Posted on 06/04/2006 12:10:42 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Who's calling the shots?
Who will have final say on where and how the Trans-Texas Corridor system is developed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area?
Will it be the Texas Transportation Commission, working with North Central Texas elected officials and transportation planners who know the region and its long-term mobility needs better than anyone?
Or will it be a Madrid-based company, Cintra, whose primary interest is making bucks by extracting tolls?
The Star-Telegram Editorial Board strongly believes that state and regional officials and transportation planners should decide.
The primary determinant should be what best meets the current and future transportation and economic needs of the Metroplex, rather than what ensures the most lucrative outcome for Cintra and its Texas partner, Zachry Construction of San Antonio.
A priority of the Trans-Texas Corridor in the D/FW, Austin and San Antonio areas is to relieve congestion on Interstate 35, which runs through both Fort Worth and Dallas.
Cintra and Zachry are lead partners in a venture in which they propose to use $6 billion in private investment to build a 316-mile, four-lane toll road dubbed TTC-35 from the Metroplex to San Antonio and pay a $1.2 billion concession to the state.Cintra-Zachry would collect tolls for 50 years.
Cintra favors running the TTC-35 segment around the east edge of Dallas County, presumably because it would be more profitable.
Many D/FW-area officials, business leaders and transportation experts want the corridor to run up the Metroplex's middle, along the path of an extended Texas 360 and on to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
That concept, which we prefer, has been endorsed by the Regional Transportation Council (RTC), which includes many local officials and is the chief transportation planner for North Central Texas.
Metroplex officials are concerned that Cintra-Zachry might have greater sway in determining TTC-35's path than they do. Comments by Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson magnified those concerns.
Williamson also has said, however, that D/FW officials will have a voice. He noted that Cintra has proposed eventually to build a rail line around the western side of the Metroplex. It could become part of a huge outer transportation loop for freight trains, 18-wheelers and autos, similar to one envisioned by the RTC.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is to be discussed in RTC meetings, open to the public, June 26 and 27 in Fort Worth, Dallas and Richardson. The Fort Worth meeting is at 6:30 p.m. June 26 at the Intermodal Transportation Center, 1001 Jones St.
Regional transportation issues also are to be discussed at RTC meetings June 12 and 13 in Fort Worth, Lewisville and Duncanville. The Fort Worth meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. June 13 at the Intermodal Transportation Center.
The Trans-Texas Corridor is likely to become the most expensive and far-ranging transportation undertaking in the state's history.
It's important that it be done right in the Metroplex, with state and local officials and transportation planners calling the shots instead of Cintra.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
How do you like Jerome Corsi's expose of this NAFTA/ChiCom superhighway? Our ports aren't big enough to accommodate the Chinese super ships plus dealing with longshoremen is a huge headache. The solution is to off load ChiCom crap in new Mexican mega-harbors and transport the boodle via truck and rail to the USA
Sounds like they want a local service tollroad. This is moving cargo greater distances. Why doesn't Dallas-Ft.Worth build their own toll road system if they want one?
And I hope they don't consider the option that Austin is, take existing highways (built with public money) and make them into toll roads.
BTTT
At the risk of providing an objective, outside view, I just ask, how can these two views be different? Only patronage politics could make them seem different.
Our ports aren't big enough to accommodate the Chinese super ships plus dealing with longshoremen is a huge headache. The solution is to off load ChiCom crap in new Mexican mega-harbors and transport the boodle via truck and rail to the USA
NO way man, we're the govt. and we know what's best for you now give me some more of your money and shut up.
How much you wanna bet NIMBYs and enviros are also partially responsible for this situation?
I was thinking the same thing: why don't they build their own road? Is it really that difficult to raise toll bonds for a separate road, rather than try and impose conditions on somebody else's?
Walmart also has a regional distro in Sanger off I35.
Why not just widen I35?
How about a big fat NO WAY
Where?
The existing I-35 right of way is rather narrow, because it was one of the first interstate highways laid out in Texas. The TxDoT engineers didn't put in enough room for entrance and exit lanes or enough separation between opposing lanes of traffic. The incredibly heavy traffic and substandard separation of opposing lanes has lead to quite a few horrific accidents in which cars left their lanes ran across the median and collided head on with opposing traffic especially in bad weather and fog. Notice that now concrete barriers have been erected to prevent future head on collisions. In order to do the current expansion from 2 to 3 lanes in each direction, it was necessary to completely rebuild the entire highway rather than just add on an addtional lane. There is quite a bit of develped land along both sides of I-35 all the way from San Antonio to Hillsboro. It would be cheaper to buy bigger new undeveloped rights of way than to buy up expensive developed land adjacent to the existing higway. It is also cheaper and faster to build a new state of the art highway designed based on the experience of the last several decades than to expand I-35 while periodically rerouting its traffic to keep it open during construction.
I35 is a local off/on or more of a commuter type roadway. The TTC is supposed to be long haul with limited access on/off designed to move traffic long distances at rapid speed. Like this article is complaining about using 360 through the metroplex..... totally out of context with the purpose.
Aren't that many virgin, undeveloped, deep-water harbors on the West Coast left, but I suspect you know that.
Austin didn't do that. None of the toll roads were built as free roads. The tolling was to speed up the start of construction of roads that otherwise wouldn't yet be under construction if done via traditional financing.
But the Fort Worth is a very important rail switching center. They want the jobs currently in the Fort Worth associated with the rail facilities to stay near Forth Worth and the metroplex. They don't want them moved to the east side of Dallas.
Even if there were, the NIMBY's would file so many lawsuits it would take 30 years to build a new port there. Can you imagine how many environmental studies there would be financed with federal dollars just to find new endangered species at any proposed site.
I am astounded that folks cannot understand that ports don't simply pop-up like mushrooms after a rain. If there is a demand for it, it will be built. If you don't like the idea that one will be built in Mexico, build one in the U.S. I assure you, if the demand exists, one will be built somewhere . . . black helicopter riding globalists or not.
I'm all in favor of mega ports getting built on the Pacific coast of Mexico. They would create jobs in Mexico so people don't have to come to the US to have economic opportunity. I'm just saying that the NIMBY's in California and other west coast states would block just about any proposal to build new ports there. By connecting Mexican ports via toll roads and new high speed rail corridors to the Texas TTC, there is the potential for huge economic benefits to Texas in transporting and warehousing goods coming from those ports.
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