[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Trans-Texas Corridor PING!

[redgolum]

Who was the idiot who did the contract work? He should be disbarred.

[wolfcreek]

Can a project with this much momentum and political clout behind it be stopped?

“Anything can be stopped.” he said. “It just takes the will of the people.”



I've often advocated for this issue to be voted on in a Special Election. Something tells me that won't be necessary. Nobody wants this boondoggle and if they try and shove it down our throats, they'll lose the power they so crave.

[B-Chan]

$140 in tolls plus gas to drive from DFW to San Antonio? That's more than $300 for a single round trip!

GOOD.

It's about time road users were required to pay for the use of infrastructure the way the railroads do.

"Oh, but fuel taxes pay for road infrastructure." Malarkey. Private automobiles cause zillions of dollars worth of environmental and psychological damage to America each year. Who pays for the loss of quality of life caused by our car-oriented society? Who pays for the loss of national security caused by our addiction to foreign oil and our laughably anemic rail system? Who pays for the destruction of our cities and small towns caused by freeway suburbanization? We all do. Charging people a hundred and fifty bucks to drive a private car 316 miles is probably undercharging them, considering the damage to mental health, field, stream and air, and national security caused by mass use of automobiles.

Of course, there's no way in hell such a toll will ever be charged to drivers in the real world, but if charging any toll at all gets people out of cars and onto high-speed trains, I'm all for it -- and I say that as a person whose familiy business is moving cars city to city. We'll change our business model if we have to; the results will be worth it.

I support the TTC project -- not because I love roads and cars, but because of the rail system that will be built alongside the Überbahns. We ought to just build the railroads -- but if building a system of megahighways is the price we have to pay for decent rail service, I'm ready to fork over my $300 to drive on them -- or the $150 or less it will cost to take the bullet train.

[familyop]

We could build a superhighway from Mexico to Canada...with no exits along the way except for fuel stops.

[Clintonfatigued]

I just hope that it's not too late to stop this.

[Ben Ficklin]

How the interstate system reshaped the nation
Interstate system needs money for updates

[1rudeboy]

You outdid yourself this evening. It'll be hours before I can find the time to read this.

[Mike Darancette]

A road from someplace you don't want to be to somewhere you don't want to go.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Six open lanes of road with never a traffic jam.

Excellent! Why no traffic jam?

toll fees as high as 44 cents a mile

Now it all makes sense.

In this case, it means TxDOT has agreed not to improve any roadways that run parallel to the TTC for the duration of the Cintra lease, unless those improvements had already been approved prior to the signing of the contract.

Parallel at any point? Or parallel to the entire TTC?

Later this month, TxDOT officials will be in Washington, lobbying Congress to exempt from federal taxation any income gained from dividends or partnership distributions by toll road companies.

LOL!

The state was paid $3.8 billion for the lease, which will allow Cintra-Macquarie to keep all tolls during that time, an estimated total of nearly $12 million.

I don't think so.

That’s more than 900 square miles

Out of nearly 262,000 square miles. They're paving over the state!

[TXnMA]

This article doesn't even begin to address the economic death of rural Texas towns and counties when the cash flow on which they now depend is flushed right through their area via a no-exit, for-profit "pipeline". Might as well put all interstate traffic on airplanes and fly it right over their heads...

[Smokin' Joe]

“The initial plan for the TTC calls for the taking, by eminent domain, of 580,000 acres of private Texas property,” said Terri Hall, regional director of the San Antonio Toll Party. “That’s more than 900 square miles. And there are secondary components to the TTC that would bring that number up to 1 million acres. That’s going to cut the state into pieces.”

And because it is being done not by the State per se, but a private, for profit concern, the Kelo decision makes it all possible.

Coincidence?