Posted on 03/23/2008 4:49:55 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
South Texas is not only going to get its first interstate - it is also going to get a second and a third.
State transportation officials knew one of three southern highways - U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77 in Cameron County or U.S. Highway 59 in Webb County - would eventually become part of an interstate stretching from the Texas-Mexico border to Texarkana, in the northeast part of the state. Only Webb County is currently served by an interstate.
The state's Trans-Texas Corridor plan calls for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north, with I-69 eventually becoming part of a federal highway project to connect Canada and Mexico. Advocates expect the project to reduce congestion, enhance safety, expand economic opportunities and improve air quality, among other benefits.
Now, though, instead of only one South Texas highway making the cut for I-69 inclusion, all three of them have.
"All three routes are considered part of the I-69 system," said Mario Jorge, the Texas Department of Transportation's local district engineer. "The actual determination of which one comes first will be handled at a later date when funding becomes available."
Early discussions included the possibility of adding new lanes to one of the highways and operating them as a toll road targeting commercial traffic, while existing lanes would remain free for motorists to use.
But Jorge said no new lanes will be added to the highways, and the major upgrades will just be overpasses.
U.S. Highway 77 is the most likely choice to become the first I-69 corridor running through the Rio Grande Valley, he said, because it will be quicker, easier and cheaper to upgrade. No final decision has been made yet, however.
"Our plan is to get an interstate to the Valley as soon as we possibly can," Jorge said. "If 77 can get it here, we will do that."
Of the two Valley routes, U.S. Highway 77 has more segments that are already up to "interstate standards," which means they have more overpasses compared to U.S. Highway 281.
There also are fewer landowners along U.S. Highway 77 between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, meaning the state doesn't have to get as many approvals from property owners to access land for construction.
"It is a lot more expensive and a lot more complicated along 281," Jorge said. "There are way too many property owners."
The private development team for I-69 will have the final say over which corridor is upgraded first.
A consortium comprised of Spanish infrastructure giant Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction Corp. will provide TxDOT with a cost estimate and design for the Texas portion of the I-69 corridor in the next few months, Jorge said.
TxDOT also will ask the companies to do the upgrade of U.S. Highway 77, he said.
He said "zero dollars" have been allocated to upgrade the highway. State transportation officials started cutting road projects in December, citing a budget that can't keep up with existing road maintenance and new highway construction.
Jorge said the private developers will be funding the U.S. Highway 77 project from tolls collected in other segments of I-69 outside the Valley.
Once the consortium presents the three corridor construction plans to TxDOT, state officials will make their final decision on which route to upgrade first.
Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas met with Gov. Rick Perry last week to ask him to upgrade both U.S. Highway 77 and U.S. Highway 281 at the same time.
Salinas points to a February 2007 TxDOT study that repeatedly states that U.S. Highway 281 carries more truck traffic as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The federal government signed NAFTA in 1994 to increase trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
U.S Highway 281 carried 5.9 percent of the state's NAFTA traffic. U.S. Highway 59 was slightly lower and U.S. Highway 77 carried 3.6 percent.
The study also predicts U.S. Highway 281 will have the second largest increase in truck traffic by 2030 among seven major NAFTA corridors. Only Interstate 30, running from Dallas to Texarkana, will have a larger increase, according to the study's projections.
Salinas questions the state's rationale for leaning toward upgrading U.S. Highway 77 before U.S. Highway 281.
"Their own studies say that 281 is busier than 77," he said. Salinas added, though: "I'm not going to put 77 against 281 - they need to do both."
Repeated messages left with the governor's press office, the main TxDOT press office and Zachry were not returned Friday, which was a holiday. The Monitor was unable to locate contact information for Cintra.
U.S. Highway 281 will be upgraded, Jorge said. He just doesn't know when. However, construction for the U.S. Highway 77 upgrade should begin in the next three to five years.
"We're doing something very similar on 281 and trying to get the plans ready for expansion," Jorge said.
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF PLANO/COLLIN COUNTY will host a public forum focused on the trans-Texas Corridor at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Spring Creek Campus of Collin College, 2800 Spring Creek Parkway. Call 972-964-8951.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
Build the damn roads.
Either that or kill off the population.
You either have to increase the supply of roads or reduce the demand for them.
What's shi'te in Spanish? Let's just make it easier for the coyotes.
This plan is all about transporting cheap Chinese goods from Mexican ports into the USA.
As a plan it is utterly evil and serves the people of Texas not one jot.
It does serve the global corporations and the greed of small-minded short-sighted men.
Has there been a referendum on this?
Was thinking maybe Walmart should pay for the roads?
We’ve always had roads the crossed the border. Would you be opposed to a new road to an artifiicial Calfornia port that brought in new imports from Asia?
Not that I know of. They held “town hall” style meetings and listened to people’s concerns, then spent the latter half of the meeting basically telling them they didn’t know what they were talking about and, in essence, that they’re going to build the road regardless of what we think.
I don’t know what it takes to get a referendum. It’s something I need to read up on.
makes sense, they are already, for all intents and purposes, a defacto interstate.. the physical infrastructure is there, four lanes-plus wide, high speed traffic, through that corridor largely avoids any slow traffic areas except that it has off ramps and such similar entrances...
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I don’t live in Texas so I’m not familiar with the project; why do you oppose it?
And it’s going to be a FREE road financed by tolls from other segments. This is a plus, not a minus.
Several reasons. Forgive the list-style response.
1. Just a couple months ago one of our lawmakers based in Dallas announced that the state has a $1 billion highway budge shortfall. He also proposed a tax hike to pay for it.
2. Based on the referendums that were on the ballot (allowing police to check immigration status and regarding some new ID, and one regarding government office budgets) roughly 95% of Texans are tired of illegal immigration and want to put a stop to fraud and waste in the state. I fall into this 95% group.
3. I may be off-base but I wager that the $1b. shortfall was at least partially due to the state’s recent emphasis on building toll roads. Note that our toll roads are not owned by the state. We pay to build them, then we pay to drive on them.
4. The town hall meetings which I mentioned previously wherein it doesn’t really matter what the people think or how much they oppose it; the NAU and SPP must proceed according to plan, funded by Texans.
5. If we have a $1b. shortfall and feel the need to sell off our toll roads to other interests then how the hell are we going to build a quarter mile wide highway clear across the state? And furthermore, why the hell would we if we have a big enough problem with illegals and coyotes as is?
That roughly sums it up.
Would you let me know what you find out?
The town hall meetings are a farce. They show a fancy movie of the moving of traffic on 6 lanes or more and a 2 lane rail road.
Then you draw a number if you wish to speak. They listen and write it all down.
They will NOT answer questions directed toward them.
The roads will be owned jointly in Texas by Zackary Construction and a foreign company owned by Mexico and Spain. The tolls will be very high and all land ajoining the roads will be owned by the consortium. Little access and egress will be provided.
Hope that helps a little in the way of an explaination.
Regarding the referendum, we call them ballot initiatives here. After a couple minutes of looking around I found this:
“Texas is one of only 3 western states where the state legislature denies citizens the right of initiative.”
So we’re basically screwed unless we can convince out progressively liberal legislature to place an initiative on the ballot, and I think it may be too late for that already. Guess I’ll make some phone calls to my local reps tomorrow and hope.
See 18 please. I learned something. Could use some mobilization if you know some ping lists.
The lack of good highways between cities and rural areas in Texas is truly despicable. People die, lots of people, on a regular basis due to congestion, poor signage, inadequate capacity, no over/under passes etc etc etc.
One has to pass through 8 (probably 9 by now as I haven’t been down in a week or so) stop lights traveling down 281 to get into San Antonio. As well as wide spots in the road with a filling station or two every ten miles or so where they drop the speed limit to 55 and there are many side roads.
Its obscenely dangerous. More and more people are using 281 as a N/S corridor so as to avoid I-35 ... which is simply a death road.
Texas highways are horrendous. Being the second largest state population wise and the first in population growth ... you’d think they could float a highway bond to get things done. But nooooooooo. No highway bonds in this state. Can’t do that. Better that the highways should ever be 10 years behind the curve and that innocent men women and children die miserable deaths in bloody car crashes.
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