About Building an Interstate Through San Angelo

Michael Reeves, president of the Ports to Plains Alliance, was in commissioner’s court Tuesday morning to present the proposal to extend Interstate-27 from the Amarillo area through San Angelo.

“We’ve worked with councilmember Charlotte Farmer, who is on our board of directors, Mayor Morrison has been active for quite some time, [there’s] a lot of great support here in San Angelo, it’s one of those communities that could really benefit tremendously from what we are doing,” said Reeves.

According to Reeves, extending I-27 through San Angelo would help to connect west Texas to a national highway system that is used for not only personal travel, but as a corridor for rural freight, energy and agricultural use.  

“We realize how important transportation is to creating jobs, especially in rural areas, such as [San Angelo] we have to have that connectivity. You see jobs created here [in San Angelo] whether it’s directly construction with companies like Hirschfeld, Reece-Albert and also the rail connectivity with Texas Pacifico,” said Reeves. “Even manufacturing, folks like Hirschfeld Steel have been big supporters of Ports-to-Plains and it’s because they have to get their steel to market. They ship a lot of goods to oilfields in Alberta, Canada.  Also throughout the northern corridor and some of those are connections they made through Ports-to-Plains intuitive, so we’ve been able to generate some economic opportunities and create that connectivity already.”

According to Reeves, the Ports-to-Plains Alliance began back in the mid-90s, as a project that originated from Lubbock City Council and then went to the Chamber of Commerce in Lubbock.

“The idea was how I-27 could be extended,” Reeves said. “Initially that report (from TxDOT) came back [and said] it wasn’t feasible for the investment to upgrade to full interstate standards,” he explained. “It was decided that in the rural industrial area, four lane highways were adequate at the time, and so Ports-to-Plains worked on getting two-lane highways upgraded to four. One of the first successes we had was getting U.S.  87 up to four lanes between Big Spring and San Angelo, so we have seen some progress.”

The movement of goods north to south through the existing network of 2,333 miles of mostly two lane highways extends through ten states, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border.  Funds from the Panhandle area will be to cover the costs of extending I-27 to Big Spring. Reeves played a key role in the collaboration of that effort, citing that Big Spring  acted as a bottle neck for freight bound to the panhandle and beyond to the northern corridor.

“In the city of San Angelo, the economic development group has been very active here with our connections in Mexico, and has opened up a lot of trade opportunities there,” he said. “I think we can see a significant opening up from the ports of the west coast of Mexico to make this a significant trade corridor across Mexico and this could be a significant distribution center for that,” he said.

“We are also working with a couple of groups all the way up in Alberta, Canada; the energy production up there will benefit us as well. But, we have members all the way down from Northern Canada to the west coast of Mexico, so the project has really grown and we’ve also maintained and been effective under great leadership.” he said.

Expanding I-27 to include San Angelo would give freight an alternative route out of the state and add another connection to Mexico besides the one in Laredo.

 “When we first looked at the expansion of I-27, 20 years ago the traffic counts weren’t there, the feasibility wasn’t, but we have approached TxDOT again and they are looking at conducting another feasibility study on the interstate expansion,” Reeves explained.

He went on to explain that six public meetings were held in March along the corridor, and that the meetings were for the most part positive.

 “Midland/Odessa was concerned about maintaining I-20 itself and were opposed to looking at a new one (interstate). There were some smaller communities that were concerned about being bypassed, which are typical concerns, but overall the feedback was positive.  We expect to hear pretty quickly that they will move ahead and conduct a feasibility study on extending I-27.”

In the end, Reeves was asking for support from the county in bridging west Texas to Mexico and the northern corridor to Canada, promoting the potential for economic growth in San Angelo as a result of directing I-27 through the city.

“Having that designation, even if you don’t have the interstate constructed through here is a great marketing tool for the economic developers in the community to be able to recruit new business and show that the project is coming through,” he said. “I think that will be a significant positive step as well.”

No decisions were made by the commissioners at this time; this was only a presentation of information for the commissioners to consider while the feasibility study is being conducted by TxDOT.

“Overall we have about another $150 million in projects planned and the funding is in place. So they will be going to contract soon, you will be seeing more construction. We have another $400 million in projects that are planned, and we are working to get funding for those. Overall we have about half a billion dollars in funded projects just in the state of Texas that are moving ahead, and another $900 million total, so we are making a great deal of progress there.”