Colleyville City Council approved an advanced funding agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation to help pay for the reconstruction of Cheek-Sparger Road at the Feb. 17 meeting.
The overview
The agreement will help pay the costs related to reconstructing Cheek-Sparger Road into a two-lane undivided road and adding turn lanes, sidewalks and shared-use paths from Bedford Road to Heritage Avenue. Additionally, a traffic signal will be installed at the intersection of Martin Parkway and Cheek-Sparger Road.
The total cost for these improvements is anticipated to be $33 million, and the advanced funding agreement will pay for $12.6 million of the project, with the city paying $931,250 to the state for the agreement.
Of the $12.6 million, the federal government will grant the project $12.5 million, with:
The state will grant the remaining $51,312, according to city documents.
Currently, the project is in the preliminary design phase, and as the project gets more fleshed out, a better cost estimate for construction will be available, City Manager Jerry Ducay said.
Diving deeper
The city of Colleyville also received funding from Tarrant County in an amount of $13 million, per city documents.
The total amount of outside funding for the project is $25.6 million, and the city of Colleyville is expecting to pay $6.5 million for the project, according to city documents.
“[City officials are] going to continue to be pursuing funding [for Cheek-Sparger] for many years,” Ducay said. “We figure it is probably, at soonest, a late 2027 or 2028 project, but with the Trinity River Authority leading the way, it could [start] later, depending on how long it takes them [to do their work]. Obviously, the longer the timeline, the more likely costs are going to go up.”
The TRA is planning on adding a water transmission line under Cheek-Sparger Road, and the improvements to Cheek-Sparger will occur directly after the line is installed, Ducay said. This means the TRA does not have to restore the road, and the money not used for that work is planned to be given to Colleyville for the project.
“There’s a portion of [the TRA's] project cost that they recognize they would have had to compensate for, so they would contribute that, or a substantial portion of that cost, toward this project,” Ducay said.
The amount that the TRA plans to give Colleyville will be determined at a later date.
What else?
Colleyville citizen Kathy Hadley spoke against the Cheek-Sparger project during the meeting.
“Let’s keep our roads the way they are,” she said. “People enjoy them, and we don’t need to widen them and allow more traffic to blow through. ... Once we start adding lanes and losing our trees, we’re changing beautiful Colleyville.”
Ducay clarified that the road will remain two lanes and not be wider than it is now. The only changes will be adding turn lanes to unsafe intersections and determining what kind of curbs to add.
“We have inquired about saving the trees along [Cheek-Sparger] so that’s definitely on our radar,” Mayor Pro Tem Brandi Elder said. “We will be watching for that and trying to save as many as we can, but that’s kind of out of our hands as well. That’s going to depend on how much damage the TRA does to the road and what they need to take out to do their work.”
