Ed Carey closure leaves few alternate routes for drivers

HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Last week, Ed Carey Drive in Harlingen was closed to traffic due to a collapsed sewer line.

The Texas Department of Transportation asked the public to take an alternate route, but drivers had very few choices.

According to the city, more options probably will not be coming any time soon.

During the closure, the only convenient north/south routes to take were Camelot Drive and New Hampshire Street.

“There’s these thoroughfares, right, there’s this corridor," said City of Harlingen engineer, Luis Vargas. "Ed Carey being the major one, and you have Camelot, then you have New Hampshire, but that’s really it.”

Both streets can get busy and the city was in the process of doing re-paving New Hampshire.

A combination of factors had already delayed that work. The schedule had been shifted due to recent rains, and a new housing unit being built on the street still needed to connect water, wastewater and utility lines underground.

“We don’t want to pave it and then have another contractor cut brand new pavement, and then we’ll have to put a patch," Vargas said.

From 2023 through 2024, Harlingen announced nearly eight miles of re-paving work to be completed across all five City Commission districts. The city brought its re-paving efforts in-house to save money.

“We estimate that we would save approximately 30% overall from the construction efforts and costs," Vargas said. "That is saving in materials because we’re going to buy them in bulk and we’re also going to remove or reduce or delete the contractor’s margin or profit. So, we won’t have to pay a profit for a contractor.”

Vargas reported the paving equipment cost about $3 million and the new paving branch of the Public Works Department consists of ten employees. He said that over the last three years, Harlingen has spent an average of $2.2 million per year on repaving projects at $450,000 per mile.

But repaving work does not translate to new roads being built.

New road construction in the city can be difficult due to right-of-way issues, the need for collaboration between local, state and federal agencies, along with geographic obstacles like the arroyo.

There are currently four areas that span the arroyo in town, all of which were built and continue to be maintained by TxDOT.

Vargas said any attempt by the city to connect streets across the arroyo, providing for more city intra-connectivity, would be costly and take years to even bring a plan like that takes years to bring forward.

“So to establish a new one, local one, yes, all that effort paperwork, studies, planning, transportation analysis, traffic analysis, all of that. It would be difficult and costly. How long it would take, probably 10, 15 years”, Vargas said.

For the foreseeable future, residents will have few north/south options to traverse this heavily trafficked area.

Vargas added the city has a thoroughfare map, essentially a plan for how all the roads should connect. He said a new comprehensive plan is in the works, and should be ready by early next year.