According to Community Impact, Bee Cave City Council has approved an engineering report that would overhaul the flood-prone Great Divide Drive low-water crossing, the only route in and out of the Homestead neighborhood, with a project estimated to cost roughly $1.16 million and take two years to finish.
The council’s vote, reported by Community Impact, moves the city past years of false starts on fixing a crossing that currently relies on three pipes capable of handling only about 60 cubic feet of water per second. A two-year rain event, like the one that hit in May 2019, can send roughly 2,800 cubic feet of water per second through the area — a gap that has repeatedly left Homestead cut off during heavy storms.
Because Great Divide Drive is the only way in or out of the neighborhood, flooding at the crossing has created real headaches for residents and first responders trying to get in or out, according to the same report. The new design calls for nine bridge-class box culverts engineered to handle a two-year storm on the scale of the 2019 event, per city documents cited in the outlet’s report.
What Changes for Drivers During a Storm
Under the current setup, floodwater rises enough to overtop the crossing in just 25 minutes during a two-year storm, and the road stays impassable for about 13 hours. The new design is projected to stretch that window to 55 minutes before flooding begins and cut the overtopping duration down to roughly three hours, per HDR Engineering’s figures relayed in the Community Impact report.
Brandon Metry, a hydraulic coordinator at HDR Engineering, said the proposal represents a shift in strategy — away from building a bridge and back toward improving the existing low-water crossing concept, the report states. Metry added that the design keeps the current road profile in place while improving vehicular safety, according to the same account.
Council member Kara King, who has pushed for a fix at the crossing, said she believes the plan offers the strongest option available without harming neighboring properties. King also called the new proposal a significant improvement over the crossing’s current condition, per the report.
Years of Stalled Bridge Plans
The push to fix Great Divide Drive has a long and bumpy history. In 2021, Bee Cave hired an engineering firm to design a 90-foot bridge over the crossing, then switched firms after the original design failed to account for how the structure would affect surrounding water levels, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
By April 2023, HDR Engineering had returned with two new options: a 200-foot bridge and an alternative built around eight culverts. King moved to approve construction of the bridge, but the motion failed, and the council never took up the culvert option, per a report from Austin American-Statesman. HDR had estimated that the 200-foot bridge would raise creek water levels by more than 3 feet, a projection that factored into the debate over the design.
The crossing’s troubles go back even further than the bridge fight. Travis County commissioners voted in January 2020 to cancel a 2017 bond project meant to improve the same crossing at Little Barton Creek, after already spending $161,000 on design and engineering work, according to Community Impact. Bee Cave took over the project after annexing the county’s portion of Great Divide Drive that September and agreeing to cover future improvements itself.
Looking Ahead
With the engineering report now approved, the city is looking at a two-year timeline to completion, including about six months of construction, per the report. The dossier underlying this account does not specify a construction start date, funding source, or final contract amount, and those details have not yet been made public.
