Road block: Why the rage against the Trans-Texas Corridor?

KHOU.com ^ | February 23, 2006 | Lee McGuire

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas.

That is, if it ever gets built.

All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it.

People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change.

“It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.”

The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for cars and trucks, speeds topping 70 mph, trains and tolls.

So far, you’ve only seen part of the story of where it came from and why so many Texans have come forward to oppose it. But you may not realize that what we know as the Trans Texas Corridor is actually two huge highways.

The first is Trans Texas 35, which parallels I-35, from Laredo to north of Dallas. That project is further along than Trans Texas 69, which would run from Laredo through counties west and north of Houston. Both would likely be toll roads developed by private companies — companies that brought lots of money to the table.

Back in 2004 a Spanish company, Cintra, offered to pay TxDOT a billion dollars to build the first leg of the Corridor.

In exchange, Cintra would set the tolls and collect them for half a century.

“It’s a lot of money,” TxDOT spokesman Ric Williamson said.

TxDOT took the offer, and the controversy began.

Videos lampooning Gov. Rick Perry cropped up on YouTube. One of the people behind it was Gov. Perry’s election-day challenger, Carole Strayhorn.

[TXnMA]

Deport: "I suspect they wish now that they would have never put out the grand plans of all the potential corridors with all the exotic transportation schemes included."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right on the mark! Perry et al frightened a whole lot of folks with that idiocy...

I attended (and testified for the record at) two of the TTC/I-69 DEIS hearings this week. The professional road-builders at TXDOT have personally admitted to me that the multi-function monstrosity depicted in all their flashy graphics:

1. Was handed to TXDOT by Perry and Williamson as a fait accompli and TXDOT was told to "Go sell and build this".

2. Was a political scheme -- not a transportation design.

3. Was primarily a grab for land, power, and money.

4. Is a "One size fits none 'wet dream'" that has no applicability to rural Texas

5. "Will probably never be built as depicted -- anywhere in Texas."

And that is directly from the mouths of top TXDOT professionals who actually build and design roads...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of the thousand or so East Texans who attended the two"hearings", (Atlanta and Jefferson) all but two testified vehemently against construction of TTC/69. The only two "faint positives" basically echoed Deport:

Deport: " In the final analysis some roadways will have to be built it’s just a matter of how, where and when."

I agree fully. In fact, I presented a "Cargo-only Corridor" design that addresses most issues with TTC/I-69 . TXDOT has asked me to submit it formally -- and I am also working on a way to publish it here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW and FWIW, there were several petitions to impeach (and/or indict) Rick Perry formally read into the record as testimony -- and copies to be signed were plentiful...

[Sarajevo]

TXnMA, you forgot the bumper sticker;-)

[TXnMA]

The TXDOT folks got bent out of shape when I showed them a printout of it. They said, "That's a copyrighted trademark; you can't sell that bumper sticker!"

My comeback:"That's not a commercial bumper sticker. It's a political lampoon cartoon -- which is protected by the First Amendment".

They shut up in a hurry -- because some of them remembered the success of Registered's "Sore Loserman"... '-)

[Ben Ficklin]

The facts contradict what you say.

Multi-modal corridors were proposed long before Perry and Williamson.

As for whether it is a political scheme or a transportation design, what we see is the existing methodology is political. At the state and federal level road money is being diverted for political reasons. The money that is dispersed for roads is highly influenced by politics and politicians fear privatization.

As for your concept of a cargo only corridor, East Texans have been agitating for an interstate for decades and I-69 is federal interstate that is in various stages of planning in all the states thru which it will pass.

[TXnMA]

"Multi-modal corridors were proposed long before Perry and Williamson."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So... terminal stupidity is not monopolized by our current crop of Texas RINOS...

So what? Rick and Ric were the ones who pushed this dumb@$$, non-designed abortion on Texas.

BTW, this is a conservative forum. Why are you defending RINOs here?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did not say that passenger vehicle lanes should not be added and maintained, I proposed that interstate cargo traffic be removed from existing passenger Interstates, and that it be made mandatory that interstate cargo loads use only the new, designed-for-cargo-loads corridors.

Removal of cargo loads from existing interstates will greatly increase their lifetime and reduce maintenance costs. (Did you ever drive I-20, with its sawtooth tilted slab damage that repeatedly jolted you at the end of each slab? That damage would never have occurred with auto-only traffic loads.)

Narrowing the corridors to minimum width will reduce the cost of overpasses (@~$3000/linear foot and required solely to cross the closed-access cargo corridors) so that the "Great Wall of Texas" effect is reduced. Existing proposals (which block off many FM and almost all county roads) would devastate rural Texas. (Consider the huge, negative impact on rural school bus routes, for instance...) More, affordable crossovers would alleviate that sort of problem...

And no one with even a room-temperature IQ would propose something as stupid as adding a ~$500,000 length to every crossover merely to cross under power lines and over pipelines. (Think about it: when was the last time you saw an overpass that served only those worthless "purposes"?)

"Utilities" simply do not belong inside closed access corridors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The big problem is that TXDOT did not do proper engineering and Economic Impact analyses like the above before they rushed headlong into the NEPA Environmental Impact Study.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The engineers at TXDOT agree with my analyses. What -- aside from frustration with traffic -- supports your negative pontifications. What positive, technical contribution have you made to these discussions?

Name one thing (aside from "We need roads!" and the separation of truck from passenger traffic) in the proposed multi-service corridor scheme that makes engineering and economic sense for all of Texas.

We await your astute analysis...

[Ben Ficklin]

Actually, multi-modal corridors were recommended by CTR, not politicians. OTOH, your qualification is that you can type big letters. Common sense contradicts your grand scheme. You say that you don't want a separate TTC, but then advocate building a separate truck corridor.

As for your attempts to frame it as "true conservatives" versus the RINOs, it doesn't wash.

Conservatives know that the private sector will do a better job. You are not a conservative, you are a populist. You need to vote for Obama, he will give you your free roads/socialist roads.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

(Did you ever drive I-20, with its sawtooth tilted slab damage that repeatedly jolted you at the end of each slab? That damage would never have occurred with auto-only traffic loads.)

You should try I-90 in Minnesota and I-43 in Wisconsin. Just don't do it with a full bladder.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Narrowing the corridors to minimum width will reduce the cost of overpasses (@~$3000/linear foot and required solely to cross the closed-access cargo corridors) so that the "Great Wall of Texas" effect is reduced.

I would recommend 300 feet (like a standard interstate), so as to allow room to add lanes, in case truck traffic increases. You do recall the difficulties with I-35, because it has such a narrow right-of-way?

[hedgetrimmer]

Don’t worry, the Terminator (governor Schwarzenegger) has left California for the convention of governors to terminate state sovereignty over our public roadways. We’ll hear more about his globalist selling out later this week, I’m sure.

[TXnMA]

I (generously, IMHO) allowed 400 width', to include a rail line or two if needed...

Yeah, I know rail and road have different grade requirements, but my goal was to show that even that token width reduction would allow the project to afford three times as many crossovers for the same cost...

FYI, I have made my last response to Ben Ficklin -- the guy is stuck on irrelevancies and ad hominem sneers, and refuses to make any positive contribution. At least I am applying the capitalist/engineering principle that profitability can be maintained/increased by reducing cost...