Sorry West Brownsville Petition Signees, the West Rail Road Is Still On the Table!

Will County Judge Eddie Trevino Deliver on his Promise to Block the West Trail Road?

April 03, 2017

Artist's Conception of Eventual West Rail Road

From the editor: With the Brownsville City Commission recently passing a resolution supporting use for the West Rail that includes a road, bike trail and greenbelt, it is becoming obvious that several local politicos will not deliver on their promise that "no road" will be built on the Union Pacific Railway easement that passes through West Brownsville.

We reprint our article from last April:

On a warm Spring Sunday, I followed my 45 year old son, Diego Lee Rot, grandsons Jack and Felix, down the former Union Pacific Railway easement, devoid of tracks. 

It was a sublime afternoon with little Felix frolicking on and off the old track space, Jack philosophizing and Diego parenting.  Mangy neighborhood dogs came out barking, but, when lead dog, Doberman Boo, wanted to meet them, they whimpered back home.

"Stop the Road!" signs are scattered throughout West Brownsville, based on opposition to turning the Union Pacific easement into a road, proposed to start at the B & M Bridge, connecting to I-69 close to the Hwy 77 Flea Market.  5,000 signed a petition to block that road, but no absolute assurance has ever come from the Texas Department of Transportation that it will not happen.

Then County Judge Carlos Cascos told me in 2011 that funds had been allocated for a West Rail toll road and that politicians rarely return monies already designated for projects.  The idiocy of a West Brownsville toll road concept is that no one is the area would pay to go to the flea market or connect to I-69 for money when they could already go free by traveling on existing roads. The claim that truck traffic would foot the bill was also not factual since the B & M Bridge is not certified as truck worthy.

Proponents of the West Rail Road have since shifted gears, now calling for a "promenade," similar to Palm Boulevard, acting as a grand entrance into downtown.

Diego Lee Rot and I measured the current easement of West Rail between property fences at 100 feet.  We measured Palm Boulevard's width at 58 feet.  That allows for a road similar to Palm Boulevard, leaving another 42 feet for a bike trail and landscaping.

Homes along the easement are dissimilar to homes along Palm Boulevard, however.  Would a tall, wooden fence be necessary to shield visitors from viewing the dilapidated houses

currently along the easement?  

Most of the country are not aware that housing like this, common in the third world, exists in the U.S. Brownsville, though, is not like the "rest of the U.S."  It is the seat of the poorest county in the entire U.S.; Cameron, Texas.

County Judge Eddie Trevino

Eddie Trevino, at several town meetings in 2016, promised West Brownsville residents he would not back any attempt to turn the former Union Pacific West Rail easement into anything but a landscaped bike trail.

Will Trevino deliver on his promise?