Will Highway Bypass Beckville?

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"Hwy 149 yet to be funded, but in preliminary stages"
from The Panola Watchman, 5/25/03, by Elaine P. McPherson

Texas Highway 149 will be the straightest route possible between the Carthage loop and the big town of Tatum, which many fear will bypass Beckville.

According to the current map, which is still not set in stone, the four-lane divided highway will miss the light at the intersection of Hwy, 149 and County Road 124 by about one and one-half to two miles.

Even though most of the comments at the Texas Department of Public Safety community meeting in Beckville were against the new road, state engineers decided that the project was needed for the overall traveling public.

Susan McClain, of the Texas Department of Public Safety district planning section, said, “This route is the best alternative for the road because of cost, displacement of the community, utility impact, and environmental concerns.”

Engineers consider these and other problems including the actual lay of the land both vertically and horizontally and traffic patterns and accidents.

McClain said that the feasibility study looked at even more concerns including whether the road was actually needed or whether the old road should just be widened. She added that this plan will service the local and area public, not necessarily the community.

The project was first initiated by local Texas Department of Public Safety employees after years of area citizens asking when will something be done about Hwy149?”

Mike Anderson, local engineer, said that public questions stimulate new projects.

Surveyors are currently out in the Carthage to Tatum area, looking for gas wells that have to be gone around for the environments sake, said McClain. Also avoided is land that has been reclaimed after Texas Utilities is finished with it. “That land is not settled and many times cracks roads,” said Anderson.

“When the surveyors are all through, we will be able to get a final route, and hopefully it will be soon, maybe within the next six month,” said McClain.

The whole project is still in the preliminary stage, the first ten percent. The rest of the project, 90 percent, is still not funded.

After the preliminary plans and environmental studies are finished, they are sent to Austin to be approved by several entities for their approval, said McClain. Each of those groups have 45 days to respond.

She added that the next step would be talking to the landowners to makes deals for their property. “Sometimes that takes three to five years just to get the land, “said McClain.

The approximate cost of the project will end up being every bit of $80 million, by the time all the steps are finished, said McClain. Of the 14 mile stretch of Hwy 79, eight miles of it will take a new route.

It will begin at the Carthage loop intersection of Hwy 149 and end about one mile before the intersection at Tatum.

Local Beckville people who built or live in homes in the “country” are worried about several areas of the project, but three of the biggest concerns are the loss of the small community of Beckville, the lack of housing in Beckville for those displaced to move, and the wasting of government money on a project not needed.

Kenneth Pierce, local Beckville employer of Pierce Construction, said, “This is not prudent expenditure of public lands.

“This is the place where many of use have come to live in the peace and quit ad even retire, now we will have a new, unneeded highway right through out back yards,” Pierce said.