West Parkway plan fails to gain traction in West Brownsville

Although Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority officials have incorporated residents’ ideas — walking paths, “pocket parks” and the like — into their plan for the West Parkway toll road project, one suggestion the CCRMA hasn’t embraced is that it abandon the project altogether.

A number of residents in West Brownsville wish the CCRMA would do just that, since the toll road would run smack through the neighborhood, on the right-of-way currently occupied by the Union Pacific railroad tracks. The tracks are slated for removal under a separate county project.

Martha Marroquin, for one, said she and other West Brownsville residents who oppose the toll road “have not been listened to,” despite repeating themselves many times to authorities. West Brownsville, the city’s first subdivision, is a historic mix of dilapidated properties and well maintained homes, some of them restored. The neighborhood contains households of varying income levels and diverse ethnicities.

Marroquin says she’s open to just about anything — as long as it’s not a toll road.

“It could be a hiking trail,” she said. “It could be a biking trail. It can have some gardens with benches for the very senior people that cannot walk. For our younger generation we can have basketball courts.”

Susanna Sanchez’s front door is 154 feet from the middle of the tracks — not quite the length of four school buses parked end-to-end. The outermost edge of the toll road shoulder would be three school bus lengths from her front door. That’s too close as far as she is concerned. Her neighbor across the street, whose property is already right up against the tracks, would be even worse off, Sanchez said.

Undoubtedly, some properties would have to be taken over for the project. Marroquin worries that homeowners won’t be able to buy anything else if forced to accept the “fair market value” typically offered property owners in cases of eminent domain.

Hilda Ledesma, another longtime West Brownsville resident who lives near the tracks, is likewise strongly opposed to the project. And she’s skeptical of CCRMA officials’ insistence that taxpayers will not have to pay any part of the bill.

“At the end, if it’s going to be a toll road it’s going to come back to us as citizens,” Ledesma said through a translator. “Our taxes are going to pay for it.”

Eugene Novogrodsky, a 22-year resident of West Washington Street, said the viewpoints of anti-toll road residents and CCRMA officials are “diametrically opposed.”

“The first thing I always say is ‘We don’t want a road,’ and the first thing that CCRMA shows you is a road,” he said.

Bill Berg, who has lived in the neighborhood 13 years, said the only reason the CCRMA wants to build the West Parkway is that the right-of-way exists.

“Their mandate is to build big roads,” he said. “They come to us and say ‘What do you think?’ And we tell them ‘We want hike and bike. We want neighborhood parks.’ We can go on and on. They say ‘Let’s compromise.’”

Berg is skeptical of claims that the toll road would serve as an economic boon to the affected area.

“This is going to be a downtown bypass for people who want to get to and from Mexico and maybe then get up the highway to Harlingen or points north,” he said. “It has nothing to do with either this neighborhood or Brownsville.”

Sanchez says opponents already have roughly 5,000 signatures on an anti-toll road petition and are still gathering more. The Cameron County Historical Commission has weighed in with a resolution against the toll road on the grounds that it would abut two historic overlay districts.

Nor is the project popular among city officials: In February 2009, the City Commission passed a resolution opposing the West Parkway project. Commissioner Rose M.Z. Gowen said she opposes the toll road in part because a significant number of West Brownsville residents have said they don’t want it.

“I have a feeling that the road is not going to serve them, and they’re the ones that live there,” she said.

Gowen, a medical doctor, agrees that pedestrian-friendly is the way to go — especially in light of Brownsville’s high rates of obesity, diabetes and related problems.

“When I look at that map and it shows this straight path, I think how perfect for a bike path or green belt that goes through those neighborhoods, bringing activities to those people’s doors,” she said. “Research clearly shows we will exercise more if we have ready access to green space. I think that is a natural place to put something in place the neighborhood wants and needs. If you’re a road builder and you look at that map you’re going to see a road, and I understand that. But I think that the big picture needs to be evaluated.”