Free Republic

Texas politicians who support toll roads won't have Sal Costello to kick them around anymore. Costello and his family moved to a small town in Southern Illinois this summer. He announced it on his blog Sunday, quietly, an adverb seldom associated with Costello in the past. Costello, if you're new around here or have forgotten, was a Southwest Austin graphics designer who in 2004 made a warp-speed trip from obscurity to notoriety after politicians pushed through a plan to build seven more toll roads. The plan included putting tolls on three roads that were already under construction using nothing but...

Many in the great state of Texas have a lot to say about a proposed network of toll roads and railway lines known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation received more than 27,000 public comments during a three-month comment period on a proposed corridor project called the TTC-69, said TxDOT spokesman Mark Cross. Transportation officials had 47 public hearings in February and March and accepted written comments through April 18 on the environmental and social impact of the corridor. Comments ranged from flat-out opposition to the corridor to suggestions about how to lessen its impact, Cross told...

AUSTIN — Saying big changes are needed to restore trust in the Texas Department of Transportation, the Sunset Advisory Commission staff is recommending a revamp of its governing board, project planning, and dealings with lawmakers and the public. The commission's report, to be released today, comes in the wake of controversy over planned public-private partnerships on toll roads, the route of the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor transportation network and questions concerning agency funding figures. The Houston Chronicle obtained a copy of the report. "The Sunset review of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) occurred against a backdrop of distrust and frustration...

AUSTIN — Deirdre Delisi once aspired to be a diplomat, and Gov. Rick Perry may have finally granted her wish. As head of the Texas Transportation Commission, Perry's former chief of staff will test her diplomatic skills in an emotion-filled arena in which a state senator has already called her a "political hack." In an early sign of her peacemaking potential, the 35-year-old Delisi scheduled one of her first meetings as chair with that senator, Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas. "I was left with the impression that she genuinely wants a new and fresh start for...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

Though some may believe the I-69 Trans Texas Corridor will not be constructed, due to overwhelming opposition and various remarks by TxDOT representatives, a newly formed local group called “Grimes County Get Organized” asked Commissioners on Monday to consider forming a Commission group based on Local Government Code 391; to ensure the currently proposed construction plan through the county is officially stopped. The idea to form the commission came from a recent informational meeting about how to stop the corridor held in Lufkin, Texas and hosted by Holland Mayor Mae Smith. According to the informational handouts, the East Central Texas...

TEXAS CITY — A massive superhighway that Texans have protested at public hearings statewide drew heated opposition among Galveston County residents, who said they feared the toll road would cripple the local shipping industry and do nothing to improve insufficient hurricane evacuation routes. The Trans-Texas Corridor would wind from Laredo to Corpus Christi, wrap around the western edge of Greater Houston, parallel Interstate 59 through East Texas and leave the state in Texarkana. But residents at a public hearing Thursday night in Texas City questioned the real purpose for the road, which would also be part of a national Interstate...

TEXARKANA, Texas — The biggest construction project ever attempted in Texas comes under public debate beginning Tuesday in the first of a series of town hall meetings about a proposed 4,000-mile network of superhighway toll roads. The Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, as it's become known, was initiated six years ago by Gov. Rick Perry. It's rankled opponents who characterize it as the largest government grab of private property in the state's history and an unneeded and improper expansion of toll roads. Texas Department of Transportation officials, and Perry, have defended the project as necessary to address future traffic concerns in...

The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads. The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads. "I think it's a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas. "I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly...

Macquarie to buy newspaper chain; critics fear it's to silence Trans-Texas Corridor opponents. One of the foreign firms leasing the Indiana Toll Road is drawing suspicion from some Texans after announcing plans to acquire a chain of small newspapers there. Australia-based Macquarie Media Group last week said it will pay $80 million for American Consolidated Media, which publishes 40 community newspapers and shopping publications serving nine communities in Texas and Oklahoma. Macquarie's sister company, Macquarie Infrastructure Group, last year joined with the Spanish conglomerate Cintra to lease the Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels...

Critics charge that the Macquarie purchase of American Consolidated Media is designed to silence critics of a Texas toll road project. Australian toll road giant Macquarie agreed Wednesday to purchase forty local newspapers, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma, for $80 million. Macquarie Bank is Australia's largest capital raising firm and has invested billions in purchasing roads in the US, Canada and UK. Most recently the company joined with Cintra Concesiones of Spain in a controversial 75-year lease of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road. Sal Costello, the leading opponent of toll road projects as head of the Texas Toll Party, says...

Monday, March 06, 2006 The Blackland Coalition Ads & Endorsements The Blackland Coalition put two ads out over the weekend. Here are the links to them: Texas Our Texas and Cornfield National Security. The first thing I noticed is there are no incumbents on the list. Excerpts from the Texas Our Texas ad are below. TEXAS TEXAS OUR OUR TEXAS TEXAS Preserving the heritage our forefathers fought for The BLACKLAND COALITION would like to say THANK YOU to these various entities for standing up and fighting WITH US against the catastrophic Trans-Texas Corridor 35 plan to grab TEXAS land....

‘I-69 is dead’ State, federal officials disagree on status of road By Matt Whittaker The Monitor WESLACO, November 9, 2005 — There are not enough federal dollars for an Interstate highway to the Rio Grande Valley, state officials said Tuesday “I-69 is dead in the state of Texas,” Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton told about 75 area city officials and business leaders at a lunch discussion about transportation issues. “The road fairy has been shot.” But federal lawmakers said the project to create an Interstate linking major commercial centers in Mexico, the United States and Canada is still alive and...

While others wage political war over the gay-marriage amendment, the state's anti-toll road forces have launched a vitriolic fight against two little noticed propositions on Tuesday's ballot. The Texas Toll Party is targeting Proposition 1, a straightforward constitutional amendment to begin the process of moving freight rail lines out of densely populated urban areas, and Proposition 9, which would authorize six-year terms for members of regional mobility authorities. If blocking toll roads is your passion, opposing Proposition 9 has some logic, although that position is shortsighted. Toll roads are inevitable. Allowing members of the governing boards to serve six years...

Austin, TX (OPENPRESS) November 3, 2005 -- The majority of Texans are opposed to tax increases and the Trans Texas Corridor, and if enough of them learn that Proposition 1 is a smoke screen for a tax increase, they are expected to vote "no" against the proposal. "I am confident that if Texans knew the financial impact involved, and the unlimited corporate welfare of the rail fund, they would vote against Proposition 1 and defeat it," said Sal Costello, founder of People for Efficient Transportation. "No one wants east coast toll roads here in Texas, or billions in tax increases...

Because of its location, Texas is integral to the creation of the FTAA and the eventual merger of North and South America under a single regional government like the EU. A little more than two years ago, political allies of Texas Governor Rick Perry quietly passed legislation creating the "Trans-Texas Corridor" (TTC). With the connivance of a largely silent press, the most expensive project in the state's history became law with scant public notice. It's bad enough that the TTC will cost at least $185 billion, much of it derived from new toll taxes imposed on existing free roads. It's...

Starting today, all eligible Texans can vote on whether to make nine changes to the state constitution. The propositions include one that affects the Texas railroad industry which, though not the most controversial issue on the ballot, is quickly coming under voter scrutiny. Proposition 1 is listed on the ballot as “the constitutional amendment creating the Texas rail relocation and improvement fund and authorizing grants of money and issuance of obligations for financing the relocation, rehabilitation, and expansion of rail facilities.” The amendment would create the Texas Rail Relocation and Improvement fund. According to a summary of the proposition, it's...

Get ready. TTC-35 is coming. Though Michael Behrens wouldn't use those words, not exactly, and he'd probably cringe to realize it, that's the impression he left at the end of an hour and a half of questioning Thursday. "Something is going to have to be built somewhere," the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation said after meeting in Cameron with a group of reporters from several rural newspapers. There was touch of resignation in his voice when he said it. The Trans Texas Corridor is a proposed multi-lane transportation network designed to carry passenger, freight, rail and utilities....

AUSTIN - The first of nine state constitutional amendments proposed on the Nov. 8 ballot would establish a fund through which taxpayers would help pay for relocating freight rail lines from congested urban areas. Like most of the ballot proposals, except for the ban on same-sex marriages, Proposition 1 has received little attention. But it is beginning to spark some debate and, depending on how it fares at the polls, could become an issue in the March Republican governor's primary. Proposition 1 supporters, including Gov. Rick Perry, think the new fund would be an important step toward easing traffic congestion...

AUSTIN — Rural landowners carrying protest signs and shouting angry slogans gathered at the Capitol to speak their minds. Their goal: Stopping Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. Farmers and ranchers say the huge highway project will gobble thousands of acres of their property only to make money for private toll road companies. “The government is out of control. They’re trying to take our property rights away from us,” said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, one of the legislators who spoke at the May 3 rally. Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn —one of Perry’s potential GOP primary opponents in 2006 — joined...