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From the thread linked in post #6:

The head of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson, was interviewed today on KSEV radio in Houston by Dan Patrick from 5-6pm. He is in charge of the Trans Texas Corridor concept and is negotiating contract details with a company called Cintra to build the first corridor after accepting their bid. The corridor would run from Oklahoma to Mexico, roughly paralleling I-35. He answered questions, took calls, and offered new details (at least I haven't seen some of this reported before in the media) on the concept and the first corridor. Below are the points from the interview that I was able to get down.

1) While at some point a landowner might lose their land for ROW acquisition, the TTC concept will offer them perpetual royalty rights as part of the compensation package for their land. In other words, besides fair market value for their land, they and their decendents will get annual payments, just like they would if an oil company negotiated to drill on their land.

2) The concept is an intent to consolidate road, rail, pipeline, electric, communication, and other utility corridors into a single large corridor rather than individual dispersed corridors for each mode, thereby significantly reducing the total amount of land taken for the same capacity. Basically building a few big corridors instead of dozens of smaller ones(not just roads) which would divide up rural areas much more. A one and done future capacity inventory, planning, design, and buildout, rather than piecemeal and somewhat uncoordinated road and varios utilities construction that would be more ineffecient, duplicative, and less synergistic. Planned, but not built until each portion justifies itself.

3) Even if the TTC is not built, a utility corridor 400' wide for water and electric utilities would still have to be built across the state. Thus the TTC will save land by combine this utility corridor with the road corridors, (which will save land by utilizing overlapping easement requirements, shared drainage, etc.)

4) This originally wasn't scheduled to start for another 10-15 years, but they immediately began receiving proposals from private firms. After narrowing down to 3 proposals, it was decided to build now because of the higher value in the bids than expected. They then selected Cintra's bid as the best of the three, and are negotiating contract details.

5) The contract will not include any restrictions on the footprint of I-35 (meaning it can be expanded if deemed necessary or preferable.) Ric Williamson specifically stated that TX could even take the $1.2-1.4 billion payment from Cintra to pay for expanding I-35 if they wish. No restrictions.

6) Cintra puts up the money, assumes all the risk. All financing is private. TXDOT is leasing the build, operation, and maintenance rights to them, but retains ownership(basically just a subcontracting situation.) HNTB is the engineering firm working with the state on this.

7) 1st sections built would be Hillsboro-Georgetown and south of Austin to I-10 east of San Antonio, with the currently under construction Loop 130 filling in the gap. If approved next year, these portions could be finished as early as 2008-2010.

8) First 3 priority corridors are roughly parallel to I-35, to I-45, and to I-20 east from Dallas. If it gets approved, the I-69 corridor would likely also be designed as a TTC corridor. Would run roughly from Texarkana down Hwy 59, around the north side of Houston, and then parallel to the gulf to Mexico. (My addition: one would likely run to the Harlingen/Brownsville area, and one to Laredo, and similarly one would run around the east side of DFW, and one around the west.)

9) The 1200' maximum corridor width was the original expected need when the project was first considered. But after reviewing the concept the maximum ROW width can be reduced to 800-1000'(and less in sections where it is determined that there would never be a need for a particular type of rail or utility.)

10) Pulls hazmat off rail lines and highways that run through the middle of communities and into patrolled TTC corridors, which are easier to protect than multiple dispersed rail lines (many of which are not paralleled by roads and thus far harder to observe and respond to an incident.) (However nothing was said about how to fund the rail portions, which is not a part of the Cintra bid, other than space set aside in the constructed ROW for future use. Also no mention of expected timeline.)

11) TTC has not yet been reviewed by Homeland Security, but the military has stated that it is in favor of high-speed and high-capacity connections from the Gulf ports to interior bases (speeds deployment and repositioning.)

12) Talked about cost. Currently in rural areas(15 miles away from urban areas) it costs about $2 million per mile per lane to construct freeway standard roadway in 'greenspace' areas (farms, ranches, or forests.) ROW costs are about $3-6000 per acre. By comparison it averages $26 million per lane to expand roads in urban areas (because of higher land values, more complicated construction to stay within the existing footprint, etc. Layering is 3 times as expensive, which is why they are planning a wide corridor rather than a stacked one.

13) One of the guidelines given to TXDOT for evaluating whether a TTC proposal is justified is that it can't be built unless it offers more congestion relief at a lower cost than building in the existing roadway footprint.

14) We are building toll roads because the current gas tax would only fund 20% of needed road capacity. To eliminate toll roads yet still build all the road required would necessitate a $1/gallon gas tax, 80 cents higher than the current 20 cent/gallon tax. That is why toll projects will finance most new construction and expansion, where feasible.