TDD to Address Traffic Issues on Stadium
Plan calls for road widening.
By: Sara Semelka, CDT - July 23, 2009
The traffic crunch on Stadium Boulevard near the Interstate 70 junction, often clogged with commuters headed home and shoppers bound for Columbia Mall, has worsened to a point city officials can no longer ignore.
The Columbia City Council was briefed last night on updated plans to widen Stadium between Broadway and I-70, a project that would include improvements to many side streets and intersections and cost about $20 million total.
The project has been in the works for about five years and will be funded with sales tax revenue collected from three transportation development districts, or TDDs, as well as a state loan.
Plans were moving along about two years ago, but coordination between the TDDs became shaky, and then the local and national economies started to decline. The three TDDs include Columbia Mall, Raul Walters’ Crossroads shopping center and the Stan Kroenke-owned Shoppes at Broadway. City staffers have been working to update agreements between each TDD and the city, adjusting for the drop in sales tax revenues. Money the city collects from the TDDs will be used to fund the side-street and intersection projects. TDD funds will also pay off a state loan that would finance the large project to widen Stadium to six lanes.
“The bottom line is that we think it can still work,” City Manager Bill Watkins told the council. “But there is a substantial amount of additional risk. Looking in our crystal ball for sales tax,” the revenue stream “is just not where it was.” Finance Director Lori Fleming explained that tentative agreements with the TDDs and sales tax projections show TDD funds could finance the projects, but there is little room for leeway. The city will be on the hook for the state loan payments, Fleming said, and if sales tax revenues don’t meet projections, that money will come from the city. “If we move forward, we have to commit to the whole nine yards,” Watkins said. “This is the thing you need to consider: There was no money in our” capital improvement plan “for this before, but pinch points may require” city “money down the road.”
Public Works Director John Glascock laid out a tentative timeline for the projects, starting with the side roads. In spring 2010, work could begin on Fairview Road; May 2011 could bring work on the west side of Bernadette Drive; and that July, work could start on the mall entrances.
State money for the Stadium widening would not be available until 2012, and construction could start in June of that year and last for about two construction seasons, or 18 months, Watkins said. Stadium would be traversable during construction but greatly disturbed, which is why the side streets should be improved first, Watkins said. The first contracts for the smaller side projects could be approved by the council at its meeting Aug. 3.
“I might be uncomfortable about” the sales tax revenue “future, but I am extremely uncomfortable about the future if we don’t do this,” Mayor Darwin Hindman said. “I can’t imagine walking away.” Watkins agreed. “This is such a traffic problem, we’ve got to do something,” he said after the work session. “This is one of the best options we’ve seen: a lot of state money and a low-interest loan.”
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