Roads exist in abundance in America.
One of Melvin’s main bones of contention was that NASCO did not stand for the building the NASCO corridor into a Trans-Texas Corridor-type super-highway. “NASCO is working on existing infrastructure,” Melvin told 55KRC. Yet, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is a NASCO member and NASCO supports the Trans-Texas Corridor as part of that relationship. Melvin’s e-mail stated:
The Trans-Texas Corridor is not a NASCO initiative. We support the project in Texas, as it solves critical funding problems and congestion IN TEXAS. I know of NO plans to extend it into additional states. It is not the first section of a NAFTA Super Highway. It is not ready to begin construction next year.
According to the 4,000-page draft environmental impact statement, the plan is to build a 4,000-mile network of new super-highways that will be “up to 1,200 feet wide (at full build-out) with separate lanes for passenger vehicles (three in each direction) and trucks (two in each direction), six rail lines (separate lines in each direction for high-speed rail, commuter rail, and freight rail), and a 200-foot wide utility corridor.”
On March 11, 2005, TxDOT signed a definitive agreement with Cintra Zachry, a limited partnership formed by Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructures de Transport in Spain and the San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Co. “to develop the Oklahoma to Mexico/Gulf Coast element of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC-35). This agreement calls for the Cintra-Zachry limited partnership to pay Texas $1.2 billion “for the long-term right to build and operate the initial segment as a toll facility.” The initial TTC-35 segment is scheduled to be built roughly parallel to I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio. The final public hearings are scheduled in Texas for July and August. While construction contracts have yet to be finalized, Cintra-Zachry presumably holds those rights as a result of the $1.2 billion payment to Texas, as described in the March 11, 2005, contract. The timeline published on the Trans-Texas Corridor website envisions final federal approval by the summer of 2007, with the construction of the first TTC-35 segment to follow immediately afterward.
In regard to whether NASCO intends to rely only on existing interstate highway infrastructure, the NASCO statement of purpose cited above calls for building “the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system.” The TTC-35 project is the first super-highway project in the U.S. proceeding to incorporate railroad as part of the design, producing a truly “integrated” and “multi-modal” highway-railroad system.