1-1     By:  Flores (Senate Sponsor - Madla)                  H.B. No. 3684
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 26, 1999;
 1-3     April 27, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Intergovernmental Relations; May 13, 1999, reported favorably by
 1-5     the following vote:  Yeas 4, Nays 0; May 13, 1999, sent to
 1-6     printer.)
 1-7                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-8                                   AN ACT
 1-9     relating to gates on certain third-class and neighborhood roads.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.   Section 251.010(a), Transportation Code, is
1-12     amended to read as follows:
1-13           (a)  A person, including a neighborhood association, who owns
1-14     or controls real property on which a third-class road or a
1-15     neighborhood road established under Section 251.053 is located for
1-16     which the right-of-way was obtained without cost to the county may
1-17     erect a gate across the road when necessary.  The person shall
1-18     place a permanent hitching post and stile block on each side of the
1-19     gate within 60 feet of the gate.  The gate must be:
1-20                 (1)  at least 10 feet wide;
1-21                 (2)  free of obstructions above the gate;
1-22                 (3)  constructed so that opening and shutting the gate
1-23     will not cause unnecessary delay to persons, including emergency
1-24     personnel, [a person] using the road; and
1-25                 (4)  constructed with a fastening to hold the gate open
1-26     until a person using the gate passes through it.
1-27           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-28           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-29     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-30     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-31     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-32     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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