Posted on 02/21/2007 4:24:54 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
In what is being projected as an economic boom for the East Texas region (if it comes to fruition), the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will soon begin work on a feasibility study for an East-West corridor.
The announcement was made last week as the TxDOT Commission voted to move forward with the study that will cost an estimated $2 million. The corridor is the brainchild of the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition.
"If we had a major four-lane, east-west highway through Jasper it would mean to us what I-10 means to Beaumont and I-20 means to Shreveport," said Jasper Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Tom McClurg. "I've always said we are a strategic transportation location in that a 150-mile circle from here touches Dallas, Houston, Beaumont and Baton Rouge.
"It would greatly increase our status as an industrial location," McClurg said.
"The first question any kind of industrial prospect has when they are talking about relocating to your area is how close are you to an interstate highway," said Polk County Judge John P. Thompson, who serves as chairman for the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition. "Transportation is what drives economic development. To have a project like this in your county, you will see economic benefits for generations to come."
The study corridor would generally follow U.S. Highway 190 through East and Central Texas and would follow I-10 in West Texas all the way to the New Mexico state line.
According to Thompson, the feasibility study is scheduled to begin later this year and is scheduled to take 18 months to complete. He said the highway would be a tollway.
The study will address the feasibility and route analysis requirement for the 800-mile corridor in Texas. Included in that study will be the feasibility of upgrading the designated corridor to a fully controlled access facility with a rail component.
"This feasibility study is a huge first step for us," Thompson said. "It puts us on the radar screen now."
Whether the corridor follows U.S Hwy. 190 through Jasper, though, remains a big question in the puzzle.
McClurg said the biggest issue with the project remains U.S. Hwy. 190 where it crosses Steinhagen Lake.
"They are trying to miss the largest bodies of water and that means either south of Steinhagen Dam or north of Steinhagen Lake."
McClurg said he believes the corridor will run between Hwy. 190 and Hwy. 255 in Jasper County.
"We have no idea where it will be in Jasper County," Thompson said. "There are certain issues that limit where it will go through. It has to go north of Lake Livingston and south of the national forest.
"It won't cross lakes or go through national forests," Thompson said. "The closer it gets to the Louisiana line, the closer it gets to U.S. Highway 190."
U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, who requested $160,000 in the federal reauthorization of transportation programs, will furnish part of the funds that will be used for the project.
"This was one of the first projects that county judges across East Texas talked to me about and asked for help with," Brady said from Washington. "They asked for study money and I was able to get it for them.
"East Texas can never reach its full potential and attract the types of businesses that we want without a modern four-lane corridor," Brady said. "The study money is not only important to give the project some momentum but also to really listen to the communities in East Texas and make sure this is something they want."
The Gulf Coast Strategic Highway System was initially conceived as an upgrade of existing highways in Texas and Louisiana. The simple objective was to provide better highways between Fort Bliss, Fort Hood and Fort Polk and the strategic ports at Corpus Christi and Beaumont.
When the Trans Texas Corridor concept was announced in 2002, the coalition was a very early supporter and has consistently supported ways to implement it in a way that will address military deployment and mobility efficiency.
The Gulf Coast Strategic Highway System, as now proposed, creates linkage and access with a combination of improved existing highways and new elements of the Trans Texas Corridor System.
Brady believes transportation is key to the East Texas region.
"We have great assets in our lakes and our rivers, timber and people, however, but it is tougher when you try to attract businesses that need to ship in and out," Brady said. "
The TxDOT plan calls for an East-West route to cross the Hill Country just north of San Antonio. It would loop around Houston and tie back in to I-10 at the Louisiana state line. The Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition has proposed an alternative East- West route.
According to the coalition's website, the East-West alternative has many advantages:
It runs north of the environmentally sensitive Hill Country, passing just south of Fort Hood and linking Fort Bliss, Fort Hood and Fort Polk.
It misses the San Antonio, Austin and Houston air quality regions.
It ties in to a Louisiana highway corridor that is being improved and can accommodate substantial infrastructure expansion.
Thompson said the highway is not a project that will be completed anytime in the near future.
"Never in the history of mankind has a highway been built in a hurry," Thompson said.
Important events are scheduled to happen in Austin in the next few weeks. On March 1, there will be a public hearing held regarding the Trans-Texas Corridor. State Sen. John Carona is stepping up to the plate and asking for citizen input, without subjecting us all to another TxDOT dog and pony show. The Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee will hold a public hearing in the Capitol Annex Auditorium. Finally, a state entity that wants to listen to someone other than the pro-toll interests. It's predicted that this hearing will start early and go late.
Then, on Friday, March 2, farmers, ranchers, anti-toll, anti-corridor and anti-animal inspection groups will march up Congress Street in what is being called the "DON'T TAG TEXAS" rally. It's very fitting that this will happen on Texas Independence Day! Counties all around us are planning to attend. It's about time that the citizens of Grimes County stand up and voice their opinions. There will be a bus leaving from Brookshire Brothers in Navasota at 10:30 a.m. for anyone that wants to participate. I am the sign-up person for the Roans Prairie and Shiro area - 874-0101 or 936-718-8992. See page 1 for more information.
For those of you that saw the film "Truth be Tolled", the edited version is for sale for $13.95. Check the Web site, www:truthbetolled.com. or for more information. e-mail Mark Holmes at:
Exciting news, folks — Interstate 69, a proposed Texas-to-Michigan road that’s part of the Trans-Texas Corridor, may get built even quicker than expected! Well, gosh, that’s a relief. According to Keep Texas Moving, a newsletter from the Texas Department of Transportation, the TTC arm that would reach from Laredo to northeast Texas has been placed by federal transportation gurus on a short list for fast-track development.
Whew — Static was worried that Texas might forget itself and fund some regional or statewide public transit, but just in time, we’ve found a way to spend those dollars on more concrete. And another fast-track! When you combine it with the fast lane that our Guv put the TXU coal-fired plants in, it just makes you realize how modern and efficient our state is — we can get things done by government fiat regardless of how many actual citizens, air breathers, land owners, farmers, ranchers, mayors, business leaders, and environmentalists (like they matter) oppose it. But what do you expect from a co-opted governor who bows at the altar of the energy industry and disputes the existence of global warming, even when his incessant use of hairspray is rumored to have burned away much of the ozone?
TxDOT, by the way, says all those alarmists are wrong when they claim that no-compete clauses in the contracts with foreign companies to build (and charge tolls on) the TTC would keep free roads in the same areas from being maintained or improved (“Detours on a Super-Highway,” Jan. 10, 2007). The newsletter says “absolutely not!” If a road or an improvement is already in the 25-year plan, TxDOT says, it will be built — as will any improvement for safety. And the state can build whatever “competing” road projects it wants — as long as it compensates the foreign company for anything that cuts down on traffic on the privately run toll roads. So, let’s see — that means we either pay the potentially outrageous tolls directly, or we go around on free roads and let the state pay tax dollars to compensate the poor mega-corporation.
Now that’s some contract.
Dirty Money
And speaking of the coal plants, Static got a good laugh out of a stunt pulled off last month in New York City. AlterNet, the Global Youth Climate Movement, and other online sources reported that the “Billionaires for Coal” (actually, members of the Rainforest Action Network in disguise) donned tall top hats with TXU logos and delivered suitcases of coal to the Manhattan headquarters of Merrill Lynch. The idea was to put pressure on that and two other financial giants — Morgan Stanley and Citigroup — to back off their agreements to arrange the $11 billion in financing that TXU needs for its 11 proposed carbon-dioxide-belching plants. The Rainforest group is pushing banks around the globe to support efforts to stop global warming.
So on Wednesday, Feb. 21, — maybe as you read this item — RAN was planning another appearance by the sooty “billionaires.” They were planning to put their top hats back on and have lunch with — or perhaps ruin lunch for — the Merrill Lynch big boys in San Francisco.
The consensus on global warming, its dangers, and the part that coal-fired plants play as greenhouse-gas culprits is so strong that, according to AlterNet and RAN, a number of banks around the world, including Bank of America, are responding, pledging to become “carbon-neutral,” and undertaking initiatives to combat the problem.
Real billionaires, it seems, do have hearts — especially when they understand an issue’s connection to their pockets.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
thx
BTTT
That US190 corridor is an interesting addition. I guess that was in the original plans but, this is the first time I've noticed it listed as the *Gulf Coast Srtategic HW* Sounds like another excuse to eat up more farm and ranchland.
The final push...
"How can you be opposed to this??? We have done ALL of this hard work already??? (snif) Its for the future! Its for the children, your children, and their children's children..."
/"big time" sarcasm
bump.
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