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Posted on 02/24/2005 1:30:53 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Activists taking shots at the planned Trans Texas Corridor have found some legislators willing to take a stab at trimming the colossal super-highway and ensuring that state authorities control the toll rates.
Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who sits on the appropriations committee and is vice chairman of the House Rural Caucus, said she filed House Bill 1273 in an attempt to balance the huge scope of the corridor with grass-root concerns.
"My goal is to better the concept," she said. "I will be very saddened for Texas if we don't have some assurances in place."
Kolkhorst was joined by co-authors Robby Cook, D-Eagle Lake, Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, and Glenn Hegar, R-Katy.
The bill calls for:
When Gov. Rick Perry unveiled his vision three years ago of a 4,000-mile network of 10-lane highways, rail lines and utility lines crisscrossing the state, it was criticized as a pipe dream by some and hailed as revolutionary by others.
It suddenly became more concrete in December when the Transportation Commission selected a consortium led by Cintra of Spain to build the first segment, which will parallel Interstate 35. It will open in sections, with construction lasting more than 25 years.
But worries have sprouted around the state, in rural and urban areas alike. Fears range from loss of farmland and wildlife, lack of access to the corridor and draining of economic vitality from towns and cities.
Kolkhorst's bill promises some relief for rural Texas.
"It's certainly a step in the right direction," said Steve Pringle, legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau.
Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, who chairs the House transportation committee and ushered in the 2003 bill that gave legal legs to the corridor, said the concerns need to be considered.
Cintra officials declined to comment.
Cintra and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio would put up the money for the corridor paralleling I-35, selling bonds and shouldering the risk.
For starters, they'd spend $6 billion over 10 years to build a four-lane toll road from San Antonio to Dallas and relocate some Union Pacific tracks east of Austin and Seguin.
Traffic levels on I-35 will help determine toll rates and limits on building competing public roads, say officials with the Texas Department of Transportation. A certain amount of congestion on I-35 is needed to drive motorists to the toll lanes.
"So there's always a balance going on," said Ric Williamson, chairman of the Transportation Commission.
Ooooohhhhh, booooyyyyy...
Kolkhorst files bill concerning super highway (2/24/05)
By Stewart Smith/Staff Writer
A new era in intrastate transportation may soon become a reality with the introduction of the Trans-Texas Corridor, though some concerns have recently been raised regarding its construction. However, Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R, Brenham) has filed legislation which addresses a number of these concerns.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposed super highway of sorts which, if built, will provide a multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes that would incorporate both existing and new highways and railways, as well as utility right-of-ways.
Each route would include separate lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways as well as infrastructure allowing for the inclusion of water lines, oil and gas pipelines as well as transmission lines for electricity, broadband and other telecommunications services.
The bill would reduce the corridor's right-of-way from the proposed 1,200 feet to 800 feet and also require there be access on, off and across every state highway and local FM road in the corridor's path.
Additionally, the legislation would eliminate the franchising authority of the Trans-Texas Corridor, which currently allows for land to be taken from the private sector and then developed and sold to a single franchise along the roadway. There is also an elimination of the "non-competition" clause, which would give corridor operators the ability to restrict other public projects on existing roads in a local area should they determine that it would negatively affect the corridor.
Finally, the bill would also require that increase in both toll fees or collection fees must face public oversight and meet the approval of the Transportation Commission instead of being left with the sole discretion of a private company operating the corridor.
"The main focus of the bill is to provide people some assurances about this very large concept," Kolkhorst said. "We're simply trying to balance the planned size and scope of the Trans-Texas Corridor with our local needs and concerns. This bill is proposing that less acreage be used, that more access be made for rural areas and that public accountability always be as strong as possible."
If approved, the multi-billion dollar project would take an estimated timetable of 50 years to reach full completion.
Should the project obtain full approval there is the distinct possibility that one of the routes would pass through or around Huntsville. This possibility has the Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce very optimistic given the possibilities of growth it would mean for the city.
"It would definitely be an economic generator for us," said Dee McFarland, president of the local chamber of commerce.
And given the proposed regulations regarding the placement and priority of franchises and businesses along the corridor, the possibility for greater business growth within Huntsville would be even more viable.
"There are many (businesses) that would look at Huntsville favorably, especially given our location on I-45 and our proximity to the airport," McFarland said.
At this point all routes are speculation as no definite plans have been laid out.
Stewart Smith is a reporter at The Huntsville Item. He can be reached at (936) 295-5407, ext. 3052 or by e-mail at ssmith@itemonline.com
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
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BTTT!!!!!
Most of those proposals sound reasonable, though may require some tweaking.
This is a pro Trans-Texas Corridor ping list.
Please let me know by Freepmail if you want on or off the list.
A map of possible alternatives for TTC-35. 
I find it interesting that there would be incentive to maintain a certain amount of congestion on I-35. One would hope that it wouldn't be major congestion, but then, they've got to drive people over to the toll lanes, so they would likely need to keep the pain level relatively high.
On the other hand, if they can coerce Trucks to take the TTC, that would go a long way to making I-35 a nicer drive, and the speed limit, and lack of city traffic alone should provide ample justification for truckers to go to the TTC.
Free Republic search on keyword "TTC"
Interview (Audio) NPR | February 8, 2005 A Superhighway for Texas?
Here's the website with more info and explanation:
http://www.keeptexasmoving.org/
Here's a list of meetings where you can ask questions(and I encourage everyone who can to attend and ask questions)
http://www.keeptexasmoving.org/pdfs/TTC-35_Public_Meetings.pdf
Here's a link to the map of the TTC-35 corridor alternatives, which are approximately 10 miles wide study areas (the actual selected single corridor will be at most 1/4 mile wide):
http://www.keeptexasmoving.org/pdfs/TTC-35_Alternatives_Map.pdf
1990-2000 Population Growth of Border Metro Areas
Port of Houston teams up with Panama to draw a piece of Asia's massive trade away from West Coast
These proposed amendments should go a long way toward gaining increased public support. I don't know whether 800 feet or 1200 feet is appropriate, but this is Texas where everything bigger is better.
I like the bill's provisions, but I wonder if narrowing the corridor from 1200 to 800 feet would ruin its intended multimodal/utilities purpose.
TXDOT has already stated that as they have refined the concept, the max width needed has dropped from 1200 to 800-1000'. 6 lanes with 2 shoulders and 4 truck lanes with 2 shoulders should fit in 200', 6 rail lines with extra spacing (for maintenance reasons) another 150', so that leaves more than half of 800' for safety spacing, future expansion, drainage, and various utility corridors, all of which can conceivably overlap a good bit.
The access at each FM and Hwy sorta flies in the face of a 'limit access' approach. And the prohibition of road operators having franchise rights for commercial establishments along the route may impact the toll fees. If they can't get money for other services then the toll fees have to escalate to off set those reductions.. At least they are looking at options now and eventually will pull something together I suspect.
Because 4 of those 6 rail lines are potentially for passenger movement (2 commuter rail, 2 high speed rail), with just 2 for freight. So 4 lanes for trucks, 2 tracks for freight trains, though in practice all could vary depending on demand. Hence the healthy extra margins in case expansion is needed.
I think it depends on which corridor. I don't see there ever being any kind of interctity passenger rail or maglevs being viable west if the I-35 corridor so the commuter and high speed rail ROWS could be eliminated on those corridors. I think the corridors parallel to I-35 and I-69 should be the full 1200 feet. The biggest mistakes made in laying out the Interstate Highway System was in not leaving enough room for expansion. I-35 being the first Interstate laid out in Texas has the most mistakes. Much of I-35 is expandable to 3 lanes in each direction only by completely tearing up the roadway and rebuilding it from scratch. Later Interstates were built to more easily expand from 2 to three lanes just by widening the existing road. I-37 being the last of the originally designated (1956) Interstate Highways to be completed (1981) has some places where the oposing road beds lanes are rather far apart. I'd estimate they are at least 800 feet apart. The TTC corridors should have built-in expansion room especially the ones with the most expected future traffic.
I agree about about having more access points although I don't think every FM road should necessarily have them. I also dislike the idea that all the restaurants along the corridor would operated by the the franchisee. One thing I like about Texas Interstates is that there is a choice of places to eat. I once traveled down the New Jersey turnpike with my brother. There wasn't a decent place to eat on it. All the service plazas had the same set of bad no-name fast food restaurants. I think there ought to be space available for local restaurants to have a outlets in service plazas along the TTC corridors.
"Cintra officials declined to comment."
The two commuter rail lines is REALLY planning ahead. The idea of the corridor is to build it outside of the cities, so unless you commute from the outskirts of San Antonio to the outskirts of Waco every day, I wonder about the demand for that.
"Cintra and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio would put up the money for the corridor paralleling I-35, selling bonds and shouldering the risk."
, payolla, swiss bank accounts, and profits. -- i would add.
What I don't understand is why there are more rail lines than truck lines.
That's not a concern. You can't sue the state of Texas unless it wants you to. My company is in a dispute with them and they're clearly wrong. They know it. But they invoke sovereign immunity and you can't do a dang thing about it.
And just where would you improve I-35 after the current expansion is finished a decade or two from now? There's no room to do it without condemning high value properties adjacent to the current ROW. Sure you could build elevated lanes at great expense, but the cities that I-35 goes through don't want them.
Also elevated lanes are more susceptible to icing over in freezing whether than are grade level roads. I can imagine that elevated roads might get closed when there is icing. Imagine the traffic snarls if elevated lanes were closed from San Antonio to Hillsborough on the the two or three days before Christmas. I'm not just making up this senario. A few years ago, the elevated lanes in Austin were closed down on Christmas Eve due to a freeze. This effectively decreased I-35 to 2 lane each direction through Austin.
I just want to make sure that the corridor doesn't benefit other states simply as a gift from Texas taxpayers. The out of state users, and they may make up a substantial portion of the users, need to help pick the colossal cost of this project.
If that isn't workable, then this idea needs to scrapped and introduced as a federal interstate project.
These two might be enough to kill the project by significantly increasing the cost and decreasing the revenue.
# Requiring on and off ramps for every state highway and Farm-to-Market road.
# Prohibiting the state and road contractors from franchising gas stations and restaurants along the corridor, leaving it instead to private landowners.
Tracing a route east of Austin, I came up with 64 state and FM highway crossings, not counting Interstates and US numbered highways. (You can significantly reduce that number into the 20s by swinging west of the hill country, and weaving a little bit to minimize the crossings.)
And, looking a Texas map, it appears that the current Interstate Highway system does not meet this standard. I've spotted FMs and RRs that lack interchanges on I-35, I-37, I-10 and I-20.
Agreed. Hence the need for 'tweaking'.
good.
the 91 freeway i've driven and is not cheap.
there's an odd chemistry in california that i don't understand.
they'll fight the state, and stop freeway widening. the 101 is an example. needs to be done badly.
but they'll let this happen. there may have been a contempt for the people using the 91; people on the coast feel superior to people that live in riverside and san bernadino counties that commute to los angeles and orange counties via the 91.
the state at various times has said that it would be willing to widen the 101, from one of the worst nightmares in the u.s., the 405-101 intersection westward. this would be a huge condemnation of properties.
problem--there's a retired lawyer who has a load of activists that yell down any attempt to widen the 101.
the last article that i read in the los angeles times on this matter had a woman who lived in the san fernando valley saying: i don't care about people that live 50 miles away. if they want to work here, then they can move here.
it's not going to happen. and this points to why california infrastructure cannot be increased, and why mexico, arizona, and texas will benefit from new ports and new infrastructure to deliver goods.
Thanks for the ping!
That's a bummer for California.
However, they've also created it. If they wanted to get serious, they could be like Governor Perry and just grab huge chunks of land from people (to give to others), whether the owners like it or not.
On the other hand, there has to be some degree of taking. The goal should be to take as little as possible, but still not let clowns like the lawyer types that you mention have undue power. But it is up to the state to shut these people up - and if the state doesn't, the state has to live with the consequences.
Most of the existing toll roads in Texas run 20 cents a mile or less.
"Most of the existing toll roads in Texas run 20 cents a mile or less."
Only because the Libertarian zealots haven't (yet) had their way with congestion pricing.
By the way, 20 cents extra per MILE starts adding up when you commute 10,000 miles per year (and it ain't deductible). A gas tax increase of 30 cents per GALLON would cost me about $100/year for those 10,000 miles (in my 30 MPG Toyota), and would still pay for most of the needed highway upgrades.
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