer, less disruptive
By Kelly Daniel
American-Statesman Staff
Posted: July 17, 2000
Texas 130 should travel along an eastern route if it's built -- and it most definitely should be built, a local transportation planning group decided Monday.
The 21-member Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which decides how state and federal transportation money is spent locally, voted unanimously to support a Texas 130 route east of Round Rock and east of Walter E. Long Lake in East Austin, saying that route is safer and interrupts fewer neighborhoods than a western route the state recommends.
The group's vote, which came at 9:46 p.m. after more than two hours of public comments, is not binding but is meant to give Texas Turnpike Authority engineers something more to ponder as they recommend a final route for the highway during the summer.
"I hope it sends a signal to the folks who are going to have to make the final decision that there is a consensus here," said Round Rock Mayor Robert Stluka, a planning group member.
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