Published: March 29, 2008 06:10 pm      

Trans-Texas

Mayor named to committee; says she plans to listen, learn

San Marcos — At her first meeting as part of a citizen advisory committee on the Trans-Texas Corridor, San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz plans to listen before she speaks.

“I want to be better educated about where they are now in terms of the timeline,” said Narvaiz, who was appointed to the board by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) on Thursday.

“I want to hear from the people who put this together, what their intent was, why they figured their alignment the way they did.”

The 18-member committee will advise TxDOT in the planning of TTC-35, which will roughly parallel IH-35. Its work will include studying and preparing reports on the impacts of corridor development, TxDOT says, “including economic, political, societal, population trends; the use of existing, new and upgraded facilities; road and rail solutions; and financing options.”

The committee will report to TxDOT’s executive director and commission.

The first meeting will be next month. Members will serve through Dec. 31, 2009.

Narvaiz said she will bring to the committee the perspective from San Marcos, that of being in between major cities and “the transportation issues that are created” by that.

“Larger cities seem to get more of the attention, more of the dollars, which is natural when you have more population.” Still, she said, she’s hoping “to express the need is great everywhere for us to address transportation issues and addresses them equally, from small towns to big metropolises.”

Though Hays County was recently ranked among the country’s fastest-growing by the U.S. Census Bureau, that growth most surely is because IH-35 runs through it.

Narvaiz said she hopes to keep San Marcos in an economically healthy condition if, as planned, TTC-35 goes in less than 20 miles from the city limits.

“Anytime you change traffic patterns and paths you impact a city’s ability economically,” she said. “I want to be sure we have our perspective at the table while everything’s being talked about.”

After she learns more about the plans, Narvaiz said she expects to “kind of weigh in on whether that will have a positive or negative impact on San Marcos.”

TxDOT Commission Chair Hope Andrade said the committees, composed o community and business leaders, land owners, local transportation experts and other interested parties is a means of gathering public input.

“Our goal is to enhance the public dialogue and meaningfully involve more Texans in transportation decisions,” Andrade said, adding that committee members “will have an important seat at the table as work together to shape the future of transportation for our state.”