The city of Georgetown and the Texas Department of Transportation have slowed down a process to determine how the city will address needed repairs to the Austin Avenue bridges that span the North and South San Gabriel rivers.

The process, known as the Austin Avenue Bridges Project, was expected to be completed in early 2017; however, additional public involvement has led the state to pursue a heightened environmental analysis, Georgetown Transportation Analyst Nat Waggoner said.

In early October, TxDOT notified the city that the bridges project would not qualify as a categorical exclusion study, which applies to projects that do not have significant environmental impacts, Waggoner said.

“TxDOT now considers this [project] to be an environmental assessment,” he said. “That’s going to take more time, management and public involvement.”

According to TxDOT, an environmental assessment helps determine if a project will have a significant effect on the “quality of the human environment.”

The project, which is evaluating how the city will repair the structures, began in January after the city commissioned a forensic assessment of the bridges as well as two independent reviews of that assessment. All three consultants recommended something be done to repair the bridges after problems, including asphalt cracking, rusting and crumbling concrete, were found during a 2013 TxDOT inspection, Waggoner said.

After the inspection, TxDOT placed load-bearing limits on the bridges in 2014. TxDOT's 2015 inspection yielded the same results. However, the city's forensic testing indicated the bridges' steel was strong and recommended raising the weight limits, Waggoner said.

The city is expected to have guidance from TxDOT on how to address the limits by the end of the year, Waggoner said.

Additional funding

City Council approved an additional $280,000 for consulting firm Aguirre & Fields during its Oct. 25 meeting.

About $191,000 will fund the additional work needed because of the project's wider scope and $88,000 will pay for the additional testing that was already completed, Waggoner said.

During an Oct. 11 City Council meeting, he said the city was “about halfway through the scope of the project and about 75 percent through the
schedule.”

The city had expected to host a third public meeting this fall to discuss possible options for the bridges, but that meeting was postponed until spring to give TxDOT, the city and the project’s engineers more time to study the options.

Expanded options

Waggoner said there are 12 options, such as adding one-way bridges on either side of the existing structures, replacing the bridges with wider bridges, or replacing the bridges as they are and adding a pedestrian bridge.

“We know from history of this project in the late ’90s that really there are only two or three feasible and prudent alternatives that we want to validate through the official process with the state,” he said. “We are working with TxDOT right now to make sure we are on the right track with our analysis [to ensure] our approach is defensible.”

Prior to the city taking over management of Austin Avenue from TxDOT in the late 1990s-early 2000s, TxDOT had started the process of drafting a plan to repair the bridges, Waggoner said. However, after the city took over the project, TxDOT’s study was tabled.

Waggoner said the city is required to review all possible options as part of the environmental process.

“[By going through this process], we are more likely to get funded [from
TxDOT or the federal government],” Waggoner said. “The state or the [federal government] are not going to give us funding for a project that has no [environmental] clearance.”

However, some council members are concerned the city’s process could have been more concise from the start.

“I’m concerned it will be a political decision and not what is right for the bridges,” City Council Member John Hesser said. “I just would like an engineer to sit down and tell me as a fact that this is what’s wrong with the bridges and this is what it takes to repair them, and this is how much it costs. Until you get that answer, to me, all this other stuff is a waste of time and breath.”

Public outcry

Since the start of the project the city has hosted two public input meetings with more than 150 participants as well as 19 public and private stakeholder meetings, Waggoner said. There are also 12 consulting parties registered through TxDOT that will help determine how to mitigate potential impacts to the community, Waggoner said.

On Oct. 5 the Georgetown Neighborhood Alliance, a group of downtown residents and business owners that registered with the state as a consulting party, met to discuss its position on the project.

Len Denton, a representative of the alliance, said the group is advocating for the city to remove the bridges' replacement as an option for consideration.

“The best option is a repair-and-maintenance strategy,” Denton said, adding that replacing the bridges could lead to a closure of Austin Avenue for 18-36 months. “If that is the case, that could result in a potentially devastating impact on the downtown retail district.”

Waggoner said the city is expected to present all of the proposed options, including cost estimates and construction timelines, during the third public meeting in March.

“We are working very hard to develop the estimates for construction duration and looking at all of the different tools we have in order to be able to mitigate all of the impacts temporary closure may have,” Waggoner said. “We will make every effort to make sure one lane in each direction is open at all times.”

Along with repairing the bridges, he said the project is about creating a maintenance plan for the future.

“The city and its leadership are concerned about impacts to downtown businesses and preserving the historic character and the momentum that we have built collectively,” Waggoner said. “The wellness and fiscal health of the downtown has a direct impact on the overall wellness and fiscal impact of the city. So we also don’t want to disturb it. This is about developing that long-term capital asset management plan.”