The Amarillo Metropolitan Planning Organization, allocated the 8.5 million dollars it received from the economic stimulus package
AMARILLO, TEXAS -- The Amarillo Metropolitan Planning Organization or (MPO) met Wednesday to decide what projects to fund and work towards with the money received from the economic stimulus package.
The organization has been given around 8.5 million dollars to use on roadways or highway type projects in Amarillo.
Here is a run down of the 8.5 million and where it's going.
Roughly 3 million will go towards the 3rd and Grand St. railroad relocation project. The total for the project is around 27 million, but this portion along with what the city already has set aside (5 million) will hopefully prompt further funding options from Burlington Northern and other entities. This project, if completed will help relieve the congestion caused by slow moving trains along 3rd street.
As a back up plan, if the railroad relocation project can't be accomplished within the time constraints the stimulus package requires then the Amarillo MPO will use the 3 million allocated for that project and switch it to rehabilitating Hillside from Western to Bell st.
Another 2.5 million will be set aside for improvements to Soncy road or loop 335, between 45th street and somewhere around 83rd street.. The debate is ongoing as far as what improvements will be made. Whether it should be used to create more turn lanes and access or if the improvements should help loop 335 traffic run more efficiently.
The next project on the list has an immediate impact. The Hillside Terrace addition just west of Soncy near Hillside is expecting a new elementary school to open next fall. For this to work properly there must be improvements made to Hillside over to Nancy Ellen Dr. which would give access for buses and families sending students to that school. This project is consuming 450 thousand dollars of the stimulus money.
Two overlay projects will roughly take 500 thousand dollars. South Georgia north of Farmers and Hastings Ave. from River Road to Grand st.
1 million 940 thousand dollars will go towards widening Georgia st. from 58th south to the city limits, this will turn it into a 4-lane arterial.
Other than that, a couple of curb ramp projects and miscellaneous work will take up the other 130 thousand dollars.
The most important thing to keep in mind, is that without the stimulus some of these projects would not be addressed any time soon simply due to funding issues.
"For this committee to have taken this opportunity to advance these projects, in a lot of instances some of these projects would still be on the books 5-10 years from now," said Gary Holwick, Director of the Amarillo Metropolitan Planning Organization.
"It won't cover it all by any means but it will be greatly appreciated by not just those of us that work on it day to day, but everybody I think that drives a street or highway in Amarillo," said Holwick.
On top of the 8.5 million used for roadways and such, the Amarillo MPO also received 3.5 million dollars of stimulus funds for our transit system.
This will bring our city 9 new buses, new bus shelters, communications equipment, support vehicles, and passenger amenities all to help out our transit system.
As the debate continues over the stimulus package and whether it will hurt or help us, one thing is for sure, projects all over the United States are being funded and will be completed because of the American recovery and reinvestment act or economic stimulus package.
I'll leave you with this thought.
"We as a nation, we are working together to better our communities to get people working again," said Holwick.
