Just think you can get on the 69 Corridor and go from the Rio Grande Valley to Port Huron MI..... 1600 miles..
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.
"I love toll roads, and I think the TX corridor is a great idea..."
Good one - you had me going. But remember that you're supposed to note sarcasm in your post, rather than leave it to us readers to figure out.
No, "free" roads suck. The government is slow to expand needed roads, and consumers overuse them. Your anger is misplaced. Have you ever noticed how much of the money you pay for gasoline goes for federal highway taxes? Do you think Texas gets anywhere near its fair share? Hell no! Ted Kennedy makes sure it goes to fund the big dig in Boston. The feds offered to build a new bridge to Boston's Logan Airport, but for some reason Ted Kennedy didn't want a bridge and made them build a much more expensive system of leaky tunnels. I'd rather get rid of the fuel tax and pay for my road use more directly.
There is no such thing as free transportation.
I'm no expert but I-35 would probably be improved greatly by just adding another lane.
Um yeah, and you just passed a big tax increase to pay for them. Not free at all.
I believe that "Free" highways by definition pay for themselves.
I think I know where you are going, saying that the infrastructure improvements generate enough development and improved efficiency that trickles down into increase tax revenue (like with tax cuts). But free roads lose any advantage over toll financing in that regard when you factor in the forced taxation required to pay for them, the significant inefficiencies of increased govt beauracratic involvment compared with market-incentivised toll construction, and the timing of funding. It is all about timing.
This is the biggest mistake in Texas history.
Time will tell, but my money is on quite the opposite. This will be a model for other states, and the toll road concept has already been used in foreign countries, including the 3rd world, to finance otherwise unaffordable road projects. Not to mention it would have to top LBJ, Ann Richards, the Sharpstown Scandal, Lee P. Brown, Jerry Jones, Jerry Glanville, joining the Confederacy...
Just think you can get on the 69 Corridor and go from the Rio Grande Valley to Port Huron MI..... 1600 miles..
You can't all of the people happy all of the time.
I'm no expert but I-35 would probably be improved greatly by just adding another lane.
"Who's gonna pay for it?...... your taxes?"
One fact that few people know (or remember). 98% of the Interstate Highway system was built with taxes.
States don't build any roads. They're all built by private companies and the difference is how the project is managed. When governments really want something done, it will happen. The huge 8-10 lane I-10 overpasses through Santa Monica Ca were rebuilt following the earthquake in something like 30 days.
We've built well over 100 miles of FREEway around Phoenix (much more expensive and difficult than rural interstate highways) in only 5-7 years. It CAN be done.
I've lived in Oklahoma City, Ft Worth, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Phoenix. So I've seen lots of freeways and toll ways. Toll roads are great, if your perspective is that you want to travel from point A to point B today. If your perspective is that you want the economy of an entire area prosper over the long run (which means the value of your house and the size of paycheck go up), then toll roads are poison.
1) I made up my mind on this years ago after noticing the economic growth along I-35 north of Oklahoma City that ended suddenly at the Turner Turnpike Gates.
2) The old toll road between Dallas and Ft Worth didn't have nearly as much economic activity as alternative routes, until they got rid of the toll booths.
3) The toll road from downtown Dallas had nothing along it but houses, while I-35 had businesses and growth.
4) You travel along wilderness in NE Oklahoma on the Will Rogers turnpike, until you get to the border and it becomes a free road. Right there start the side roads, businesses, activity, and Oklahoma doesn't tax a bit of it. All they get is a few cents per mile from people driving out-of-state to spend money.
5) The FREE auto-bahns that I drove in Germany have more economic activity around them than the toll roads I drove in France. The autobahns were probably the only thing Hitler did right.
In colonial times, there were many private "pike" roads and private toll bridges. They were eventually all brought under public free access. The old-timers learned from experience what worked. We've just forgotten, and there are a bunch of billion dollar companies selling us this bill-of-goods called toll roads.
I guess theres a sucker born every minute.
The state has been building one since the mid-1990s. It was needed twenty years ago. Maybe it will be finished by 2015? Of course by then, Texas will have five million more people than it has today. Perry's plan is to actually anticipate the infrastructure the state will need in the next fifty years and make sure it gets built in a timely manner to prevent the transportation bottlenecks we've had over the last three decades.
"3) The toll road from downtown Dallas had nothing along it but houses, while I-35 had businesses and growth."
How long ago was this? A lot of it has really grown with business, especially north of 635 all the way to Frisco.
The free roads will be allowed to deteriorate so the government can collect taxes (and lobbists goodies) from the toll roads.
This was obvious in the toll lanes in the middle of the 91 freeway west of Corona Californa. There is no incentive for the government to provide enough free lanes by widening it. The toll lanes only go along the few miles in the mountain pass where there are no alternatives.
In order to force people to pay the toll, there will never be free flowing trafic through that pass. California will ensure it stays that way. (and it helps prevent growth in Riverside county, so Orange and LA county like it)
But they finance them. Texas is lucky if it gets back 80% of the money Texans paid into federal highway taxes. We could build roads faster if we didn't have to depend on fuel excise taxes to fund them. Another thing is Congress should repeal the Davis-Bacon act that forces contractors to pay union wages for public construction.
Probably with money stolen from Texans by John McCain.
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