Posted on 02/03/2005 6:54:23 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Texas' highway capacity hardly is keeping up with the state's population and vehicle registration growth.
The Texas Department of Transportation can't do much about that, since its budget increasingly must be devoted to maintaining current highways.
The main plan to address long-term highway capacity is the Trans Texas Corridor. At 4,000 miles long and 1,200 feet wide, with a 50- to 100-year timetable and a $184 billion price tag, it is the biggest and most ambitious highway project since the U.S. interstate highway system was built almost half a century ago.
It also is difficult to visualize, with so many questions not yet having answers.
But the privately operated corridor will come into focus over the next 15 months, said John Bourne, corridor project manager and associate vice president of HNTB in Austin, a transportation engineering and planning firm.
First, TxDOT and a consortium of companies led by Spain-based Cintra is finishing negotiations and could sign a contract within a week, two months after Cintra was chosen from three competing consortiums.
San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. is a 15 percent partner in the Cintra consortium.
The contract will call for a fairly specific plan to be completed in 15 months for the corridor's first leg, stretching from the Oklahoma border to the Mexico border, terminating either in the Rio Grande Valley or Laredo, with construction taking 10 years.
That highway and other Trans Texas Corridor highways that follow eventually could feature 10 lanes of traffic — two devoted to trucks only — plus freight, commuter and high-speed rail lines and utility lines carrying water, natural gas, oil, electricity and telecommunications.
It likely would incorporate the Texas 130 route that has started construction east of Austin, extending the currently funded segment south to near Seguin to create an alternative to the congested Interstate 35.
The Texas 130 portion is slated tentatively for completion within five years.
The entire corridor will be tolled, of course.
Outside of the rail lines, very little public money will go into the corridor's construction, as it is conceived so far.
The developers, not taxpayers, will carry the project's risk, which is why the project is not on any ballot.
With Southwest Capital Markets as a member of the Cintra team, the project likely will be financed by revenue bonds repaid by the tolls, not gasoline taxes.
"Cintra will not ask for local, state or federal contributions," Bourne said.
The land for the corridor will be obtained by state condemnation. The state legally cannot delegate eminent domain responsibilities to private developers.
TxDOT also is responsible for public hearings on federal environmental clearances, Bourne told members of the San Antonio Transportation Association on Wednesday.
The TxDOT-Cintra contract is expected to call for Cintra to invest $6 billion and make a $1.2 billion "concession payment" by 2014 to TxDOT, which can use the money for enhancements along the corridor, such as connecting highways and/or passenger/freight rail lines.
If this project can stick close to its 10-year timetable, it will take pressure off TxDOT to further widen I-35.
Already controversial, this Oklahoma-to-Mexico segment will become a much hotter issue as the route is selected, with some interested parties not wanting it near them, others wanting it closer and some landowners fighting condemnation.
Who controls development rights along the route will be another issue that must be hashed out.
Moreover, who can say that court rulings on what projects can be subject to condemnation won't affect the corridor's plans over the years?
The fight over where the first corridor highway turns south of San Antonio, either to Laredo or the Valley, will be bloody by itself.
Some members of the San Antonio Transportation Association believe there is no sign of public support for the Trans Texas Corridor, which it is being driven by engineering and construction companies who make money from these projects.
If those members are right, it is just another barrier the corridor developers must overcome as plans are drawn, ground is broken and the cement begins to pour.
dhendricks@express-news.net
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Please let me know if you want to be added to or subtracted from this list.
Hard to believe that Texans aren't somehow getting screwed in this whole thing.
You mean other than having huge tracts of land taken away from them? I wonder if the 'tolls' will be affordable for normal folks. It just sounds to me like a big land-grab so some construction companies can make some money, and the well-to-do can have less traffic to deal with. I may be wrong.
I would like to be added to your trans-texas corridor ping list. Thanks.
Well someone's land has to be taken to build any road. Where do you think the state got the land on which the current Interstate highways are built? After the current expansion, there's not enough room to add any more lanes on I-35 without condemning more land.
You're added. :-)
I do understand that. I guess my point would be that taking away a lot of property in order to help some construction companies to make a few dollars, and provide some "Lexus lanes" for a priveleged few doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Again, I may be wrong in my assumptions.
Well, I read in a recent Corridor Watch newsletter that the tolls could go as high as 20 cents a mile. I actually looked at the website for SH 130, a highway that could be incorporated into TTC-35, and the tolls there will average out to 12.5 cents a mile. How many people will drive these roads at these rates, I have no idea.
$.20 a mile is unreasonable for me. I can't see paying $28 for a trip from San Antonio to Austin and back. Good grief, at that rate, it would almost be cheaper to fly southwest from SA to Dallas and back than to drive!
Thanks for the ping! I appreciate it.
You're welcome. :-)
I read this somewhere too. That the contract would call for 'no competition', ie no new roads, and also no upgrades on existing hwys, like I35. The only hopeful thing would be if a lot of trucks, corporate drivers, and Lexus owners would take some load off I35 and other highways.
and which of our elected representatives and texas department of transportation officials are getting swiss bank accounts?
Many thanks!
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