This is a pro Trans-Texas Corridor ping list.
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Posted on 06/04/2006 12:10:42 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Who's calling the shots?
Who will have final say on where and how the Trans-Texas Corridor system is developed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area?
Will it be the Texas Transportation Commission, working with North Central Texas elected officials and transportation planners who know the region and its long-term mobility needs better than anyone?
Or will it be a Madrid-based company, Cintra, whose primary interest is making bucks by extracting tolls?
The Star-Telegram Editorial Board strongly believes that state and regional officials and transportation planners should decide.
The primary determinant should be what best meets the current and future transportation and economic needs of the Metroplex, rather than what ensures the most lucrative outcome for Cintra and its Texas partner, Zachry Construction of San Antonio.
A priority of the Trans-Texas Corridor in the D/FW, Austin and San Antonio areas is to relieve congestion on Interstate 35, which runs through both Fort Worth and Dallas.
Cintra and Zachry are lead partners in a venture in which they propose to use $6 billion in private investment to build a 316-mile, four-lane toll road dubbed TTC-35 from the Metroplex to San Antonio and pay a $1.2 billion concession to the state.Cintra-Zachry would collect tolls for 50 years.
Cintra favors running the TTC-35 segment around the east edge of Dallas County, presumably because it would be more profitable.
Many D/FW-area officials, business leaders and transportation experts want the corridor to run up the Metroplex's middle, along the path of an extended Texas 360 and on to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
That concept, which we prefer, has been endorsed by the Regional Transportation Council (RTC), which includes many local officials and is the chief transportation planner for North Central Texas.
Metroplex officials are concerned that Cintra-Zachry might have greater sway in determining TTC-35's path than they do. Comments by Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson magnified those concerns.
Williamson also has said, however, that D/FW officials will have a voice. He noted that Cintra has proposed eventually to build a rail line around the western side of the Metroplex. It could become part of a huge outer transportation loop for freight trains, 18-wheelers and autos, similar to one envisioned by the RTC.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is to be discussed in RTC meetings, open to the public, June 26 and 27 in Fort Worth, Dallas and Richardson. The Fort Worth meeting is at 6:30 p.m. June 26 at the Intermodal Transportation Center, 1001 Jones St.
Regional transportation issues also are to be discussed at RTC meetings June 12 and 13 in Fort Worth, Lewisville and Duncanville. The Fort Worth meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. June 13 at the Intermodal Transportation Center.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is likely to become the most expensive and far-ranging transportation undertaking in the state's history.
It's important that it be done right in the Metroplex, with state and local officials and transportation planners calling the shots instead of Cintra.
This is a pro Trans-Texas Corridor ping list.
Please let me know by Freepmail if you want on or off the list.
They don't want them moved to the east side of Dallas.
Please add me to the pinglist.
Thanks.
I'm also guessing that it might make it easier to ship our products to Asia, but I haven't looked at a globe or calculated the distance.
Long range plans include just such a route.
I think the plan is to move the through rail traffic to the TTC and convert rail rights of way in Fort Wort and Dallas to commuter rail. The rail centers would be moved near the TTC. That's why politicians in the DFW metroplex want a TTC corridor to go through the middle of the metroplex.
I propose that we rebuild the entire system on existing right-of-ways only this time we widen them to 16 lanes in each direction (32 lanes total) with a large median strip in between each set of 16 lanes. Naturally this is a huge undertaking and will require huge parcels to be taken by eminent domain. However it will be mostly roadside business that are affected and they can simply rebuilt several hundred feet from their old location (in order to be on the roadside of the new highway system).
Now some here might squawk and squeal about 16 lanes in each direction being overkill. But I say not. We are going to need those lanes. Consider that the earlier personal computers had only 8-bit buses to move data around. Now we require 32-bit and even 64-bit buses to move all that data around.
Well it is the same with automobiles and trucks. I believe we need the 16 lanes in each direction. We could dedicate 4 lanes for trucks only. Another 4-6 lanes for automobile traffic (depending on whether we are talking urban or rural). 2 lanes can be dedicated to emergency traffic only (this is what the military would use for example) and the rest of the lane could be held in reserve for peak traffic hours or to use when some of the other lanes are being worked on (avoiding the necessity of traffic delays).
Think about it. A huge network of 32-lane super-highways overlaid on our present interstate system. We would solve our traffic nightmares and we would put our economy in overdrive.
A map of possible alternatives for TTC-35.
Exactly.
And that will be the economic death of many rural counties and towns that now depend on tapping into that "on-off" nature of the present highways for their primary cash flow.
The Trash-Texas Con Job is designed to turn rural Texas into "Drive-over Country" -- with the through-flushed traffic leaving no more economic benefit outside the big cities than do the airliners that now fly over us here in "Flyover Country"!
And for that "privilege", rural Texas is supposed to surrender up to a foreign scam one square mile of taxable land for every four or five miles of this
Tell you what: I've got a big bridge 20 miles east of El Paso I'll make you a real deal on -- sucker!
I agree, but remember that liberals don't like people driving at all. We're supposed to use horse carts and be closer to the land and Mother Gaia. ;)
The Interstate Highway system as it exists right now couldn't be built today. Congress contains too many midgets who think they are twenty feet tall because they are standing on the shoulders of the giants that preceded them.
LOL........ MA
Read my FRProfile...
LOL...... MA
The TTC is a toll road. I-35 would still be in existence, as would I-45. Those who didn't want to pay tolls, would still take I-35. Hell, I can afford the tolls, but there might be times when I want to get off in West to get some klobase, or stop in New Braunfels for smoked sausage.
The TTC won't be the death of any of these towns. If I want to hit any of them, I'll just take I-35.
Thats true. They did an incredibly crappy job when they
designed this highway. The on/offramps and frontage road
layouts are criminal deathraps and need to be fixed.
The frontage roads that route opposing traffing into
an offramp were prosecutable offenses if you ask me.
These are deathraps now and would be deathraps with
TTC.
The cost to aquire ROW north of Ft Worth should not be all that much. Alliance is all but offering ROW for free, and
north of the Speedway theres nothing until you get to Denton. Denton has mostly roadside buisness. From there
to Sanger its the odd gas station, truck stop, and tack store. Beyond Sanger, to Gainesville, theres squat dooda.
Routing this through Collinsville and into Gainesville
would be as disruptive as fixing this sad excuse for an
I35. Plus it would run through the heart of cutting horse
country. You're messing with Texas and tradition when you do that.
Your argument does not apply to the interstate cash flow in question.
For the 4-lane sections, adding lanes in the median with a concrete tall wall separating (to prevent head-on collisions) would be best...
Interstate? Who cares about interstate cash flows? Intrastate cash flows, OTOH, would not be drastically effected if the TTC makes I-35 less congested.
You're a strange duck, going off to live in Massachusetts for 20 years, and now you want to direct what happens in a state you just recently returned to.
I favor the TTC. It will be good for business and good for Texas.
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