Excellent Planning - AGAIN

Once again Victoria has proven its merit by building two new schools on the fastest and busiest area of the region.

Not only are the two schools close together, but one of them is near the railroad.

What happens when a train carrying the wrong chemical derails???

What happens when a couple, three, or four 18 wheelers collide with one carrying the wrong load?

Those overpasses are going to cost more than the schools, and they are still accidents waiting to happen!!

And, that road ain't gettin' no less traveled!!

I know these overpasses are important but there is no discussion of the problem of traffic at the West High School and Middle School. There is only one interence to both schools. This is double the traffic and double the danger over the East High School. Our city planners must be afraid to even mention it much less propose fixes to it.

I was at the meeting last Tuesday while this was being discussed. It seems that all parties present realize the dangers in both locations, and that traffic will be horrible in both locations. Traffic lights are planned for Mockingbird, Salem, and the West Highschool I believe. What a mess this will create.
It seems that VISD created a monster, and now they are no where in sight to rectify the situation. This should have been part of the initial bond package, but since it wasn't it has to be dealt with.
Whoever thought of putting the West school there with only one entrance and one exit should be fired, or made to direct traffic there everyday.
I hope this can be reconciled prior to any serious injury, or loss of life.

Enough is enough, state representatives need to get with the program or play Lyndon Johnson ball! Everyone knows that Victoria is a hurricane evacuation point and geographically important in the case of a major attack on one of the 4 major cities surrounding it.

A very likely focal point for extraction of injured and distribution of emergency assets. In Texas we have common sense, and common sense tells us that if Victoria were ever to be needed in a crisis situation that our highways would be congested; leaving those outside with a very dangerous dilemma.

Local state representatives should lead for the future, not the present, which quickly becomes the past. He who lives in the past becomes history. Victoria needs “bridges to the future”, which this over pass would be. As Victoria’s population moves away from flood plan areas to more secure locations, where will they be, on the other side of the loop. State representatives are suppose to be remarkable people, they are suppose to see the need to come, an prepare for it. You know they are doing their job well, when you do not even notice their work; but this case provides and opportunity for them to be noticed. I hope that Common Sense government prevails; Texas needs not be like California, desperate to meet the needs of its citizens.

Here is a need that will only grow in time; what are you going to do about it state representatives?

To quote the editorial "Perhaps the city and county can negotiate a multi-year payment plan. Both entities should continue to lobby the state so these projects can be completed"
Since the VISD created the problem they should come to the table and participate in the solution

Speaking of the 55mph limit there, once the school is finished will the speed limit be decreased to 35mph since it will seem to be in a school zone and it has already been declared a dangerous area?

The police can already sit on that road all day and catch speeders....me included, cant wait to get a ticket in a school zone now.

It would seem to me a better solution to this problem would be to build a section of road between salem and airline between the highway and the fence line as an frontage road and not have any of these roads go to the loop. thus eliminating the need for the overpasses and keep the through traffic from having to fight all the buses and car traffic that will be generated by the schools. There is no real need for all these roads to intersect with the loop anyway. There is ample of room already there to put this in and a flat road is a heck of a lot cheeper than overpasses and bridges and a frontage road would eliminate the hassle already existing in getting on the far lane of the loop. this could be done at salem and airline with traffic lights and also help with the salem intersection problem. It will be much cheeper than buying thousands of loads of fill and destroying the existing loop to build overpasses. It would get rid of the 55 mile per hour speed trap on that section of the loop at the same time.

What I still don’t understand is the location of both the new schools. The city/county spent millions on the much needed new loop. After which they complain that there are not enough tax dollars and the rates go up. Then what seems to be prime commercial real estate on both sides we build schools there and loose any chance of collecting any tax money.

If you go to any decent size city there is one thing on the loops and major highways, businesses. What business is going to want to build anywhere near that area now that there are schools there? VISD has basically halted all progress on these roads and will be making the city/county loose money. Not only from the lack of funds that could have been generated, but also for the need of new roads, traffic signals, police patrols, and emergency services to the areas.

Cant wait for the stadium to fall down in the next 5 years and a new one is needed…hey lets build it right on Navarro next to Academy! Another great commercial spot.

The VISD planned and built two multi-million dollar schools and no one involved in the planning thought to consider traffic? How much are we, the taxpayers, paying these "planners"? Since they are obviously not doing their jobs, can we get our money back?

I am not a candidate but I would like to offer at least one suggestion. City Council, don't make this an emergency decision. Another post said something about everything in the city being an emergency and this seems to be the standard method of operation, to be reactive rather then proactive.

A different post stated the traffic issues are going to be even more serious at the west high school. Why do we think there are no headlines about the issues at this school? Nothing more to build so no individuals can get their names in the headlines?

I think it was prudent that the county commissioners were honest about the fact their budget cannot cover the enormous increase in estimates for building these overpasses. I hope the city council will also be honest and admit the budget they are responsible for cannot cover this enormous increase.

There are other options to handle the school traffic other then building these overpasses now when funds are not available and tax payers cannot afford to take more money out of our pockets. Make the entrances and exits On Mockingbird and Ben Jordan one way. Entrance to the school grounds only allowed by turning right off of Mockingbird (no left turns from Mockingbird into grounds during school hours). Same thing on Ben Jordan, exit only allowed by turning right on to Ben Jordan (no entrance into grounds on Ben Jordan during school hours). At the same time Santa Barbara (road going to Deleon elementary) will need to be changed so during school hours it is one way from Ben Jordan to Burning Tree with no left turns allowed from Ben Jordan to this school. This will make Ben Jordan traffic during school hours only right turns (right to get TO Deleon and right to get AWAY from high school). If all entrances and exits around these two schools, which in my opinion are located much too close to each other, are right turns traffic will flow better and no one can get hit making a left turn across traffic.

I hope council and commisioners will look at all the options and not just cave to having to spend millions of dollars to solve the problem. I still believe a quote of Thomas Jefferson is quite valid "Delay is preferable to error". Don't make a quick decision that is going to cost taxpayers millions more to correct in the future.

all of the comments are correct about the concerns for the traffic and Victoria East. However wait until you see the traffic jam and deaths coming from Victoria West. this traffic dumps straight onto the Cuero Hywy. no lights NADA. that will be another couple of million

true.

Also, I would think the COV or county commissioners deemed the new loop the HAZMAT route. Which makes sense to haul away from the masses. But then we build the new schools in their path and with a primiarly southern wind you have Kansas City RR running trains on the new sugarland link now the schools will have to 'master' shelter-in-place.

I have said before in another post months ago. TXDoT builds with numbers and charts or they can not see it. Like, on the upper road till there were many deaths on the intersection did they finally put in a overpass. Nothing! NADA! has happen on the NE Loop/Airline section especially DEATHS so its not high on their list. So who will be the first?

It continues to amaze me that "professional" engineers and city planners find that these overpasses are now a necessity when less then 5 years ago MILLIONS were spent to widen/move the same stretch of loop 463. A good portion of those millions that were spent will now be torn up and millions more spent to put roads back in the exact same place.

It further amazes me that the school board purchased property to build multi-million dollar facilities without consulting with professional engineers and city planners to see what other infrastructure might be needed to support these locations.

My third level of amazement is that these same people profess that Salem Road and Mockingbird overpasses are a necessity but Ben Jordan (which borders the same high school property) is OK to leave with the existing configuration.

No matter which way this goes the tax payers get the short end of the deal. We paid millions for the "improvements" to loop 463 less then 5 years ago, we are going to be paying millions for the high school (and other schools) construction and now we are being "forced" into paying millions more for overpasses to solve a problem CREATED by lack of planning and lack of school board consideration for their actions.

My first suggestion for a solution is for the school board to oust the administration responsible for this lack of planning, for the voters to oust the school board members who approved this lack of planning and then work to find out if the lack of planning for the the loop 463 issue is city or state mistake and get rid of those who were responsible.

Same situation with the city and hike/bike trail, although on a much smaller scale. Spend $1.5MM of OUR taxes to build it, depend on the observations of regular citizens to point out how assinine it was to cross major roads, shut down the trail at Stockbauer and now figure out how to spend 10's or probably 100's of thousands of dollars to correct something a first year engineer/planner should have considered during the design phase. It seems everything in this city is an "emergency" and we as tax payers pay two or three times to get something done. I would like to know if the planners of the hike/bike trail, the planners of the location of the high schools and the planners of the work on loop 463 are still on the taxpayer's payroll. Private industry would not and could not afford this type of constant lack of foresight in planning but we as tax payers don't seem to have any choice but to keep writing checks.

To get different results we need to make a change. Accept the staus quo and every year more and more tax dollars are going to be coming out or every taxpayer's pocket and WASTED needlessly.

True ex, but I guess the school board didn't consult with the city or TXDOT before they spent all those millions of dollars of taxpayer money.

Now they can say "Well look, we already spent millions of dollars of money, you guys hit up the taxpayers for more millions of dollars because, hey, it's not our money or yours, it's the taxpayers".

It still makes my mad that the school will open without the overpass, how do these things happen, maybe for the future a new law should be placed before anything is built the entry way, overpass, or whatever must be made first before construction starts, good grief! Lets put people in danger first and then figure out what to do, or how to pay for it is dumb.

Here is a chance for some of the candidates to post some solutions on how to address this issue. Maybe how they would go about trying to make this happen, or reasons why we should walk away.