Posted on 01/20/2007 5:37:33 AM PST by T. P. Pole
By Anna Driver
Fri Jan 19, 8:45 AM ET HOUSTON (Reuters) - As President Bush readies a new plan on global warming, environmentalists say an 18-lane highway going up in Houston speaks volumes about how people in his home state of Texas view the planet.
Between 2003 and 2009, $2.7 billion of state and federal money will have been plowed into expanding 23 miles of Interstate-10 in west Houston to as wide as 18 lanes in some stretches of the city's main east-west road.
"It is a concrete monstrosity," said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in the Texas city who fought the expansion of "I-10" and lost. "It probably shows as much as anything the philosophy of development here."
In his annual State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday, Bush is expected to call for a massive increase in the use of ethanol -- a fuel made from corn and other farm products -- to try to reduce U.S. dependency on oil imports.
Environmentalists say more often he is on the wrong track.
They had sought to preserve a rail line that ran along I-10 for a commuter train that someday might bring workers to the city from distant suburbs. But after 15 years of study and discussion about the highway, state officials decided to go with a highway-only strategy.
"You can simply get to your destination quicker and better in a car," Bob Lanier, a former Houston mayor, said. If you can get there faster in a car, you are not going to take a train."
Texas has a long history of putting energy interests ahead of conservation. The nation's second most populous state also generates greenhouse gases as one of the world's largest oil-refining and petrochemical manufacturing centers.
Bush, who had no direct hand in the Houston highway expansion, was governor of Texas from January 1995 until just before he became president in January 2001. He grew up in Midland and Houston and owned a Texas oil and gas business.
"Texas has always been pretty far over on the side of exploiting natural resources and not worrying about the consequences," Richard Murray, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said. "Texas generates a huge amount of carbon dioxide because we are such big energy consumers."
SPRAWLING HOUSTON
The sprawling Houston metropolitan area, home to more than 5 million people, caters to drivers. Multi-deck parking garages are affixed to most large apartment complexes and there are drive-through lanes at pharmacies, banks, dry cleaners and coffee shops like Starbucks Corp..
Lanier, a real estate developer who was chairman of the Texas Highway Commission from 1983 to 1987, said the city's decision to go with buses rather than rail for a mass transit system was the only option that made sense for such a low-density city where rail stations were impractical.
Part of the difficulty in weaning Houston off road building, environmentalist Blackburn said, is that the decades-long debate over transit planning has been dominated by the region's energy interests and by developers who made their fortunes building homes in far-flung suburbs.
Those pro-growth interests have appealed to Texas voters' preference for rugged individualism over government action.
Lanier shrugs off any environmental woes that might come with the expanded highway.
"You get a better environmental report moving people rapidly where they want to go, rather than having them sit in traffic," he said.
Downtown there is a 7.5-mile light rail line that was built entirely with local taxes after years of fighting over the idea and the funding.
Bush has pushed for the use of alternative fuels like hydrogen and ethanol and in his State of the Union address a year ago decried America's "addiction" to oil.
But that is little comfort to a man who has spent 35 years fighting for balance between economic and environmental interests in Texas.
"There's a sort of arrogance that comes from an oil producing state," Blackburn said. "You've always been able to drill and produce your way out of a problem.
What a ridiculous article.
Let's see. Since President Bush lived in Texas for a while, he must be to blame for every that happens there.
Multi-deck parking garages are affixed to most large apartment complexes and there are drive-through lanes at pharmacies, banks, dry cleaners and coffee shops like Starbucks Corp
Oh no! The world is going to end!!!
Where does this author live? New York is the only place I can think of where a drive through lane at the bank is noteworthy.
BTW, I wonder if that is the author's real name?
This guy is angry because everyone else won't do what he wants them to, so everyone else is arrogant.
Prepare for US industries to take a hit from the commies in Congress and the idiots in the Bush admin who believe the same.
Lots of liberal environmentalist types are like this.
At least Texas won't have traffic jams if there is ever a need to evacuate quickly!
Don't even go there after last years Rita.
As a resident of HOuston, I have to say I approve of the past decisions that made this city what it is. I like the fact that it is low density and people arent crammed in together like rats. Thats an environmental factor I find very important, but somehow "environmentalists" always seem to overlook.
EVERYTHING WRONG IN THE WORLD IS BUSH'S FAULT! It is the duty of every faithful progressive to remain diligent in our education efforts. If we repeat the truth enough, people will finally understand! Come on, why are you questioning this article!
ping
Oh yes, that's right. The drive-through at the Starbucks must have momentarily stunned me.
The losers get to whine in certain liberal papers. The winners get relief from traffic problems.
Per your picture - in other words it's merely another highway. Nothing more, nothing less. Four main lanes going one way and four the other in off peak times. I don't see what the fuss is about. Actually, I'm with you that there should be more lanes.
Betcha there are lots of places in Texas and other states that have this lane configuration of something similar.
Whats the big deal, because it's Texas?
I find it sweetly ironic that the enviro-socialists who infest the capitol of Texas are working at breathtaking speeds to open multi-lane toll roads and expand major thoroughfares of the city in all cardinal directions while at the same time flagellate themselves in a panic and uproar over a handful of dead grackles.
"Since President Bush lived in Texas for a while, he must be to blame for every that happens there."
Well, he did leave tollboothRick in charge. LOL!
The idiots have taken their hated 'profiling' to a new level.
Guilt... not by race, but by residence, past, present or future.
Sounds like the NJ turnpike to me. In fact, for NYC enviormnmental activists to get to Houston take the Jersey turnpike south...
I-10 truly needs to be 18 lanes wide there. Houston has worse traffic than I used to see in California in the '80s.
And even if there was no need, I'd like to see it built 20 lanes wide just to cheez-off the liberal geeks. :)
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In order to characterize Texans as environazis, she even accuses Houston of these horrors {SHUDDER!}:
"Multi-deck parking garages are affixed to most large apartment complexes and there are drive-through lanes at pharmacies, banks, dry cleaners and coffee shops like Starbucks Corp."
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I bet ecobimbo "Anna Driver" has never owned a car or lived lower than three floors from the ground...
Most East Coasters have no concept of Houston's immense area. Heck, in 1957, I dated a girl whose house was a 57-mile drive from mine -- and we both lived within the city limits of Houston. I lived on the east, and she lived on the north.
Nowadays, I would not even hazard a guess as to how far it is across the Houston Metroplex in its longest diagonal direction...
But, moving dense traffic within a sprawling metroplex is a totally different issue from moving long-haul traffic across (relatively) sparsely built-up rural Texas.
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