Free Republic

The Utah Transportation Commission on Friday approved spending an extra $38 million to cover rising costs for two major upcoming highway projects — on Interstate 15 and Bangerter Highway in Salt Lake County. The increased expenses are caused in part by rising prices to buy and demolish homes and businesses to clear new rights of way. That includes an extra $23 million for a project to convert three more intersections on Bangerter Highway into freeway-like interchanges at 6200 South, 10400 South and 12600 South. Construction on those projects is scheduled to begin in 2020, but purchasing the needed rights of...

Gov. Larry Hogan never met a highway project he didn’t like. He’s a 1950s type of politician – solve all the state’s transportation gridlock and congestion by paving the countryside with lanes of new concrete.He’s got a $9 billion plan that is a lollapalooza: Let construction giants build and pay for toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and the busy I-270 corridor from the beltway to Frederick – 70 miles of exclusive Lexus lanes – and let those companies reap the toll rewards so they can recoup a staggering $7.6 billion investment (the actual cost is likely to be substantially...

A dispute that threatens decade-old plans to build a western access road to O'Hare International Airport is headed to a federal agency, as the Illinois Toll Highway Authority sues the Canadian Pacific Railway. In a petition filed today, the tollway asked the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to allow it to force CP to sell or grant easements to the tollway for portions of railroad property immediately to the north of the railway's huge Bensenville Yards. The tollway indicated it also may eventually need access to the yard itself. The Surface Transportation Board is the federal agency that regulates railroads, and...

The San Juan County Commission approved a resolution on October 4 regarding the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition proposal to create the Bears Ears National Monument. The county resolution states that the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is a non-governmental organization that has no jurisdiction over land-use planning activities in San Juan County. ... The resolution states that a number of property rights exist in the proposed monument that do not meet the definition of public lands, including 43 grazing allotments, 661 water-right infrastructure, 151,000 acres of state trust land, 18,000 acres of private property, and hundreds of miles of roads and...

"Dale Henderson, a prominent Maine landowner who owns two pieces of land that the new trail runs through, is challenging the state over ownership of parts of the new Sunrise Trail. About 50 miles of the project recently was opened to hikers, bikers, cross-country skiers, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. But Henderson isn’t waiting for the courts to decide his fate. He already has taken matters into his own hands. The landowner recently erected barricades to stop users from traversing his property. In the town of Hancock, Henderson put up a berm on the tracks at one end and a stone...

In an interview with the Taylor Daily Press, State Sen. Steve Ogden revealed a possible new course for the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Instead of building superhighways across the state, Ogden said, the state may opt to augment the Texas Trunk System, a web of rural highways that includes U.S. 79. The plan would expand those highways to four-lane divided highways, while expanding urban infrastructure with toll roads. “We need to limit that concept to existing highways,” Ogden said of the proposed network of superhighways and tiered rail systems. “I passed a bill last session that did that, but [Gov. Rick...

St. Hedwig has homes on large lots and a longtime tradition of rural living. And folks there want to keep it that way. “We want to be able to maintain as best we can the reason we moved out here in the first place,” said Kathy Palmer, the city’s planning and zoning commissioner. But a new master plan and recently updated zoning maps are no match for a proposed route of Trans-Texas Corridor 35 that would slice straight through the city of about 2,000 people and create headaches for several city departments, officials said. With neighboring Wilson County, St. Hedwig...

n what may have been the first hint of victory for opponents of the Trans Texas Corridor, a high-ranking Texas Department of Transportation official said Thursday he regretted his agency's communication failures and said one proposed version of the corridor, a 10-lane super highway with rail and utility pathways, will "probably not" be built in East Texas, based on the overwhelming resistance to the idea expressed at public hearings on the project this month. Phillip Russell, assistant executive director for innovative project development at TxDOT, was the keynote speaker at the Lone Star Legislative Summit at SFA Thursday, where he...

Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor plan, and his advocacy of toll funding for future roads, hit the skids in a skeptical Legislature last spring. The road shows no signs of getting any smoother as state transportation officials try to sell the plan to Houston-area audiences. "This will wipe me out," Dee Bond told a panel of corridor advocates at a town hall meeting in Rosenberg last week. The panel, which included Texas Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes of Houston and Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, was there to explain and gather comment on a...

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...

Waco - Governor Rick Perry should sign a bill that would establish a two-year moratorium on the controversial Trans Texas Corridor (TTC), according to the board of directors of the state's largest farm organization. A letter requesting the governor's approval of House Bill 1892, signed by the 14 members of the Texas Farm Bureau board, including TFB President Kenneth Dierschke, urges a moratorium on the use of private equity comprehensive development agreements, including the TTC. The letter was delivered to Governor Perry today. It said in part, "We believe the moratorium envisioned in HB 1892 will give all Texans the...

WASHINGTON — John Dingell, the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Wednesday he wants the Federal Communications Commission to delay its vote on AT&T Inc.'s acquisition of BellSouth Corp. Dingell, saying the combination raises a "significant antitrust question, sent a letter to the FCC asking that it hold off on the vote until after the new Congress convenes in January. "I think it would be in their interest, I think it would be in the interest of the committee, and I think it would be in the interest of the public," he said Wednesday. FCC Chairman...

Dear Editor: I read with interest the remarks by Scarsdale’s Deputy Superintendent of Public Works, Neil Blitz, in the Scarsdale Inquirer's September 1st front-page story entitled "Don't Touch Any Trees in the Right of Way". According to Mr. Blitz, "Nobody is supposed to do anything in the right of way. Homeowners are absolutely not allowed to prune or remove trees in the right of way - although they are required to maintain the lawn...." In Mr. Blitz’s novel interpretation of the law, homeowners in Scarsdale, New York have absolutely no property rights whatsoever in the 13 feet of their front...

This is not a reposting of a specific Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article though parts of it and another article will be quoted here and links provided to the originals. By now most of you know the details of Steelers Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident on Monday June 12 2006. However there are some crucial facts about this incident that have been buried in the media's coverage. The bulk of the reporting has dealt with Roethlisberger's decision to (legally, mind you) not wear a helmet while operating his motorcycle. And there has been plenty of mention of his choice of bikes, the...

Among the Trans Texas Corridor's most fervent opponents are farmers and ranchers who are closely tied to family land. Many are like Susan Ridgeway Garry of Coupland, a small, rural community in the Austin area. "When you say the Trans Texas Corridor 'will be built on state land handed to investors,' you leave out an important step," she wrote. "It is not currently state land, it is Texas citizens' land, some of which has been in the same family for generations." Though they no longer farm, the Garrys live on land that has been in her husband's family for generations....

Activists taking shots at the planned Trans Texas Corridor have found some legislators willing to take a stab at trimming the colossal super-highway and ensuring that state authorities control the toll rates. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who sits on the appropriations committee and is vice chairman of the House Rural Caucus, said she filed House Bill 1273 in an attempt to balance the huge scope of the corridor with grass-root concerns. "My goal is to better the concept," she said. "I will be very saddened for Texas if we don't have some assurances in place." Kolkhorst was joined by co-authors...

<p>Click on photo to enlarge The state of Alaska has a list of 659 rights of way claimed under Revised Statute 2477, the century-old law allowing local governments to claim historic rights of way on public land. One of them is the old mining road up McCarthy Creek to the Pilgrims' place.</p>

<p>Downtown drivers, set your cruise controls to slow.</p> <p>Critical Mass, the monthly bicycle awareness event aimed at forcing motorists to take notice of their two-wheeled lane mates, typically barely gathers enough momentum to ruffle feathers, let alone rattle commuters.</p> <p>Today at 4:30 p.m. that may change.</p>