EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) held a public hearing on the proposed Downtown 10 project that would make improvements, upgrades, and widen Interstate 10 through Downtown El Paso.
The open house-style hearing was held on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at El Paso Convention Center.
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Shortly before the hearing began, a coalition of El Paso neighborhoods and associations in East-Central El Paso called the “Community First Coalition,” spoke outside of the convention center in opposition to the project.
The group outlined multiple reasons for opposing the project, saying that it would hurt the environment and displace nearby residents. The group said traffic issues don’t justify the expansion of the highway and they argued that it wouldn’t solve any of those problems in the long term.
“My concerns have to do with unnecessary reasoning for Downtown expansion. It’s not congested,” said Kathy Staudt, a co-founder of the coalition. “Also, once highways are expanded, it tends to attract more traffic. More traffic means more trucks, means more pollution, means more respiratory health problems.”
The group also offered alternatives to improve traffic flow in the El Paso region, including improving the infrastructure of I-10.
“We don’t need to expand it, but we need to create a mass transportation system which connects all the way down to the Alameda corridor. We can improve the infrastructure on Interstate 10, and that means less dollars to spend there and more dollars invested in the community,” said Micheal Davis, president and chairman of the board for the Eastside-Central coalition.
However, residents from the Sunset Heights neighborhood near Downtown El Paso said they are supportive of I-10’s expansion and the benefits TxDOT said the project may bring.
“I think families here are overwhelmingly in support of the widening of I-10,” said Daniel Rubio, president of the Friends of Sunset Heights Neighborhood Association. “It’s a pretty big issue with traffic choking as we get closer to Downtown, especially if there’s an accident. So I’m really hoping that this will alleviate the flow in general and that we won’t have to exit on Cotton or the actual Downtown exit and go through all the lights just to try to get back to Sunset Heights.”
Another resident of the Sunset Heights neighborhood said he is also a big supporter of the separate Downtown Deck Plaza project, a billion-dollar plan to build a park over I-10 in Downtown, which could only move forward if the freeway is widened.
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“I think it’s going to help with the flow of traffic through our Downtown. But more importantly, there’s a deck park that could be attached to this that could really improve our quality of life,” Steffen Poessiger said.
You can learn more about the project and how to share your comments by clicking here.
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