Massengale: Street Bond Will Generate Growth In Downtown Lubbock

Lubbock City Councilman Steve Massengale joined The Chad Hasty Show with Matt Martin on Wednesday. Listen to the audio below.

Lubbock voters are still heading to the polls this week during early voting to vote on the state constitutional amendments, Lubbock County's property tax rate hike, and the City of Lubbock's Street Bond election. The street bond is for $174.5 million dollars and consists of 12 different projects.

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The projects include rebuilding or widening streets across Lubbock. One of the major projects in the bond is rebuilding Broadway Avenue from University Avenue to Canyon Lakes Drive. That project alone is priced at about $42 million dollars. According to Lubbock City Councilman Steve Massengale, fixing Broadway will be a catalyst to Downtown redevelopment.

I'm pro Downtown. I believe that it's important for us to have a energetic downtown. And I think Broadway is another catalytic project to continue to generate growth downtown Lubbock.

How does Broadway lead to energizing Downtown? According to Massengale,

I think improving traffic infrastructure down there continues to attract business to invest.

Massengale did say that the Broadway project will include historic brick, but did not know how much brick would be used when the final designs are made. When asked if money could be shifted around by a future council and if a future council could ignore projects voted on by the citizens, Massengale said that yes it could happen, but he would hope that the citizens would hold a future council accountable.

Massengale told the audience that he believed all of the road projects are needed for growth, infrastructure, and public safety and that these bonds would be used to widen or rebuild roads not to maintain roads which is already budget by the City Council.

Listen to the full interview with Lubbock City Councilman Steve Massengale above.