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A handful of Kendleton residents were among several dozen to speak out against the Trans-Texas Corridor at a public hearing Monday night in Rosenberg. “I personally think it's a slap in the face for Texas to take the land for pennies on the dollar, to put a road on it and to make you pay a toll for it,� said Jeremy West, one of the speakers from Kendleton. The Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposal for a network of highways, rail lines and utilities throughout Texas that would be financed by private interests who would seek to profit through tolls and...

One major concern I discussed a few weeks ago regarding the Trans Texas Corridor is where the land will come from. Another concern is where the money will come from. Official government websites for the TTC assure that public-private partnerships will shield the taxpayer from bearing too much of the cost burden, but a careful reading shows the door is definitely open to public funding sources, while at the same time there is no doubt of the intention to charge tolls on the road. Taxpayers already pay for their transportation system through hefty gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees, and other...

HEMPSTEAD -- The Trans Texas Corridor may be the most controversial highway ever built in Texas. That is, if it ever gets built. All month, there have been public hearings throughout the area where people have been showing up in droves to oppose it. People don’t drive very fast on Odis Styers’ family ranch near Hempstead, but TxDOT wants that to change. “It’s quiet, it’s peaceful,” Styers said. “It’s a shame a road is gonna mess it up.” The road is the Trans Texas Corridor. The plans call for it to come through here, and with it: separate lanes for...

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...

TYLER - Heated debates are cropping up in rural East Texas communities as the Texas Department of Transportation hold hearings on the proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor. It's the first construction project of it's kind in the country. The Texas Department of Transportation says they want it to make room for a growing state. "A thousand people a day move to texas," says spokesman Larry Krantz,"where are these people going to drive? The population in Texas is going to explode by 60% in the year 2030." Their plans involve moving commercial trucks off existing interstate highways and onto one of two...

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...

NACOGDOCHES — The rows of extra chairs brought into the The Fredonia's biggest meeting room Thursday night were not enough to accommodate more than 750 people who attended an open house and public hearing on the proposed TTC-69 highway. Texas Department of Transportation officials heard hours of public testimony that continued late into the night overwhelmingly opposed to the construction of new roadways through East Texas. Applause throughout the hours-long meeting never swelled as loudly as it did when the first speaker of the night, state Rep. Wayne Christian, told TxDOT representatives emphatically that "our answer is 'no' on the...

HOUSTON -- It did not take long Tuesday for the Texas Department of Transportation to find out what the Houstonians at a public hearing thought about the proposed 600-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, KPRC Local 2 reported. "George Washington, Sam Houston would vomit on you people," one attendee said. Chris Zora, who opposes the plan, attended the hearing at the Arabia Shrine Center in Southwest Houston. "I'd like to see a show of hands here of anybody that approves of this corridor," Zora said. "Is there anyone in this room who approves of this corridor? Raise your hands if you approve of...

Trucks hauling everything from cars to produce use Southeast Texas roads to deliver their goods, and when a proposed Interstate 69/Trans Texas Corridor is completed, local drivers could see even more of them, local transportation officials said. The proposed I-69 corridor stretches from Michigan down to Texas. Once in Texas, the corridor goes about 650 miles from Texarkana to Brownsville and Laredo and includes separate lanes for cars and semis and areas for trains and utilities. It doesn't cut through Beaumont, but local arteries like U.S. 69 and Interstate 10 would connect to it. Travelers and truckers just need to...

McALLEN — In other parts of the state, transportation officials try to allay property owners' fears that a superhighway from Laredo north to Texarkana will result in a massive land grab. But in the lower Rio Grande Valley, the state's road builders spend more time assuring local leaders that they have a shot at being included. People in the fast-growing border area between Brownsville and McAllen have developed something of an inferiority complex about being the state's largest metropolitan area without an interstate highway. One after another, Valley leaders stepped to a microphone at public meetings last week and made...

ROBSTOWN, Tex. — Leon Little’s farm here near Corpus Christi would not be seized for Texas’s proposed $184-billion-plus superhighway project for 5 or 10 years, if ever. But Mr. Little was alarmed enough to show up Wednesday night with hundreds of his South Texas coastal neighbors to do what the Texas Department of Transportation has been urging: “Go ahead, don’t hold back.� Don’t worry. Texans have gotten the message, swamping hearings and town meetings across the state to grill and often excoriate agency officials about a colossal traffic makeover known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the...

Not one of the 11 East Texans who approached the podium at Wednesday's hearing on Interstate 69 voiced support for the planned highway. "This is highway robbery, and we should not pursue this project," said David Simpson, a Longview resident and fifth-generation Texan. "This process has bypassed the Constitution. It has bypassed the U.S. Congress, and I'm opposed to it because of the unconstitutional way that it has been pushed through." The public hearing, held at Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center, was a chance for residents to comment and ask questions about Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor. The corridor would extend...

Grimes County commissioners and County Judge Betty Shiflett made sure they attended a TTC/I-69 meeting at the Walker County Fairgrounds last week, as residents previously demanded they take a stronger stance against the proposed route through Grimes County. Shiflett received a roaring applause from audience members with her speech that ended with the question, “What part of “no� do you not understand?� Shiflett added that Grimes County was not given an option for having a town meeting, just the environmental meeting. “Representative Lois Kolkhorst stole the show as she announced loud and clear that she was against TTC I-69,� said...

A so-called “NAFTA Superhighway� earned support from the city’s mayor and discussion among residents Monday during a public hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-69 project. TxDOT held a public hearing at the Brownsville Events Center Monday to explain the progress of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a future segment of Highway I-69, which will link the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. After a short presentation, the floor was open for comments. Among the local politicians, college students and retirees at the hearing there was a wide range of opinion on the project. According to Mario Jorge, district engineer for...

Local residents who want to add their two cents about the proposed Interstate 69 construction won't have to fill their tanks to do it. TxDOT is coming to Longview. The Texas Department of Transportation is holding 46 public hearings this month in East and South Texas along the planned corridor, including Tuesday's meeting in Longview. The hearings will give Texans a chance to comment and ask questions about the proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a collection of passenger and freight roadways, utility and rail lines from Texarkana to the Rio Grande Valley. A draft environmental impact statement released in November suggests...

Some Texans are afraid of losing their land to the Trans-Texas Corridor while others loathe the thought of a quarter-mile-wide swath of toll roads and railway lines transforming the countryside into a superhighway. People continue to turn out in droves at public meetings concerning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, specifically the portion known as the TTC-69 proposed from Brownsville to Texarkana. A meeting Monday, Jan. 28, at the fairgrounds in Austin County was no exception, drawing more than 1,000 people. Opposition to the proposed corridor has come from people in all walks of life, said Chris Steinbach, chief of staff...

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...

More than 800 people packed a meeting hall in Hempstead for a public meeting on the Trans-Texas Corridor. Seven more public sessions are scheduled. Residents are speaking out about a controversial highway that would cut right through the state. The state plans to build a 4,000-mile network of super-highway toll roads. In Hempstead on Tuesday, many residents said that road could cost them their property. Odis Styers owns hundreds of acres north, east and west of town. But the traffic that now travels through on State Highway 290 could interrupt his peace. A TxDOT super highway could soon plow through...

WASHINGTON – Only exports stand between the economy and recession, setting up another national argument about how to handle the rising flow of goods in and out of the country. Transportation fights are usually about who pays to build the roads and transit systems, with little said about trade. The Bush administration and Gov. Rick Perry have supported tolls and steadfastly opposed higher gasoline taxes. A new national study urges paying for desperately needed improvements any way we can, but one thing it specifically recommends is an increase in the federal gas tax of 40 cents a gallon over the...

State Sen. Glen Hegar says he opposes a route that would bring the mammoth Trans Texas Corridor through his district. The Texas Department of Transportation has kicked off a series of public meetings to discuss the project. Meetings are scheduled for Tuesday in Hempstead (6:30 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 22892 Mack Washington St.) and Jan. 29 in Bellville (at the Austin County fairgrounds, also beginning at 6:30 p.m.). No meetings are scheduled in Washington County, which likely wouldn’t be impacted much by the highway project. Much of the discussion in public meetings already held centers on Interstate...

Hundreds showed up to a town hall meeting Thursday night in Lufkin, many with questions for Texas Department of Transportation officials about the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor that could run through or around Lufkin, Nacogdoches, Huntsville and other East Texas towns. As it's drawn up, I-69/TTC would include toll roads, high-speed freight and commuter rail, water lines, oil and gas pipelines, electric transmission lines and telecommunications infrastructure in one corridor running north/south through Texas. One primary purpose of the corridor would be to help with the state's projected traffic congestion. Although TxDOT directors assured everyone that nothing is set in stone and...

CARTHAGE — James Mason doesn't want a new highway cutting him off from his property. James Boggs wants to keep American jobs here. They were just a sample of about 140 residents who asked, commented and listened during a public forum with state transportation leaders Wednesday night in Carthage. It was the second of several forums scheduled along the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed superhighway that likely will parallel U.S. 59 from Texarkana to the Mexican border. "We haven't done a very good job of (communicating) in the past," said Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of Texas Department of Transportation....

CARTHAGE, Texas — State transportation officials appear to have a tough sales job ahead as they try to pave the way for new highways — mostly toll roads — to deal with the booming Texas population. Texas Department of Transportation executives headed to Carthage on Wednesday for the second stop in a monthlong series of public town hall meetings to discuss the Trans Texas Corridor, a proposed network of superhighway toll roads, and other transportation issues. The unprecedented sessions, which began Tuesday night in Texarkana, are intended to answer questions and improve communication between the agency and people who use...

More and higher tolls won't be enough to pay for the nation's highway needs, a bipartisan study panel chaired by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation said today in a long-awaited report. Instead, Congress will need to raise the federal gas tax by 25 to 40 cents a gallon over five years, according to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. The 12-member commission is a bipartisan panel formed by Congress in 2005 to rethink the way the nation builds and pays for its highways and transit systems. "There is no free lunch," Jack Schenendorf, vice chairman of the...

At the front of a quiet, dimly-lit auditorium inside Weatherford High School Thursday, Gov. Rick Perry and other friends eulogized the late Ric Williamson. Perry borrowed a quote from author Jonathan Swift to describe Williamson, who, as chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, was often at the center of controversy. “When a genius comes into the word, you will know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him,� Perry recited. “Jonathan Swift didn’t know Ric Williamson, but he pegged him.� Williamson, 55, was pronounced dead on Sunday after suffering an apparent heart attack while at...

2007 ended on a sad note for the family and friends of Ric Williamson, the chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission who died Sunday after a heart attack. Given his aggressive and often controversial role in reshaping Texas highway construction, his death leaves the state and Gov. Rick Perry with an important question about how to move forward after Williamson’s memorial service today. Williamson, 55, a successful business owner and former state representative from Weatherford, was appointed to the transportation commission in 2001 by his good friend Perry and was named chairman in 2004. He became a passionate advocate of...

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is credited with the famous remark, "La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaries" -- war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. The idea that Clemenceau was trying to project through these words is that experts are often incapable of seeing beyond their profession and understanding the greater domains of necessity. Here in Hawaii, we are facing a transportation infrastructure crisis of the highest degree of peril. I assert to every single man, woman, and child of these Hawaiian Islands that our future is too...

Local toll authority likely to carry more of the burden for designing, building second wave of Austin-area toll roads The Texas Department of Transportation after February will cease awarding contracts for new or expanded roads, a belt-tightening that probably will indefinitely delay a number of Central Texas highway projects. Work on some local projects, such as widening FM 1460 between Round Rock and Georgetown, RM 2338 in Williamson County, and Texas 195, which runs from Interstate 35 in Williamson County to Killeen, will be shelved for now. In addition, the edict will force Central Texas' local toll authority to carry...

Anyone whose feet are set in concrete against toll roads is going to get run over. Toll roads are here. They are coming. The need is undeniable, as is the rationale in many cases. But you can’t defend toll roads in every instance, and the proposed I-35 toll lanes through Waco sound indefensible. Two concerns present themselves immediately — one about Waco’s self-interest and one about fairness to motorists. First, the provincial concern: The proposed self-contained toll lanes would deliver a lot of travelers through Waco without access and egress to take advantage of what the city offers, even if...

AUSTIN -- House Speaker Tom Craddick has asked lawmakers to review the Texas Department of Transportation's multimillion-dollar ad campaign promoting toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor. Craddick, R-Midland, included a review of the Keep Texas Moving campaign on a list of topics that the House State Affairs Committee will study leading up to the 2009 legislative session. Craddick also asked the Appropriations Committee to review transportation spending over the past five years and study alternatives for funding future transportation needs. The transportation matters were among the "interim charges" that Craddick assigned last week. Other matters to be reviewed in advance...

Williamson County Republican reshaped Austin area's transportation system State Rep. Mike Krusee, a Williamson County Republican who reshaped the Austin area's transportation system and, with Gov. Rick Perry, turned Texas toward a toll-centric approach to highway building, will not seek re-election next year. Krusee, 48, is not leaving the public stage right away. He will serve out his term, which runs through January 2009; will continue serving on national panels on transportation and urban planning; and could return to a statewide post after he retires from the Legislature. Talk around the Capitol is that Krusee, who has served in the...

The much touted — and disputed — Trans-Texas Corridor may be one step away from a pipe dream and one step closer to a reality. The group this week released its Tier 1 Environmental Impact study, a look at how building the highway, dubbed I-69, running from Texarkana to Laredo, would affect the 50 or so counties it would run through. Bryan Wood, district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation in Bryan, said the first study only looks at how the many initially proposed component of the highway would impact the surrounding areas. “We’re still a long ways away...

Ever wish you weren't right? In 1997, the notion of selling off publicly owned infrastructure to private sector operators was coming into its own. After the city hired a consultant to determine the value of the publicly owned CPS Energy, it raised red flags. CPS consistently charges some of Texas' lowest utility rates while providing a significant chunk of the city's revenue, I argued. Profit motives can produce wondrous results. But uncontrolled, they can also produce costly disasters. Some things — especially those that efficiently deliver services that are essential — are best kept in the public sector to assure...

AUSTIN — Two state lawmakers are requesting formal inquiries into whether the Texas Department of Transportation is improperly spending money on advertising. Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, and Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, question whether an estimated $7 million to $9 million TxDOT is spending on its "Keep Texas Moving" campaign is a proper use of resources. The lawmakers have asked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick look into the matter. Paxton said he is concerned that the transportation department is spending the money to argue its case before the public in response to lawmakers' questions about projects such...

Coin trays in Texas cars may actually get to see the faces of dead presidents. The much-discussed and controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, has breathed life into the debate of toll roads in Texas. Plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor include TTC-Instate 35, which starts in Laredo and extends north to Gainesville, running along the eastern part of Texas; and Interstate 69/TCC, which has three openings in Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville and follows the coast to Texarkana. Much of the TTC will be privately operated toll roads, run by the Spanish firm Cintra. The TTC will not run through San Antonio,...

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, has introduced the Toll Road Prohibition Act, the latest bill designed to prevent tolling on federally built highways. HR 3802, introduced Oct. 10, would require states and cities to repay the U.S. government all federal funds used for construction of highways, bridges or tunnels, along with “reasonable interest,� before introducing tolls. “The American people should not be required to pay for the same highway twice, once through their tax dollars and again through new tolls on federal interstate highways,� Boswell said. The legislation would not prohibit the states from entering into public-private toll agreements, but...

During this year's legislative session, Texas had an "oh, wait, hold on, don't do that" moment on privately funded tollways. Fair enough, but now it's time to figure out what the state should do, including how to pay for what the state's highway czar calls a $100 billion shortfall in money needed for essential highway projects. Ric Williamson, the Weatherford businessman who is chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, says "the entire future of the state transportation system" depends on potential revenue from private toll road investors. Without it, staffers with the Texas Department of Transportation told commission members at...

Three private groups are now in the hunt to build U.S. 281 toll lanes, but two big foreign companies competing just a short while ago to build and lease a larger toll network here have dropped out. The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority board voted Wednesday to let all three teams submit plans to rebuild U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 into a tollway with free access roads by 2012. It's the fledging agency's first project. "Goodness knows we have been two and a half years getting here," board member Bob Thompson said. "Maybe it's even more important to see the...

Some readers have asked me to re-visit a few of my concerns regarding the Trans-Texas Corridor or TTC, because I have mentioned the project in my last two columns. Recently, I introduced what I like to call Nosygate. I think that is an appropriate name for the advertising campaign and subsequent information gathering effort, by a private company, on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation or TxDOT. A brief re-cap is probably in order. Unsuspecting motorists had their license tag numbers photographed while traveling and minding their own business. Their tag numbers were then traced to their home address.Their...

Toll road contract in Texas allows state to lower speed limits on nearby interstate freeway to avoid paying penalties to a private company. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads,...

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,...

Just when you think, you have heard it all something else pops up. I have stated my opinion on the state's effort to utilize tolls as the future funding for highways in Texas. Just in case you missed it, I oppose the idea of tolls being the primary source of funding for state highways. I need to clarify my opposition by stating I am not so much opposed to new toll roads, but rather the idea of tolling existing roads. A large portion of the price for a gallon of gas goes to the state and federal folks for highway...

AUSTIN — An activist outraged over state transportation officials' multimillion-dollar campaign to promote toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor is taking her fight to court. Terri Hall of the San Antonio Toll Party and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom wants a state court order to halt spending on the "Keep Texas Moving" campaign because, she contends, it violates a state prohibition on state officers or employees using their authority for political purposes. "Unlike purely educational public relations efforts such as the 'Don't Mess with Texas' campaign, the KTM campaign is a one-sided attempt to advocate one political point of...

After conducting business as though it were a private entity rather than a public trust, the Texas Department of Transportation is now trying to turn the tide of public opinion in its favor. The Keep Texas Moving campaign is a $7 million to $9 million effort designed to promote various transportation projects in the state. According to the campaign site, www.keeptexasmoving.com, Texans can learn more about such projects as the vast Trans-Texas Corridor and "its promise for Texas." Unfortunately, TxDOT has a history of not being entirely forthcoming about transportation plans. Last year, agency officials and the road-building consortium Cintra-Zachry...

The Interstate 69 corridor, a Mexico-to-Canada concept discussed since 1991, has received government recognition as a "corridor of the future," a designation that immediately means $800,000 in federal money for studies. Local officials say it could mean more trade in South Texas. The corridor -- a 2,680-mile international trade route from Mexico to Canada also known as the Trans-Texas Corridor-69 -- was one of two designated Tuesday as corridors of the future. Interstate 10 from California to Florida also received recognition. Hailed as a route that would facilitate trade resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement, I-69's Texas portion...

With all the madness in the world, I meditated Tuesday on two matters of great gratitude. One is that through vigilance and good fortune we have, so far, gone six years without another major attack on U.S. soil. The other is that I wasn't one of the Texas officials who was forced to attend a workshop in Austin in which PR flacks would try (under a $20,000 contract) to teach me techniques for selling Gov. Perry's massive toll road boondoggle. It was a small part of a $7 million to $9 million campaign that will include feel-good ads pushing Perry's...

Transportation was a hot subject during the recent legislative session - and it continues to be so in the interim. This week, several Texas lawmakers, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and state Reps. Joe Farias, David Leibowitz, Nathan Macias and others held a press conference in San Antonio in protest against current transportation policy and the Texas Department of Transportation. Key among their concerns are recent reports the state agency has launched a public relations plan to promote the Trans-Texas Corridor and to lobby for toll roads. Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom founder Terri Hall is among those criticizing...

Even if it's just for a moment, let us give credit where credit is due. The Texas Department of Transportation has realized — finally — that it has an image problem when it comes to convincing Texans of the need for a vast network of toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor. The realization, however, comes with a price tag of $7 million to $9 million that, rather than going to build highways, will fuel an advertising campaign centered around a memo titled, "Keep Texas Moving: Tolling and Trans-Texas Corridor Outreach." This is where I get off the track. Outreach? The...

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE This session, toll roads will get full attention GETTING THERE This session, toll roads will get full attention Everything you ought to know about toll roads Buses' controversial 200-foot trip An unlikely new face at Cap Metro Anti-toll founders plot a revolution Ben Wear --------------------------------------------------------- Monday, December 13, 2004 When I moved back to Austin about 16 months ago after living elsewhere since early 2001, everything I saw and was told indicated that Texas had a discussion about toll roads while I was gone and decided that turnpikes were the wave of the future. Texas 45...