Photo by Joe Olivieri

Vehicles line up at the traffic light in Oak Hill before traveling west on West Hwy. 290. The intersection of Hwy. 290 and Hwy. 71 is known for its traffic congestion.

At a workshop March 22, community members will be able to learn more about transportation funding options for the ongoing Oak Hill Parkway environmental study to address long-term congestion at the Y at Oak Hill where Hwy. 290 and Hwy. 71 intersect.

The Oak Hill Parkway study is the first step in a multiyear Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority and Texas Department of Transportation effort seeking ways to alleviate congestion problems and investigate potential effects of possible transportation projects on Hwy. 290.

This workshop will be one in a series of workshops that have been attended by numerous community members to provide feedback on design options, concepts and details, said Melissa Hurst, community outreach manager with the Mobility Authority.

"At these workshops, we focus on a specific area of the project," she said. "The Oak Hill community has expressed an interest into really getting down into this level of detail."

At the Saturday workshop, attendees can learn about how different transportation funding mechanisms work and what effect they can have on projects' timelines, as well as tolling and different state and local policies. Representatives from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute will share information about options for how to finance a potential Oak Hill Parkway project.

The meeting is scheduled for March 22 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Oak Hill United Methodist Church, 7815 W. Hwy. 290. Hurst said that after the event, the project team will post summaries of the information discussed and what neighbors said at www.oakhillparkway.com.