Posted on 04/20/2008 1:26:27 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
For years, Texas has been planning a privately financed super turnpike from Mexico to the Oklahoma border.
But like rush-hour traffic, the plan for a Trans-Texas Corridor is only inching along.
"It ran into a firestorm of controversy in Texas,” said Neal McCaleb, a former Oklahoma transportation secretary.
Critics have a wide range of concerns about the corridor, which has a key stretch that would parallel Interstate 35. (Another stretch would extend from the Texarkana/Shreveport area to Mexico.)
Particularly upset are landowners who may be in the corridor's path.
The Texas Transportation Department calls many concerns myths. The department says, for instance, that property owners will be paid fair market value and entire towns will not be wiped out.
How would it affect Oklahoma?
Still, the critics, including former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, got the attention of Texas legislators. Last year, legislators approved a partial moratorium on private toll road deals. How the corridor — if it ever is built in Texas — would affect Oklahoma is unclear.
McCaleb was a consultant for a company that was seeking to build the corridor along I-35. The company proposed extending the corridor through Oklahoma.
"The Oklahoma arm never got off the ground because our proposal was not selected. And the other proposals had no provision for anything in Oklahoma,” McCaleb said.
‘There's a lot of misinformation'
Oklahoma transportation officials say they have no plans to extend the corridor through Oklahoma. They say existing roads could be used to take the traffic. Oklahoma officials also say most of the planning in Texas is on the stretch of corridor between Dallas and San Antonio.
"It appears to be that's where their focus is,” said David C. Streb, engineering director for the Oklahoma Transportation Department. "These things take a long time.”
Streb said of the criticism, "There's a lot of misinformation.”
Oklahomans organize opposition to plan
Opponents of the corridor going into Oklahoma already have organized. A group, Oklahomans for Sovereignty and Free Enterprise, incorporated last year.
"We heard of all the various problems with it,” said George Wallace, president of the group. "In Oklahoma ... at least 33,000 acres would be taken by eminent domain. ... It will be a private company running this and they can set their tolls at whatever they want.”
Wallace is skeptical of claims the corridor may not be built in Oklahoma.
"The corridors that we're talking about in Texas are up to 1,200 feet wide,” Wallace said. "They have lanes dedicated to trucks, lanes dedicated to passenger vehicles, rail lines, power lines, water lines, oil lines ... Let's say it comes up to the Red River. Is it just going to stop?
"Doesn't make much sense, right?”
I think the plan is to go all they way into Canada. I’m not familiar with many of the North-South routes in Texas, except I-35.
I've been to Texas before. All same thing. Flat as a board for the most part, pigs, cows, highways all over the place, tornadoes (but not as many per square mile as Indiana), but they talk funny!
Yeah, we talk funny. I've been accused of having a southern Bavarian accent, we also have people who speak with the Neew Yawk accent, and a ton of freaks from Califunny. As far as "all the same".... you must have looked at the panhandle and not gone any further. We also have mountains, seashores, and the Hill Country.
Now, why dontcha' go an rustle up some corn fer the cook-out...yankee;-)
Whatever the governor of Indiana has to say on anything pales to insignificance in contrast to what the pukes around here have to say.
I think he's wrong to discuss Ronadus Magnus of course, but I haven't had time to read how that happened ~ that's because most criticisms of Ronaldus are just so much B.S. and not worth my time.
So, was it in answer to a question from the Indianapolis (commie) Star, or what?
BTW, the area from Waco to Houston and all the way West to the great escarpment (just the other side of Midland and due South into Mexico) is FLAT, and that's where virtually all Texans live.
Flat, flat, flat~!!!
“So, was it in answer to a question from the Indianapolis (commie) Star, or what?”
He was addressing a group of Redstaters at some conferance.
Rush said it was the return of the CountryClub Repubs. *Rockefellers*
Rush wants that NAFTA highway to end at Cape Girardeau, not Naptown! Don’t trust him on this one.
...and the heavily-forested Piney Woods of East Texas... ‘-)
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