Posted on 06/16/2006 10:20:30 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States is being proposed amid controversy over security and the damage to the environment.
The "nation's most modern roadway", proposed between Laredo in Texas and Duluth, Minnesota, along Interstate 35, would allow the US to bypass the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to import goods from China and the Far East into the heart of middle America via Mexico, saving both cost and time.
However, critics argue that the ten-lane road would lay a swathe of concrete on top of an already over-developed transport infrastructure and further open the border with Mexico to illegal immigrants or terrorists.
According to a weekly Conservative magazine published in the US, the US administration is "quietly yet systematically" planning the massive highway, citing as a benefit that it would negate the power of two unions, the Longshoremen and Teamsters.
Another source claimed the highway was a "bi-partisan effort" with support from both Republicans and Democrats that would reduce freight transport times across the nation by days.
Under the plan - believed to be an extension of a strategic transportation plan signed in March last year by the US president, George Bush, Paul Martin, the then prime minister of Canada, and Vincente Fox, the Mexican president - imported goods would pass a border "road bump" in the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, before being loaded on to lorries for a straight run to a major hub, or "SmartPort", in Kansas, Oklahoma.
Border guards and customs officers would check the electronic security tags of lorries and their holds at a £1.6 million facility being built in Kansas City, before sending them on to the road network that links the US cities of Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit with Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver across the Canadian border.
Rail tracks and pipelines for oil and natural gas would run alongside the road.
Following the release of a 4,000-page environmental study, construction of the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor is reportedly due to begin next year, backed by US state and governmental agencies and a Spanish private sector company, Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte.
Tiffany Melvin, the executive director of Nasco, a non-profit organisation which has received £1.4 million from the US Department of Transport to study the proposal, said: "We're working on developing the existing system; these highways were developed in the 1950s and we have number of different programmes we're working on to provide alternative fuels and improve safety and security issues.
"We get comments that we are working to bring in terrorists and drug dealers, but this is simply not true.
"This is a bi-partisan effort that will ultimately improve our transportation infrastructure.
"Trade with China is increasing greatly, and the costs of our transportation system are ultimately born by the consumer.
"We do offer links to Canada and Mexico, but we are working on the trade competitiveness of America. We are planning for the future."
Eric Olson, the transportation spokesmen for the California-based Sierra Club, a national environmental awareness organisation, said the road would cause significant damage.
"Something on that scale would have a massive environmental impact," he said.
"Building a large-scale new highway does not seem like the best solution.
"There is a great need for fixing our existing roads and bridges. That needs to be a priority before we start building new massive road projects."
That is the only thing that might kill this (if it is true).
Oh, I'm aware that she has delusions of grandeur. She must lobby satan in her sleep to be higher up the food chain.
And, the puppet masters would be a little bit dumber than they are to actually put her in power. But, they are dumb in some serious areas. They are dumb enough to think of themselves as the smartest creatures around.
She could still end up in power. Stranger things have happened. We need to pray and work against it.
I am quite sure God Almighty will protect the lands given to the Israelites per His promise. Without anyone's help. It may not always seem like a 'win' at the moment, but God's ways are not our ways. Wouldn't you agree
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True. But God seems to have a hobby, passion, habit for cliffhangers and for making things exceedingly beyond impossible before He steps in and shows His grandeur and power.
So, many twists and turns can occur before the blood is as high as a horse's bridal.
And woe to anyone foolish enough to be complicit against God's Blood children of His promise to His buddies Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
"Power"? You think that those petty little bureaucratic offices are power? You're funny.
Leif Ericson Park?
Thats what I35 Denton - Ft Worth is right now...
Will they be the only ones paying for it?
:)
if so then they better keep the ditches cut and properly weeded too...that shouldnt be a problem
The TTC is a big topic here in Texas. I hear the arguments from the WallMartians that WalMart is good for the economy because they sell cheap goods. So, I would assume that the WalMartians would equally support this road because it will further help WMT sell cheap goods.
I have kept myself informed. This debate is very much a replay of all the NAFTA discussions.
It'a all just more duplicatation of government boondoggles. Have one "smart port" at the first entry into the USA and the you don't need the rest of them, do you?
As for the Texas republican party, they can pay for their ride and I can pay for mine. If they don't want to pay the toll, they can stay off the road.
"Leif Ericson Park?"
Yah, sure, you betcha!
"And if the Texans heard you make your silly argument, I suspect you would be making your points swinging from the tight end of a good sturdy Texas rope."
Poppycock! They'd just talk about it endlessly.
Don't know. I do know that it will be MEXICAN customs, that will be looking at them in Kansas City.
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