The developer of the first phase of the Trans Texas Corridor super highway toll system says Texas needs an addition: 600 miles of new rail line from Dallas-Fort Worth to Mexico for freight trains.
That's the proposal from Cintra-Zachry, the Spanish and American partnership already working on the first section of toll road for cars and trucks, announced by state transportation officials Wednesday.
The Trans Texas Corridor is the plan kick-started several years ago by Gov. Rick Perry to build 4,000-plus miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines, utility and water lines, and even broadband data.
The new rail line could ease congestion on Interstate 35 by reducing the need for about 1 million trucks. It could also improve traffic safety, get hazardous materials out of urban areas and reduce pollution, the developer and state officials said.
Cintra-Zachry gave a rough outline of the plan in a letter to the Texas Transportation Commission.
Commission officials said Cintra-Zachry would pay about $5 billion to build the rail line, then charge companies to use it. The developer is spending its own money on the highway and will collect on its investment with tolls.
Cintra-Zachry was selected last year to develop the first phase of the project, a 600-mile traffic and trade route from Oklahoma to Mexico to run roughly parallel to Interstate 35.
If the state chooses to pursue the rail plan, Cintra-Zachry is not guaranteed to be the developer. State rules require the government to pursue alternative bids.
Although rail companies would not be forced to use it, they probably would if it helps them move cargo faster, commission Chairman Ric Williamson said. Trains could travel up to 70 mph shipping goods across the state or in and out of Mexico.
Trans Texas Corridor rail system plans
The Texas Transportation Commission is firming up plans to include a rail system in the proposed Trans Texas Corridor.
State transportation officials predict all three major railroads in Texas will want to use the cargo rail line. This will be the largest rail project in decades and will take thousands of 18-wheelers off the highways. Bids for the project are still being accepted by the transportation department.
Cargo rail line would link North Texas to border (excerpt)
11:56 AM CST on Wednesday, March 29, 2006
By TONY HARTZEL / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN - State leaders plan to unveil a proposal Wednesday to build a new cargo rail line from North Texas to the U.S.-Mexican border.
The rail line, which would be the largest built anywhere in the United States in decades, would be part of the Trans-Texas Corridor project.
The Texas DOT has scheduled a noon news conference in Austin to announce the project's first bid -- from Cintra-Zachry, the private company that also wants to build the Trans-Texas Corridor project. The Transportation Department will solicit other bids.
...
Strayhorn, Friedman and Bell make case against Perry
The two independent candidates for governor and their Democratic counterpart came together Friday night for a candidate forum at a rural meeting hall outside of Temple. Kinky Friedman, Carole Keeton Strayhorn mixed talk about taxes, tolls and education with barbed comments aimed at Governor Rick Perry and what they all said was ineffective leadership.
Although Perry was not represented at the forum, he defends the Trans Texas Corridor - and its tolled portions - as the best way to meet the state’s transportation needs quickly, and has challenged his detractors to come up with a plan of their own to meet that need.
Friday night’s event was held by the Blacklands Coalition, a strongly anti-toll road, anti Trans-Texas Corridor group, mostly made up of farmers. Although a place was reserved at the table for Perry as well as his opponents, no one in the crowd expected him to attend.
Instead, after booing the Trans Texas Corridor and raising funds to start a new political action committee to oppose it, the crowd of over 200 heard speeches from Perry’s opponents. The following are some of the highlights:
Carole Keeton Strayhorn took aim at Perry exclusively and did not make substantive mention of the other two candidates. Some quotes from her speech.
“My honest and passionate disagreement with Rick Perry have been the cornerstone of the debate for the last two years.”
“It’s time to put Texas above politics and it’s time to put partisan politics aside.”
“In the last two years, Rick Perry’s corporate welfare slush fund is up.”
“Now is th time for Texans to take back Texas…and blast the Trans Texas Corridor off the bureaucratic books.”
Noting that a constitutional amendment to stop eminent domain was not passed (a statutory bill was), the comptroller stated, “In a Strayhorn administration, we will have a constitutional amendment protecting private property rights period.”
“Rick Perry wants his legacy to be that he sat in the governor’s chair for more years than anyone else. Well, I don’t sit – I do.”
On stronger penalties for Sexual Predators: “My administration will act…As governor, I will throw the sexual predators in and throw away the keys.”
Kinky Friedman mixed humor and policy, sometimes leaving in doubt which was which. He took aim at Perry, but also at the political establishment in general, referring to Republicans and Democrats as “crips and bloods” who have “put Texas on Ebay.” Some of Friedman’s other comments:
“I’m the only candidate running with no political experience. But I have a lot of human experience.”
“I support gay marriage because I believe gay people have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us…And I’m the only candidate who supports both gay marriage and prayer in schools.”
On the Trans Texas Corridor: “It’s a bad idea. It’s like Dubai running the ports.”
On Education: “We’re at the bottom…I’d dearly like for Texas to be first in something other than executions, toll roads and property tax.”
Friedman’s solution? Gambling: “We invented Texas Hold-em, and we can’t even play it here…Legalizing casino gambling will pay for education – not just a bandaid, it will pay for it.”
“The first thing I would do as governor is get rid of the TAKS test.” – Friedman received his best applause of the night for this line, then added, “The kids today don’t know if the Civil War was here or in Europe because it’s not on the test.”
“My policy is no teacher left behind, and in order to do that, we need to leave one governor behind.”
On border protection, Friedman suggested what he calls the “Five Mexican General Plan.” The plan would be to put $1 million in a bank account and hire five Mexican generals to patrol sectors of the Texas border. For each immigrant that comes across, the state would deduct $5,000 from the account.
On Rick Perry: “To know what Rick Perry stands for, follow the money – from the homebuilders to Perry and from the insurance companies to Perry.”
Democrat Chris Bell released a fiery press release today attacking Strayhorn, noting that many of the principles in the Trans Texas Corridor plan were originally ideas from her own E-Texas plan. Nonetheless, Bell – despite having a strongly anti-toll group to speak before – never brought up Strayhorn at all in his comments. Some of his statements:
“Money [referring to PAC donations which had been solicited] is not going to stop the Trans Texas Corridor. A new governor is going to stop the Trans Texas Corridor.”
“We need roads. We all know that. What we don’t need is to have our land taken away and sold to private business.”
Referring to Gov. Perry’s new slogan, Bell said, “We’re proud of Texas, Mr. Perry, we just don’t like what you’re doing with it.”
“The greatness of Texas is waiting to be released. With boldness and dedication it can be released…Budgets are not only fiscal documents, they’re moral documents.” All three candidates promoted teacher pay raises, with Bell promising a $6,000 pay raise, Strayhorn a $4,000 pay raise, and Friedman supporting a raise, but not giving a specific number. Friedman was the only candidate who suggested a funding source – gambling – for such a raise.
Distributed by www.lonestarreport.org
State to get bid to build rail project
Details on consortium making offer, terms of deal expected today.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A consortium led by a Fortune 500 company today will give the state a proposal to build a rail project from north of Dallas to south of San Antonio as part of the Trans-Texas Corridor, Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said.
Williamson, contacted after the Texas Department of Transportation called a noon news conference for today to make a "monumental announcement," would not reveal further details about the rail proposal — including the company or its proposed terms for doing the project — until the news conference.
But the state has been talking to Union Pacific and BNSF Railway for a couple of years about moving most of their freight operations out of urban centers such as Austin along the Interstate 35 corridor. The Trans-Texas Corridor, as proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, was envisioned as a network of cross-state toll roads, freight and passenger rail lines, and utility lines.
The state Transportation Department in December 2004 announced that Cintra-Zachry, a partnership of Spanish toll road builder Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corp., had offered to spend $6 billion to build a four-lane toll road from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border paralleling I-35. Cintra-Zachry is working on a more detailed plan under a $3.5 million state contract with the state.
The partnership also pledged that it would, as the 300-mile project is built in segments, pay the state $1.2 billion in concession fees. That money could be used for other transportation projects, including rail.
The state in the next few weeks will announce the course of a 10-mile-wide swath that, after a couple more years of refinements, would include the several-hundred-foot-wide path of the tollway. In theory rail lines could be built alongside or in the median of road.
Urban leaders up and down I-35 would welcome a cross-country freight alternative. Union Pacific, whose line runs from south of San Antonio through San Marcos, Austin, Round Rock and on to Taylor, has two dozen or more freight trains a day passing through the corridor.
The procession of slow-moving trains causes constant traffic tie-ups in San Marcos. Derailments and the hazardous materials sometimes on board freight trains present a safety hazard. And transit advocates, if the Union Pacific line were used only for the four or five local freight runs a day, would like to run commuter trains from Georgetown to San Antonio along the rail line that runs through Central Austin in the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) right of way.
Under the agency's rules, receipt of an unsolicited proposal for a project triggers a procedure in which it seeks competitors. The original proposers, or one of the late-comers, could end up doing such a job. What makes this proposal significant, Williamson said, is that the terms as outlined so far would already be highly favorable from the state's point of view.
"It's as good as one can hope for," he said. "It will only get better."
[Alice City Council] leans toward grants rather than $86K marketing contract (excerpt)
Council also votes against proposed I-69 corridor
...
The council also voted Tuesday to pass a resolution opposing a state proposal that would build the Trans-Texas-69 Corridor as a new highway west of Highway 281, and instead voiced support for creating the corridor along existing highways.
Prior to the vote, Representative Gonzalez-Toureilles asked the council to support the resolution Tuesday, and said the I-69 Corridor was an important issue to the region.
"I just urge the council to adopt this resolution to protect private property rights," Gonzalez-Toureilles said. "This is something our farmers and ranchers are against, and we need to protect rural South Texas."
...
