Bill: Kill the TTC

Waxahachie Daily Light ^ | February 4, 2007 | Joann Livingston

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A San Antonio-area lawmaker has filed a bill to kill the Trans-Texas Corridor.

State Rep. David Leibowitz, D-Helotes, told Waco-based KWTX that the massive toll road project would “destroy rural Texas as we know it.”

State Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, whose district includes Ellis and Hill counties, both of which would be impacted by the proposed toll road, said he would be supportive of the measure.

“I support efforts to get more control over TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) and the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Pitts said. “The Trans-Texas Corridor will have enormous effects on this area and the people who live here, and too often it seems like this agency isn’t listening to the concerns people are expressing about the project.”

Although the project is much favored by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, the Trans-Texas Corridor is specifically identified in the state Republican Party’s platform as in need of repeal.

“Because there are issues of confiscation of private land, state and national sovereignty and other similar concerns, we urge the repeal of the Trans-Texas Corridor legislation,” the 2006 platform reads.

Leibowitz filed House Bill 857 on Jan. 25. The two-term lawmaker also has filed HB719, which would restrict TxDOT from turning a state highway into a toll road and would also prevent the state agency from transferring a state highway to a private entity for the purpose of letting it become a toll road.

Both bills are pending committee assignment.

“Texas is growing and our transportation system must grow, too,” said Joe Krier, Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation chairman, in a September 2006 press release. “Good roads positively impact all aspects of our lives. Texans should know that the alternative to not building the Trans-Texas Corridor is more gridlock, outrageously higher gas taxes and solutions that will take years longer to deliver. Opponents of the Trans-Texas Corridor offer no meaningful solutions.”

According to the pro-Trans-Texas Corridor organization’s Web site, 75 percent of Texans directly depend upon Interstate 35 for goods and services, and 45 percent of all Texans live within 50 miles of the roadway.

Perry announced his signature $184 billion mega-highway plan in 2002, with TxDOT holding more than 50 public hearings last year relating to the pending environmental impact statement for the TTC-portion.

The vast majority of people speaking at the hearings - including the ones in Ellis County - did so in protest of the project, which critics have said will remove hundreds of thousands of acres - much of it rural farm and ranch land - off of the tax rolls.

A coalition of anti-Trans-Texas Corridor groups and individuals, including David and Linda Stall of Corridor Watch, recently met in Austin.

“It’s not about transportation, it’s about revenue,” David Stall said. “We didn’t ask for it. We need better roads and we need better transportation (but) the TTC is not about doing any of those things. It’s about generating revenue.”

March 2 protest set

The coalition has called for a rally in Austin on March 2 that organizers hope will draw at least 100,000 people to march up Congress Avenue to the steps of the state Capitol.

“If we don’t babysit our elected officials, they’ll do some bad things,” said Sal Costello, founder of People for Efficient Transportation and TTC-critic.

Former land commissioner candidate and East Texas cattle rancher Hank Gilbert agrees.

“We put them there, we can take them out,” he said. “We’ve been complacent too long.”

Gilbert points out that the TTC is the first leg of a proposed national system of roadways that would criss-cross the United States while connecting into Mexico and Canada.

“This thing started here and to save the country, we kill the darn thing here,” he said, saying his hope is for the March 2 rally - which is being deliberately held on Texas Independence Day - to increase people’s involvement while also getting state officials’ attention.

“You are going to listen to us or we are going to start on March 2 figuring out how to throw you out,” he said.

Perry’s transportation plan would include concrete and rail corridors snaking around the state and stretching as wide as 1,200 feet in some areas, with enough room for cars, trucks, trains, pipelines and utility cables.

If the corridor is 1,200 feet wide in some areas as planned, a farmer could lose as much as 146 acres per mile, estimates the Texas Farm Bureau, which adopted a resolution in 2004 opposing the Trans-Texas Corridor.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

bump.

[TXnMA]

I have a better idea: drop the highway portion and build only the high-speed rail infrastructure. It's time we began supporting rail over motor traffic in a big way.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I am yet to be convinced that long-haul passenger rail is ever going to be viable in Texas. (See AMTRAK...)

Further, I know that routing freight rail lmmediately alongside road traffic is a disaster waiting to happen. (See recent Kentucky train crash/fire...)

Utility lines and pipelines should not be placed in a restricted-access corridor. They should run (as they do now) across country -- directly to where their products are needed -- so that the leased land can continue to be crossed -- unimpeded -- and can (still) be used for agriculture/grazing. (Also, imagine the impact of downed high-voltage power lines or pipline blowouts/fires on the TTC...)

The only aspect of the TTC concept that makes sense is that of providing separate, long-haul lanes for truck traffic.

Removing trucks from our interstates would:

1. Dramatically increase road safety.
2. Remove a huge impedance to passenger traffic (and alleviate much of the present I-35 gripes).
3. Drastically reduce wear-and-tear and minimize maintenance on the interstates -- preserving them for passenger traffic.
4. Maintain passenger traffic through the developed corridors that now provide much of the local revenue for rural Texas.

The multi-use, restricted-access TTC design concept of RINO Ricky and his r*mp-swab, Ric W. makes zero sense to anyone who is knowledgable in interconnection theory and practice. And it is a land-use and economic disaster.

[stevie_d_64]

For whatever logic you try to put into this debate, it is increasingly apparent that the leadership in the Republican party had better realize that this rogue, or small portion of elected officials and the lock-step leaders in the party had better start getting their collective heads out of their arses and decide that if the party is going to survive and be a viable contender for conservative ideals, they had better start listening, and stop going headlong assuming everyone is just going to hop on the coat-tails and just go along to get along...

This TTC is one big assumption by a certain faction of people in this state, that are in-line to benefit from whether it succeeds or fails, depending on your perspective...

And they are working to get as much work done on this before it ever is forced to be a referendum or outright vote for or against it ever comes to the polls...

So that when the time comes...

"But how can you oppose this??? WE have worked sooooo hard to get what we can get done and all the effort would be wasted if we stopped now???"

I heard this same tqactic done in Houston for the stupid choo choo train that doesn;t do a whole heck of a lot for the transportation in the city...Of course we'll have to build more, but its the cost, and the bang for the buck that leads me to believe that most of this stuff is a bunch of crap to begin with...

But again, what do I know...

[ravingnutter]

I have an even better idea...Perry can give back the funds they looted to divert to other projects that was originally intended for overpasses and use it for it's intended purpose. IMHO, high speed rail will never be accepted by the common folk in Texas.

[anymouse]

Cool graphic.

[Ben Ficklin]

If they were going to build a road to alleviate congestion on I 35, why would they build it to Wichita Falls? If they were going to build a I-69 road to connect to I-69 as it will be built in AR, why would it go to Tyler and Paris?

[Jedidah]

Oklahoma (or Colorado, for that matter) bound traffic from San Antonio/Austin could completely avoid I-35 and the DFW Metromess if TXDOT would improve 281 to Wichita Falls, where I-44 connects to OK City. Or improve 87 and 283 northward to Lawton and give those dying West Texas towns an economic shot in the arm.

We all saw the traffic nightmare out of Houston during the Hurricane Rita evacuation. We desperately need alternative routes, not just highways into Dallas. Why not improve existing 59 to Lufkin, 259 to Kilgore, 271 to Paris where the Indian Nation Turnpike can take traffic north to Tulsa and toward Kansas City?

I'm just trying to be a voice of reason. Take a look at a Texas map. Why should virtually all north-south traffic be routed through Dallas/Fort Worth on I-35 and I-45, when alternative routes would help other parts of the state economically and also relieve congestion on I-35 and pollution in the DFW area?

Like I said, just common sense from a commoner. I don't see much of that coming out of Austin these days.

[Ben Ficklin]

You need to looks at the maps.

[TXnMA]

Thank you! Use it if you like...

I designed it as a bumper sticker -- but decided I didn't really want to go into the bumper sticker business, myself. Offered it pro bono to some folks, but never got a response...

C'est la vie...

[Thunder90]

You forgot to say "If you have a Democrat, green, or Socialist/ANSWER/UFPJ/ACLU/WCW voter card, you may proceed for free as well"