Officials eye narrowing path of Corridor-69

The concept, which was known as Interstate Highway 69 until 2002, has been around for more than a decade, but Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation's turnpike division, said it's getting closer to becoming a reality.

"What we're looking at now is taking all the comments we've received and identifying a narrowed study area," Garcia said. "That's where we get a specific area where people can say, 'How would this affect my property?' "

Right now, she said, the projected path for the corridor cuts a 20-mile-wide swath stretching from Texarkana to Mexico, with possible branches shooting off in different directions. The transportation department's next step is to narrow that to a path about four miles wide.

In April the department will begin requesting concept proposals from private businesses for answers to that question. It's looking for a team - a construction firm working with developers and financial advisers - to bring to the table all the resources needed to make the corridor happen. Garcia said the department is taking the same approach with Trans-Texas Corridor-35, which generally parallels the existing Interstate Highway 35.

The proposal process will take a year to complete. Public hearings on the narrowed path won't start until fall or winter. But The Alliance for I-69 Texas, a group of government and business officials from 34 Texas counties, isn't waiting for that to let those with a special interest in the project know what's going on.

"Now we're at a point where, because the Trans-Texas Corridor is taking on more form and shape, people along that corridor are turning to the alliance to say 'We have questions,' " said Anne Culver, a member of the alliance.

To answer those questions, the group is facilitating a series of meetings with the transportation department and stakeholders along the corridor's path. The next one is scheduled for Wednesday in Alice for a group of government officials, business leaders, ranchers and property owners in Brooks, Jim Wells and Hidalgo counties.

"What I've been getting from these local meetings is people see these maps and they panic," Culver said. "But it isn't finished. It's a work in progress."

Private investment in transport urged (TheState.com)

Posted on Thu, Mar. 02, 2006

By C. GRANT JACKSON
Business Editor

CHARLESTON — If the United States is going to have a transportation system that continues to grow the economy, the country is going to have to find a way other than government spending to finance it, a government policy expert said Wednesday.

Jeffrey N. Shane, U.S. undersecretary of transportation, said the United States needs to look to private capital to continue to fund the nation’s transportation infrastructure.

Shane made his remarks at the Free Enterprise Foundation’s first annual award luncheon held at The Citadel.

At the luncheon, Mack Whittle, chairman of The South Financial Group in Greenville, was honored with the foundation’s first Free Enterprise Award for Ethics and Civic Responsibility.

The award was given to Whittle because he “believes that when businesses and individuals unite they can improve our state’s communities and enhance our state’s competitive advantages. He works to better his community and rallies his company to do the same,” the foundation said.

S.C. Chamber of Commerce president Hunter Howard, who introduced Whittle, praised the banking official’s “strong commitment to do what is right over what is popular,” especially when an important principle is involved.

Shane told the crowd of business leaders gathered to honor Whittle that “transportation is embedded in the fabric of the U.S. economy in ways we have never seen before.”

Company delegations visiting the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington these days are more likely to be from firms Nike, Dell, Pier 1 and Liz Claiborne than from trucking companies or airlines, he said. “These are the companies that make the world turn on its axis. These are the companies on which our economy is largely based,” Shane said.

With the advent of just-in-time production and retailers who don’t want to waste capital in warehousing inventories, there is no more important issue for the economy than an efficient transportation system, he said. But to maintain and grow that system, the United States needs to move away from an infrastructure that is “government-centric” and find ways to use private investment, he said.

Much of the world uses private capital for transportation infrastructure, he said, and offshore money already is being invested in some U.S. projects such as the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The corridor is a proposed multiuse, statewide network of transportation routes with private vendors operating much of it.

More efforts like that will be needed in the United States, Shane said.

Projections show that the federal Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, the two major tax-supported mechanisms for funding transportation infrastructure, no longer are sustainable, he said.

“People like having transportation provided in a way that seems free of charge,” he said.

But, “if we’re serious about wanting the economy to succeed, we are going to have to get over our cultural resistance to the idea that it is necessary to pay for these facilities.”

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