TOUGH QUESTIONS: what agency fills the gaps in Borderland transportation projects?
CRRMA Executive Director Raymond Telles. Credit: KFOX14/CBS4
EL PASO, Texas (CBS4) —
Transportation projects involve a lot more than building roads and road signs.
There are other forms of transportation and a lot of nooks and crannies that need to be filled in with each project.
That’s where the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority, or CRRMA, comes in.
“When there’s a project that comes along, we’re not involved in the prioritization of it,” CRRMA Executive Director, Raymond Telles said. “We’re not involved in the policy determination of whether it’s good, bad or otherwise. We are really agnostic to the projects. If the region determines that’s the project to be developed, we are a tool that will build it.”
Telles calls his agency a “gap filler” for transportation projects across our region.
For example, when El Paso’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO, decided to create a toll road system more than a decade ago, it called in the CRRMA.
“That was the toll system approved by the region back in 2008,” Telles said. “So, again, we, the agnostic agency, we started building the toll roads. And then they started having policy arguments about, ‘Well, should there be a toll road?’ and that’s resolved somewhere else and we either operate it or we don’t, it’s ok.”
Then, when the City of El Paso wanted to bring streetcars back to downtown, the CRRMA was again called in to manage that project.
In addition, Telles said his agency has been working with El Paso County for years, improving and extending roads in fast-growing East El Paso County. “It’s Eastlake, which is one you’ve likely seen, that’s been expanded and widened, improved with landscaping and lighting, shared-use paths and that sort of thing. The entire stretch was done by us in partnership with the county and with the Town of Horizon City as well.”
The CRRMA is also managing the extension of eastside roads like Mission Ridge, Pellicano, John Hayes, Tierra Este and Ascension.
The authority is also involved in developing the Fabens Airport as an aerospace research center and creating a bicycle rental program at Ascarate Park, which will connect to another project the CRRMA is involved with, the Paso Del Norte Hike and Bike Trail, which will eventually stretch across El Paso County and include parts of Dona Ana County.
“We have the ability to develop any transportation projects, whether it’s aviation, rail, roadway, hike and bike, anything dealing with transportation, we’ve stepped in,” Telles said.
The Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority is also involved in reviving the Wyler Aerial Tramway in Central El Paso.
CBS4’s John Purvis will tell you more about that in an upcoming story.
Sign up to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.
