Council opposes planned corridor route (excerpt)
By Amie Streater
July 12, 2006
FORT WORTH - City Council members officially gave a thumbs down Tuesday to a planned route for the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor that would run east of Dallas.
Without public discussion, council members unanimously approved a resolution opposing the Texas Department of Transportation's plans to bypass Tarrant County with the planned corridor, saying such action would hurt jobs and economic growth in Fort Worth and throughout the county.
Instead, the council supports a proposal by the Regional Transportation Council and the North Central Texas Council of Governments that would locate the corridor along Texas 360, eventually creating an outer loop around the Metroplex.
Commissioners OK preferred (SH360) route for TTC (excerpt)
By JONATHAN BLUNDELL
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Just in time, or maybe way too soon — depending on which side you take — the Ellis County commissioners adopted a resolution Monday morning to recommend an alternative study be done on the Highway 360 corridor for the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The TTC is being billed as a multi-use transportation alternative to the heavily congested Interstate 35 and will connect Laredo with the Texas-Oklahoma border. A 10-mile swath between Waxahachie and Ennis is being considered for the final location of the roadway through Ellis County.
The department’s report, released in April, shows a narrowed study area, 10 miles wide, mainly parallel to Interstate 35 and shows 12 different possibilities for the alignment of the highway. Seven of those dozen plans show the statewide corridor splitting Ellis County.
The final corridor will be about 1,200 feet wide.
“The TTC Tier 1 plan narrowed their plan down to a 10-mile stretch from Milford to east of Ferris,” county planner Clyde Melick said. “What we’re saying with this resolution is we’d like TxDOT to look at an alternative alignment - and that’s the 360 corridor.”
Melick said the alternative avoids bisecting the county and doesn’t disturb the Blackland Prairie.
“We also think moving the corridor to the west will benefit the air quality in the region,” Melick said.
The resolution recommends the state look at using Highway 360 corridor as well as the Loop 9 corridor for construction of the TTC.
The Loop 9 corridor was planned originally in 1956 to loop around the metroplex, south of Interstate 20.
The loop is planned to run along the border of Dallas and Ellis counties.
“There are already plans to bring 360 south and a plan is in place for Loop 9,” Melick said. “Rather than locate the TTC where it’s currently being planned and there are no roads planned we think the state should look at putting the TTC where roads are currently being planned. This is just a preference.”
CountyJudge Chad Adams expressed concern over rushing into passing a resolution without a full knowledge of how Ellis County residents and cities felt about the plan.
“Even at these public hearings we’re going in and we don’t have all the answers,” Melick said. “But this resolution will go in as our public comment.”
Commissioner Ron Brown, Pct. 4, said the Highway 360 alignment would save $1.9 billion to the state.
“I think there are a lot of questions still out there and I feel concerned about making the resolution,” Adams said.
Melick said the resolution would hopefully get TxDOT and the TTC coalition to study the 360 corridor and give everyone more options and answers.
“It’s better if we call their hand now and ask them to study 360 now so we’ll have more options,” Melick said. “They’ll be a lot more likely to study it now than later down the road.”
Commissioner Heath Sims, Pct. 3, said he favored encouraging the TTC coalition to look at the 360 corridor.
“Just looking at what I’ve been informed about, the map they show cuts our county in half,” Sims said. “We don’t know where the exits or entrances will be but I feel like if they can cut back 60 miles of roadway and save $1.9 billion, building on the 360 corridor and circling the Metroplex would be a better deal. And a resolution is nothing more than that. I personally think it does no harm to do a resolution now but it might do harm to do it later.”
Adams took issue with Sims’ comment about splitting the county in half.
“That argument doesn’t make sense because we have Highway 287 cutting the county in half from east to west,” Adams said.
“That’s true, but you also have exits every quarter mile,” Sims said. “We’re talking about a major 1,200-foot roadway with very few exits and trucks and trains carrying who knows what. I move to adopt this resolution.”
Adams asked for more discussion between the commissioners before the resolution was passed.
“I feel there hasn’t been enough communication with the cities,” Adams said. “I want the commissioners to be sure they’re comfortable with their vote.”
“This is a pretty general resolution,” Brown said. “This is just asking them to look at this alternative.”
After the motion was seconded, the commissioners voted 3-2 in favor of the resolution.
Robinson and Adams voted against the resolution with Adams adding he’d prefer to take up the resolution later.
The vote was one of Adam’s first votes cast as county judge that wasn’t to settle a tie among the commissioners.
It's the Texas 130 toll road, not the Texas Motor Speedway
EDITORIAL BOARD
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Is an 85-mph speed limit too high for part of the Texas 130 toll road being built southeast of Austin? Highway safety advocates think so, and they have common sense on their side.
If Texas allows cars and trucks to go 85 mph on the southern section of Texas 130, that would be the highest speed limit in the country. It would mean more money for the state treasury, but more danger for drivers negotiating the toll road between Seguin and Mustang Ridge.
Although the state Legislature approved speeds of up to 85 mph on roads within the Trans Texas Corridor, it would be up to the Texas Transportation Commission to approve the speed limit. Commission members should seriously study the deleterious effects of higher speeds before setting a limit as high as 85 mph.
Raising the speed limit from the restrictive 55 mph established in the 1970s to 65 and 70 mph has not resulted in the carnage that some safety advocates predicted in the 1990s. But hiking the top speed to 85 is unknown territory, and potentially quite dangerous.
A speed limit is only an approximation for many drivers on major highways. They routinely assume that the "real" speed limit — the point at which they may get a ticket — is higher, so they drive 5 to 10 mph above the posted limit.
If the southern portion of Texas 130, which is expected to be included in the Trans Texas Corridor, is posted for 85 mph, drivers will be flying along it at 90 and 95 mph or higher. At those speeds, there is no such thing as safe driving, only dangerous driving.
Thankfully, the upper reaches of the legal limit will not be allowed on the section of Texas 130 nearest Austin, which can expect heavier traffic loads. That portion of the highway was built to different standards and the top legal speed will be 70 mph. Parts of that section of the highway are scheduled to open in December.
The Texas Department of Transportation raised the speed limit on some rural interstate stretches in West Texas to 80 mph in May. That action has drawn criticism from safety advocates who argue that Texas is abdicating its role of ensuring safety on the highways.
Cintra-Zachary, the international conglomerate building the southern segment of Texas 130, will give the state more money for setting higher speed limits. Isn't that encouraging the state to abandon safety for revenue? Highway officials must be concerned about selling lives for money.
The National Highway Safety Administration reports that speed is a factor in 31 percent of traffic fatalities in this country. Speed shortens reaction time, lengthens stopping distances and increases the force of impact.
If 85 to 95 mph isn't too fast for safe driving, what is?
For other TTC-related articles:
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Hrmm...Kinky Friedman is a country singer, primarily, not a novellist.
A strange, twisted country singer, but one nonetheless. ;)
What's this woman smoking? Ok, so I have a truckload of illegals and I determine my best route is to drive them past a few toll booths and the inevitable patrol car parked nearby. Yep, uh huh, that's brilliant - not! Egads, Kinky is looking better every day.
False, the state of Texas will own it, leasing out construction, operating, and maintanence rights.
In the crowd, Shirley Spellerberg of Corinth, a former state Republican committeewoman, sat waiting to speak. "I don't like anything about this," said Spellerberg, mayor of Corinth for 16 years and a lobbying force for the religious-conservative Texas Eagle Forum. "It's going to open the flow of truck traffic bringing illegal aliens, drugs, terrorists -- who knows what? It's a horrible idea," she said.
Corinth has long been a notorious speed trap between Dallas and Denton that depends heavily on ticket revenue, and has a bad reputation for questionable practices regarding such.
If 85 to 95 mph isn't too fast for safe driving, what is?
It's not too fast in W. Texas. I wish you could go faster so We could knock a little time off our Big Bend trips.