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U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

The Texas Department of Transportation is asking Nueces County residents to attend a public meeting in Driscoll to comment and provide input on proposed upgrades of US 77 to a controlled access facility that meets interstate standards. The purpose of the meetings is to review proposed options for upgrading US 77 and to present recommendations, TxDOT officials said. The first round public meetings were held in early March. This second round of public meetings is being held as part of TxDOT's continued effort to gain public input on issues related to proposed improvements and to provide an opportunity for public...

The Texas Transportation Commission approves the staff recommendation for a proposal by Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure (ZAI/ACS) to develop the Texas portion of Interstate 69. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) selected the ZAI/ACS proposal over a proposal from Bluebonnet Infrastructure Investors. The proposed ZAI/ACS master plan would develop the southern section of U.S. Highway 77 to interstate standards without tolling that portion of the road. The proposal advances planning for I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). The selection of ZAI/ACS for a development contract has no impact on TxDOT's environmental study that will determine the route for I-69/TTC. TxDOT will...

AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville. The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor. "This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp. The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities...

State highway officials said Wednesday that the first step in carrying out their decision to build a controversial toll road along the present U.S. 59, and not through farm and ranch land, is to get federal approval. Although no federal funding has been sought for the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, the Texas Department of Transportation is bound by federal environmental law. The project has generated thick volumes about its likely impact on the natural environment and the communities in its path. The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is expected to undergo public review late this year and then get sent to...

Responding to concerns that a superhighway project running from East Texas to the border with Mexico could cut through private lands, state transportation officials said Tuesday that they will only consider putting it along existing roads. State officials have held almost 50 public meetings and received about 28,000 responses from residents about the proposed Interstate 69 project, which would be part of the so-called Trans-Texas Corridor network of toll roads. The "overwhelming sentiment" of the comments from the public was that the state should focus on using existing roads instead of carving new ones out of the countryside, said Amadeo...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady lead a group of nine Texas lawmakers on Friday, from both political parties, in urging the Texas Department of Transportation to remove the Interstate 69 project from the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor and return it to its original route which brings existing highways U.S. 59, U.S. 281 and U.S 77 up to interstate standards. In a letter to Deirdre Delisi, the new chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, the lawmakers maintain that "public support for the original I-69 project - which focused on bringing existing highways up to interstate standards and existed long before...

Despite the uproar over the state's proposal to build Trans-Texas Corridor 69 through East Texas, Lufkin's mayor says he supports the highway — as long as it follows the path of the current U.S. Highway 59. The Trans Texas Corridor/I-69 project is a statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right-of-ways. Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed road can go online to www.keeptexasmoving.com. TxDOT has expanded its public comment period for TTC-69 to Friday, April 18. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Gorden, along with 17 other Texans, to an I-69...

South Texas is not only going to get its first interstate - it is also going to get a second and a third. State transportation officials knew one of three southern highways - U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77 in Cameron County or U.S. Highway 59 in Webb County - would eventually become part of an interstate stretching from the Texas-Mexico border to Texarkana, in the northeast part of the state. Only Webb County is currently served by an interstate. The state's Trans-Texas Corridor plan calls for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north,...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...

Trucks hauling everything from cars to produce use Southeast Texas roads to deliver their goods, and when a proposed Interstate 69/Trans Texas Corridor is completed, local drivers could see even more of them, local transportation officials said. The proposed I-69 corridor stretches from Michigan down to Texas. Once in Texas, the corridor goes about 650 miles from Texarkana to Brownsville and Laredo and includes separate lanes for cars and semis and areas for trains and utilities. It doesn't cut through Beaumont, but local arteries like U.S. 69 and Interstate 10 would connect to it. Travelers and truckers just need to...

McALLEN — In other parts of the state, transportation officials try to allay property owners' fears that a superhighway from Laredo north to Texarkana will result in a massive land grab. But in the lower Rio Grande Valley, the state's road builders spend more time assuring local leaders that they have a shot at being included. People in the fast-growing border area between Brownsville and McAllen have developed something of an inferiority complex about being the state's largest metropolitan area without an interstate highway. One after another, Valley leaders stepped to a microphone at public meetings last week and made...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.� Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

A so-called “NAFTA Superhighway� earned support from the city’s mayor and discussion among residents Monday during a public hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-69 project. TxDOT held a public hearing at the Brownsville Events Center Monday to explain the progress of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a future segment of Highway I-69, which will link the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. After a short presentation, the floor was open for comments. Among the local politicians, college students and retirees at the hearing there was a wide range of opinion on the project. According to Mario Jorge, district engineer for...

WESLACO — Nearly 80 people filled a lecture hall here Thursday for a town hall forum with Texas Department of Transportation officials on a potential interstate highway designation in the region. The forum at South Texas College’s Mid-Valley Campus was the first of four planned public meetings in the Rio Grande Valley addressing the state’s Trans-Texas Corridor plan for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north. TxDOT is developing plans for the first interstate in eastern Texas to connect Texarkana to one of three points in the south: U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77...

Some Texans are afraid of losing their land to the Trans-Texas Corridor while others loathe the thought of a quarter-mile-wide swath of toll roads and railway lines transforming the countryside into a superhighway. People continue to turn out in droves at public meetings concerning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, specifically the portion known as the TTC-69 proposed from Brownsville to Texarkana. A meeting Monday, Jan. 28, at the fairgrounds in Austin County was no exception, drawing more than 1,000 people. Opposition to the proposed corridor has come from people in all walks of life, said Chris Steinbach, chief of staff...

Hundreds showed up to a town hall meeting Thursday night in Lufkin, many with questions for Texas Department of Transportation officials about the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor that could run through or around Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Huntsville and other East Texas towns. As it's drawn up, I-69/TTC would include toll roads, high-speed freight and commuter rail, water lines, oil and gas pipelines, electric transmission lines and telecommunications infrastructure in one corridor running north/south through Texas. One primary purpose of the corridor would be to help with the state's projected traffic congestion. Although TxDOT directors assured everyone that nothing is set in stone and...

When the Texas Department of Transportation begins work on the I-69/Trans Texas Corridor, the U.S. 77 leg from Victoria to Brownsville will be developed first. Cameron County Commissioners revealed the information during Tuesday’s Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting. County officials received the news from the state’s Turnpike Authority Division on Monday. In a letter to Cameron County, Turnpike Authority Division Director Phillip E. Russell said, TXDOT has identified U.S. 77 as “high priority� and the “first near term facility to be developed under the I-69/TTC Comprehensive Development Agreement.� The U.S. 77 Highway runs from Victoria to Brownsville. Precinct 3 Commissioner...

The much touted — and disputed — Trans-Texas Corridor may be one step away from a pipe dream and one step closer to a reality. The group this week released its Tier 1 Environmental Impact study, a look at how building the highway, dubbed I-69, running from Texarkana to Laredo, would affect the 50 or so counties it would run through. Bryan Wood, district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation in Bryan, said the first study only looks at how the many initially proposed component of the highway would impact the surrounding areas. “We’re still a long ways away...

The new Interstate 69 should be built in Texas mostly along existing highways – including U.S. 59, U.S. 77 and U.S. 281 – according to a draft environmental report released Tuesday. The federal environmental report recommends that the new interstate enter Texas from the east at Shreveport, La., travel south near Houston and head west to near Laredo. At the eastern part of the state, it would also connect north to Interstate 30 near Texarkana. Tuesday's report – called a draft environmental impact statement – is far from the final word on exactly where the interstate will go. The draft...

McALLEN — State transportation officials are still months from making a final decision about the location of the much-heralded Interstate 69 superhighway from Canada to Mexico. Still deep in the preliminary study phases of an environmental impact assessment, Texas Department of Transportation officials are making headway toward a decision on whether to use existing U.S. highways 77 to Harlingen, 281 to Edinburg or 57, which connects to Laredo, or build an entirely new road. I-69, known as Trans-Texas Corridor 69 in the state of Texas, is a proposal for a 2,600-mile highway system running from Canada to Mexico. About 1,000...

The Interstate 69 corridor, a Mexico-to-Canada concept discussed since 1991, has received government recognition as a "corridor of the future," a designation that immediately means $800,000 in federal money for studies. Local officials say it could mean more trade in South Texas. The corridor -- a 2,680-mile international trade route from Mexico to Canada also known as the Trans-Texas Corridor-69 -- was one of two designated Tuesday as corridors of the future. Interstate 10 from California to Florida also received recognition. Hailed as a route that would facilitate trade resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement, I-69's Texas portion...

The future of an interstate planned to run through Victoria appears murkier than ever. Harris County, a key point along the proposed Interstate 69 route, pulled out of the I-69 Alliance in mid-May. In an article in the May 15 Houston Chronicle, Bill Murphy and Rad Sallee wrote that Harris County pulled out of the I-69 Alliance after county commissioners decided too much was spent annually in membership costs. The county hopes that a bill in legislation right now is passed, because it would give them access to build a toll road as part of the Trans-Texas Corridor parallel to...

ANGLETON — Development of an interstate highway connecting the United States with bordering countries could improve the economy of Brazoria County, some city and county officials and business owners were told Thursday. During the quarterly Economic Development Alliance of Brazoria County luncheon at the Angleton Recreation Center, Anne Culver, executive director of the I-69 Alliance, updated attendees about the alliance’s work and the status of the Interstate 69 development. “Any major new infrastructure, even if it’s not located right down the middle of Brazoria County, it’s going to benefit Brazoria County,” Culver said after the luncheon. “It’s going to have...

Victoria will consider today joining a growing list of South Texas organizations calling on the state to avoid taking more private property than necessary to create the proposed Interstate 69 highway. The city council is scheduled to vote on a resolution supporting development of I-69 along the existing sections of U.S. 59 and U.S. 77. That meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 5 p.m. in the Council Chamber at 107 W. Juan Linn St. Mayor Will Armstrong said the Victoria County Commissioners Court has already passed a similar resolution, as have other organizations in the Rio...

News of a possible Panama Canal expansion makes the Rio Grande Valley's quest for interstate highway access even more important, state Transportation Commissioner Ric Williamson told a crowd of South Texas officials pleading Thursday for the interstate. President Martin Torrijos of Panama on Monday urged Panamanians to support a $5.25 billion expansion that could increase cargo ship traffic and the need for new or expanded ports. Rio Grande Valley leaders see the port of Brownsville as both a key Gulf of Mexico port and a destination for goods coming across Mexico from expanded Pacific Coast ports taking traffic from clogged-up...

AUSTIN — The southernmost stretch of the proposed Canada-to-Mexico interstate could come to the Rio Grande Valley as a brand new toll road cutting through untouched ranchland rather than an upgrade to highways 77 or 281. The proposal by the Texas Department of Transportation for the road known as Trans-Texas Corridor 69 is drawing sharp criticism from South Texas landowners and elected officials who say the state should instead spend its money turning one or both existing highways into interstates. Three options are on the table for building the first interstate to the Valley: expansion of Highway 281, expansion of...

As noted before in this space, the Victoria Advocate has serious reservations about Gov. Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor. But one part of the proposal, as The Associated Press describes it, "to build 4,000-plus miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines, utility and water lines, and even broadband data" does make considerable sense. The state's main north-south thoroughfare, running from the Red River north of Gainesville to Laredo on the Rio Grande, is already badly congested. And because it runs through the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Austin and San Antonio, Interstate 35 can only become more crowded....

Now that Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other officials have pronounced “the federal funding genie” dead, as far as highway construction money goes, it's time to find another way to pay for Interstate 69. “By the time Washington funds I-69, we'll be driving around in hover cars or whatever,” Perry said Thursday during a meeting of I-69 Alliance members, including Lufkin Mayor Louis Bronaugh, in Houston. “The harsh reality is we cannot wait for Washington, D.C., to solve the problems of this state.” Perry wants to “resuscitate” I-69 by merging it with his proposed Trans Texas Corridor, which would combine...

Can't post the text for this one, since contents of the Monitor's website can't be reproduced without written permission. Here is the link: Lobbyists, local biz: I-69 still alive

Ramiro Dela Fuente attended a recent forum on the proposed Interstate 69 highway, because like a lot of other people, he’s anxious about which route it might take. "Interstates bring commerce. Restaurants, hotels, stores start building up around them. That would be good for Harlingen," the 58-year-old Harlingen resident said. "We’ve been seeing the signs for future routes of I-69 everywhere, and we don’t know where it’s actually going." At this point, nobody really knows. What many agree on is this: The route that is eventually selected will become the gateway to the Rio Grande Valley. Will it be U.S....

Residents eye proposal for new highway project Dozens of area residents examined maps of proposed routes and discussed the implications of the proposed I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor at an open house Wednesday in Calallen. Still in its preliminary stages, the proposed highway will stretch from Mexico to Canada. In Texas, it generally will follow U.S. Highway 59 from Texarkana to Victoria. From there it will split and go to both Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley, roughly following U.S. Highways 59 and 77. The project is undergoing an environmental impact study, said Doug Booher, TXDOT environmental manager. Fred Wollmann, who lives...