PRESIDIO — On Tuesday evening, more than three dozen Presidians showed up to City Council to protest a proposed truck bypass route from Highway 67 to the port of entry. The route — which would allow trucks alternate access to the railroad and port of entry during traffic backups — would cut a path around the eastern edge of the city to FM 170, 

The plan was first presented to Council on November 5 by Odessa-based engineering firm Landgraf, Crutcher and Associates, who claimed that the city had to act fast in expressing their support for the bypass — the exact details of which TXDOT would fund and explore through a bill in the state Legislature. 

The presentation explained that the project was both “shovel ready” and “badly needed,” citing the high rate of accidents and congestion during busy holiday weekends at the Presidio Port of Entry was a danger to Presidians and a hindrance to the local economy. It also promised that it would — for a road project — be a relatively quick and painless process, with all right of way issues preemptively solved by land donations.

Locals started to notice cracks in the firm’s presentation right away. For one, it was pitched as a TxDOT project with the TxDOT logo emblazoned on the slides — but John Langraf, engineer on the potential project, said that a “private group of individuals” had hatched the plan. These private individuals were never named, but Presidio County Attorney Rod Ponton personally sent the slides to the city and requested the item be on the agenda. (Ponton, via a corporation called La Junta Enterprises, owns land along the proposed route.) 

The presentation also did not cite accurate data, claiming that there had been 385 commercial motor vehicle crashes in Presidio County — 52% of which happened on the Highway 67 corridor — from 2018 to 2023, resulting in 11 deaths. TxDOT’s own data, aggregated online, instead reports only one death from a commercial vehicle accident in all of Presidio County in that date range, out of a total of 17 crashes.

Folks were also confused by the presentation’s reference to House Bill 4422. At the November 5 meeting, representatives from the firm said that the city had about two days to rubber-stamp their support or they could miss out. But the Texas Legislature is not currently in session — HB 4422 was a prior piece of legislation calling for a study by TXDOT that would “enhance border security outcomes through public safety, technological, and transportation infrastructure improvements near Texas-Mexico border crossings,” to be completed and sent to the governor by December 1, 2024. 

If the study was just a study, why the rush? And if there was some kind of behind-the-scenes deadline with TXDOT, why was it only being presented to local officials with 48 hours notice? 

Local businessman Ariel Lara implored the council to vote “no” on the resolution, which would express the city’s support for the proposed bypass “as presented.” He went through the presentation step by step, pointing out what he felt were gaps. “It seeks to solve a motor vehicle traffic problem that does not exist today,” he said.

Chief among Lara’s — and many other audience members’ — concerns was the fact that the bypass deadends at FM 170 between the edge of town and Fort Leaton. Trucks who used the bypass for its stated purpose of avoiding traffic on 67 would then have to drive FM 170 to O’Reilly Street to get anywhere in town. If those trucks were bound for the port of entry, they would have to drive past the high school, the elementary school, and all the way through downtown to reach their destination. 

The presentation itself promised “to keep commercial vehicles out of the downtown area” and to protect locals from “danger of hazardous cargo,” citing specifically “diesel/propane trucks” that sparked controversy at City Council in 2022 — enough so that council passed a resolution banning the transport of hazardous material within city limits. (Then-City Attorney Ponton later deemed the resolution illegal because no alternate route through or around the city was provided.) 

The firm promised a “future potential tie-in to a larger bypass” that would route to the port of entry, avoiding downtown, the school district, and the Presidio Activities Center. 

Lara found that logic circular and unconvincing, especially given that the firm suggested that the first phase could take 10 years and the “future potential tie-in” could take twice as long. “It’s a confession that they’re saying phase one is going to route all this traffic through the city center,” he said. “Everything it strives to improve, it makes worse.” 

The county’s Precinct 1 Commissioner-Elect Deirdre Hisler also implored council not to accept the resolution. “The largest portion of [the bypass] goes through Presidio County, not the city of Presidio,” she said. “Why haven’t they come through commissioners court?” 

Local business owner Anibal Galindo was upset by what he felt was deception on the part of the anonymous “private group” — none of whom showed up to the meeting to field citizen concerns. “How can you lie to us about how our city works?” he wondered. “This feels like a cash grab from someone.” 

Mayor Pro Tempore Arian Velázquez-Ornelas pulled out the city’s master plan, which does make it a priority for the city to “address freight needs” — including an alternative route for freight from the highway to the city’s rail facilities, which are projected to re-open mid-2025. “This is not something new that the council has seen, it’s just a new proposal from a different entity,” she explained. 

Velázquez-Ornelas said that one of the things that could change through the process of designating the bypass was its exact route — meaning that the state could instead end the bypass before FM 170, making it an out-and-back route instead of a loop. “It could get the spotlight on us, and if TXDOT accepts it, they’ll have public hearings,” she said. “It’s not going to happen overnight.” 

Hector Granado agreed that — even if this was not the right plan for Presidio — the city would have to grapple with the issue sooner rather than later. “Where are we going to send traffic from the train back to the highway?” he wondered. “The trucks have to go out one way or another. We need to remember that they’re coming.” 

However inevitable and necessary the question of a freight bypass for Presidio, the text of the resolution in front of the council on Tuesday night stipulated that they were expressing support for the route “as presented.” 

Mayor John Ferguson suggested that the council indefinitely table the resolution — a suggestion that drew applause from the audience. He wanted city officials to gather more information about the state’s role in the project and a perspective from Texas Pacifico, the company bringing rail service back to town. 

Ferguson said he would personally like to explore the city designing and advocating for its own bypass and was confused by why the plan was being prepared by an outside entity. “If it’s truly coming through TXDOT, it’ll come to me,” he said. “It’s a little bit unusual that this is being requested in this manner.”