MIDLAND, Texas — Following a town hall that was held Monday night to discuss Bass Pro Shops coming to the Tall City, another town hall was held Wednesday night with a focus on District 4 -- an area that covers the west side of Midland.
Discussions at the town hall were about informing the community on work being done in the area, and there is certainly plenty of it. Extending Wadley Avenue west to state-highway 158 is a road project soon to get underway as that part of town is prime for development.
“Yeah it’s definitely growing towards Odessa," said Amy Stretcher-Burkes, District 4 representative on the Midland City Council. "One day I think we’ll be touching, and so District 4 is primed...for the development. I think we need to be aware and answer a lot of the questions that people have to make sure that they come along with us on this journey. We don’t need to just tell them what’s happening, they need to have input.”
Midland City Council members and city employees came together to discuss activity in District 4. Stretcher-Burkes called it an opportunity to learn what future projects she needs to focus on, while current concerns over low water pressure and traffic are already being addressed.
“I talked to our utilities director Carl Craigo and he’s putting water monitors on some of the fire hydrants around where the complaints were happening, and that way we can monitor the pressure and then see exactly what it is and then know how to adjust and fix it," said Stretcher-Burkes. "Some of the complaints were road and Jake braking, things like that, so we’re actually going to get signs out there to just remind people that is not allowed, so that’s another thing. So...we’re getting feedback and then we’re immediately doing something about it.”
The plan is to add several traffic signals along state-highway 158. Road projects are typically a lengthy process due to a number of challenges.
“You start the planning process – you design the roadway – but you have to start to look at the acquisition of right-a-way, so that certainly takes some time," said Jose Ortiz, Director of Engineering Services for the City of Midland. "Then you’re also talking about, ‘OK, what utilities do you want to put underneath the roadway before you actually build the road?’, so we would go through that process, and then you finally secure the funds for the actual extension. So, most projects – believe it or not, for the time you actually start thinking about the planning process to construction – will take five years.”
As inflation has made everything more expensive, it is important to try and get road projects done faster.
“If we can find a way to get some of the planning components done, the design efforts done...designing on behalf of the state, donating the projects to the state, if we can get those built sooner and accelerate those projects, were actually saving taxpayers dollars by going to construction a few years before its actually set up to go to construction," said Ortiz. "And, so, that’s really our goal is to try to find a way to get projects done sooner to save taxpayers dollars at the end.”
Ortiz said that the Wadley Avenue extension talks began around 2014 but dealing with the State of Texas with state-highway 158 creates more of a time delay. One of the planned traffic signals will go at the new intersection between the two roadways as District 4 plans for growth.