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SMITHVILLE — After years of delays, Smithville has secured $1.8 million from the Texas Department of Transportation to improve safe pedestrian access across the city.
The award was approved Aug. 5 and combines funding from two state programs — Safe Routes to School and Transportation Alternatives — with a required $359,000 local match. The project will build sidewalks along Martin Luther King Drive with a total budget of $2.7 million, according to city reports.
“We have been working for years to secure funding to construct a sidewalk on MLK that provides the community with a safe, ADA-compliant pedestrian route,” City Manager Robert Tamble said.
City officials said the new funding restores missing sidewalk segments that had been dropped from an earlier Safe Routes to School project, including nine blocks along MLK Drive. Once completed, the project will create an ADA-compliant pedestrian route connecting Hardemon Street to Texas 95.
Smithville was first awarded $907,118 in 2019 to build sidewalks linking the elementary school campus with existing sidewalks and bridge routes between the primary, junior high and high school campuses. According to Tamble, the scope of work was changed after TxDOT required the city to redirect funds to address a Union Pacific Railroad crossing.
That shift eliminated some of the planned MLK Drive sidewalks, and the project stalled during the railroad’s lengthy review process.
Engineering plans reached 90% completion by 2022, except for the rail segment, but dropped back to 60% as design changes accumulated during the delays, Tamble said. The city applied unsuccessfully in 2021 and 2023 to restore the missing sidewalk blocks before resubmitting its request this year.
The latest award finally puts the project back on track, and construction will move forward once final design and railroad approvals are completed.
