Posted on 11/22/2006 12:42:29 AM PST by Sarajevo
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."
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."
The state will own the right of way and lease it out to the Cintra-Zachry consortium, which will put up the money to build the road and maintain it, while collecting tolls to make up for the expense and get some profit as well, for a term of 50 years. The state will own the road; Cintra-Zachry will merely build and run it.
I forgot to mention that Cintra-Zachry will put up a huge concession fee to the state of Texas just to build and run the road.
LOL . . . I want to attack the U.S., so I will extend my land supply-lines by a 1000 miles by routing them through Mexico. [hoot]
Just imagine trying to get the insurance information from a Mexican trucker that thinks you caused the accident.
Unless of course you consider having ports that matter in this nation important...
What do you think you pay premiums for? Pull the USDOT and license number off the truck and tell your agent to deal with it. It's not that complicated . . . ever been in an accident?
God, I wish the Longshoremen felt the same way. And the envirowhackos.
The right way to do this for Americans is an east, west highway from the west coast to Kansas and construction of new ports..
Hey, I'd like to see new ports built in the U.S. as well. I'd also like to see gumdrops fall like rain from the sky.
Me too. Opening up markets to free trade has contributed to reduced inflation.
"This will increase trade and raise our standard of living. No reason for us to oppose this."
I love finding good old fashioned common sense on FR. It's getting harder, though.
One option to the TTC35 is to widen I35. In your world of faulty logic, would widening I35 create fewer un-insured drivers?
Then there is the matter of the new road, I69, from the border to Texaskana, ultimately reaching Port Huron, MI. Will that road create fewer un-insured drivers?
As for the potential of a terror strike, the multi-modal corridor lessens that risk. If each of the transportation modes have a seperate right of way, there are many more targets to strike and the sum total of security needed will be much higher.
Some may call is mysticism if they will, but I cannot help but feel that there was some divine plan that placed this continent here between the two great oceans to be found by people from any corner of the earth -- people who had an extra ounce of desire for freedom and some extra courage to rise up and lead their families, their relatives, their friends, their nations and come here to eventually make this country.The truth of the matter is, if we take this crowd and if we could go through and ask the heritage, the background of every family represented here, we would probably come up with the names of every country on earth, every corner of the world, and every race. Here, is the one spot on earth where we have the brotherhood of man. And maybe as we continue with this proudly, this brotherhood of man made up from people representative of every corner of the earth, maybe one day boundaries all over the earth will disappear as people cross boundaries and find out that, yes, there is a brotherhood of man in every corner.
Thank you all and God Bless you all.
Where is your study? What did you say the name of it was, The Doofus Report?
I agree with the both of you too...geez. It's called civilization...the nay sayers sound like the anti=road people in my state. The US has done little over the past thirty years to plan for future needs. Whatever the width of the road now, unless they plan for a later expansion, it will always be too small in the future.
wow that's a pretty wide highway
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