Posted on 10/01/2006 7:49:34 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
About 30 opponents of Gov. Rick Perry’s controversial Trans-Texas Corridor plan for superhighways statewide rallied at the McLennan County Courthouse Saturday morning, waving plastic bags of soil and vowing to resist any efforts involving eminent domain to seize their land for highway construction.
“This is a little piece of my land,” Riesel rancher and farmer Robert Cervenka said. “And this is all they’re going to get from me without a fight.”
Although some of those gathered at the steps of the courthouse were allied with independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn, others said they were for any political force capable of jettisoning Perry from office and derailing his Trans-Texas Corridor toll road plan.
The rally was one of about 40 mounted across the state Saturday, largely coordinated through Strayhorn’s campaign.
The candidate chose to make appearances in Gonzales and at the Alamo because of their significance in Texas’ battle for independence.
Perry spokesman Robert Black says Strayhorn needs to tell Texans what she will do to meet the fierce traffic demand on Texas’ current highways, saying her calls for transportation revenue bonds and expanding Interstate 35 are too expensive.
Proposed by Perry in 2002 to accommodate the state’s projected trade and population growth, the massive corridor would cut across Texas from the Mexican border to Oklahoma. The plan has drawn fire for what some believe would be its displacement of farmland, its funding as a toll road and the choice of a Spanish company to develop it.
A group favoring the corridor project, Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation, issued a statement Saturday reminding motorists that nearly half of all Texans live within 50 miles of Interstate 35 and that “current traffic nightmares along Interstate 35 are projected to get worse if additional road capacity is not built.”
Texas’ population is expected to grow 65 percent in the next 25 years, the group said, while road use is projected to increase 214 percent. Unless Texans change their approach to transportation, road capacity will grow by only 6 percent, the statement said.
“Texas is growing, and our transportation system must grow too,” TSRT chairman Joe Krier said. “Good roads positively impact all aspects of our lives. Texans should know that the alternative to not building the Trans-Texas Corridor is more gridlock, outrageously higher gas taxes and solutions that will take years longer to deliver.
“Opponents of the Trans-Texas Corridor offer no meaningful solutions,” Krier said.
Area Republican activist Dot Snyder, who has property in Coryell County, acknowledged at the local protest Saturday morning the dangerous congestion on I-35 but said Perry’s plan, including the upheaval it would cause Texans in the form of land grabs and toll roads, carries too high a price.
“There are just bound to be better solutions,” she said. “If Gov. Perry’s plan is so good, why doesn’t he put it up for a vote of the people?”
Also during the local rally, Hallsburg Mayor Mike Glockzin faulted area politicians who say they oppose the corridor plan but refused to cross party lines Saturday to show solidarity with protesters. He said such politicians “need to grow a backbone.”
The McLennan County Commissioners Court has condemned the Trans-Texas Corridor as a threat to rural Central Texas, but none of the commissioners attended Saturday’s rally.
You're welcome.
It's not just you and your family's way of life that is being taken away. Meanhwile, you, I and the rest just sit by and let them take it. I could write for an hour about how the public schools have taken away my life and how government officials have given life to the immoral, the Godless, the rule-breakers, etc., etc. ad nauseum.
Thanks
Hazcat
Hi, Hazcat. I went ahead and added you to my TTC ping list.
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