AUSTIN — State transportation officials are backing off an effort to shift the burden for maintaining urban highways to local governments in a bid to save upward of $165 million.

The Texas Transportation Commission heard testimony Thursday on an initiative to have cities and counties take over the repair burden for nearly 1,900 miles of urban highways in 59 cities. But the push by the Texas Department of Transportation has drawn heavy criticism from municipal and county leaders who object to absorbing the added costs for maintenance.

TxDOT , meanwhile, is standing by its intention to convert 83 miles of state highways in some oil-field areas from asphalt to gravel. The agency said it will allow a two-month review period to see if counties step forward to pay for maintaining the paved roads.

City of Tyler officials oppose the proposed initiative, saying the cost to taxpayers could mean another penny tacked on to municipal tax rates in the future. TxDOT will not provide funds for cities to perform this maintenance.

“In 2013, TxDOT spent about $700,000 per year just maintain our roads,” City Manager Mark McDaniel said on Wednesday. “That doesn’t include the resurfacing and overlay of the existing streets.”

The added road maintenance of resurfacing and overlay expense to city taxpayers could total about $30 million over time, he said.

All of that road maintenance work wouldn’t happen all at once but would take place as it is needed, McDaniel said. 

Streets affected in Tyler would include Texas highways 155, 110, 69, 64, and 31, McDaniel said. Most would be inside Loop 323. 

He said he has real concerns about the cost to the city.

“The Beckham bridge would cost millions of dollars to replace,” McDaniel said. 

In an interview with The Associated Press, TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson pointed to one of Houston’s main thoroughfares as an example of why TxDOT should shed some responsibilities. Westheimer, a 19-mile, major east-west artery through urban Houston, was originally a rural agricultural road.

“If you are a citizen of Houston, you wouldn’t know that TxDOT is responsible for Westheimer,” Wilson said. “What had been a road to take you from the farm to the market has now all the elements of a city street.”

Wilson said his department’s primary duty is maintaining about 80,000 miles of connector roads. He said the department is talking to local officials about the plan, but ultimately, the commission will make the final decision on what roads to keep.

“This simply is a solution that the city of Fort Worth cannot afford,” said Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, according to a report by the Austin American-Statesman.

Rep. Ruth McClendon, D-San Antonio, wrote to Wilson expressing concern about what many Democrats see as the Republican-controlled Legislature avoiding the need to raise state taxes by making heavily Democratic urban areas pick up the tab.

“This would not be helpful to the city, the county or local taxpayers,” she said.

Lawmakers also have expressed dismay at plans to convert 83 miles of two-lane paved roads in oil and gas areas to gravel. Counties targeted in TxDOT’s proposal include Culberson, Dimmit, La Salle, Reeves and Zavala in South Texas.

Eastland Rep. Jim Keffer, the Republican chairman of the House Energy Resources Committee, called on Wilson to stop the conversions.

The Legislature approved $450 million for state and county roads affected by increased energy production, and Keffer acknowledges that’s enough to meet the needs — even if voters approve $1.2 billion in new annual funding in 2014. But he still questioned the proposal.

“Before we move ahead with these drastic measures, we need to consider a cost-benefit analysis, safety, impact on the industry, and quality of life for the citizens,” he said.

Wilson said the 80,000-pound water trucks making 1,300 trips to hydraulically fracture wells already have destroyed those roads, many of which the department paved in the 1950s to accommodate pickup trucks.

“These roads have been really hammered by this large equipment … and a two-lane road is now a lane and a half with potholes the size of pickups,” he said.

Replacing the roads to withstand the truck traffic would cost $500,000 a mile, the same as an interstate highway, compared to the $10,000 a mile TxDOT normally spends. Gravel roads, Wilson said, would be wider, limited to 30 mph and topped with an emulsified material to keep the dust down.

“We don’t know how long the oil and gas play will be going on, and I also only have so many dollars I need to stretch as far as I can,” Wilson said.

The counties most affected by the transition fall within Sen. Carlos Uresti’s South Texas district, and he’s protested the plan. He convinced the department to give county officials 60 days to decide if they want to maintain the paved roads before TxDOT converts them.

Wilson said they can be returned to pavement after the drilling is done.

“There is every opportunity, should money become available, to put these roads back to pavement,” he said. “It goes to the funding challenges that we face as an agency. We’re doing the best we can.”