TxDOT reviews initial Trans-Texas Corridor study

The much touted — and disputed — Trans-Texas Corridor may be one step away from a pipe dream and one step closer to a reality.

The group this week released its Tier 1 Environmental Impact study, a look at how building the highway, dubbed I-69, running from Texarkana to Laredo, would affect the 50 or so counties it would run through.

Bryan Wood, district engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation in Bryan, said the first study only looks at how the many initially proposed component of the highway would impact the surrounding areas.

“We’re still a long ways away from putting anything on the ground,” Wood said.

The impact study looks for already identified impact sites — such as churches, cemeteries, homes and businesses — that would either have to be diverted around or moved along the proposed route.

“We really are just taking a look at the location information of these areas and other environmental issues (and) we’re trying to do that from existing data,” Wood said.

The data has been collected over the years by federal agencies using GIS data, or geographical information systems, that pinpoint locations along the proposed route.

The problem is, Wood said, some of the data they are using is already outdated, as new buildings spring up along the route.

After it irons out plans for the corridor, TxDOT will spend several years revising that data and surveying the proposed route on their own.

“We’ll begin an approximately four year process of more detailed environmental impact,” Wood said. “(Environmental sites) are obviously something we want to avoid or mitigate for. Those type things are a significant concern.”

As well, TxDOT will hold public hearings throughout the entire Tier 2 design process, seeking public input about the many proposed features of the corridor.

Currently, the plan outlines high-speed passenger rail lines, urban commuter rails, freight rails, 18-wheeler only lanes and infrastructure transmission lines, all packed between an expanded interstate highway.

But those are just options, Wood said, and it will be up to Texas residents to decide what services they’d like to see along the “highway of the future.”

“Does it have to be all these things?” Wood said. “It actually doesn’t. That’s part of what we’ve been saying to the public. We need the input to see what they need, and to see if they want train tracks running through the road or if they want to see those rails along existing facilities.”

The current proposal does not specify where the rail lines would stop, nor where exactly the new interstate road will run. Only a vague, orange line on the latest proposed map offers indications about where the road will run: just north of Huntsville, passing over into Grimes county, while a split in the road near Trinity takes the highway straight into Houston.

But Wood said the project would cut down congestion along busy Interstate 45 through Walker County, which sees anywhere from 23,000 to 36,000 vehicles per day pass through the area.

How? By providing commercial trucks dedicated lanes that would help pay for the toll highway.

“The idea that we could do an Interstate with truck-only toll lanes has become very popular,” Wood said. “There have been segments of Texas already that have said they would like to see ... only toll lanes for trucks around their community. I think that speaks volumes for what the public wants and we’re listening.”

Wood said that the only way to pay for the new highway system would be tolls. But the group is not limiting their options just to tolls on commercial drivers.

“Our grandfathers and parents put a larger portion of their income towards transportation because it was important to them,” Wood said, saying the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System was paid for exclusively with gas taxes.

“If you look at the percentage of the state budget that was gas taxes in the ’60s it was 20 or 30 percent of the state budget for transportation. It’s at about 6 percent right now,” he said.

Though the proposed corridor includes converting portions of non-toll roads U.S. Highway 59, US 281 and US 77 as part of the new highway, the free portions of those roads would continue to be free.

“The only way to pay for it unless something different happens is polls,” Wood said. “We’ll see what options we have available when we get closer to building it.”

Wood said some people have expressed concern over the route the highway will take in Walker County and that TxDOT is listening, providing alternate plans that could bypass Walker County altogether.

“That question has been asked: can that be changed now or in tier 2 studies,” Wood said. “And the answer is yes. If anyone wants to make suggestions about where that corridor goes they can.”

Wood said the corridor is a necessity, as the population of east and southeast Texas continues to boom.

“We’re seeing somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 new people in Texas each day,” Wood said. “That’s a city the size of Austin added to the map every 2 years. And it’s not stopping.”

For more information on the project, visit TxDOT’s special projects Web site at http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/ or the Trans-Texas Corridor Web site at http://ttc.keeptexasmoving.com/.

TSR.... I saw the following article yesterday in the Houston Chronicle and meant to let you know. I was in the airport making a flight connection and your ping today is the first time I've thought about it again. Hope you don't mind and I'll just add it to your current posted article as it deals with I-69 also.

Nov. 15, 2007, 7:01AM
Planners narrow proposed I-69 corridor
New road would largely follow the U.S. 59 footprint across the state

By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
State highway officials have sharply narrowed the possible route of the Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, saying they plan to keep it close to U.S. 59 and other existing roads.
The news comes after months of criticism that the planned corridor and its sister project, TTC-35 in Central Texas, could divide farms and ranches and suck motorists' dollars from nearby towns to the projects' developers.
It also comes after the Texas Legislature restricted the Texas Department of Transportation's ability to expand the use of tolls and privatization to pay for new roads.
The revised study area is shown in the federally required Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the I-69/TTC project, a hefty document made public earlier this week.
Through most of its 650 miles from Texarkana to the Mexico border, the corridor under study initially ranged from 20 to 80 miles wide. It has been reduced in the DEIS to between a quarter mile and four miles wide.
The proposed route follows U.S. 59 from Texarkana to Victoria, except through Houston, then splits off to Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley on U.S. 77, U.S. 281 and Texas 44.
A bypass — TxDOT uses the term "relief route" — would skirt west of the Houston area.
Because the corridor's role is to connect urban areas rather than go through their hearts, the identified route generally avoids areas that are built up or expected to grow rapidly.
However, spurs would extend to the Port of Houston from the north and west. Bypasses also are likely around several smaller cities.
Another spur is shown branching off from north of Nacogdoches to the Louisiana state line. Although the Trans-Texas Corridor would stop there, the envisioned Interstate 69 would continue northeast to Detroit and Canada, for a total length of 2,700 miles border to border.
An east-west connection between the Gulf port of Corpus Christi and the inland port of Laredo also is planned, said project spokeswoman Gabriela Garcia of TxDOT.
"One thing we have heard from everybody over several years is to focus on existing corridors and see how we can incorporate them into the project," Garcia said.

Room for toll lanes
Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton described U.S. 59 as a four-lane divided highway with "a beautiful nice, wide median" where toll lanes dedicated to trucks or cars could be built. In some places, he said, the footprint might need to be widened.

Garcia said the corridor would be "demand-driven" and built in pieces as needed. A TxDOT official also said toll rates and the roadway could vary between segments depending on traffic load and local preferences.
In spring 2008, Houghton said, TxDOT will set up working groups for specific segments of the route "to advise us on what they would like to have."
A separate group would represent ports and another working group for the overall project.
"Each region has its own significant issues," Houghton said.
For instance, he said, "Victoria County has said they want dedicated truck lanes and they are going out to buy right of way."
Residents of the Brazos Valley want an interstate highway to Bryan-College Station, Houghton said. The proposed route west of Houston would pass through Grimes and Walker counties nearby.
For years, towns and cities along U.S. 59 in East and South Texas have sought to have the busy highway upgraded to I-69. After 2002, when Gov. Rick Perry announced his goal of building the Trans-Texas Corridor — a statewide network of roads and rails, pipelines and power lines — the I-69 idea was folded into corridor plans.
But there were changes that troubled longtime supporters: The road would be tolled, probably built and managed privately, and may end up too far from towns for local businesses to attract motorists.
David Stall of Corridor Watch, a citizens group opposed to the corridor concept, said the decision to build close to U.S. 59 or on it is a partial victory.
"I think the state is learning very slowly," Stall said. "Those are huge shifts in direction."
Also pleased was Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation, which advocates tolls and other means of stretching tax dollars for needed highways.
"Using existing right-of-ways means highways can potentially be built faster, more cost effectively and with less impact on property owners," said spokesman Bill Noble in a statement.

Uncontrolled access
It was not clear how the broad corridors that Perry envisioned could be built alongside U.S. 59 in East Texas, where numerous small towns line the highway and there is uncontrolled access from dozens of streets, parking lots and driveways.

In those places, said TxDOT deputy executive director Steve Simmons, "We might have to rebuild the facility so that the existing lanes become more like frontage roads."
Stall said adding lanes to U.S. 59 would be easier in the less populous stretch from the Houston area to Mexico.
"We are talking about something along the model of the interstate system, and the Rio Grande Valley and Polk County have been clamoring for that for years," he said.
Work on the DEIS began in 2004, and it could take at least as long to complete the second phase of environmental studies to determine a detailed route, Garcia said.
She said the process will begin in January with 10 town hall meetings, dates and places to be announced, followed by 46 public hearings in February throughout the corridor.
rad.sallee@chron.com

Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Hope you don't mind my adding all this......

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