Could we see the Trans-Texas Corridor by 2013?

Drivers willing to pay to leave Interstate 35 in the dust could have an alternative as early as the summer of 2013.

For 15 cents a mile, drivers could cruise the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor for nearly 100 miles, from Hillsboro to the north Austin suburbs. The rest of the 370-mile corridor could be running in 2017, the report said.

That is according to a new 1,600-page master plan for the tollway, railroad and utility corridor that the firm Cintra-Zachry developed as it prepares to build the controversial project.

The report said the company’s investment will increase by $3.5 billion, construction could begin in five years, and the McLennan County portion could be operational two years later. However, Texas Department of Transportation officials noted its route, timeline and toll estimates are all likely to be revised as the project goes forward.

“(The master plan) does not set the route, it does not set the toll rate, it does not authorize construction,” agency spokesman Randall Dillard said. “It lays out a public-private partnership on how we could develop TTC 35.”

However, the route Cintra-Zachry used demands attention because it differs significantly from the official, preliminary 10-mile-wide area the state reviewed this summer in 54 public hearings.

The builder’s version feeds almost directly into Dallas/Fort Worth, then loops around to the east, while the official route veers east as early as McLennan County and takes a more gradual arc around the Metroplex.

If the route changes to look more like the builder’s option, it could benefit Hillsboro, where the economy is pinned to Interstate 35 traffic.

“I cannot be tempted to wax eloquent about this map and say, ‘They’re listening to us, we’re having an impact,’ ” Hillsboro Mayor Will Lowrance said. “You cannot draw that kind of conclusion from that document, because it has a disclaimer.”

No matter which route is used, the corridor could influence the travel budgets and traffic for Texas vacations and long commutes.

Drivers filling up at the Czech Stop along I-35 in West greeted the proposal as good news for chronic congestion but bad news for their wallets.

“Whoa, that would increase the cost of my trip to Oklahoma by about $40 each way,” said Barbara Meek, 50, of Austin. “I hope other people decide to pay the tolls and I-35 clears up.”

Motorcycle riders Carol Fowler, of Granite Shoals, and Cheryl McClelland, of Mansfield, support the plan to divert traffic from I-35 and improve safety.

Jim Pangman, 70, grew up on the East Coast system of toll roads long before moving to San Antonio and said Texas drivers will make due.

“User fees make sense,” Pangman said. “They’re going to need to do something.”

Because passenger vehicles pay 15.2 cents per mile and truck drivers pay 58.5 cents per mile, the whole plan relies on travelers and freight companies being willing to pay the toll, said Dillard, the Texas Department of Transportation spokesman.

“Yes, the public would be willing to pay a reasonable toll, and they would be willing to do that to bypass the congestion on I-35,” he said. “And (Cintra-Zachry) are willing to invest a considerable amount of money based on that.”

When the road opens, the master plan anticipates 24,000 drivers will use the new road between Hillsboro and Temple each day. Daily usage may climb to 148,000 by 2060, even as tolls rise above $1 per mile, the report said.

The building company includes Cintra, a Spanish firm, and Zachry, a Texas outfit. Cintra-Zachry is expected to invest $8.8 billion to construct the road and pay another $1.9 billion to the state for the opportunity to build the project. That costs about $3.5 billion more than the project was expected to run two years ago.

The company then will have the rights to the tolls for 50 years, and by then, the road could be generating billions of dollars each year.

The proposed roadway has been one of Gov. Rick Perry’s signature issues, promising to relieve traffic and meet the exploding demand for freight along a corridor serving four of the state’s six largest cities.

Traffic in most sections of Interstate 35 is already at the maximum capacity, and plans to add another lane outside of Waco over the next few years will not meet that demand, traffic experts have said.

All three prominent gubernatorial challengers have fiercely opposed the project, calling it a boondoggle and a catastrophe.

McLennan County commissioners, the Texas Farm Bureau and others have opposed the plan, saying it will swallow thousands of square miles of prime farmland, divide ranches and cut small towns off from nearby cities.

“Texans didn’t get a chance to vote on this, it’s just getting rammed down our throats,” said Rick Wegwerth, leader of the Waco anti-corridor group, DERAIL.

But Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Gabby Garcia said more than 6,000 Texans have weighed in on the proposal already this year, and their suggestions are critical to the review process.

Ken Roberts, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesman based in Waco, said the agency will solicit more public opinion next year. The current proposed route runs within a 10-mile section of McLennan County, bordering Interstate 35 to the east, and could be wider than a quarter-mile in places.

Due to the long process of buying land for the route, Roberts said he doesn’t think the master plan’s timeline is feasible.

“To say that we’re going to have something operational by 2013 is hardly the case,” Roberts said. “It will not happen overnight.”

State to seek corridor plans from 2 firms

Former partners are competing for the contract to develop segment of Trans-Texas project

By RAD SALLEE

Former business partners are now competing for one of the state's richest construction contracts — development of a transportation corridor between Northeast Texas and the Mexican border, passing near the Houston area.

The Texas Transportation Commission voted Thursday to seek proposals from the two for development of the route designated TTC-69, part of the state's ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor plan.

Projects envisioned for the corridor include a $12 billion toll road running west of U.S. 59, high-speed passenger and freight rail, pipelines and other utilities.

Spanish-owned construction giant Cintra and San Antonio road builder Zachry, which joined forces to win a contract to plan development of TTC-35 along Interstate 35, are competing against each other for the TTC-69 plum.

Combined forces

Joining forces with Zachry are ACS Infrastructure Development of Madrid, Spain; Williams Brothers Construction Co. and Dannenbaum Engineering, both of Houston; and six other team members.

Two other Houston firms, Othon and W.W. Webber LLC, are in the Cintra-led group.

"I find it fascinating that Cintra and Zachry have taken their experience on TTC-35 and each in essence has gone out and recruited and organized their own separate team," said Commissioner John W. Johnson of Houston.

"They are the most experienced in the state of Texas," he said. "The keener the competition, the better off we all are."

"I think you'll see more of that," said Phillip Russell, director of the Texas Department of Transportation turnpike division. "You're going to have cross-pollination."

At the same meeting, Texas Department of Transportation officials for the first time disclosed Cintra-Zachry's Master Development Plan for TTC-35.

Route undetermined

Despite its bulk — 1,600 pages — and the numerous maps included, the master plan does not include the actual route of TTC-35.

TxDOT says that will depend on the same federally required environmental process, including public hearings, as any other road project.

If all the hurdles are jumped, TxDOT says, construction could begin in 2011.

Because the master plan supersedes earlier "conceptual" development and financial plans that TxDOT declined to reveal in March 2005, these were released Thursday as well.

The Houston Chronicle and others had filed open-records requests to see the documents, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott agreed they should be released.

TxDOT and Cintra-Zachry then sued Abbott, asking an Austin court to exempt the plans from disclosure on grounds that they would reveal proprietary information, give competitors unfair advantage and have a "chilling effect" on future proposers' willingness to reveal their ideas.

The lawsuit was dismissed Thursday by agreement.

The campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate and state Comptroller Carol Keeton Strayhorn had urged that the plans be made public.

Strayhorn said Gov. Rick Perry had "fought to keep Texans in the dark and his contract with a foreign-owned company to build toll roads across Texas a secret."

Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said the matter was handled the same way as proprietary information from firms seeking other TxDOT work.

$175 billion proposal

Perry announced the corridor plan in 2002, calling for a $175 billion, 4,000-mile limited-access transportation network built mostly with private dollars for profit but owned by the state.

TTC-35 generally would run east of Interstate 35 from Oklahoma to Mexico and would include an $8.8 billion toll road from Oklahoma to San Antonio.

The proposal has received continual criticism, despite efforts by TxDOT to reassure the public.

Farmers and ranchers have expressed concern that their property would be divided or taken by eminent domain.

Some concerns

Local officials feared that the corridor would draw business away from existing routes.

Others were concerned that negotiating a 50-year contract for a project of such size was being done behind the scenes.

Supporters of the corridor concept say gasoline taxes will not be able to fund enough roads to meet future need, but private companies can build and operate them for a profit at no risk to taxpayers.

If a corridor developer defaults on its contract, Williamson said, TxDOT can buy the facility, probably for less than it cost to build, and bid it to another.

Corridor plans are released

Parts could be under construction in 5 years

A rail line looping around the west side of Fort Worth would be under construction no later than 2016, possibly accompanied by a half-circular toll road stretching from Alliance Airport to southwest Fort Worth and Mansfield, a Trans-Texas Corridor master plan unveiled Thursday shows.

The release of the long-awaited financial and development plan comes two years after the Texas Department of Transportation hired a private firm, Cintra Zachry, to alleviate traffic on Interstate 35 over the next 50 years.

For Tarrant County residents, the plan promises less congestion along Interstate 35W, as vehicles -- mainly trucks -- are lured to the Trans-Texas Corridor by speed limits of up to 85 mph and higher load limits. The combination of roads and rail line would form a skeletal structure for eventual development of the Alliance Airport area to the north, southwest Fort Worth and Johnson County to the south.

The 1,600-page document shows a rail line curving west of Fort Worth through Parker and Wise counties. Construction would begin between 2012 and 2016. A parallel toll road would follow sometime between 2017 and 2055.

But there's also the possibility that both the road and rail line could be built sooner and closer to Fort Worth, Cintra Zachry officials say. The private company has notified the Texas Department of Transportation that it would like to begin developing the area, possibly within five years, although a detailed study was not yet ready for the master plan.

The master plan shows a proposed connector road leading roughly from Texas 114 near Texas Motor Speedway to Farm Road 1187 in southwest Fort Worth to Texas 360 in Mansfield.

"It's a living document. We anticipate it will be updated, possibly a couple times per year," said Phil Russell, the Transportation Department's turnpike director.

Overall, the master plan shows the proposed toll road beginning at I-35 on the Oklahoma border, stretching around the east side of Dallas and then running roughly parallel to I-35 east of Waco, Austin and San Antonio.

The master plan offers a detailed analysis of the costs of building the Trans-Texas Corridor, plus detailed projections about how many motorists might use each segment of the 370-mile-long corridor, how much they might pay and how that money would pay for the roads over time.

Among the highlights:

Parts of the toll road -- 260 miles' worth -- would be under construction within five years and open by 2014.

Tolls would be about 15 cents a mile for cars, 59 cents for trucks. At that rate, a 145-mile, one-way trip from south of Mansfield to Austin would be $22 -- or for truckers, $85.

Initially, the roads would be two lanes in each direction, with cars and trucks sharing space. Eventually, the corridor would be expanded to feature two truck-only lanes and three car lanes in each direction. There would also be room for freight and passenger rail, and underground pipes for water, electricity, petroleum and other utility lines.

Total cost of designing and building the corridor would be $8.8 billion, up from previous estimates of $7.2 billion.

Private companies would pay that cost, plus fees totaling $1.9 billion, in exchange for the right to collect tolls for 50 years. The state Transportation Department would use the money on other work.

Railroad companies can't be forced to use new tracks, but more than half of all cargo would likely be diverted to the new corridor, according to Cintra Zachry estimates.

While it's considered a privately funded project, a third of the road construction and design costs -- about $3.2 billion -- would be in the form of federal transportation loans. The federal government would be repaid over 35 years, with interest.

The $3.2 billion would double the number of projects funded by Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loans since Congress created the program in 1998.

"It's a loan program made possible by federal gas taxes paid by everyone in America, including citizens in Texas," Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson of Weatherford said. "Since Texans only get back 70 percent of federal transportation taxes ... we'd be remiss if we missed an opportunity to get that loan."

Cintra Zachry will keep a special relationship with the Transportation Department for years to come. The state paid the company $3.5 million for the master plan, and it awarded Cintra Zachry a $1.4 billion contract to build a portion of the corridor near Austin.

Otherwise, the state has no obligation to hire Cintra Zachry for any other work, but it could award the company part or all of the $8.8 billion project without putting it out to bid.

It's a new way of doing business. In the past, the Transportation Department awarded contracts to the low bidder. Now, a private firm is selected based on the "best value" for the state -- which can include price, but also factors such as ability to work quickly -- to manage the entire project.

Cintra Zachry has already said it wants exclusive rights to build the rail line around Fort Worth, and the outer highway loop around Dallas-Fort Worth.

Even so, officials say, Cintra Zachry has expressed interest all along in sharing the work load for other portions of the Trans-Texas Corridor with other private developers.

Cintra Zachry will also update the master plan, perhaps once or twice a year, for a yet-to-be-set fee.

"We wanted a long-term partner," said Amadeo Saenz, the Transportation Department's assistant director.

With the release of the master plan during Thursday's Texas Transportation Commission meeting, Transportation Department officials say they'll likely release financial documents soon that have been the subject of a freedom of information lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general's office.

The lawsuit calls for the Transportation Department and Cintra Zachry to release financial and development details for the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Cintra Zachry had argued that the information involved trade secrets, but the release of the master plan likely nullifies that argument.

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