Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN - Texas transportation officials on Thursday approved a $146 million project to improve traffic flow on El Paso's East Side, authorizing construction of four connector ramps connecting Interstate 10 and Loop 375.

Most of the work will be paid for through the federal stimulus package. In all, the federal program will help finance 29 road projects throughout Texas at a cost of $1.2 billion.

El Paso's highway upgrade could employ about 200 workers, said Chuck Berry, district engineer for the Texas Transportation Department. Statewide, the road projects could create as many as 90,000 jobs in construction and other industries, transportation officials said.

In El Paso, stimulus money will start the development of what informally is being called a second "Spaghetti Bowl," that eventually could have eight connecting ramps.

"That will be the epicenter of the East Side. That's where the growth is," said Harold Hahn, chairman of the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority in El Paso.

The Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Transportation Department, identified and approved projects that could be completed with money from the stimulus package. One concept of the federal program is to finance projects that will put people to work quickly.

Tom Johnson, executive vice president of Associated General Contractors of Texas, said he has had to lay off 10,000 workers since December and would have to let more go if stimulus projects do not get under way soon.

"Don't hesitate, because we can only pay employees for so long when there's no work for them to do," Johnson said.

Construction crews should be working on El Paso's project as early as next spring, and the ramps could be completed in as little as 2Âyears, Berry said. That is a quick turnaround for so a big project, he said.

El Paso leaders, including state Rep. Joe Pickett, a Democrat who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee, identified the new interchange as the city's top priority. Initially, El Paso's leadership sought funding for all eight ramps at a cost of $260 million.

For the scaled-down, $146 million project, the city will put in about $21 million of its own federal stimulus money and $50 million from property tax revenues. The remaining $76 million will come from the Transportation Department's pot of federal stimulus money.

"We did well because we bellied up to the bar," Pickett said.

Some lawmakers, though, were upset that the commission rushed so quickly to spend the stimulus money. They argued more public participation was needed and that too much money was going to toll roads.

"We really need to take a deep breath and look at things, and let the people out there have a say," state Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson, R-Waco, told the commission.

But Ted Houghton, transportation commissioner from El Paso, said the state is facing tight deadlines set forth in the federal legislation. At least half the money must be allotted for specific projects in the next 118 days.

If Texas doesn't use the money, it risks losing it to other states.

"If we keep delaying, we shorten the fuse," Houghton said.

Pickett said he understood other legislators' calls for a delay in spending the money. Lawmakers, he said, have long distrusted the gigantic Transportation Department.

But it was inevitable that there would be a lot of disappointment in the process, he said. The department received $13 billion in project requests but had only about $1.2 billion to spend.

"There was a lot more saying 'no' than saying 'yes,' period," Pickett said.