Committee to spend months ranking Tarrant County transportation projects for bond election

A consultant will be used to help a bond planning committee rank nearly 200 projects submitted by cities for shared funding as part of the transportation bond program that will go to Tarrant County voters in November.

Officials received 195 transportation projects from 24 jurisdictions. Some of those proposals likely involve regional projects or multiple agencies, which Tarrant County commissioners will consider separately. Officials haven’t yet analyzed and sorted the full list of submissions, so it’s unclear how many of the 195 will be evaluated by commissioners, County Administrator GK Maenius told the court at a meeting April 27.

A second consultant would be hired to help commissioners with their evaluation of projects to help speed up the process, Maenius said. The commissioners court will consider approving the contract for the committee’s consultant next week.

The transportation bond program seeks to increase mobility, reduce congestion, enhance safety and improve connectivity throughout the county. The cities of Fort Worth, Keller, Colleyville and Southlake are among those that submitted projects for consideration. Bonds approved by Tarrant County voters may fund up to half the cost of a selected municipal project.

Of the $400 million in bonds county officials will ask voters to approve, $200 million would be allocated for projects submitted by cities. Most of the remainder would go to regional and multi-agency projects. About $75 million would be divided among the county’s four precincts for projects selected by commissioners individually.

Commissioners are scheduled to greet the bond planning committee May 11. The committee is expected to meet at least three more times to complete its ranking of proposed municipal transportation projects, Maenius said. The ranking is scheduled to be done in August.