Following a near-total collapse of air travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, early 2024 marks a significant milestone as North American air travel is finally returning to normal.

Normal, however, may not be the appropriate word because many airports are experiencing significantly higher passenger demand. The demand is driving a huge need for expansion and renovation, resulting in an abundance of new airport projects.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided $15 billion for all kinds of airport projects. This funding has been streaming out since 2022 at a rate of about $2.9 billion per year. And the outflow will continue until 2026. To date, approximately $9 billion has been made available to airports, and there is about $6 billion left to be allocated.

The Pensacola Airport in Florida has seen a 40% increase in passengers, creating an immediate need to expand its terminals to accommodate the growth. Funded partially by the Florida Department of Transportation, a new $70 million project to accommodate the increased capacity to serve more passengers will begin soon. The project will expand the existing terminal by about 50%.

While the design process is still underway, the expansion is expected to include larger security spaces, a second concourse with five new gates and numerous new concessions. Plans also call for additional parking spaces and improving utility infrastructure throughout the airport.

Officials at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport will soon launch a massive expansion project to the facility’s main terminal and concourses. Funded through grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and non-aviation-related revenues, Phase 1 of this project is expected to be the most significant phase in construction, and it carries a cost projection of $780 million. It will expand the main terminal building to include new spaces for ticketing, customs, baggage claims and security. It will also relocate the existing car rental building and add additional parking. Later phases of the project will reroute the airport’s surrounding roadways.

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The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will decarbonize the cement industry, promote carbon capture storage and upgrade electricity transmission lines as part of its vision for reducing climate pollution. The commission is working to become eligible for a $5 billion federal grant program to support reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and other harmful air pollutants.

TCEQ and other Texas municipalities have until March 1 to submit a formalized Climate Action Plan to be eligible for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) program. Applications are due by April 1. Supported by the Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA will award between 30 and 115 competitive grants totaling $4.6 billion to support GHG-reduction strategies by states, municipalities, air pollution control agencies and tribes.

Texas cities developing and executing climate change actions include Austin, McAllen, San Antonio, Houston-Galveston Council of Governments, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) and El Paso. Notably, El Paso recently signed a design contract Jan. 3 to develop its first formal Climate Action Plan.

The TCEQ’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Draft includes modifying industrial equipment to run on hydrogen and electrifying industrial process equipment instead of using fossil fuels. Other Priority Action Plan (PAP) industry measures will address several oil and gas issues, including remediating abandoned wells and reducing gas flaring. Gas flaring occurs when gas stemming from oil production is burned.

Click here to learn more about the climate plan

(Photo by Vlad Busuioc on Unsplash.)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a total of $161.9 million to Texas organizations to expand housing and services projects for the homeless. The funding includes $27 million to a coalition of Dallas and Collin County organizations that have had success addressing the needs of the underserved.

Dallas officials said the $27 million marks a 23% and 44% increase over 2022 and 2021 funding levels respectively. The funds will allow partnerships with Dallas County, North Texas Behavioral Health Authority and service providers to expand rehousing assistance and provide wrap-around services for families and individuals exiting homelessness. Wrap-around services are typically a team-based approach involving educators, community members and mental health professionals to support families with children who struggle with mental illness.

The Texas awards were recently announced as part of a $3.16 billion package supporting more than 7,000 projects nationwide under HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program.

Click here for details about other Texas awards

(Photo courtesy of Ed Yourdon.)

Texas Women’s University has appointed Monica Christopher as the inaugural president for the university’s Dallas campus. Christopher is a nonprofit executive and community relationships professional with 25 years of experience.

Christopher began her career in 1999 as senior director for the Dallas Morning News/WFAA. She would later join the Communities Foundation of Texas as senior director of strategic philanthropy before becoming senior vice president and chief giving and community impact officer.

Christopher officially assumed her presidential duties Feb. 1. As president of TWU-Dallas, she is responsible for providing key leadership to elevate the campus’ impact in the community and beyond. She has extensive experience fundraising and forging successful private-public sector partnerships.

(Photo courtesy of Texas Women's University.)

George Fuller

Mayor

City of McKinney

Public career highlights and education: George Fuller was first elected mayor in May of 2017 and re-elected for a second term in May of 2021. His wife, Maylee, voted McKinney Citizen of the Year in 2014, is an accomplished singer, songwriter and performer. Together, they co-founded the Love Life Foundation in 1992, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping at-risk women and children.

What I like best about my public service: I enjoy bringing people and solutions together. I enjoy challenges and in our high-growth environment, there are plenty of them to go around!

The best advice I’ve received: From my father: It is every small decision we make that lead to the big opportunities that we have.

People might be interested to know: George, also known as “Geo” in his alter-ego life as a musician, plays guitar in the Maylee Thomas Band (he still believes there should be a “-Fuller” after Thomas!).

One thing I wish more people knew about the city of McKinney: We are non-partisan, and partisan politics have no place in our job.

Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock has been appointed board chair of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO). Brock, the first Hispanic woman to serve in the role, will replace Sanjay Ramabhadran following his term’s expiration.

As METRO chair, Brock will oversee various aspects of Metro, which has a 1,309-square-mile service area, making it the largest transit authority in the state. She currently serves as vice president of utility infrastructure planning and policy at CenterPoint Energy. She is responsible for the company’s capital-planning needs.

Prior to CenterPoint Energy, Brock served in various leadership positions for Reliant Energy, Texas Southern University and the University of Houston. She has been a member of the board of Houston First Corporation – the city’s official destination marketing organization – since 2017. Brock was also a founding member and chair of Evolve Houston, a nonprofit working to accelerate electric vehicle adoption in the city.

(Photo courtesy of the Houston Mayor's Office of Communications.)

Gracie Warhurst has joined Strategic Partnerships, Inc. as a writer and digital content creator for the new Government Market News portal. With a rich background in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, Warhurst has experience as editor-in-chief of a literary magazine, assistant web editor, and project manager for an AI journalism project. She also contributed as a reporter during the development of SPI’s news portal. Warhurst graduated summa cum laude in December 2023 with a Bachelor of Journalism, making her a valuable asset to the SPI team.

Round Rock will continue developing a 22-acre space near downtown into a lush green bicyclist-friendly public park along Brushy Creek. With the schematic design phase complete, city officials said landscape architects will start drawing up construction documents for the Lawn at Brushy Creek project.

The funding comes from a 2023 voter-approved $230 million bond to support a series of parks, recreation and sports projects, including the Brushy Creek project. The City Council approved the park’s master plan in 2023. Round Rock acquired several pockets of land along the creek to connect the city’s planned Heritage Trail to Sheppard Street/Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The city will build a bridge to help bring pedestrians and cyclists to downtown Round Rock.

Click here for details about each project 

(Photo: Rendering of the Lawn at Brushy Creek Project. Courtesy of the city of Round Rock.)

The Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (AAMPO) has awarded $34.5 million to the city of New Braunfels and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for six projects that will upgrade the city’s roads and enhance infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.

New Braunfels and TxDOT submitted the projects for AAMPO to include in its FY 2025-2058 Transportation Improvement Program. AAMPO’s Transportation Policy Board (TPB) recently approved those projects. New Braunfels will work with AAMPO and TxDOT to move the projects forward. Construction is expected to start September 2024.

AAMPO is a regional agency responsible for developing transportation plans and programs to move people and goods safely and efficiently for Bexar, Comal and Guadalupe Counties and the city of Boerne. AAMPO’s TPB approves $200 million in projects annually and must greenlight federal funding for all transportation projects in the region. In June 2022, TPB adopted Mobility 2050, a long-range transportation plan to reduce crash fatalities in the region to zero over the next 25 years.

Click here for details about each project

(Photo: The Gruene Historic District. Courtesy of Comal County.)

Texas A&M University System regents approved $258 million in construction projects at campuses in Galveston, Laredo, San Antonio and Corpus Christi earlier this week. 

Plans call for a new engineering building in Galveston, a health sciences building in Laredo, a public health and education building in San Antonio, and an arts and media facility in Corpus Christi.

Contractors and builders for these projects have not been selected. There are currently more than $4.1 billion in construction projects in the planning, design, construction or development phase across the Texas A&M University System.

Click here for details about each project 

(Photo courtesy of Texas A&M Galveston.)

College Station Independent School District (CSISD) officials are asking voters to approve a $53.4 million bond measure in May to renovate a high school fieldhouse, expand a pair of athletic stadiums and upgrade four baseball/softball facilities. Early voting runs from April 22 to April 30, with election day May 4.

Voter approval would allocate $40.2 million to support work on A&M Consolidated High School’s fieldhouse. This includes expanding and renovating the weight room, adding two classrooms and relocating the coaches’ offices. The district would add and renovate lockers, upgrading flooring and paint and build a larger area for sports medicine.

The project’s scope would include adding 1,062 seats to the athletic stadium’s capacity and rebuilding the press box, restrooms and concessions as a unified structure. Plans also include renovating home and visitor entrances, rebuilding ticket booths, resurfacing the track and installing a scoreboard.

Click here to learn about other projects included in the bond proposal

(Photo courtesy of Nicolás Macri.)

A Texas Congressman and 16 other representatives have introduced legislation that would require the Lone Star State to connect to the nation’s power grid.

The state’s grid, which draws nearly no power from outside the state, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — the nonprofit that operates the grid — have been under scrutiny since 2021. That year 10 million Texans lost power, 246 died and the state suffered an estimated $100 million in economic damage during Winter Storm Uri.

Texas established its own grid following the passage of the 1935 Power Act, which gave the federal government the authority to regulate power transactions between states. Texas wanted to avoid selling or purchasing electricity from other states and to establish freedom from federal oversight, the state comptroller’s office said.

The Connect the Grid Act introduced by Congressional District 35 Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) would:

• Require interconnection between ERCOT and neighboring grids. 
• Subject ERCOT to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversight for pricing and planning. 
• Require FERC and the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct a study on the benefits of interconnection with Mexico. 

Click here to learn more about the bill

(Photo courtesy of BFS Man.)

Variable speed limits (VSLs) have been shown to reduce crashes on freeways, in some cases by more than half, according to recently released data from the state of Ohio and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Traditional speed limits consider traffic volume, operating speeds, road features and crash history. They are based on standardized data despite the fact road conditions can change quickly. VSLs can account for those changes in real time, lowering speed limits incrementally for road congestion, work zones, inclement weather and accidents.

VSL’s are one of several proven safety counter measures, a collection of 28 strategies that can reduce serious and fatal crashes. Other VSL include bicycle lanes, medias and pedestrian refuge islands, rumble stripes and roundabouts.

VSLs can reduce the total crash rate by 34%, and fatal and injury crashes by 51%, according to the DOT.

Both the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) have started implementing VSL measures with similar success.

Click here to learn more about Texas’ VSL initiatives

(Photo courtesy of ODOT.)

Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public policy think tank dedicated to providing solutions to accommodate Texas’ growth, has chosen former Rice University President David Leebron as its president and CEO. Leebron will succeed former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who held the role since 2019.

Leebron retired as president of Rice University, where he currently serves as a professor, in 2022 after 18 years of service. He will finish the spring semester before joining Texas 2036. Before accepting his role as president, Leebron was dean of Columbia Law School. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979 and began teaching at UCLA School of Law in 1980 and at the NYU School of Law in 1983.

As president of Rice University, Leebron oversaw a period of growth and transformation, culminating with over $1.8 billion in construction and capital improvements. During his tenure, he extended the university’s research efforts and presence, enhancing the university’s local, national and international profile.

“Our state is growing rapidly, and that growth brings long-term challenges that require us to develop smart solutions,” Texas 2036 Founder Tom Luce said. “David has a proven track record of thinking long term, identifying the big challenges and planning for success, which is exactly what Texas 2036 – and Texas – needs at this point in our state’s history.”

Gov. Greg Abbott announced these appointments and reappointments from Feb. 9 through Feb. 15:

Texas Economic Development Corporation Board Of Directors

Elizabeth Killinger - Houston

73rd District Court

Marialyn Barnard - San Antonio

Texas Food System Security And Resiliency Planning Council

Kevin Koch - Temple

David Volleman - Gustine

John Votava -Keller

Coleman Locke - Wharton

Texas Government Insider is a free weekly newsletter detailing important happenings throughout the state and summarizing current political issues relevant to individuals interested in government.

Publisher: Mary Scott Nabers

Editors:

Adam Rollins

Dave Doolittle