Free Republic

A citizens committee appointed by the Texas Department of Transportation has issued a series of recommendations on what should be done to deal with increasing congestion on Interstate 35, 1200 WOAI news reports. The committee said stretches of Interstate 35, which runs from Laredo to Gainesville and is the most heavily traveled Interstate highway in the country, have 'pushed the limit of the road's design capacity.' Gabby Garcia of TxDOT says the committee reacted strongly against Governor Perry's 'Trans Texas Corridor' toll road plan, saying the TTC 'has come to represent what Texans do not want in transportation project delivery....

BELTON - There appears to be no easy way to address the challenges that inflation has brought to the Texas Department of Transportation. “We’ve seen 60 percent inflation over the last five years for transportation projects,” said Chris Lippincott, a TxDOT spokesman. To look to the federal government for assistance would appear foolhardy at this point as the Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to become insolvent by 2009. The fund was created in 1956 to ensure a dependable source of financing for U.S. interstates and highways. “The Federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to go into the red very...

A Piney Woods retreat that has hosted national church conferences on controversial issues, celebrated the consecration of bishops and provided summer memories for thousands of teens now faces another kind of challenge. The nearly two square miles of forest, hills, fields, lakes and buildings that make up Camp Allen Conference & Retreat Center, 15 miles southeast of Navasota, lie in a two-mile-wide strip listed in state documents as the preferred route for the planned Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. Proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, the corridor plan has drawn heated opposition at town hall meetings and public hearings throughout Southeast...

A big protest is planned for Monday afternoon, ahead of the latest public hearing on the proposed statewide tollway. Lots of landowners are upset about the state’s plan to build a tollway from Mexico to northeast Texas. There have already been several town hall meetings about the Trans-Texas Corridor. Most of the people who have spoken out about the plan say it will put them out of business. But state officials argue the tollway is necessary to keep up with the growing population in Texas. Monday’s meeting is being held in Huntsville. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Walker...

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...

Road plans in Texas have conspiracy theorists in an uproar I am driving along a mostly empty road in rural Fayette County, Texas, about an hour east of Austin, looking for the NAFTA superhighway -- the one that Stephen Harper, George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón mocked as a conspiracy theory when they were asked about it at their trilateral meeting in Montebello, Que., in August. Critics, who say that behind the leaders' denials lurks a larger, nefarious plan to unite North America, fear that such a roadway will eventually be a four-football-stadium-wide artery connecting Mexico, the U.S. and Canada,...

The Texas Department of Transportation's fight to guard the financial details of the Trans-Texas Corridor has sparked a rallying cry for corridor opponents and resulted in a court battle over open records. Corridor watchdogs argue that the state should make public its financial and development master plans with Cintra Zachry LP, the group chosen by the state to help plan and build the first section of a proposed transportation network that would criss-cross the state with roads, railways and utility infrastructure. “This is the largest land grab in Texas history, and to not let the people see the financial details...

The Texas Department of Transportation went on the offensive Friday to quash rumors that it was surveying land in Central Texas for the Trans-Texas Corridor or preparing to acquire property for the proposed tollway project. “We have taken this unusual means of releasing a special statement to assure the people of Bell and McLennan counties that this rumor is untrue,” the department said in a statement. Some local officials and corridor critics said they had encountered similar rumors, which they attributed to uneasy landowners who fear the state's plan to build a 1,200-foot-wide network of roads, railway and utility infrastructure...

Ramiro Dela Fuente attended a recent forum on the proposed Interstate 69 highway, because like a lot of other people, he’s anxious about which route it might take. "Interstates bring commerce. Restaurants, hotels, stores start building up around them. That would be good for Harlingen," the 58-year-old Harlingen resident said. "We’ve been seeing the signs for future routes of I-69 everywhere, and we don’t know where it’s actually going." At this point, nobody really knows. What many agree on is this: The route that is eventually selected will become the gateway to the Rio Grande Valley. Will it be U.S....

Residents eye proposal for new highway project Dozens of area residents examined maps of proposed routes and discussed the implications of the proposed I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor at an open house Wednesday in Calallen. Still in its preliminary stages, the proposed highway will stretch from Mexico to Canada. In Texas, it generally will follow U.S. Highway 59 from Texarkana to Victoria. From there it will split and go to both Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley, roughly following U.S. Highways 59 and 77. The project is undergoing an environmental impact study, said Doug Booher, TXDOT environmental manager. Fred Wollmann, who lives...

Cintra-Zachry, the joint construction venture that won a $7 billion contract to start work on the controversial Trans Texas Corridor project, has written a letter to the Federal Highway Administration expressing interest in a $320 million low-interest loan. Critics say Cintra-Zachry won the contract in part because it said it would not use public dollars, but the governor’s office and the consortium say the deal didn't prohibit using federal money. Only state money was mentioned. Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for the governor, says the inquiry involves a loan, not a grant. But some state leaders remain skeptical. Mike Sizemore, press...

The tradeoff of sacrificing open government to attract private investment in toll roads is beginning to sink in for some local elected leaders. And it's not a comfortable feeling, said City Council members who met Thursday. State officials have promised to let local leaders have input on a recent proposal by Spain-based Cintra and locally owned Zachry American Infrastructure to take over planned toll roads in San Antonio. But to protect trade secrets, state law prohibits public discussion of details. "It's absolutely out of the question," said Councilman Chip Haass, who says private sector dollars to solve traffic problems is...

The Trans-Texas Corridor, an ambitious plan to crisscross the state with new highway, rail and utility lines, is generating increasing opposition from rural counties. So far this year, commissioners courts in 25 rural counties have passed resolutions opposing the plan, complaining that the 1,200-foot-wide corridors would divide farms and communities while giving rural areas little but headaches in return. "It's just too much," said Guadalupe County Judge Donald Schraub last week, when his county went on record as opposing the plan. "It's a good concept, maybe, but it's not well thought out at this point." Texas Department of Transportation officials...

With the nation's freeways clogged past the bursting point, and government funds barely able to maintain what exists, the need for a new transportation solution is increasingly dire. Better planning & usable transit are part of the equation but for the car-driving majority the increasingly likely solution is privatised toll roads.Before cringing at the thought of shelling out even more of your hard earned cash for commuting, ponder a few of the benefits: 1) It's a free market solution - you don't pay if you don't want to, and no taxes are needed - putting the cost of the roadway...

The latest, proposed route of the I-69 "NAFTA Highway" is slightly different from previous expectations, with a major segment skipping Fort Bend County. The NAFTA Highway is a proposal to link Mexico, the U.S. and Canada through a major highway starting at Laredo and Matamoros and running through Port Huron, Mich. The highway proposal also includes a separate route connecting the main corridor to the Houston Ship Channel, and that will likely run through Fort Bend County. For years, local officials have speculated the main corridor of the highway would run through Fort Bend County in place of U.S. 59....

The Texas Department of Transportation is continuing its work on the Trans-Texas Corridor which may have a major impact on Milam County. Although it started out as Rick Perry's dream in 2002, it is quickly becoming reality. The 'Corridor' that may have a direct effect on Milam County has been named TTC-35 because it extends from Oklahoma to Mexico and parallels I-35. TTC-35 would be up to 1,200-feet wide and have six lanes for passenger vehicles and four lanes for trucks. Also, it would include six rail lines and a 200-foot utility zone. TTC-35 would be 800 miles long. In...

It's hard to find many people who like Interstate 35. Because of 18-wheelers, Ora Houston keeps her distance. "They scare me. They go fast, even though the speed limit is posted at 55 in the middle of town, they never do that," Houston said. She wants the Texas Department of Transportation to find a solution. "They're clogging up the interstate, breaking down the roadway. We've got to find an alternative way to geth through the state of Texas," Houston said. "We're working on expanding the interstate as it is now, but at some point you can only expand it so...