Posted on 01/16/2008 3:42:51 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CARTHAGE, Texas — State transportation officials appear to have a tough sales job ahead as they try to pave the way for new highways — mostly toll roads — to deal with the booming Texas population.
Texas Department of Transportation executives headed to Carthage on Wednesday for the second stop in a monthlong series of public town hall meetings to discuss the Trans Texas Corridor, a proposed network of superhighway toll roads, and other transportation issues.
The unprecedented sessions, which began Tuesday night in Texarkana, are intended to answer questions and improve communication between the agency and people who use the roads as plans move forward for the proposed Interstate 69 project. The highway, long sought by East Texas officials, could be a leg of the gigantic TTC.
"There's some folks out there that have their minds made up about things and we just want to provide the information we have," said Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of the transportation department.
While some, like Bowie County Judge James Carlow and Texarkana Mayor James Bramlett, embraced the project as long overdue, others contended it was unneeded and improper.
"I like the format and I'm glad they're doing this," said Hank Gilbert, of Tyler. "But they still have some facts wrong and they're still not telling the whole story. They're not being 100 percent truthful. It's kind of fishy. There's a hidden agenda they're not talking about."
Agency officials denied any secret plans.
Gov. Rick Perry first proposed the TTC six years ago. If completed as much as 50 years from now, it would roughly parallel interstate highways with up to a quarter-mile-wide stretch of toll roads, rail lines, pipelines and utility lines. Cost of the project has been estimated at approaching $200 billion, and at 4,000 miles or so it would be the biggest construction project ever in Texas.
TTC also could require the state to acquire nearly 600,000 acres of private land, much from farmers and ranchers.
The initial meeting Tuesday night at a Texarkana high school extended well beyond three hours as several dozen people talked about land acquisition, toll roads versus free roads, construction timetables and environmental impact.
Other questions focused on the involvement of foreign interests and notions that the project was a conspiracy to move forward a North American Union that would unite Canada, the United States and Mexico into a single government.
"I read it on the Internet," one man insisted to the transportation panel, whose members remained polite and thanked him for his thoughts.
Phil Russell, an assistant executive director of the agency, said while some segments of existing U.S. Highway 59 could be incorporated into the new highway, those lanes would remain free.
"We don't ever expect to toll existing lanes," Simmons said.
"If we have to build additional lanes, they will be tolled, I would anticipate," Russell said.
Linda Ballard, of Atlanta, said some of her relatives had to sell property for construction of Interstate 30 but lauded transportation officials for paying fair market value.
"You'll probably get my house," she said.
She worried, however, that her relatives' experience was years ago.
"How can you guarantee me fair market value?" she asked.
"I think we can," Simmons said. "We have to follow the law."
Some feared if appeals that are part of the acquisition procedure failed, the state would just take the land it wanted.
"I wouldn't get too focused on (that)," Russell said. "We've never used it and I don't think we ever will."
No exact route for the new highways has yet been determined, and it could be up to five years before it's even a "line on a map," according to Russell. He also said it could be 10 years before drivers get to ride on just a piece of the road.
Officials said toll roads are needed because gasoline tax revenues and federal highway money, long the staples of highway construction, will be able only to pay for maintenance costs but not new construction.
Much discussion focused on a Spain-based firm that was part of a consortium to win a planning contract for the first phase of the TTC, which is to parallel I-35. But transportation department officials insisted the land and roads would continue to be owned by the state and denied the bid process was designed to exclude American firms, few of which chose to even bid on the project.
European firms appeared to be more willing than American companies to wait years before receiving financial returns on their investment, Simmons said.
The town hall meetings are intended to compliment public hearings scheduled to begin next month on environmental impact studies related to the I-69 project. Those sessions, by rule, are more formal and don't allow for the give-and-take between the people and the agency officials.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
"How can you guarantee me fair market value?" she asked. "I think we can," Simmons said. "We have to follow the law."
Some feared if appeals that are part of the acquisition procedure failed, the state would just take the land it wanted.
"I wouldn't get too focused on (that)," Russell said. "We've never used it and I don't think we ever will."
BTTT
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