Posted on 01/05/2005 3:10:55 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
AUSTIN, Tex., Dec. 31 (AP) - Texas has embarked on a project to build superhighways so large and so complex that they will make ordinary Interstates look like cowpaths.
As envisioned by Gov. Rick Perry, the project, the Trans-Texas Corridor, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing $175 billion over 50 years and financed mostly, if not entirely, with private money. The builders would then charge motorists tolls.
These would be megahighways: corridors up to a quarter-mile across, consisting of as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, plus railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, even broadband transmission cables.
Supporters say the corridors are needed to handle the expected Nafta-driven boom in the flow of goods to and from Mexico and to enable freight haulers to bypass urban centers on straight highways that cut across the countryside.
The number of corridors and exactly where they would run have yet to be worked out. But on Dec. 16 the Texas Transportation Commission opened negotiations with the Cintra consortium to start the first phase of the project, a $7.5 billion, 800-mile corridor from Oklahoma to Mexico that would parallel Interstate 35.
"Some thought the Trans-Texas Corridor was a pie-in-the-sky idea that would never see the light of day," said Governor Perry, a Republican who has compared his plan to the Interstate system. "We have seen the future, and it's here today."
But some have called the project a Texas-size boondoggle. Environmentalists say they worry about its effect on the countryside, and ranchers and farmers who stand to lose their land through eminent domain are mobilizing against it. Small towns and big cities alike fear a loss of business when traffic is diverted around them.
Even the governor's own party opposes the plan. The platform drafted at last summer's state Republican convention rejected it because of its effect on property rights.
The tolls would represent a sharp departure for Texas, which has traditionally relied on federal highway money from gasoline taxes to build roads. But supporters of the Trans-Texas Corridor say its combination of tolls and private money would allow Texas to lay concrete at a rate that would be impossible through gasoline taxes alone.
The corridors could generate about $135 billion for the state over the 50-year span and lure new industry by offering efficient shipping routes for goods and utilities, Ray Perryman, a Texas economist, said.
In addition, Robert Black, a spokesman for Mr. Perry said, the new rail lines could lower the risk of chemical spills in urban areas.
For the Oklahoma-Mexico corridor, Cintra plans to spend $6 billion for about 300 miles of four-lane highway from Dallas to San Antonio and give the state an additional $1.2 billion for improvements along the route. In return, Cintra, which is based in Spain, wants to maintain and operate the toll road for 50 years.
The Texas Farm Bureau, generally regarded as an ally of Mr. Perry, opposes the project, with the organization's president, Kenneth Dierschke, saying: "They're proposing going primarily through farm and ranch lands. If someone comes in and cuts your property in half, that's no good."
Officials promise that property owners will be fairly compensated for any land seized. And a special provision put in for the benefit of rural Texas would allow some property owners to negotiate for a share of the revenue generated by traffic on the corridor.
Exactly right. Express lanes with limited access are the solution. For example, Chicago has express lanes heading north out of the city and allow you to get to the suburbs very quickly. In addition, express lanes are a MUCH better idea than the HOV lanes pushed by the eco-nazis. See how New Jersey ended HOV lanes without losing Federal hiway dollars at http://www.users.nac.net/jmp/rd_hov.html
i think the meaning here was that 98% of the original national freeway system of the eisenhower administration was paid with u.s. military money.
the u.s. military thought a freeway system vital to our defense if we were ever attacked.
the u.s. military thought a freeway system vital to our defense if we were ever attacked.
Indeed it is. The interstate system is in need of updating though. It will take something as radical as the original idea to do it. Private roads that would be used by trucks is an idea that should be looked at seriously. The roads we need to move the commerce shouldn't be modeled on Route66, save that for auto traffic
They ARE expanding the West Loop 610 just 2 miles from my house right now.
Texas should finish the highways that are currently torn up and under construction. Start with I-45 between Dallas and Houston at Corsicana that has been torn up and one-lane at some places since we moved here seven years ago. Virtually every highway in Texas is under construction somewhere because the highway construction companies give big bucks to the pols in Austin. It never ends. Motorists have died on ill-marked, dangerous construction areas near Lubbock and Fort Stockton. I'd like to see the figures on fatalities caused by highway construction in Texas, but that is never divulged.
Just what I was thinking. This looks like an arrow straight north into the US heartland. When the border is erased, this will come in handy. Is anybody paying attention?
If we can charge tolls to illegals as they come roaring in, why not! All the better!
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