PREDICTIONS TURN TRUE: IS BOCA CHICA ACTUALLY BETTER?

By Jim Barton

Brownsville Observer Blog

The shit show that is Boca Chica Boulevard is a living testament to millions of taxpayer dollars wasted by Brownsville's incompetent Metropolitan Planning Organization before it was eaten by the bigger fish, the Rio Grande Valley MPO.

The old Triple A farm team MPO was always dominated by the informative, but condescending

Mark Lund, who presided over MPO meetings like a strict schoolmarm hovering over wayward students, always making copious use of the "I" word: "I wrote this document seven years ago,"I have questions about this." 

 Lund both asked and answered his own rhetorical questions, entertaining himself with witticisms and asides only he found humorous.

Several years ago, I attended the MPO meetings discussing the proposed changes to Boca Chica Boulevard presided over by Mark Lund.An artist's rendering of the "new" median-divided Boca Chica Boulevard was propped up on a tripod.

Of course, it wasn't until traffic flow began to be hampered by traffic cones and the construction of the concrete barrier that Brownsville taxpayers began to complain.

Self-righteous local blogger Bobby Wightman-Cervantes penned a sort of pre-emptive strike against criticism of the Boca Chica Boulevard project with these unfortunate words:

"But I can assure you in a few weeks when they do the final resurfacing of Boca Chica a moronic blogger will have something to say about it in a negative light."

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, traditionally Brownsville's "Negative Nancy," yet, in regards to the changes involved along this highway, Bobby almost dared anyone in the local blogosphere to utter a peep of criticism over the Texas Department of Transportation's ongoing makeover of Boca Chica Boulevard.

Of course, the full-of-himself blogger was not at any of several TXDOT meetings three years ago when Mark Lund was trying to sell this idea to the board before the three local transportation boards were merged into a single regional one.(Do I sound a bit self-righteous like Bobby?)

An aspect of planning not widely known is that the planning agency feels compelled to utilize their entire annual budget on projects, lest that budget be reduced the following year. That thinking did play a part in the Boca Chica project.

Next, Wightman personalizes his praise of the Boca Chica project by claiming to have sailed through a portion of Boca Chica without stopping at a single light, although he gets confused, thinking Jefferson Street somehow intersects Boca Chica:

"Yesterday from my house which is midway between 4 Corners and the airport I made it without hitting one light all the way to Palm Blvd, and then to Jefferson before I hit my first light. I routinely make it to the highway without hitting one light. Boca Chica is so much better."

Well, if Bobby is running red lights, he's not the only one in town.

But, whether or not Boca Chica's traffic lights are synchronized is not the issue. It's the difficulty turning left to access businesses that's become the issue not perceived by Wightman.

The largest retailer in that stretch of Boca Chica, the H.E.B. Supermarket, can no longer be accessed with a direct left turn, but drivers from the east are given two awkward, unwieldy options:

1. Make a U-turn at the U-Haul Trailer facility, then navigate the many speed bumps across the parking lot and a concrete barrier in front of U-Haul to find a narrow lane behind Chase Bank leading to the H.E.B. parking lot.

2. Pass H.E.B. going west and turn left at the traffic light at Paredes Line Road. Proceed approximately two blocks to access H.E.B. from the west side of the parking lot.

Going east, the revamped Boca Chica Boulevard forces drivers wanting to access the strip mall containing D.D.'s Discounts and a sexual enhancement shop to pass the area, then u-turn back to it.

Vehicles attempting to enter the Walmart parking lot from Boca Chica face the option of sitting through four red lights to turn left on Old Port Isabel Road or do the U-turn thing further east.

Dozens of cars at a time are exiting or entering the narrow opening of a tiny strip mall turning it into a heavily-trafficked side road.

Boca Chica Boulevard has needlessly become a congested little mess, victimized by poor design more than actual traffic.

Piss poor "planning" MPO!

This new dangerously congested stretch of what is actually Texas Highway 4 needs to be renamed to recognize its primary bureaucratic creator; Mark Lund Boulevard.

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