Posted on 03/10/2006 6:22:19 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Regional planners are considering three Collin County routes as options for the state's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which would link Mexico to the Oklahoma border.
The President George Bush Turnpike, Dallas North Tollway and the proposed Collin County Outer Loop are included on a Trans-Texas Corridor study conducted by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The agency manages the Regional Transportation Council, which allocates federal transportation funds.
The agency developed maps for potential auto, freight and rail traffic. The state will narrow study options for the corridor's future in the next few weeks.
No decisions on narrowing potential paths for the 600-mile corridor from Laredo to the Rio Grande Valley have been made, said Gaby Garcia of the Texas Department of Transportation's Keep Texas Moving program. Officials expect to narrow the potential corridors from the current 50- to 60-mile path to 10 miles wide, she said.
The final route for the state's 50-year plan won't be determined until 2007. The state has been conducting public hearings for two years to determine Trans-Texas Corridor options.
“Suggesting a route suggests an entirely different stage of the game,” Garcia said. “Everybody wants to know how it will connect and will it connect at all.”
The Trans-Texas Corridor planners envision separate toll lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks, plus freight railways and high-speed commuter railways routes. Planners have to determine how to minimize right-of way needs for the project, the state's project Web site states. The Trans-Texas Corridor should use existing infrastructure by aligning with existing highways, railways and utility corridors, it adds.
“Local officials should help determine how communities access the Trans-Texas Corridor,” it says.
Regional planners are considering ways to connect the Trans-Texas Corridor through the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including the Dallas North Tollway and the Bush Turnpike, both of which are controlled by the North Texas Tollway Authority, said NTTA spokeswoman Donna Huerta. The NTTA is referring all questions to the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
NCTCOG developed ideas based on using the current tollway system, said Greg Royster, its principal transportation engineer. It plans are based on “near-term” solutions for auto traffic for the next 10 to 15 years The two NTTA routes would serve auto traffic that already exists, he said.
No figures have been developed on the amount of additional traffic the NTTA's routes would carry or required changes to the two options, he said.
“The original route didn't work for the region because it's investment was way outside and involved a costly transportation infrastructure,” Royster said. “We want to bring traffic on existing and planned facilities.”
Collin County's proposed Outer Loop is being considered by regional planners to serve long-term needs over 50 years, the Trans-Texas Corridor's. Collin County's proposed Outer Loop would link North Central Expressway to Rockwall County.
County commissioners weren't aware of that idea, said Commissioner Joe Jaynes. He was unaware regional planners were considering NTTA's two routes in Collin County for potential Trans-Texas corridor use.
“They have been talking about an area 1,400 feet wide, I just don't see how that can happen,” He said. “I heard rumors and got an e-mail from one constituent, but that doesn't make sense. It would be nice if local elected officials knew something.”
Long-time toll road opponent Sharon Overall continues to question the idea of toll roads. Overall campaigned against using tolls to finance construction of State Highway 121 main lanes.
“Tollways are discriminatory to poor and middle class people. They have segregated Plano by income,” she said. “Poor people can not afford to live on the west side of town. They all live along U.S. 75. When I was sending out e-mails fighting SH 121 to become a toll road, one person replied that it would make our property values go up. Another was more blunt: He said that it would keep the riff-raff out. Does this sound like economic justice? This sounds like class warfare.”
County commissioners will conduct a public hearing on proposed Outer Loop alignments at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Collin County Courthouse, 210 S. McDonald in McKinney.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
With this new super highway, no one will need tunnels.
With this new super highway, no one will need tunnels.
I remember when Texas was a solidly Democratic state. Sales tax at 3% (and the Governor wanted to cut it to 2% as there was too much surplus.) Things have changes.
It should be. It's just that most people don't have the faintest idea of what it's all about.
The upcoming border war will thankfully kill this project. This is just another land grab by the rich to use eminent domain to obtain land for little ot nothing and use it to raise money for those who don't need it. The project would would use TXDOT to build it at the taxpayer's expense. The cost of concrete would go through the roof. Areas of East Texas would become isolated by the ribbon of concrete. The farms in the area would be sacrified for the toll takers and no one will use this white elephant.
Um, it looks like your link is linked to itself - could you repost the link to the maps for us again please? :) Pleeeeeeeease...
Here's the link to the NCTCOG Page...
http://www.nctcog.org/trans/corridor/
Thanks for the ping!
That doesn't make much sense. The tollway is at capacity, in a narrow corredor with no room to expand. (Which are you going to bulldoze at LBJ - the Oxy tower or the Galleria?) There is another tight squeeze at Addison. There is a little more room after you get to Collin County, but even there the corridor is packed at rush hour and development is beginning to hem in the corridor.
George Bush is East - West in Collin - you arent' going to be able to get trucks to Oklahoma that way. In Dallas County it does run north/south, and there is still plenty of capacity between Airport Freeway and I -35 -- the streach that has only been open for about 4 months. And you'd be dumping traffic on the already crowded I-35E.
Finally, the Outer Loop is East - West.
If you want a new through route in Collin, you're going to have to go east of the lakes, and even then you need to move fast, as the area is beginning to develop.
If they really want to move through traffic, they need to go east of Terrell or west of Weatherford.
BTTT
Naw, it makes perfect sense, this story just has (as usual) a reporter who doesn't comprehend and convey the full story, a politician that didn't bother to pick up the phone and make a 10-minute call to get the answers before bloviating, and an activist spouting any lie that pops into her head (anyone really believe that the tollway caused economic segregation in Plano, since the $100,000 east side and the $500,000 west side neighborhoods already existed before the tollway was built up there?)
The first section of the TTC-35 to be built will be from Dallas to San Antonio, not border to border. It is an incremental project, based on timing of demand. There are going to be connectors and improvements to existing roads to funnel traffic from various areas of the urban areas to the rural TTC-35 trunk. And not all of the route will contain all the elements of road, rail, and utilities, some will be just road. So we are NOT talking about trying to jam a 1,200' row (or anything close to that) through a built-up urban area. The whole concept of the TTC is about avoiding that and the concurrent higher costs.
So what the article is probably talking about is how the connecting flows from Collin County will reach the starter TTC-35 that will run from south, southeast, or east of Dallas to San Antonio. The TXDOT TTC-35 project map to be released in a few weeks will likely show the TTC build-out corridor as looping east around Dallas and Lakes Ray Hubbard and Lavon, before angling towards a connection with I-35 near Gainesville. But there probably isn't enough demand right now for all of that, especially since lots of the truck traffic will divert at I-20 and I-30, so initially the route may end at I-30, with OK through traffic being directed via the GW Bush Tollway (with perhaps a new extension of the GWB from I-30 to I-20) and then up the Dallas North Tollway. By doing so they might then be able to justify extending the DNT further north earlier, with perhaps a new portion from the DNT to Gainesville. Alternatively they may go ahead and build the further out Collin Co. Connector from I-30 to the DNT.
Or they may just end the TTC-35 for now at I-30 and have the OK I-35 for now continue through Ft. Worth, while fast tracking the much needed widening on the city's north side. Since the freight rail bypass of DFW will almost certainly go around the west side of Ft. Worth, that may be the first bypass to OK built, while TTC-35 doesn't go north of I-30 on the east side of Dallas for a long time. So there may be a TTC-35 split around Hillsboro similar to I-35 (and maybe incorporating a good bit of I-35W, which is more underutilized south of Alvarado.)
It is all about planning for the next 50+ years while building incrementally as demand justifies. So some of the project may include fast-tracking improvements or extensions of existing roads in urban areas until the bypass can be built and to better connect with it.
I suppose one reason is that Spain (Cintra's country of origin) does not support the insurgents in Iraq, nor do they help Iran realize it's nuclear ambitions, as UAE was said to be doing by one FNC talking head. And, as far as I know, Spain has no problem recognizing Israel.
Another reason, I suppose, is that it's a highway, not a port, which means it's a transportation corridor, not a place of entry into the U.S., which is where the security concerns should be, so that everything within the country remains free.
You're welcome. :-)
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