Posted on 08/23/2006 7:43:39 AM PDT by Froufrou
One out of every eight votes in Rick Perry's margin of victory in the 2002 race for governor came from the rural counties along the Interstate 35 path of Perry's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. Now, as he seeks re-election, Perry's long-range transportation vision is turning into a political liability for the Republican chief executive.
More than 14,000 Texans — almost all opposed to the Trans-Texas Corridor — turned out at public hearings held by the Texas Department of Transportation this summer to express their displeasure with the highway and the governor.
"I'd like to admit that I made one big mistake in my life. I voted for Rick Perry," Rogers-area farmer Leonard Cobb testified at one hearing.
All four of Perry's re-election challengers oppose the corridor. Democrat Chris Bell, independent Kinky Friedman and Libertarian James Werner all have spoken out against it. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, running as an independent, attended many of the hearings and called the project the "Trans-Texas Catastrophe" while promising to stop Perry's "land-grabbing highway henchmen."
One of Perry's fellow Republicans on the statewide ballot — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — also has criticized the project, saying it imposes too heavily on rural landowners.
The Republican Party of Texas in June passed a plank in its platform calling for the repeal of legislation authorizing the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The Texas Farm Bureau — a longtime Perry political supporter — wants the state to scrap the project.
A dozen alternative routes for Trans-Texas Corridor 35 are under consideration. The toll road corridor would run parallel to Interstate 35 through rural areas from Laredo to Oklahoma, bypassing city congestion to become the new trade highway.
Many of those at the hearings referred to the top alternative on the color map of the Trans-Texas Corridor as the "blue line," a pathway of eminent domain that would take homes and farms and churches for a toll road that likely would be built by a consortium headed by a Spanish company.
Farmers claim the 600-mile-long swath will cause the condemnation of about 136 square miles of land, could divide farms and could force rural school buses to go miles out of the way to get from one side of the corridor to the other. Many local officials fear it will remove land from their local property tax base.
"This lipstick has already been put on this pig. Now the only way to stop this boondoggle is to send Rick Perry home in November," Mark Wilson testified at a Waco hearing.
Texas Transportation Chairman Ric Williamson said the corridor concept is the only feasible means of easing congestion on state highways while guaranteeing future expansion when needed.
"For every 14,000 people who congregate and protest, there are 1.4 million in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth that recognize congestion on 35 is a problem and somebody's got to do something about it," Williamson said.
Officials of the Dallas-Fort Worth area have been generally neutral on the corridor concept, but they questioned the specific plan because its route bypassed the cities and would have done little to relieve local congestion.
Perry last Friday ordered the corridor study to include an alternative route proposed by local officials.
Dallas County Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, a Republican, said he believes people in the Metroplex largely would oppose the plan because it relies heavily on tolls and has included little public input in the planning.
"I dare say, if you took a vote in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it would be voted down," he said.
The Trans-Texas Corridor actually is a series of new transportation corridors proposed across Texas that would be financed and built by private contractors and likely paid for with tolls.
The corridors probably would be about 1,200 feet wide to accommodate separate lanes for truck traffic, passenger traffic, freight rail, commuter rail and utilities.
So far, only two projects are even remotely on the drawing board.
TTC35 would run parallel to Interstate 35. The state has contracted with a consortium led by Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio and Cintra of Spain to develop a master plan for the corridor. That plan is what has been the subject of public hearings and public angst this summer.
TTC69, which would run from Mexico to past Houston, is in the preliminary planning stage.
"Fourteen thousand people is a nice turnout, but the fact of the matter is we're looking for input, any better ideas," Perry said of the hearings.
Perry said the population growth in the state and traffic congestion demand additional highways and that toll roads are a good way to pay for them. He said most of his political opponents have offered no alternatives, chiding Strayhorn for supporting expensive double-decking of Interstate 35 without explaining how to pay for it.
"As the chief executive officer of the state, as a person who has laid out a vision, I think it makes sense for most communities," Perry said. "I think it makes sense to build toll roads."
But the road for Perry's election may not be that easy on this issue.
Strayhorn on Monday outlined a plan to scrap the project and improve I-35 in the existing right of way with additional lanes and double-decking in places. Perry has contended that double-decking would be prohibitively expensive, but Strayhorn said it would be more appealing to affected Texans.
"This agency is not listening to the people," Strayhorn said of the transportation hearings.
Greg Gerig, a corn farmer and a director of the Blackland Coalition opposed to the corridor, said there is a feeling that state officials have been arrogant in their reaction to the turnout at the meetings.
"Perry has in effect said, 'We don't care what people at the hearings said; we're going to build it anyway,'" Gerig said.
Perry said he believes he can persuade voters to look at his entire record.
"If it is just a single-issue person who doesn't want toll roads, I'll do everything I can to explain to him why it is good, thoughtful public policy for the entire state of Texas."
I said support, I sent him money. Will vote for Gobbs.
He is a lying rino.
Your welcome.
Just take a look at his/her/its lengthy posting history. If someone's posts here seem to be almost exclusively devoted to bashing President Bush, free markets, and numerous other Republicans without suggesting any GOP'er's who they support, some might find that worthy of consideration when weighing that poster's vitriolic and voluminous attacks. Especially when others have noted and quoted almost verbatim Bush/conservatism/free market bashing posts by a 'hedgetrimmer' over at the liberal website Democrat Underground.
Identifying isn't silencing.
Thanks for the ping!
Having proudly posted before reading I now see that the major concern is the tie in with Mexico. So stop it at some town before Texas, just do something to ease the traffic on I-35 before there is grid lock clear to the Oklahoma line.
Should Perry thus "Listen to the people" and push for amnesty,
Your logic is flawed with that statement. If the majority of those marching were illegals then, they are not representatives of the voting public. At least I hope they're not.
To date, Governor Perry, a Republican, has not met with Democrats Richardson or Napolitano."
Just to be fair here, there will be a meeting of border governors later this week. Let's see, there will be a RINO, a LIB, a LIB and a RINO.
You're welcome.
the theory of NAFTA is that by creating more jobs and thus more middle income in Mexico, it will reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming to the US for jobs and a higher standard of living. Free trade brings lower costs for goods, leaving more leftover money for a person to spend on other things (imported goods that produce importing, distribution, retailing, and finance jobs, domestic goods, and domestic services) and thus stimulating our economy...NAFTA and amnesty are really different topics.
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What happened in reality was that american tax payer subsidized wheat/corn/barley went down to Mexico. That midwest US government wheat/corn/barley was a third cheaper than what the small farmers of Mexico could produce. The US government subsidized great plains grains killed the business of the Mexican small farmer like they did to eastern US small farmer 3-4 generations ago. 30% of Mexico's population were still farmers as of 1990. That percentage is rapidly falling. Guess where they're going. Yep. North.
Recently the US Congress passed CAFTA for central america; same thing will happen for central america. Guess where those folks will go.
Of course they will need better access to the USA and more schools prisons and hospitals. And since the democratic party cannot reproduce because they believe its the birthright of every woman to abort her child--the democrats will want to give the illegals and convicts citizenship & voting rights.
Your taxpayer dollars at work.
Diddle, I trust you are least being paid for your time on these boards;
Deek you've been given a dozen reasons for why the plan is a bad idea.
They just don't impress you. That's ok.
You'll find that people will just generally move around you. That's all.
Government, like chemotherapy, can have bad side effects, even on other countries like Mexico apparently.
I don't like the idea of toll roads, but all the towns east of 35, at least from Waco to Austin, are drying up and blowing away. Many of them are just a little ways from being ghost towns, and 35 is turning into a quagmire (we need to pull out). I suspect that by 2020, there will be a big L starting at the Oklahoma border and going down to San Antonio, then going east to Houston that will be entirely urban. Some major highways HAVE to be built. Austin is practically undriveable now, because the citizens denied the need for improved roads for thirty years. While I'm not nuts about Perry's solution, Kinky's is "have another beer and don't worry about it" and Strayhorn's is a solution that would cost billions more, provide less new roads, and she hasn't proposed a way to pay for it (gosh, I wonder if she might be thinking STATE INCOME TAX?)
Toll roads are a pain in the butt, but nobody is being forced to use them. And construction costs for freeways has to be paid by all of us, whether we use them or not.
So a concept that the actual users pay for the road is not that unreasonable.
The land grab argument is silly unless those who use it are willing to declare that Texas never needs another road, ever. As long as new roads require land to build them on, it's a necessary tradeoff.
Sad but true, there is not a conservative republican in this race.
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