Bee Cave Approves Engineering for Great Divide Drive Crossing

Bee Cave’s City Council on Nov. 10 approved an engineering proposal to rebuild Great Divide Drive’s low-water crossing, Community Impact reported the next morning. The item on the city’s official staff report for that meeting was a presentation by HDR Engineering and a request for council action on the Great Divide Low Water Crossing Improvement Project.

Community Impact did not publish a roll-call vote, and official minutes were not opened for this report. The action described by the paper is approval of the engineering proposal, not the award of a construction contract. The staff report left the project’s schedule to the council’s discretion.

The only way into Homestead

Community Impact reported that the Homestead neighborhood has no second way in or out besides Great Divide Drive, so a flooded crossing can strand residents and keep emergency crews from reaching them. The paper said the crossing today uses three pipes able to carry about 60 cubic feet of water a second. A storm of the size Bee Cave saw in May 2019 — described there as a two-year rain event — can send about 2,800 cubic feet a second through the same spot. Community Impact defined a two-year event as one with a 50 percent chance of being met or exceeded in any given year. Those flow numbers come from the paper’s account of the engineering presentation, not from an independent measurement.

A culvert plan after a bridge vote failed

The design the council approved would install nine bridge-class box culverts and is intended to handle a rain event on the scale of May 2019, which both the paper and the staff report treat as about a two-year storm. According to that report, HDR presented the alternative to the city’s CIP subcommittee on Sept. 17, 2026.

Brandon Metry, HDR’s hydraulic coordinator, told the council the roadway would stay close to its present grade and that the change would be safer for drivers, Community Impact reported. In the paper’s account, he said the concept has shifted away from building a bridge and toward improving the crossing while keeping it a low-water crossing. Under a two-year storm, the paper reported, water at the existing crossing would rise high enough to flood the road in about 25 minutes and remain over the pavement for about 13 hours. The proposed design, HDR said in that same account, would stretch the rise to about 55 minutes and shorten the time the road is overtopped to about three hours.

An earlier, larger design ran into trouble on a neighboring property. The staff report says that on April 11, 2023, the council was shown a plan meant to pass a 10-year storm and measuring about 100 feet, and that the layout created serious conflicts next door. Community Impact, writing about a 2023 presentation of two options, said one was a 200-foot bridge and the other used eight culverts. A motion by Mayor Kara King to approve the 200-foot bridge failed, the paper said, because of those neighbor impacts, and no motion was offered on the eight-culvert option.

After the Nov. 10 vote, King told Community Impact she believed the newer plan is the best solution that avoids burdening the neighbors, and that it is still a clear improvement over the crossing as it stands.

Cost, the county agreement, and the limits of this vote

The official staff report estimates the full cost — construction, right-of-way and engineering — at about $1,165,000. City Manager Julie Oakley is listed as the staff contact. The same report traces the work to a June 18, 2019, interlocal agreement between Bee Cave and Travis County that included modifications at this crossing. The city sought engineering proposals in June 2021 and awarded the design contract to HDR on Sept. 14, 2021, the report says.

Community Impact wrote that the project as a whole is expected to take about two years, with six months of construction. The staff report did not lock in that timetable; it left timing to the council. Approving the engineering proposal does not, by itself, bid the construction or put equipment on the road.

The city’s official contact page lists City Hall at 4000 Galleria Parkway, Bee Cave, Texas 78738, and the main telephone number as 512-767-6600.

Related reading: Coppell Set to Spend $1 Million Designing Two Drainage Fixes Expected to Cost $3.5 Million.