Posted on 07/21/2004 10:46:16 AM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Oklahoma transportation officials today plan to review the possibility of working with Texas on the Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive interstate transportation plan.
The corridor, a 4,000-mile network, would tie central roads, high-speed roads and utility lines across Texas and its neighboring states. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the plan provides a 50-year vision for transportation, and its final cost is estimated at $183 billion.
Plan presentation
Team members from Chiang, Patel, Yerby Inc., a Dallas-based company that is one of the finalists for the project, will present the plan at 11 a.m. today at the Oklahoma Transportation Authority meeting.
According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the corridor will include roads, high-speed passenger rail, high-speed freight rail, commuter rail, and a dedicated utility zone. The concept includes separate lanes for passenger vehicles three lanes in each direction and trucks two lanes in each direction.
Protected network
Also included in the project are six rail lines, three in each direction: one for high-speed rail between cities, one for high-speed freight rail, and one for commuter and freight rail.
The third component of the corridor would be a protected network of safe and reliable utility lines for water, petroleum, natural gas, electricity, and data.
Expanding the corridor beyond Texas will require a cooperative effort with Oklahoma, Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico.
"There's an opportunity for Oklahoma to take advantage of the new corridor and extending it into Oklahoma," said Gillett Cobb, who will be making the presentation along with Neal McCaleb, a former authority director.
ping
A high speed toll road "autobahn" would be a money maker.
Then again, there'd be too many fatalities on the high-speed highways due to all the rubber-necking.
You could put wind generators on top of the trains and use the rails to send the electricty to the grid to convert H2O into H2 to power the trucks!
Now that would be cool. It is amazing how much space there is in little ole Linn County for some big ass windmills.
Some people think about windmills the way that liberals think about SUV's. In the Dallas area,where the average wind speed is greater than in Chicago, they are practical. However, there are some technical limitations because of their high upkeep. But I still think that the best bet is to fins a way to use all that Rocky Mountain coal without dirtying up the air too much.
Wind is already clean and it is renewable. Coal is great for days like today in Iowa where it is hot and windless.
Because immigration has increased the cost of land, this plan will unfortunately be unaffordable.
Man Texas sure can get some pork.
all the old oil fields of west texas are being converted to wind farms. 20 years ago all you would see driving from Big Spring to Abelene were the derricks - 20 years from now it will be wind farms.
The TTC is an all around bad idea for Texas.
Here are just a few reasons why:
* It's designed to generate revenue first and provide transportation second. The Corridor plan is designed to provide transportation funds, more than transportation. Rather than identify specific transportation needs and offer solutions, the Plan defines funding as the need and the Corridor as the solution. Accordingly it's not important where the Corridor is built, as long as it generates revenue.
* Potential for tremendous liabilities created by Comprehensive Development Agreements. The Corridor plan is based on design-build-operate-maintain contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDA). While new to Texas, these CDAs have been used in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, China, Malaysia, and Hungry. These contracts often include equity guarantees, debt guarantees, exchange rate guarantees, subordinated loans, shadow toll payments, and minimum revenue guarantees. Most troubling is a class of support called "revenue enhancements" that may limit competition and allow the development of ancillary facilities.
* The Plan is based on uncertain assumptions. The Corridor plan is predicated on a projection that Texas population growth will continue at a rate of 30,000 new residents a month. The Plan however does not share projection details such as population distribution or how the proposed corridors will serve that population.
* Doesn't solve the problem. The singular focus of the Corridor plan is to build corridors that connect regions of the state intentionally bypassing urban centers. Those metropolitan areas are left to deal with their own traffic and mobility problems, including access to the Corridor. Since our large cities are the traffic generators the Corridor will offer little if any relief.
* Adverse economic impact. Taking business away from hundreds of Texas communities by limiting traveler access and providing, in its place, State contract concessions that will include gas, food, hotels, stores and more, apparently without limit. This smacks of Nationalizing the state's travel and tourism industry. Relocating businesses won't add to our economy. In fact, it will drive local government costs up by requiring new infrastructure to support them.
* Private Interests v. Public Interests. Private investment and partnership sounds like a good idea until you realize that 'their' goal is strictly profit driven (not transportation). Private investment will involve bonds and bondholders who naturally want to protect their money and will insist on terms and conditions that can be contrary to the public good. That leads to the kind of 'bad' deals made in California necessary to keep the private money interested. [more] [privatization white paper]
* Loss of local property taxes. The approximately 580,000 acres consumed by the Corridor will become State land taken off county and school district tax rolls. Local taxpayers will absorb the difference. Every mile of Corridor will take approximately 146 acres of land off the tax rolls. And that's before land is added for other corridor developments. And when concession businesses develop on this State land there will be lease payments but there won't be any real property tax growth for the local jurisdictions. [source]
* Too much money! We simply can't afford a $184 BILLION Dollar project. It doesn't matter whether it is tolls, fees, or taxes - If they create the debt (public or private), we the citizens of Texas will ultimately pay the tab whatever you call it. Urban centers will pay even more just so they can address their own problems and connect their highways to the Corridor.
* Creates a 'soft' terrorism target. This is not the time to put so many critical infrastructure elements in one place. Given the design and placement, the Corridor will be an incredibly soft target, the protection of which would be not only impractical but virtually impossible.
* Dividing the State. Nearly one-quarter mile wide corridors will cut Texas up into pieces like the Great Wall of China, making it more difficult to get from one place to another. Many landowners will find that they have the choice of keeping land they can no longer access or sell it to the state.
* Turns private land into State land. The Trans Texas Corridor project authorizes the Commission to take private land away from its current owner to lease it for any commercial, industrial or agricultural purpose. More than one-half million acres will become government property used not only for transportation but as State owned rental property in direct competition with private business. [more]
* Toll roads represent double taxation. Motorists already pay for highways at the gasoline pump, vehicle registration counter, and at auto supply retailers. They should not have to pay for highways again when they exercise their right to travel on them. [proposition 15, house briefing paper]
* Passenger rail hasn't worked anywhere in the world except in dense urban districts — That ain't Trans-Texas pardner! And that's too bad since this is the only forward thinking transportation element in Corridor plan.
* Air pollution. A don't fix it, just move it approach. This plan doesn't reduce pollution, it simply pushes vehicle pollution away from the large urban district into rural Texas. Thanks guys!
Just look at the Supercollider. Couldn't get that thing done despite Phil Gramm's best efforts.
Why would they extend electric lines? I thought Texas had its own grid.
Ooooooooo-klahoma where the toll roads come sweeping down the plain!
Is this another "big dig"?
Is this another "big dig"?
"Naw....... this is the "big pour"......."
LOL!
Naw...This is the "big poor"!
Practical technically and feasible are two different items. The first I personally knew of was in Blowing Rock, North Carolina mountains. Lasted a few years before it shut down, residents could not tolerate the deep bass "Whoop-whoop" noise. California's farm is out of service due to the unfortunate tendency of the blades to slice and dice migratory birds. Arizona, ditto.
We used to have a couple for private homes here in West Texas, people jumped on them after the sell-back rule for excess production came in, all that's left there is the towers, high maintainence costs.
The tech is about break even, not counting install, but the available yield from suitable sites is just not economically there right now. Nice gesture towards renewable energy sources, but not a significant player in overall production at current cost/benefit ratio.
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