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Why We Oppose a Bridge Over
Lake Lavon
COST VS BENEFIT ANALYSIS
The $470 MILLION
dollar expense cannot
be justified.
COMMUTE DISTANCE & GENERAL LOCATION:
The bridge will not significantly
reduce travel distance as compared to the proposed Park Blvd.
extension.
On a trip from Nevada to
Parker, one of the touted reasons for project, the multi-hundred million dollar bridge
would decrease commute distance less than one mile, and in some
cases, increase it.
(Click for larger map)
EXPENSIVE GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION:
Mr. Hoagland said the study is needed so that
they can find out if the price of the bridge will be feasible. BUT ordinary citizens figured out that
two LONG
bridges, over DEEP water, each with 52 ft high clear spans, high and
wide enough for
sailboat traffic, would not be a practical or cost effective bridge to build. Collin
County engineers should have had similar insight yet they are
responsible for setting the study area.
EXTREME COST -
IMPOSSIBLE BRIDGE - SO SHUT DOWN THE STUDY:
HNTB estimated the
price of the bridge to be $470 million dollars.
April 1,
2010, Mr. Hoagland said the bridge is far too
expensive and would never be built with county money. Mr.
Hoagland said he was taking a "NO BRIDGE" stand.
Citizens
asked Mr. Hoagland to make a motion on the Commissioners Court to stop the
study that could have (at that time) saved taxpayers about $90,000. Mr. Hoagland
said he was not willing to make that motion. He felt
there was a need to complete the study because:
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Growth
is coming, there is nothing we can do to stop it.
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Collin
County needs a line because one day we will need a bridge.
NOT exactly
a "NO BRIDGE" stand.
NO NEED TO DRAW
A ROUTE:
We argue that
it makes no sense to have bridge routes and lines on a map that
represent a fiscally impossible bridge. Collin County needs to
remove the bridge project from the books and focus on land-based
alternatives that are up to 15 times less expensive.
Some of
the proposed bridges routes are even more fiscally impossible than
others. They cross diagonally over water that's the deepest
part of the lake. How would these ever be a cost
effective option? Yet, they were offered to the citizens as choices
at the October 7, 2010 public meeting.
Why were any of
these options ever even presented?
IGNORING
FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE OPTIONS:
At an estimate of $470 million, this proposed bridge cost over 15 times more than a similar capacity land-based road.
Tax dollars could be spent to a much greater good on
desperately needed improvements for Hwy 78, such as overpasses,
extra lanes, and road extensions.
IGNORING THEIR OWN POLICY, MISSION
STATEMENT, AND INSIGHTS:
At a
Public Meeting with Collin County, HNTB and the citizens, November 1, 2005
Outer Loop public meeting #5, it was stated
that if a bridge were “placed down the center of Lake Lavon, there
would be an increased amount of bridge structure which would
increase the cost of the project substantially. In addition, there
would be environmental impacts.” It seems, in 2005 they
understood that a land based road was a better option than a
bridge.
FROM THE COLLIN COUNTY WEBSITE:
"The
(Collin County) Department of
Engineering is committed to plan and implement a superior
inter-modal transportation infrastructure by judicious application
of human resources and public funds through a coordinated local and
regional perspective."
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