Posted on 10/06/2009 4:39:58 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Texas Department of Transportation is pulling the last plug on the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry's embattled plan to build a toll-road network across the state.
The agency said earlier this year it was scaling down the project and dropping the name "Trans-Texas Corridor." Now, transportation officials say it's fully dead. Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram of the decision in a report posted online Tuesday.
The news comes a day after Perry's Republican primary opponent, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, secured the coveted endorsement of the powerful Texas Farm Bureau — a vocal opponent of the corridor and a group that has been at odds with Perry over eminent domain and private property rights. Farmers and ranchers did not like the corridor plan because of the private land it threatened to take.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
You don’t need to ban trucks from the left lanes, just ticket them if they hang out there. Most truck drivers keep right without a law that tells them to.
BTTT
Don’t forget who spawed those DFW tollroads when we go to vote next Fall.
KBH needs to STFU as far as using this against Perry.
She’s complicit as usual.
“Frankly, I don’t remember who I voted for last time (Kinky, maybe?) — but it definitely was not for Perry; nor will it be next time around. “
Sounds like those Massachusetts liberals have influenced you.
Education. 25% of our fuel taxes go to school boards, not roads.
Good for you Texas, and the rest of us too.
The same is true for most of America. It gives me the chills thinking I could be living in a 3000sq/ft house, on a 1/4 acre lot, driving through a labyrinth of cutely named "drives" and "courts", to get home from my high stress job to cut grass and landscape. I thank God I married the woman I did.
Perry always been on the side of big money. The TTC debacle was going strong until the death if Ric Williamson, a Perry appointee and the main proponent of the TTC.
I, for one, could care less if Perry is booted this time around. IIRC, he won the last election by 38%, which doesn't say much for him or his popularity.
BTW- Thanx for the use of your bumpersticker .gif for all these years!
Geez- check out TXnMA's profile page before you make comments like that. While you're at it, check out mine. I borrowed the the bumper sticker near the bottom of the page from TXnMA years ago.
Personally, I have no problem with it. The bonds were spent to build the highway, and the tolls are being used to pay off the bonds. There's no way to raid the tax revenues and use it for something else. And, the people that pay for it are the the ones that actually use the road.
I think you’re being jobbed. Those tolls will never end. I’ll bet they’re still charging tolls on the turnpike from OKC to the Missouri line. They were charging those 45 years ago.
Tolls were dropped on the road between Dallas and Fort Worth back in the 70's, after the bonds were paid off. It became Interstate 30.
However, tolls were not dropped on the Dallas North Tollway (originally from downtown Dallas to I-635) when those bonds were paid off. Instead, they have been continuing to extend it: it's now about 3 times the original length. The tolls for the original section are nearly the same amount as 30 years ago (as it just funds maintenance), but the newer sections cost more per mile.
California has never been a big toll road state. Now they’re getting ready to put them on all our freeways. You can’t go anywhere without them here. This will cost everyone who works $100s of dollars per year.
Adding tolls to existing roads (without substantial upgrades) is wrong. But, if the tolls are used to pay off bonds that fund expansion or creation of a new road, it's the only way you can get them built on a timely basis. The gas tax is spread over the entire state (or country), and it's simply not possible to get significant funding for a new road before congestion reaches a crisis stage.
Of course, the alternative is to raise the gas tax. But, it's still unlikely that a specific project will get full funding -- because everyone else will want a share.
Unfortunately, they don't do so in the section of road that I drive most often. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck behind a truck in the left lane that refuses to speed up and pass the truck in the right lane.
There's a section of I-35 through Austin that bans trucks from the left lane. It makes a big difference.
Sounds good to me.
The corridor was a fine idea, in principle.
The problem for its advocates was that everybody knew it was going to be chock full of waste and fraud.
Well said. It's my understanding that fuel taxes would be sufficient to fund infrastructure needs, but they have been diverted for other uses by politicians.
Otter: The Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's on a roll.
Yep. Anytime politicians propose big projects, you know there will be a lot of graft.
BTW- former Dallas city councilman and others were found guilty of embezzling low-income housing dollars... I am suprised someone didn’t post it on FR.
Two reasons, FRiend:
Those found guilty were black, and I didn't want to be called a racist, and two (more importantly):
It wasn't like it was breaking news. More of a "dog bites man" story.
Off, OFF, damned sarcasm!
and they were Democrats but that was probably in paragraph 33
LOL!!! If so, it is that they turned me even more against liberalism.
My vote (if I voted on the governor race) was against Perry -- not for anyone else.
You are aware, I hope, that Perry was a Democrat -- but he claimed he was Republican when Texas started booting the Dems. Perry is pure RINO.
I'm not single issue, but if George Wasshington had pushed the TTC like Perry did, I would have wanted him impeached -- just as I did Perry.
If I'm liberal, then, by comparison, Goldwater was a Communist... LOL!
I’ve read (and participated in) a massive number of TSR’s threads on the TTC, and I do believe yours is one of the more rational discourses on tolls that I’ve seen.
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