Posted on 07/02/2011 5:44:55 AM PDT by BobL
State officials are soliciting ideas from private companies to build and operate a large section of the Grand Parkway, a long-planned Houston-area outer loop that has drawn criticism from environmentalists and urban planners.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7636418.html#ixzz1Qwy2u5gk
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
It's interesting to note that he's pushing it just a couple of days after the legislature finished its work for the next two years and thus CANNOT stop him. He knows how much this ANGERS Texans, but this sick idea (of privately owned roads) will NOT get out of his head.
However, I do also (again) give him political credit. He knows that HUGE DAMAGE done by these schemes (i.e., private companies charging people 20 cents to $1.00 per mile to drive, without alternatives thanks to monopoly protection) will not be evident until well after the 2012 election - so he's taken us Texans for SUCKERS, again.
Ping!!
Sounds rather less than more here. It’s just a loop around Houston, and you can’t exactly deny that Houston needs more roads.
The equivalent up here in Dallas is the Bush Tollway, and that’s just a godsend if you want to get over to the airport fast, for example.
“Sounds rather less than more here. It’s just a loop around Houston, and you can’t exactly deny that Houston needs more roads.
The equivalent up here in Dallas is the Bush Tollway, and that’s just a godsend if you want to get over to the airport fast, for example.”
I hear you, and if were just built as a state-owned toll road, I wouldn’t have a problem (as much) - as there would be some accountability. But private companies, and Cintra in particular, have been a DISASTER everywhere they’re given a toll road monopoly.
In the end, we’ll likely not even have any housing development on that corridor, once people realize that they’re captives to Cintra. In a way it makes me laugh, as the complainers at the Chronicle think that people will come because of the road.
This will be fun to watch...but Cintra isn’t stupid, and it wouldn’t even surprise me if they simply no-bid the project.
I’d also say “less.”
God, I hate to see the Katy prairie completely disappear. I can remember clouds of geese (snow geese, I think) landing in the rice fields.
It’ll be great, though, won’t it? Rows and rows and rows of houses with convenience stores at the entrance to the neighborhoods.
So God sent us the Bush Tollway!...LOL
“God, I hate to see the Katy prairie completely disappear. I can remember clouds of geese (snow geese, I think) landing in the rice fields.
It’ll be great, though, won’t it? Rows and rows and rows of houses with convenience stores at the entrance to the neighborhoods.”
The Katy Prairie will be JUST FINE. At worst, there will be 4 toll lanes going through it that will see a car every 10 minutes or so. There will be NO DEVELOPMENT at all in that corridor for decades.
EXACTLY the same thing happened with the South Loop here in Houston. 20 years ago they decided to build it as a toll road...only now is the first development (to speak of) taking place. And this is less than 10 miles from downtown Houston...and this is NOT a Cintra road, with their tolling rates.
Believe me, once people understand the Cintra tax that they will have to pay NOTHING will be built in that path until Cintra either sells off the road, or their 75 year contract expires. For you, it works out great - for me, I don’t really care either way, but it will be nice having some concrete that bypasses Houston when I take long trips.
http://www.grandpky.com/about%20us/default.asp
Also, this road will be needed because Exxon is building what may be its new national headquarters right next to where segment F-2 hits I-45. The Grand Parkway will really be helpful when some 8,000 new employees move into this area!
“This is not the TTC. The Grand Parkway has been in the works for a very long time.”
It’s TTC-light to me. I know the GP has been around for decades. It was first a freeway, then a toll road, now a monopolized private toll road...just as the TTC was going to be. That was always my problem with the TTC.
Anyway, I doubt that once Cintra does the math that they will want to have anything to do with it, as private toll roads without captive populations have a history of carnage in this country (Camino Cambio [sp., the one at the Mexico border] Dulles Extension, etc.).
I just wish this entire monopoly-private-toll road thing would just GO AWAY. And, I guess, the governor knows that just as well, considering that he waited until the legislature was disbanded to start this crap again.
This road just goes around Houston, so I don’t see how it could be compared to TTC. They don’t really need to build it all at once either. They could just put in the feeder roads for now, like they did between I-10 and Hwy 59.
The problem with the TTC was not I-69, or leasing the toll road, it was the size of the thing and jamming every type of land transport known to man in a single super wide right-of-way.
Leasing a toll road to a private entity is not a problem as long as the public does not get screwed by the lease terms.
http://www.grandpky.com/home/ ;
The Grand Parkway, TX 99, has been on the books and planning stages since back in the late 1960-early 70s. So this isn’t a new project by any means.
It is a 180 mile +- ring around the Houston metroplex going through seven counties. About 30 miles have been completed so far and open for travel.
The Houston area has three rings around the metro area. They are;
I-610 loop
Sam Houston Tollway - Beltway 8
TX 99 - Grand Parkway
And, I guess, the governor knows that just as well, considering that he waited until the legislature was disbanded to start this crap again.
You realize it was the Legislature that extended this project and others in the legislative session that ended in late May?
Deport the illegals and there will be less people on the roads so less traffic and less need to build new roads.
“Leasing a toll road to a private entity is not a problem as long as the public does not get screwed by the lease terms.”
Agree. Unfortunately the leases are often SECRET, so the public doesn’t know how bad it is being screwed, as happened in Canada.
This is a STUPID arrangement, meant only to clean out the WALLETS of taxpayers.
“This road just goes around Houston, so I don’t see how it could be compared to TTC.”
Different people had different problems with the TTC. My problem had ALWAYS been primarily with the funding...although 1000 foot wide corridors wasn’t the smartest move on Perry’s part either.
“The Grand Parkway, TX 99, has been on the books and planning stages since back in the late 1960-early 70s. So this isn’t a new project by any means.”
Of course...but first it was a freeway, where the state was going to be gifted the Right of Way land...then it was a state-owned toll road (sorry, no more gifting, the owners aren’t idiots and knew the land would be virtually worthless with toll booths erected)...and now a private road.
Fat chance that makes any sense, but I guess a lot of Texans will have to learn the hard way.
“You realize it was the Legislature that extended this project and others in the legislative session that ended in late May?”
Yep...a bunch of suckers for Perry again, just like when they gave him the TTC a decade ago. I guess they never learn either.
“Deport the illegals and there will be less people on the roads so less traffic and less need to build new roads.”
Given that Perry managed to have his buddies in the legislature kill the Sanctuary City bill TWICE in the course of a month, I think he’s wanting to lay all this concrete PRECISELY because he expects (and wants) a LOT MORE immigrants.
A serious question if you care to give your thoughts.
What would you propose that Texas do to to begin a long range plan to improve and provide the necessary transportation facilities for say the next 50 years?
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