Posted on 01/06/2009 7:33:37 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
By Ben Wear | Tuesday, January 6, 2009, 09:07 AM
The death of the Trans-Texas Corridor was apparently not exaggerated.
Outgoing Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick had created a stir a few months ago by declaring in an election forum that the Trans-Texas Corridor was dead. TxDOT officials at the time said, well, no, not exactly.
This morning, at the Texas Transportation Forum at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Austin, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz said exactly that, according to spokeswoman Karen Amacker.
“Amadeo told folks at the forum that the Trans-Texas Corridor, as it was originally envisioned, is no more,” Amacker said. “Instead, what we’ve got is a series of smaller projects.”
Those “smaller projects” will apparently include the 300-plus miles of what has been called TTC-35 from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border and the I-69 project from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana. But they will not be called the Trans-Texas Corridor.
Nor will they be 1,200 feet wide, as originally envisioned when TxDOT released the “Crossroads of America” report in 2002 laying out Gov. Rick Perry’s vision of the Trans-Texas Corridor. Back then, it was to be 4,000 miles of toll roads, rail lines and utility lines criss-crossing Texas in bundles. Thus the very wide potential corridors.
Any and all of those roads and other projects are still a possibility going forward. But the reality is that much of the plan remained unneeded until far into the future, if ever. And the Trans-Texas Corridor project all along had generated fierce opposition, including from some Perry allies like the Texas Farm Bureau.
Declaring it dead as a concept, at the least, removes a political target.
TxDOT will lay out its new vision, Amacker said, in a document to be released later this morning called Vision 2009. We’ll update you when we’ve had a chance to read and digest what that says.
No, but my Mother lives along that route so I’ll send a note asking if she is hearing anything about it.
OTOH, if it still starts in Mexico and ends in Canada it's still the death of American sovereignty. I think this is a ruse to put the public to sleep until it's too late. A large coalition was formed sort of ad hoc to oppose this and that opposition got pretty powerful. I think this is just an end run around that group to still accomplish the original goals.
“and the I-69 project from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana. But they will not be called the Trans-Texas Corridor.”
Thanks to Ron Paul’s porking! Yes, Ron got a big earmark for this project...yes, THAT Ron Paul who ‘doesn’t do pork’ (according to his fans)
Sort of like with the immigration amnesty bill last year - public opposition spiked it, but it'll be brought up again and again until they can sneak or ram it through.
I couldn't agree more with your whole statement. Bureaucrats never give up, they just drop below the radar and do it anyway or keep on trying until they get their way.
ping
Best news I’ve had in a long while!
“TxDOT will lay out its new vision, Amacker said, in a document to be released later this morning called Vision 2009. We’ll update you when we’ve had a chance to read and digest what that says.”
I have a vision too...
You can trim down, rename, repurpose, re-engineer, re-whatever...
We will be watching and waiting for you numbnuts to pull this down below radar again and try to get your way with your BS...We’ll be ready to switch the lights on and watch you scatter...
We should feel pretty good about this one folks...It was a good fight, and we won this battle...And it took a long time, lots of phonecalls, meetings, hearings, emails, letters...It was worth it...
Like they implied here...It’s not over...
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