US divided by superhighway plan

A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States is being proposed amid controversy over security and the damage to the environment.

The "nation's most modern roadway", proposed between Laredo in Texas and Duluth, Minnesota, along Interstate 35, would allow the US to bypass the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to import goods from China and the Far East into the heart of middle America via Mexico, saving both cost and time.

However, critics argue that the ten-lane road would lay a swathe of concrete on top of an already over-developed transport infrastructure and further open the border with Mexico to illegal immigrants or terrorists.

According to a weekly Conservative magazine published in the US, the US administration is "quietly yet systematically" planning the massive highway, citing as a benefit that it would negate the power of two unions, the Longshoremen and Teamsters.

Another source claimed the highway was a "bi-partisan effort" with support from both Republicans and Democrats that would reduce freight transport times across the nation by days.

Under the plan - believed to be an extension of a strategic transportation plan signed in March last year by the US president, George Bush, Paul Martin, the then prime minister of Canada, and Vincente Fox, the Mexican president - imported goods would pass a border "road bump" in the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, before being loaded on to lorries for a straight run to a major hub, or "SmartPort", in Kansas, Oklahoma.

Border guards and customs officers would check the electronic security tags of lorries and their holds at a £1.6 million facility being built in Kansas City, before sending them on to the road network that links the US cities of Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit with Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver across the Canadian border.

Following the release of a 4,000-page environmental study, construction of the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor is reportedly due to begin next year, backed by US state and governmental agencies and a Spanish private sector company, Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte.

Tiffany Melvin, the executive director of Nasco, a non-profit organisation which has received £1.4 million from the US Department of Transport to study the proposal, said: "We're working on developing the existing system; these highways were developed in the 1950s and we have number of different programmes we're working on to provide alternative fuels and improve safety and security issues.

"We get comments that we are working to bring in terrorists and drug dealers, but this is simply not true.

"This is a bi-partisan effort that will ultimately improve our transportation infrastructure.

"Trade with China is increasing greatly, and the costs of our transportation system are ultimately born by the consumer.

"We do offer links to Canada and Mexico, but we are working on the trade competitiveness of America. We are planning for the future."

Eric Olson, the transportation spokesmen for the California-based Sierra Club, a national environmental awareness organisation, said the road would cause significant damage.

"There is a great need for fixing our existing roads and bridges. That needs to be a priority before we start building new massive road projects."

Tiffany Melvin: "Trade with China is increasing greatly, and the costs of our transportation system are ultimately born by the consumer."

Oh, boo hoo! Boo hoo!

Chinese imports of WalMart, Home Depot,Ace Hardware etc. aren't cheap enough for the "consumer."

We sure know it isn't the EXPORT LOBBY pushing for this. Nor is it the poor down-trodden "consumers." Let's do a poll of those "consumers". I am willing to bet that given a choice between retaining sovereignty and jobs, the "consumer"...just might say to hell with this shit! And the Administration that backs it!

I am so sick of these phoneys speaking for the 'consumers.' Let's be blunt about it. They are are trying to divide America. By stressing "consumption" they are trying to get CITIZENS to forget that they are citizens-first, and consumers a distant second (at least that is how a true patriot should feel).

Tollway taxes on common citizen's travel is a growing global phenomenon.

'Tolls: The Mayors are taking the wrong action'
Thursday, 26 January 2006, 5:37 pm
Press Release: Residents Action Movement
26 January 2006

RAM-Residents Action Movement

'Tolls: The Mayors are taking serious and wrong actions'

"The Mayors of Auckland City, Waitakere City and Manukau City are taking serious and wrong actions when asking Government to give Councils the power to toll existing roads" says Elaine West, representative of RAM Residents Action Movement.

The Mayor of Auckland City, Dick Hubbard, did NOT take a stand at local body elections saying that he would lobby Council and the Government to toll new and old roads across the Auckland region. Yet as Mayor, Dick Hubbard has so far proposed HOT (high occupancy lane tolls) and cordon tolls.

"He should do his homework and check the facts that RAM has already presented to ACC, the ARC, and the Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy Committee," said Ms West.

TEN TOLL FACTS

FACT 1. Social and Economic Impact of Tolls on Workers Across the Auckland Region. The results of a preliminary study carried out by officials in November 2003 on the Auckland work-stream warned that tolls will likely have a negative impact on those who can least afford them, being - low and middle income earners, students, the elderly, those who do not live close to work and those who are not close to public transportation. In addition, tolls will probably cause house prices to rise near work centres.

FACT 2. Low income workers tend to travel greater distances across Auckland than other groups and will be most disadvantaged if tolls, cordon or other, are introduced.

FACT 3. Tolls will likely have serious consequences for families with children and those with high overheads such as mortgages. And incidental to the study, businesses will likely pass toll charges onto consumers, pushing up the cost of living in food stuffs etc.

FACT 4. The CEO of the MoT and Secretary of Transport Dr ROBIN DUNLOP, has strongly advocated for tolls in the past - as co-author of Road Reform, The Way Forward (1997), and a few years ago within an opinion paper to the World Bank suggesting that New Zealand roads will probably be tolled in the future.

FACT 5. A visiting professor said last year, that it was almost impossible to conduct an audit on Britain's toll regime. Issues involve the deliberate lack of transparency and accountability on the part of Government and private sector investors. The public lose out.

FACT 6. The Mayors are pushing for a toll regime that potentially will line the pockets of Councils, Government and private sector corporations and interests. Predictably, the Government study on tolls due for publication this year will show tolls to be a viable means of raising funds for land transport. Officials are key stakeholders with a vested interest.

FACT 7. I organised and was a representative at a public meeting with ACC, ARC, Transit, Transfund and local iwi (invited) on the Victoria Park Tunnel (SH1) issue in 2003. It was at this meeting that Transit agreed to a tunnel given adequate funding. At the time, Auckland's Mayors, Councils and Government were working on tolls to pay for new roads and changes to the Resource Management Act, behind doors closed to the public.

FACT 8. Over the last 20 years, the New Zealand public demanded successive governments pay for land transport infrastructure using existing road user charges which are petrol taxes. For 20 years, successive governments have ignored the public's request and used around half the billions of dollars collected in petrol excise taxes for other expenditure.

Ordinary people ARE paying their fare share but politicians are continually devising new ways to squeeze more from citizen's pockets. Also, the call for weight given to public transportation funds in comparison to road building for toll production goes unheeded.

FACT 9. Mayors Dick Hubbard (ACC), Sir Barry Curtis (MCC) and Bob Harvey (WCC) seem to have no idea about the toll-trap that New Zealanders will fall into if they go about fund-raising as they propose. Mayors without common sense are useless leaders at best, and at worst, will likely lead us into a financial quagmire from which we cannot escape.

FACT 10. Do the Mayors of ACC, MCC and WCC know that government is investigating getting overseas companies (countries?) to manage New Zealand's toll accounts? If not, then why not and what other facts have they missed before pushing tolls onto the innocent public? Serious factors such as New Zealanders' rights and civil liberties must come into play.

Ms West concludes "Is it a wonder that New Zealanders in their droves, rush overseas to live? These are people this country needs workers, many highly-skilled - families, and young people. They've had a gutsful. And who can blame them? When will politicians listen to the people they represent and get the message?"

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.