Posted on 02/05/2005 6:34:20 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The time to speak out and ask questions about the Trans Texas Corridor is near.
Residents in Caldwell and Guadalupe counties will get a better understanding of potential impacts to their land usage and future tax revenues next month during Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) public meetings concerning the proposed corridor.
The corridor, as envisioned, would consist of a network of brand-new "transportation routes" that would carry passenger vehicles and large trucks in separate lanes and also provide for railway freight, high-speed commuter rail and "infrastructure" for utilities including water, oil, gas, electricity, broadband and "other telecommunications services," TxDOT says.
The routes would bypass major metropolitan areas and the project would be implemented in phases, beginning with "priority routes," which include a route to run east but largely parallel to Interstate 35.
The roadways would be toll roads, and would require 146 acres of right-of-way for each mile of the envisioned 4,000 miles of corridor. The combined vehicle, rail and utility lines would be 1,200 feet wide.
Overall, the project would result in the taking of 558,000 acres of private lands, according to Corridor Watch, an organization whose premise is "challenging the wisdom of the Trans Texas Corridor."
While landowners would be compensated under eminent domain, acreage taken for the corridor would be removed from county and school district tax rolls.
Officials with TxDOT will meet with Caldwell County residents on March 3 at the Lockhart High School Cafetorium, 1 Lion Country Drive. On March 22, citizens of Guadalupe County can attend a public meeting at the Seguin-Guadalupe County Coliseum, 810 S. Guadalupe St. Both sessions will run from 5 to 8 p.m. and will be held in an "open house" format.
Those in attendance will be able to ask questions as well as provide input and submit comments for the record. Available at the meetings will be the preliminary results of an environmental study that is expected to have narrowed the proposed route to a more or less 10-mile swath.
The round of public meetings is the second concerning the corridor. In the fall of last year, citizens were presented with maps showing a wide area of Texas from the Rio Grande to the Red River. Since then, "corridor alternatives" for the portion of the project to parallel IH-35 have been "refined."
This summer, project planners intend to have completed a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and following that will be another round of public meetings. The complete EIS, consideration of which will also include a "no build" option, is expected in early 2006. Around the same time, project planners are expected to present the corridor plan to the Federal Highway Administration.
In December, Gov. Rick Perry detailed how the project would be funded. Under a type of contract called a "comprehensive development agreement," which allows the state to hire a private firm to "plan, design, construct, finance, maintain and operate" the corridor, the governor said a Spanish firm has been selected to develop the corridor project.
Cintra-Zachary has said it plans to invest $6 billion by 2010 in the stretch of toll road from San Antonio to Dallas. Under terms of the agreement, the company would also pay the state $1.2 billion to be able to operate the toll road for 50 years. The $1.2 billion could be used by TxDOT for road improvements, high-speed or commuter rail projects.
According to TxDOT, the total project cost could range from $145.2 to $183.5 billion.
Proponents say the network of roads and rail and pipelines would ease traffic congestion in major cities and that given projected growth rates, the corridor is a proactive way of managing the transportation needs of 50 years into the future.
Opponents argue that the corridor would not ease major metropolitan traffic, but could bisect towns and farms. It would also drain communities along IH-35 through lessened traffic and relocation of businesses.
For more information, visit
www.txdot.state.tx.us;
www.keeptexasmoving.com;
and www.corridorwatch.org
Just out of interest, do you have a link for that?
Thanks Tolerance, the link was fine, it was my stupid router. It would update FR, but not provide me with links to other sites. So I thought that the referenced site was dead. Others also said that the link was fine, and I apologized to them in Posting # 73.
I remember reading about the nafta super highway years ago. It's supposed to go all the way down to Panama, eventually.
Ok That'll make friends and influence people. I'm in if yall think of others let me know.
Why do you consider a gas tax good but tolls bad? Both get us to the point of building needed roads, but with very different outcomes:
-- Tolls get roads built faster.
-- Tolls are spent 100% on roads. A good part of the gas tax goes to fund public education and DPS. So, penny for penny, tolls are more efficient than a gas tax.
-- Finally, I only pay a toll if I choose to take the road. If I don't want to pay the toll, I don't have to take the road, since there is a free alternative. Also, tolls stay local, whereas gas tax money can and would probably be spent on road projects I'll never drive on.
Seems to me tolls are the preferable conservative option.
Good lord. Read the entire exchange, and don't just cherry-pick a few lines you think make your point.
Transcript:
THE PRESS: Mr. Lopez, in looking at the proposal, are you planning on having any type of non-compete clause for future expansion of I-35 in order to attract as much traffic as possible to the Trans-Texas Corridor 35?
MR. LOPEZ: I guess this is more a question for the Commission or the officers of the state. What I can answer to you is that in our -- in the terms of engagement that have been presented to the would-be winner, there's no restriction on -- or there's no limit to competition from existing roads or no limit to other roads being built and things like that.
(Translation, the Cintra rep says there would be no restriction on competition.)
Transcript Continued:
THE PRESS: Including expansions from four lanes to six, or --
MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, let me answer that question, while also asking Tony's question.
We're on the record, Ben and Tony, as you know, of saying we fully expect that there will be limitations on our ability, at some point in the future, to compete with the road he is going to spend his money on and pay us for. We believe that profit is a decent and honorable pursuit and that for him to pay his franchise taxes in Texas, he's going to have to generate some profits.
We're not afraid of that. He offers to take us out of the risk business in offering an alternative corridor parallel to 35, and he offers us cash in exchange for that.
Now, it will be up to Commissioner Nichols and Commissioner Houghton, Ben, to see to it that staff stays within certain Commission guidelines. Among that, I'm sure, are be sure we can expand 35 to six lanes the entire length of the highway.
But all of our decisions, you have to remember, are made, not in the context of what would you like to do, Commission, but what do you have the cash to do.
And the reality, Patrick, is we don't have the money to expand Interstate 35 much bigger than six lanes. It's not -- we're in a different position than, say, the California legislature a few years ago when the Orange County issue came up. They were flush with cash and could have done a lot of things. We don't have that luxury.
As you saw from the presentation ahead of the layout, which we put out there for you to look at, Gordon, we don't have the cash to go expand Interstate 35 much beyond six lanes. So it's really not much of a consideration for us.
But even if it is, these guys are willing to build it for the taxpayers of the state so that we don't have to raise their taxes, pay us additional cash so we can consider some things we might not have considered, and for that, they need to have an expectation they can generate a profit, and we shouldn't be ashamed of that.
(Translation, Williamson says TxDOT is not afraid to compete with Cintra, they plan to expand the entire length of I-35 to six lanes, and while they would like to do more, the only limitation on them is the resources they have available for expansion beyond 6 total lanes, which would be a HUGE improvement.)
Gee, thanks for forgiving me. That's big of you. However, by all press accounts, Cintra is putting up $7.2 billion to build this corridor -- $1.2 billion of that is cash to the state to be used for other transportation needs. The tolls on the corridor will repay Cintra for taking on the risk. Therefore, all the toll money is going to pay for roads. Gas tax money, on the other hand, doesn't. Public education gets 25% of the gas tax. So right off the bat, your 20 cents per gallon gas tax increase becomes only 15 cents for actual road building. And that's before you take out the $400 million or so DPS currently takes from gas tax revenues for public safety.
Also, last time I checked Cintra can't condemn land. The government can, but the government is going to have to condemn land to build any type of highway, whether taxpayer funded through a gas tax or toll funded. You go on and on about expanding I-35, but how much do you think I-35 can be expanded???? Do you drive it? If so, you will see that the frontage road of I-35 is highly developed. Highly developed means very, very expensive to expand. Think prohibitly expensive, unless you think all those McDonald's and Dairy Queen franchisees are going to donate their land for the expansion...
By the way, Zachary, a San Antonio based company is actually going to build the road, not Cintra.
Finally, do you honestly believe the state is going to shut down I-35?!?! Not to mention the fact that it is a federal highway, so something tells me it's still going to be around. And, according to the link you provided, TxDOT has plans to add additional lanes to the whole of I-35.
I'm sure if blogs existed during te days of Eisenhower, the same debates would have been held about the interstate highway system.
How crazy is it to allow some foreign company to construct a toll road in Texas or any state? I have many objections to private toll roads. But why should the profits from tolls go to some damn Europeans? This is aggravating
"But why should the profits from tolls go to some damn Europeans?"
...especially when they may be a huge amount of money. No one knows now, because the negotiations are SECRET and there is no OFFICIAL guiding policy that's been disclosed to the public.
The old and more corrupt North East is full of "Authorities". Which are quasi public agencies with unique abilities to take on massive public works, issue bonds, and make them pay their way via tolls. This is what ya'll are setting yourselves up for in Texas.
You know that disastrous Big Dig up in Boston with the leaking tunnels? It's all done for an "Authority" which will manage it and will collect tolls.
Cintra is putting up front $7.2 billion in funding for the new corridor.
By the way, you are flat wrong about the diversion of the gas tax revenues. The legislature can't "do whatever they want with that money," nor can they end the diversion tomorrow as you claim. The Texas Constitution (article 8, section 7-a) requires that 1/4 of the gas tax SHALL be allocated to the Available School Fund. Unless you're calling for the complete suspension of the constitution, which I admit I've missed in your previous posts, the legislature would first have to pass a constitutional amendment, which requires 2/3 of both houses, then it goes on the ballot, and then if a majority of voters agree with you, which I'm guessing they wouldn't, then the legislature could change the funding the next time it writes a budget, in 2 1/2 years. We could get toll roads built quicker than that.
"By the way, you are flat wrong about the diversion of the gas tax revenues."
My apologies then - I'm not an expert on the inner workings of Austin. I only know what I read - and I hadn't seen it either way - either in the Constitution or as legislation, so I certainly won't dispute what you say. I just figured that the this was simply legislation, as it is done at the federal level.
So, yes, it would take the same process that gave us the Constitutional Amendment(s). And, yes, it's certainly tougher to amend the state constitution, then simply passing legislation.
On the other hand, the constitution was amended to allow "creative" financing of highways, and virtually no one had any clue of what was in store for us.
So, for the time being, the schools can keep their 25% share, for all I care, and we can raise the gas tax a bit more to cover (of course, since money is fungible, there are other ways to cover the education diversion, if they want to do so).
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