Posted on 04/16/2007 6:16:53 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
t was a quick-and-dirty job, but somebody had to do it.
The "it" in this case was a cost comparison between expanding Interstate 35 beyond six lanes and building the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor twin to I-35. The "somebody" was HNTB Corp., which is serving as the Texas Department of Transportation's general engineering consultant on the I-35 corridor project. It was hired to do the comparison after skeptical Texas senators asked questions at a March 1 hearing.
It doesn't take a doctorate in ethics to divine that HNTB, which produced a 101-page report plus hernia-inducing exhibits in just three weeks, might have something of a conflict of interest. So take their March 22 findings, released to the Legislature last week, with a pinch or three of salt.
But what the report says, essentially, is that building from scratch 300-plus miles of a four-lane TTC-35 through farmland east of I-35 will cost less than half what it would take to expand the interstate by four lanes. It also says that a wider I-35 would take about $566 million of property off the tax rolls, more than 14 times the property value taken by a new rural tollway. And that adding those two lanes per side to I-35 from San Antonio to Oklahoma would require land from 2,351 businesses; 166 schools, churches and government buildings; eight parks; and 11 cemeteries.
In Austin, that would include — according to the report's meticulous cataloging of every motel, auto repair shop, dance hall and fast-foot joint flanking I-35 — slices of two cemeteries, a chunk of the Longhorns' practice field, Bikinis Bar and Grill, and . . . the Austin Chronicle. Hmmm, HNTB isn't the only one with a conflict here.
Anyway, because the exact route of TTC-35 hasn't been set, HNTB wasn't able to estimate how many farms or other rural properties would be affected by it.
The HNTB report also reiterates that the $20.5 billion needed to expand I-35 by four lanes would come from public coffers (taxes, for instance, or borrowed money paid back by taxes or tolls) while the estimated $8.8 billion cost of TTC-35 would come from the private sector (paid back by tolls). The inescapable (though unstated) conclusion to be drawn from the report goes something like this: "Are you nuts? Of course you build TTC-35!"
State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, who leads the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee and called the March 1 hearing, hadn't read the report when I talked to him last week. But he said that adding I-35 capacity "doesn't have to be an either-or proposition." And relative costs, he said, shouldn't be the sole consideration.
The report, no matter what you might think about HNTB's objectivity (and if you want a highway engineering estimate, you pretty much have to go to a highway engineer), puts a fundamental point in black-and-white: To build a road, you must buy or condemn someone's land. The only difference between a Waco hotelier's land and a McLennan County farmer's land is that the hotel land costs more per acre. A lot more.
Either way, somebody's life gets turned upside down.
Getting There appears on Mondays. For questions, tips or story ideas, contact Getting There at 445-3698 or bwear@statesman.com.
Outer loop, commuter rails, train congestion are top priorities
By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
When Robert Eckels stepped down as county judge in February, he closed out 10 years as chairman of the eight-county Transportation Policy Council. The new judge, Ed Emmett, won't chair that council, but will be an important member, with as broad an expertise in transportation as anyone at the table. The former state representative worked on freight rail and maritime issues as an Interstate Commerce Commission member, headed a transportation industry group for 10 years and more recently has been a railroad consultant. Emmett spoke with Chronicle reporter Rad Sallee about the county's mobility needs and priorities.
Q: County commissioners in Texas can build roads as they please in their own precincts, but the county judge doesn't even have a precinct to build in. What's your role in transportation?
A: As the face of the county, I get to use the bully pulpit. There has to be somebody who drives the overall vision.
Q: What projects do you especially want to push through?
A: The completion of the Grand Parkway (outer freeway loop) has got to occur, and the northeast section of Beltway 8, and the Hardy Toll Road into downtown. Also, we need a toll road on U.S. 290, and if we don't talk about commuter rail there, we're making a big mistake. We need commuter rail to Fort Bend County too, and we have to relocate some of our freight rail.
Q: Because interstate commerce is involved, there are limits to what local government can do with railroads, but you've worked closely with them. How would you approach the freight rail issue?
A: I'm tired of seeing kids crawl under trains. The very first thing has got to be to alleviate rail congestion in the East End. That will require adding a second track to a bridge just north of the Turning Basin and identifying the most critical grade crossings, the ones that affect schools.
Some proposals to relocate railroads just won't work, but double-tracking here and there and grade separations here and there would make a big difference. We need to get cracking on those.
Q: One aspect of the Trans-Texas Corridor concept that has received little notice is the idea of moving some freight tracks out of urban areas, such as Austin. That won't work here?
A: The Union Pacific would probably like to get off of Mopac (as Texas 1 is called along the former Missouri Pacific tracks in Austin), but in most other places, railroads are not going to just pull up and move. They have customers they have to serve.
A lot of our rail system has been around for more than 100 years and the city has grown up around it. The Union Pacific line that comes through Memorial Park was put there years ago to be way out in the country.
If you tried to get all the freight traffic out of Memorial Park or Sugar Land, where would you take it? I'm not going to be a party to any relocation that puts even more trains and traffic into the East End.
Q: Metro's plan approved by voters calls for commuter rail to the northwest out U.S. 290 and to Fort Bend County along U.S. 90A. A line toward Galveston out Texas 3 has also been discussed. How do you rate those?
A: The U.S. 290 rail corridor is underutilized, and U.P. has said they're perfectly willing to have that one looked at for a commuter line. I don't think a line toward Galveston has high feasibility right now, partly because coming in from the east you get mixed up in heavy freight traffic pretty quick.
Q: The Texas House of Representatives just passed a two-year moratorium on big privatized road projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor (a proposed statewide network of tollways, railroads and pipelines). What do you think of the corridor idea generally and of plans for TTC-69 through East Texas and Houston?
A: When the Texas Department of Transportation and Gov. (Rick) Perry rolled out the idea, they overstated it. They showed every possible corridor in the state, which totally angered a lot of people needlessly.
And remember those schematics showing toll lanes and truck lanes and railroads and pipelines all together? If what they really wanted was to build a private toll road, it should have been touted as a private toll road.
Q: Will TTC-69 be built?
A: The piece around Houston will have to be built, the way we're growing. But nobody's going to pay a toll down around Victoria. You have a four-lane divided highway right now, and there's not enough traffic to justify a toll facility.
I was disappointed when I heard that (the proposed) Interstate 69 was going to be designated a Trans-Texas Corridor. I knew that was going to cause us more trouble politically than any potential benefit.
In East Texas, a lot of people think I-69 is going to be a serious upgrade of U.S. 59, but if they're going to build a whole new corridor — watch out.
I don't want to go to their town hall meetings when they start talking about taking people's land to build it, and taking business away from U.S. 59.
Q: Do you get along with Metro?
A: I've worked well with Metro so far — a whole month! Do I agree with everything they're doing? Absolutely not. Do I question some things? Of course.
Q: What do you think of Metro's ventures into transit-oriented development? (The agency recently agreed to buy property from a developer with the expectation that he'll buy it back for transit-friendly projects adjacent to the Main Street rail line.)
A: Transportation projects clearly are "If you build it, they will come." In Washington, D.C., every Metro stop has a town built up around it, and I think you're going to see the same thing here.
Q: Everybody has an opinion about light rail on Richmond. What's yours?
A: If the entire Westpark corridor had been preserved as it was originally, maybe they should have put the rail there, but I think there are issues now that the Southwest Freeway has been rebuilt.
When I hear politicians say they are opposed to a transportation improvement because the people most directly affected don't want it, I have a problem. The reason has to be more transportation-related than that.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Thus, what is the real story!??
What river runs through Austin? If I knew the name, perhaps I could call the American-Stateman “Pravda on the ________.”
BTTT
It’s the Colorado.
Back in college, my highway design prof was telling us that the worst routes for placing a highway was either through residential areas or through graveyards. No end of problems. The best routes were across farms or parks. Things like that can not only impact heavily on construction costs, but also on construction time.
bump.
Pravda on the Colorado!
However, this liebral rag has the HNTB pegged, though understated, as those folks control this entire TTC by fiat. Thus, debate is merely blowing in the wind....
It’s cheaper to build new, long story short.
AMEN and AMEN!!!!
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