$1.3 billion is needed to keep up with Fort Worth’s growth. City can do less than half

At least a few times a year — basically any time Fort Worth gets heavy rain — water swells over Wagley Robertson Road in the northern suburbs, blocking already congested traffic.

“You can’t drive a school bus, you can drive an emergency vehicle or anything else down the road when it rains,” said Rusty Fuller, president of the North Fort Worth Alliance.

Far north residents like Fuller may be the most frustrated in the city when it comes to traffic. Growth has notoriously outpaced the city ability’s to manage traffic.

“We keep being told it’s too expensive,” Fuller said.

Fort Worth planners have identified nearly $1.3 billion worth of projects — more than half, about $677 million, would tackle roads and mobility in a city where suburban growth has congested streets. New or improved city buildings, libraries or fire and police stations make up a little more than a quarter, and park improvements are about 17%.

But voters will likely be asked to support about $500 million in a 2022 bond election, meaning residents will need to voice their concerns loudly for projects in their area to make the cut. A preliminary list of projects voters might consider next year will be made public in May. Residents can chime in about their priorities through fall with a series of public meetings.

That’s a tall order for the city, which has in the past struggled to complete projects rapidly. Typically debt funded projects should be completed in about five years, with the city asking voters for more debt every four years.

In 2019 the Star-Telegram found that more than a third of projects voters approved in 2014 were unfinished. A couple of those still remain, and roughly two thirds of the 2018 projects won’t be completed when voters are asked to approve more in May 2022. Most involve road work in Fort Worth’s suburbs, according to a presentation to the City Council this past week.

The slow pace of street projects in congested areas is frustrating to residents, City Manager David Cooke acknowledged, but for a city growing as rapidly as Fort Worth — about 20,000 people a year — it may be impossible to change.

“I think some of this will always be playing catch up,” Cooke said. “I don’t know that we would go out and build a four lane street in advance.”

The only major street work left from the 2014 bond election is a $20 million improvement of McCart Avenue from Risinger Road to Twin Leaf Drive that was held up by right-of-way acquisition.

The Reby Cary Youth Library, also funded in 2014, will open this summer. Construction has not started on a planned far west fire station in the Walsh area. Finding an appropriate piece of land delayed that project, but city planners said the growth in Walsh has not necessitated a new fire station yet.

Back in 2019, city employees developed a plan to move bond projects along quicker, which included starting the design process sooner and obtaining right-of-way and utility relocations before the project was fully designed.

With a few roads in the far north the city had planned to improve intersections rather than widening the whole road under the theory that efficient intersections would alleviate congestion, said Assistant City Manager Dana Burghdoff.

To expedite 2022 projects, she said design work will begin before bond money is allocated. Rather than waiting until a project is about 60% designed to begin relocating utilities and buying right-of-way, the process will start when a project is at least a third designed.

Though the wish list reaches well over $1 billion, Cooke said the city won’t pitch voters on more than $500 million in bond debt. The city’s debt capacity is about $600 million, an estimate based on growth in the tax base and future interest. The city should keep about $100 million of that capacity unused.

Debt is not the only way the city can fund projects.

With roadwork, Tarrant County can take on part of some projects. Earlier this month the council approved a 50% match for some county bond projects — $155.15 million for arterials and $25.55 million for some railroad crossings.

Two of those arterial projects are in the same area where Fuller described flooding and congestion on Wagley Robertson. Roughly $20 million is set aside for Bonds Ranch Road from from Wagley Robertson to U.S 287. Like with that project, to fix flooding on Wagley Robertson, the city will likely have to work with the county as the road crosses in and out of the city limits.

The city will also look to partner with the state and the North Central Texas Council of Governments on work related to state highways, particularly in the Walsh area.

Impact fees, charged to builders to offset the cost of roadwork, is another option that some candidates for City Council in the May election said they’d like to explore.

The city has a perennial conversation about raising impact fees, which vary based on the type and scope of a project, Cooke said. Those fees are often combined with bond money to lessen the debt required and move projects along, but developers often pass the cost onto property buyers.

2022 Bond Projects

Specific projects have not been named for the 2022 bond election, but council members and residents like Fuller already have priorities in mind.

Besides Wagley Robertson, Fuller said the North Fort Worth Alliance would like to see more work done to Bonds Ranch Road, specifically past U.S. 287. On Keller Hicks Road, children often have to walk in the ditch to get to nearby schools because of a lack of sidewalks, he said.

“The city keeps waiting for more development to happen, but while they wait people can’t get from Point A to Point B in a timely manner,” he said.

Roger Venables, the city’s aviation director who is leading the 2022 bond initiative, told council members this week sidewalks, street lights and other neighborhood safety items would be a priority next year.

East side council member Gyna Bivens wants work done on Randol Mill Road.

Far east portions of her District 5, especially near the Trinity River, have remained quasi rural despite being surrounded by Metroplex suburbs. Though not as fast as the far north, growth is coming to the area in the form of several large housing developments, but Randol Mill remains a small road.

Bivens was briefly excited during a recent discussion on road work that might be in the 2022 election after Cooke said the city had anticipated talking about Randol Mill. But Cooke said he doubted traffic counts on the road would push it high on the priority list.

“How does Randol Mill ever really get fixed in this kind of scenario?” Bivens wondered. “And if it doesn’t get fixed, how do we stop building homes? Because our infrastructure is just being blown away.”