This is what I think of building highways to the 3rd world cesspit to our south
Posted on 11/10/2005 6:27:08 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
‘I-69 is dead’
State, federal officials disagree on status of road
By Matt Whittaker
The Monitor
WESLACO, November 9, 2005 — There are not enough federal dollars for an Interstate highway to the Rio Grande Valley, state officials said Tuesday
“I-69 is dead in the state of Texas,” Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton told about 75 area city officials and business leaders at a lunch discussion about transportation issues. “The road fairy has been shot.”
But federal lawmakers said the project to create an Interstate linking major commercial centers in Mexico, the United States and Canada is still alive and is reaching a point where it’s time for Texas to carry its share.
The state is considering a Trans-Texas Corridor, separate from the Interstate system, that would be built by the private sector and paid for through tolls.
Interstate 69, a 1,600-mile highway connecting the three North American Free Trade Agreement countries, would have to be paid for by Washington and the eight states involved in the project. The Interstate would extend from South Texas to eastern Michigan. But its completion isn’t likely, according to Texas officials.
The initial study area for the Trans-Texas Corridor is roughly 1,000 miles long. Routes under consideration in South Texas include U.S. 59, U.S. 281 and U.S. 77. The Valley is the only metropolitan area in the state without direct access to an Interstate highway.
The state corridor could enter near Texarkana and end up somewhere in the Valley, Houghton said. In January, the Texas Department of Transportation could begin searching for engineers and exploring route locations and environmental impacts, he said.
Waiting for federal funds is futile, said Houghton, who is one of four commissioners on the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Houghton to the commission in December 2003.
A spokesman for Perry, Robert Black, said the expectation that Washington might spend as much as $7 billion for the I-69 system inside the state is unrealistic.
“From our perspectives, we agree with the commissioner,” Black said.
The federal and Texas governments don’t have the money for an I-69 system, he said. The state isn’t getting enough federal dollars to maintain the systems it already has.
But that doesn’t mean the concept of running a major roadway to the Valley is dead, Black said. The Trans-Texas Corridor would be one option.
“If we want to make I-69 a reality, then we’re going to have to look at a number of other tools,” he said. Possibilities include tolls.
But some of Texas’ lawmakers in Washington disagreed with the state officials about the status of I-69.
“The project’s not dead,” said Ciaran Clayton, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes. “It’s going a lot slower than we’d like.”
Some of the project within Texas is already happening, such as the widening of U.S. 281 to make it Interstate compatible, she said.
A $300 billion highway bill approved by Congress in July carved out $50 million for studies on the I-69 project. The money is on top of more than $20 million from the previous three years.
Once environmental studies are finished, the state will know where the highway is going to go. Then Hinojosa would work with other lawmakers to determine when construction would start and find the money for it, Clayton said,
The highway bill increases Texas’ rate of return on gas tax dollars sent to Washington from 90.5 percent under the previous highway bill to 92 percent by 2008. The new reimbursement rate will increase Texas’ share of highway funding to $2.89 billion.
Now that more federal transportation dollars are flowing to Texas, “at this point the state needs to decide whether I-69 is a top priority,” said Chris Paulitz, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
“For decades, TxDOT has shortchanged the Valley,” U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, said in an e-mailed statement. “The resources that should have gone to construct an expressway connecting us to the rest of the state went instead to Dallas, Houston and elsewhere. Since TxDOT will receive a significant increase in federal funding from the new transportation bill, the question for I-69 should be not where’s the funeral but when is the ribbon cutting."
Houghton blamed federally funded transportation projects in Alaska and Massachusetts for the lack of money for the I-69 project, but some in Washington say most of the money was never really expected to come from Congressional earmarks.
Funding for state transportation projects could come from several sources, Houghton said, and local communities need to be involved with voicing their transportation needs and creative with ways to fund them.
He mentioned funding could come through tolls, bonds or raising taxes and fees on water, electricity or cable bills.
The Rio Grande Valley Partnership, a chamber of commerce for the Valley, and the Rio Grande Valley Mobility Task Force, a lobby group, hosted the luncheon.
Texas would benefit from a corridor through the state because it would make it easier to move goods from Mexico and overseas out of the state.
“If you want commerce, you’ve got to move it faster,” he said. “We are going to be the trade corridor for this hemisphere.”
Partnership president and CEO Bill Summers said he was surprised by Houghton’s remarks.
“I don’t think it’s dead, I just think we’ve got to find another source of funding,” he said after the lunch. “It might be dead for a while. The concept of I-69 is not dead.”
Whether funded by the state or federal governments, there will eventually be a major highway connection to the Valley, he said.
“They’re not going to take that dream away from us.”
Posted on Nov 09, 05 | 12:00 am
With all the construction on 83, the big time construction on 281 through Edinburg, plus the excellent roads in and out of the Valley on 77 and 281, I don't see why a real interstate is needed. Yes, you have to slow down on 281 in Falfurias and Premont but you can then cut over to Kingsville (lots of red lights). On 77 you've got pretty much clear sailing all the way to Bishop. Get past Bishop and when the construction in Robstown is completed, it will be just about clear all the way to I37. Both 281 and 77 are divided. I don't see the advantage of an interstate.
Let me add something ....
The combination of private enterprise and government regulation of a monopoly is probably worse than merely letting government run it. I have some personal experience with an electric company where they were guaranteed a certain percentage of profit over their expenses. So how do they boost earnings and profit? Easy. By spending money they don't need to spend. In the case I saw they spent extravagantly on new software that was not needed to accomplish their job. The result was higher rates and more profit, guaranteed by government.
This sort of thing can happen in a government run monopoly like roads, but it concentrates the corruption in a single place that can be monitored by outside non-profits, the media, and the DA. In a government/private monopoly regulation scheme, it's easy for one side to point fingers at the other and obfuscate the actual corruption.
Bottom line, toll roads suck. I refuse to drive on them, and by my observation of existing toll roads they do nothing positive for the economy.
Another example. All major inter-city roads in France are toll, and their economy has been dead for decades. Get the picture?
Who said a thing about government regulation of a monopoly? If a monopoly occurs, then it occurs. Contrary to the scare tactics of 'conservatives' monopolies are not always a bad thing. As stated the concerns of the late 19th and 20th century were completely overblown. The lawsuits stemmed from disgruntled competitors, not the public who was paying less than before. Your situation arose from a government regulated monopoly and therein lies the problem. Government regulated
Bottom line, toll roads suck. I refuse to drive on them, and by my observation of existing toll roads they do nothing positive for the economy.
Of course they don't. In its current form it is nothing more than another road tax going into government coffers.
This is what I think of building highways to the 3rd world cesspit to our south
Jeeeeezz..... not this shit again !!!!!
According to my American Map Road Atlas (which uses maps by Mapquest), US 281 starts at Brownsville, TX and runs west to McAllen. Then it runs north through San Antonio and from there all the way up to Wichita Falls before it continues into Oklahoma, either on or parallel to I-44.
Or Chris Rea.
My road atlas has 281 basically starting at Brownsville, going west to McAllen, then north through San Antonio, where it basically follows the rest of the route you described. However, I don't know how well the American Map Corporation and Mapquest know Texas.
If I were in charge, I would just raise the gasoline and diesel fuel taxes, as well as vehicle licensing and registration fees, up to a point where major road projects could be affordable again and built reasonably quickly. I would also dedicate the entire gas tax (not just 3/4) to road building. Narby states the practical reason for such a course of action more eloquently than I could.
However, I suspect most new and present highways (even those currently operating as freeways) are going to end up being tolled because there is little political will and zero popularity for gas tax increases. And furthermore, toll roads appear to get build faster than free ones (the upside to toll roads). And, of course, the upside to PRIVATE toll roads is that Big Dig-like pork-barrel politics fall by the wayside while government gets mostly out of the way. The roads would also be built where a lot of people want to drive and ship things, not in some powerful legislator's district just because he's powerful.
You're welcome.
It's a lot more than just toll roads that are killing France's economy. It's difficult to get hired, the state mandates that companies give 8 weeks of vacation time for employees, there's massive welfare-state socialism, it's nearly impossible to fire employees (hence there's an incentive to AVOID hiring people if at all possible), and, I'm sure, there's a much higher gasoline tax than necessary to maintain and build roads. And the muslim riots aren't helping any.
Wow. That's how I feel about Chuck Schumer. :-)
sigh... But when I want to access someone elses toll road from one of your access roads for a different destination I'll be routed out of my way, then have to pay for the inconvenience by way of YOURs and who knows how many other toll roads.
More than likely not. If I own a company I'm going to make access to my road easy as possible. That means cooperation between companies as well as the competition (i.e. connecting roads between 'products'). Competiting railroad companies in the 1900s would have made their rails different scales and no connections to prevent companies from transferring product on competitors rail systems if your argument was valid
Yes, but I hear I-666 is paved with good intentions. ;)
There are a lot of better uses for those hundreds of millions of dollars, even in Alaska.
Those highways go through New Orleans. I was thinking from Memphis to Greenville MS along the US-61 corridor (in the Delta area), then to Yazoo City and Jackson, then finally along the US-49 corridor to Biloxi. It would also be a big help for hurricane evacuation in the Mississippi Gulf Coast as well as economic development in the Mississippi Delta area...
Upgrading I-30 and I-35, plus regional improvements in Texas in the US-59 and US-281 corridors (I-45 southern extension/alignment shift?), should be the priority there.
Ditto. The Feds are just posturing to push for more state-backed land acquisitions per Texas House Bill 3588. No Federal dollars needed. What a sham! We are being taken over by the old royals in Europe in a sense, as Spain's "King" Juan Carlos is said to be a major owner of CINTRA. millions of acres are coming off the tax rolls - affecting school districts across the state. And the highway is designed to link MExican West Coast ports in order to bypass California. More cheap foreign labor at our expense.
What if you're just visiting in the cul-de-sac neighborhood? Who do you pay? The person you are visiting?
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