Texas Transportation officials outline Rural Transportation Improvement Plan in Mineral Wells

May 3—MINERAL WELLS — Texas Department of Transportation officials urged Palo Pinto County residents to provide their input to local highway plans by mid-month during a public forum Tuesday in Mineral Wells.

"We really, really, really want people's feedback on that," Korey Coburn, area engineer for Palo Pinto and Parker counties, told some 40 residents who attended the meeting at city hall. "None of these are locked-in solutions at this point."

He, Design Manager Chad Dabbs and Mohammad Al Hweil, advanced transportation planning director for the Fort Worth District, encouraged residents to provide input by May 13.

That can be done by emailing Al Hweil at Mohammad.AlHweil@txdot.gov or by mail to his attention at TxDOT Attention: Rural TIP, 2501 SW Loop 820, Fort Worth, Texas 76133.

Designs for potential plans and routes can be found at www.txdot.gov. Click on, "explore projects."

"Those corridors are going to take a long time," Al Hweil said. "And yours is the most important vote on the projects."

The highway officials said TxDOT plans to consider a U.S. 281 relief route around Mineral Wells, the potential that drew most of Tuesday's audience.

Such a route, to encourage heavy truck traffic to bypass the city's downtown, has not been funded. Coburn said officials are still checking whether a bypass is needed.

"Because, y'all know the population is booming in North Texas," he said.

However, a U.S. 281 relief route around Mineral Wells is not among 23 projects TxDOT plans that are specific to the county in the coming four years.

Coburn said it would be part of a larger plan for the north-south artery, envisioned as a "freight corridor" to take pressure off Interstate 35, he said.

"They are looking at 281 from pretty much up to Wichita Falls and all the way to San Antonio," he said.

Resident Leanne Wells was among those providing input Tuesday, chiefly about which direction from U.S. 281 will see highway construction.

"I hear what you're saying, but I'm not comfortable," she said. "Because I know the end design can be disastrous for us."

Wells described a five-acre lake she and her husband built on their property east of U.S. 281.

"In heat, it is the only water resource for wildlife," she said. "They would have to cross three big roads to get to the Brazos."

A resident west of the highway asked the designers to shy from building that direction.

"There's a whole lot of us who have worked really hard to get what we have," the woman said, later declining to identify herself. "And we want to pass it on to our kids. Any option to the west is not, in my opinion, an option."

Projects discussed Tuesday also included replacing the Natty Flat Road bridge across Hill Creek in 2027 and resurfacing several bridges on the Bankhead Highway that same year, respectively estimated at $651,000 and $2.7 million.

Eighteen of the 23 Palo Pinto County projects involve laying new seal coat. Intersection safety enhancements, scattered throughout the county, are set to start this coming fall.

Al Hweil said 281 looms large in TxDOT plans.

"281 — I can tell you it's the most important highway here in this area," he said. "You have almost $200 million in the 281 project, north and south of I-20."

He also shared that no toll roads are contemplated in the district's nine counties.

"We have not done any toll roads in Texas since 2015," he said. "I don't think we are doing this anymore."