Perry Speaks Out Against Moratorium On Private Toll Road Projects

(April 3, 2007)—Gov. Rick Perry spoke out Tuesday against proposed legislation that would put a two-year moratorium on private toll road projects including the Trans-Texas Corridor and urged lawmakers to “ensure vital transportation projects continue as planned.”

Several bills are pending in Austin aimed at putting the brakes on the massive highway project.

State Representative Lois W. Kolkhorst of Brenham has filed a bill that would kill the project altogether and a second measure that calls for a two-year moratorium on allowing private entities from buying the rights to build and operate toll roads.

During a visit with US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters Tuesday to the Samsung Austin Semiconductor expansion site, Perry said the state's current transportation system, which involves public-private partnerships to build toll roads, must go on if Texas is to continue attracting big companies and jobs.

Perry says the state will always own the land beneath private toll roads and there will always be a free road alternative for motorists.

Both he and Peters said it's important to find road funding methods beyond the gas tax.

“There are taxways and tollways, and for 50 years we have tried taxways that have been underfunded by Austin and Washington and that have left local communities choking on pollution and brimming with congestion," he said.

The toll road moratorium bills in the Texas House and Senate remain pending in committee.

Work on the Central Texas portion of the Trans Texas Corridor project could begin within four years, the Texas Department of Transportation said last fall as it released a plan identifying near- mid- and long-term phases of the privately developed toll road.

The plan identifies portions of the corridor from north of Temple to near Hillsboro and from Georgetown to Temple as among the likely near-term phases of the project, on which work could begin by 2010 and could be completed by 2013.

The Temple-to-Hillsboro leg of the $184 billion corridor would cost an estimated $1.1 billion to design and build. The Georgetown-to-Temple leg would cost about $1 billion to design and build.

Designers ultimately envision a corridor with six separate passenger vehicle lanes and four commercial truck lanes; two high speed passenger rail lines, two freight rain lines and two commuter rail lines and a utility zone that will accommodate water, electric, natural gas, petroleum, fiber optic and telecommunications lines.

Federal transportation chief backs Perry's toll plan

A majority of lawmakers want a 2-year moratorium on similar projects

By CLAY ROBISON

AUSTIN — With U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters offering her support, Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday lashed out against legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on toll-road privatization.

Perry said the proposal, co-sponsored by strong majorities in the House and Senate and reflecting the public controversy over the Trans Texas Corridor, would cost Texas critical business expansion opportunities.

"Our message today is that building needed infrastructure is essential to creating jobs and attracting economic development investments in Texas. And you can't accomplish that with a two-year moratorium on needed road projects," he said.

Although the moratorium legislation is co-sponsored by 27 of the 31 senators and 111 of 150 House members, it faces an uncertain future because of strong pressure to continue building highways and waning mileage from the state gasoline tax, the traditional revenue source for highway construction.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee likely will approve the bill today but that further action will be delayed as lawmakers continue to seek a compromise.

Peters, on a stop in Austin, said other states need to adopt Perry's approach.

The governor chose a visit to a Samsung semiconductor plant in suburban Austin to make his highway pitch.

The plant is symbolic of Austin's growth and is near the route of the first Trans Texas Corridor project, a proposed series of toll roads running parallel to Interstate 35.

It has sparked considerable controversy, mainly over the state's decision to contract with a private consortium, headed by a Spanish company, Cintra, to develop a long-range plan for the corridor.

The consortium also will build and operate the first segment in Central Texas.

The state will share in profits from the toll roads. But a recent report by the state auditor's office was sharply critical of the Trans Texas Corridor, concluding that taxpayers may never know how much they could end up paying for it.

Perry said the state's 20-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax no longer generates enough revenue to pay for Texas' increasing need for new highways.

The tax, he said, does little more than pay for maintaining existing roads.

Perry also rejected proposals to let the gasoline tax gradually increase by indexing it to inflation or rising highway construction costs.

"I'm looking for doable solutions," he said, adding that it would require a huge increase in the gasoline tax to build enough highways if his public-private financing plan were to be derailed.

Austin Bureau reporter Polly Ross Hughes contributed to this report.

Texas ports plan for Chinese containers

Houston, Corpus Christi envisioned as havens for megaships

Posted: April 4, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

State officials in Texas, already planning massive 1,200-foot-wide roadway corridors to facilitate the movement of goods from China and the Far East into North America through ports in Mexico, now want some of that off-loading business, too.

The Texas Department of Transportation says it is planning to tie the Trans-Texas Corridor project into plans for new traffic officials hope will come through their own ports of Houston and Corpus Christi.

They could be getting a flood of new container ship traffic once a new set of locks to make the Panama Canal deeper and wider allows the next generation of megaships bringing containers of goods to North America to pass through.

WND previously has reported that TTC-35 plans were designed to facilitate container traffic from the Far East and China to enter North America through Mexican ports including both Manzillo and Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific Coast.

Now new documents posted on the TxDOT website also tie I-69 into the state agency's plan to position Texas gulf ports such as Houston and Corpus Christi to get the benefits of an expanded canal.

In forming these plans, TxDOT is aware of competition from other Gulf ports in other states. WND already has reported that the Port of New Orleans is planning to utilize intermodal transportation routes, eventually including barges floating containers up the Mississippi River, to bring goods into the U.S. heartland east of the planned I-69 route.

In October 2006, Cambridge Systematics submitted a final report to TxDOT, titled "Effects of the Panama Canal Expansion on Texas Ports and Highway Corridors."

The executive summary left no doubt that TTC would be key to the TxDOT plan to prepare for the Canal expansion:

Full realization of the Trans-Texas Corridor initiative will help ensure that the State is able to absorb the growth in freight traffic that will result from the Canal expansion and ensure that it can meet the challenges of serving evolving freight and passenger mobility needs.

Mark Cross, a spokesman for TxDOT, told WND that the Cambridge Systematics study concluded that, "The potential expansion of the Panama Canal means nothing but economic gain for the state of Texas. We feel the Trans-Texas Corridor is a proposed corridor that we think will supplement the current Texas highway system. If the TTC is built, the new corridor will aid the increase in freight traffic we are anticipating from the expansion of the Panama Canal."

Cross told WND that the port of Houston, which today handles approximately 80 percent of the container traffic entering Texas, is expected to receive the main economic benefit from the expansion of the canal. The port of Corpus Christi is expected to receive the second largest benefit among Texas Gulf ports.

The state agency notes that the construction of the Bayport Container Terminal at Houston is now about 90 percent completed, and when that is done, the port's capacity for containerized traffic will triple.

TxDOT also notes that the port of Corpus Christi is developing the La Quinta Trade Gateway as a new container terminal, designed "to offer congestion relief from other existing container terminals along the Gulf."

Cambridge Systematics presents a graph illustrating an "all-water" route through the Panama Canal into the Gulf of Mexico. This is presented as an alternative for shippers who wish to avoid using West Coast ports such as Long Beach and Los Angeles, which require using trucks and trains to transport containers across the Rocky Mountains into the heartland.

The report comments that "the proliferation of distribution and warehousing centers near ports on the Gulf and Southeast coasts of the U.S. have combined to make the Panama Canal route a more attractive option to shippers serving these markets, particularly those shipping consumer goods in intermodal containers."

The only other alternative is for shippers from the Far East and China to send their containers to the East Coast of the U.S. through the Suez Canal, a longer and more costly alternative to the "all-water" route offered by an expanded Panama Canal into Gulf ports.

As WND reported earlier, the expansion of the Panama Canal is driven by a need to accommodate the new generation of post-Panamax ships, those carrying as many as 12,500 containers. The current canal is typically unable to handle container megaships designed to carry more than 4,500 containers.

A statistical table in the Cambridge Systematics report details that in 2005, 98 million tons of container traffic came through the Panama Canal. Without expansion, that number is expected to reach 185 million tons in 2025. With expansion, the number is estimated to be 296 million tons.

Cambridge Systematics concluded that, "TxDOT should work closely with the Texas Port Authority Advisory Committee and other key stakeholders to ensure that Trans-Texas Corridor plans, programs, and strategies reflect the potential impacts of the Panama Canal expansion on key facilities and corridors."

Cross told WND that TxDOT feels that, "With the development of the I-35 and I-69 TTC corridors, we will be ready for the expansion of the Panama Canal."

WND asked Cross if the segregated truck and rail lines planned in the TTC design were the components of the corridor TxDOT planned to facilitate the movement of container traffic from the expanded Panama Canal.

"Yes," Cross confirmed. "The inter-modal design of the TTC system will help us move the anticipated increase in container traffic we expect from the expansion of the canal."

And he said while I-69 plans right now do not include a 1,200-foot-wide corridor like TTC-35, "the potential for I-69 to have freight lanes is still there."

Cross emphasized that TxDOT was very positive regarding the plans to expand the Canal.

"We hope that with the fruition of these plans the positive economic benefit will be widespread in Texas, both for citizens and for businesses," he told WND.

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