In a novel arrangement, area policymakers may loan $130 million of public monies to the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority for the construction of managed lanes on MoPac between Parmer Lane and Cesar Chavez Street, or what is known as the MoPac Improvement Project.

The lanes—one in each direction—would be free for buses and registered vanpools and would cost between 25 cents and $4 per trip for cars that drive the entire 11-mile of corridor, said Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Mobility Authority.

If terms can be worked out, the loan would complete funding of the estimated $200 million for construction, which is expected to take about two years, Heiligenstein said. The agency is already set to receive about $66 million from TxDOT in a separate commitment.

"If we don't fund all of this project, then [the Mobility Authority] would have to go to another lender, and they would be the primary lender. We would become subordinate. We would be second in line to receive the money back," said Maureen McCoy, executive director of Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is responsible for distributing state and federal funds to the region.

As part of the arrangement, CAMPO could reap up to $70 million in interest over 22 years, according to an estimate by the Mobility Authority. That money, in addition to the loan repayment, would be reinvested into other transportation projects in the region, such as improvements to I-35.

The $130 million would come from a $2 billion purse that the Texas Department of Transportation is making available for shovel-ready transportation projects in Texas' 100 most congested corridors. Of that sum, Central Texas is poised to receive $136.6 million, about $10 million more than CAMPO staff estimated last month. But the windfall does not come without stipulations.

The funds must be committed before Sept. 29 or CAMPO risks losing the money, a restrictive timeline given the amount of public input that needs to be gathered, and, most notably, projects must be shovel-ready. Because of this, no other projects fit the bill.

"Unless we strategically position ourselves to have projects that are shovel-ready, then we are not able to take full advantage of those dollars in as quick as a time frame as I think we as transportation professionals, you as members of the board, TxDOT would like us [to be able to]," McCoy said.

Furthermore, the funds must not supplant already committed funds.

CAMPO chairman and Hays County Commissioner Will Conley wrote a letter to Ted Houghton, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, the governing body that oversees TxDOT, asking the commission to revise its position on previously committed funds.

"If TxDOT were to allow the new funds to be used to fund [other] state highway projects, our local governments could invest the funds currently committed to the projects on other vital infrastructure projects in their respective jurisdictions," the letter, dated March 26, said.

The CAMPO board, composed of elected officials in the five-county Central Texas region, may reconsider the loan if TxDOT changes its position.

Legal and financial advisers will work out the details of the loan, but the Mobility Authority, at the request of CAMPO, has already put forth proposed terms.

Repayment, beginning with an estimated $11 million principle installment, would begin in 2021, five years after the managed lanes open, during which time no interest would accrue. The Mobility Authority would make $8.3 million in payments annually, and, at a 3 percent to 3.5 percent interest rate, the loan would be paid off in 2043.