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County commissioners reaffirmed their stance against the Trans-Texas Corridor, and they took another step toward keeping county government transparent when they met Tuesday. First up on the court's agenda, commissioners heard a presentation by Connie Fogle on behalf of the newly formed Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission. According to Fogle, the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, requires state agencies to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." "Critical in the code is the word 'coordinate,'" she said. "This does not mean the commission has to cooperate. The intent is to...

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,...

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state's existing highway system is heating up More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the "NAFTA superhighway." It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report) Terry Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. "They're taking huge swaths of land, up...

Toll road contract in Texas allows state to lower speed limits on nearby interstate freeway to avoid paying penalties to a private company. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has agreed to consider lowering the maximum speed limit on a stretch of interstate highway that competes with a planned toll road. Cintra-Zachary, a joint Spanish-US venture, paid TxDOT $1.3 billion for the right to collect tolls on 40-miles of State Highway 130 set for construction beginning in 2009. Although TxDOT suggested that free market competition was part of the goal of using a public-private partnerships to construct and operate roads,...

Warning: Unless you put up a roadblock this minute, soon Florida Republicans will "Dubai" all the state's assets. Once again, Elephants in the Florida Legislature have sold their souls, assuming they ever had any. Routinely, they barter the public interest for a buck. This time, in a scheme that only Halliburton could hail, House Republicans just passed H.B. 7033, giving private companies virtual monopoly ownership of most of Florida's toll roads. (Democratic state Reps. Susan Bucher and Keith Fitzgerald told me they were outraged.) That's right! If the scheme becomes law, corporate interests will be able to make a profit...

AUSTIN – A groundswell seems to be developing in Texas against the privatization of toll roads. And State Senator Robert Nichols is a key leader of the fight. Nichols has filed SB 1267, which would place a two-year moratorium on the privatization of toll roads. Companion SB 1268 prohibits converting existing roads to toll roads – a fight many voters thought they’d already won. Under current law an existing road can still be converted to a toll road even though many have regional or statewide use. “These roads were built with public money for public use,” Nichols said March 6...

Over the decades of watching the Legislature, no issue has so inflamed passions — and unified such disparate groups — as the current toll-road proposals winding through state government. Texas Department of Transportation officials have argued that the state's highway needs greatly exceed what fuel taxes will generate, and the only way to catch up with the traffic congestion is to sell some planned and existing roads to private operators and use the cash to build other roads. Clearly, the proposal that has most inflamed opponents has been the Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive 50-year project for which the state would...

AUSTIN -- Texans who are demanding that the state stop building toll roads may get their wish. But they might not like the alternative: Higher state gas taxes. There is broad support in Austin for increasing the state's 20-cents-a-gallon motor fuel tax , says a lawmaker leading the effort to strip the Texas Department of Transportation's authority to build toll roads and enter into agreements with private companies. The Texas gas tax has not gone up since 1991. "The message is loud and clear. You couldn't not hear it. People want us to build roads, and they're willing to pay...

Hundreds of people angry with the state's toll road contracts sounded off before state senators Thursday. Public hearings on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor began early Thursday morning. Senators invited public input because state lawmakers will make some important decisions this session about how to pay for highways. So many people showed up that crowds were forced into overflow rooms. The Texas Department of Transportation and toll roads have found many critics, largely because of the private companies hired to build and run them. There are also questions about how much taxpayers pay for the roads. Speakers sounded...

A San Antonio-area lawmaker has filed a bill to kill the Trans-Texas Corridor. State Rep. David Leibowitz, D-Helotes, told Waco-based KWTX that the massive toll road project would “destroy rural Texas as we know it.” State Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, whose district includes Ellis and Hill counties, both of which would be impacted by the proposed toll road, said he would be supportive of the measure. “I support efforts to get more control over TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) and the Trans-Texas Corridor,” Pitts said. “The Trans-Texas Corridor will have enormous effects on this area and the people who live...

A coalition to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor voiced its concerns Sunday in Austin, citing border security and gun rights as key issues not being addressed. The large crowd in attendance at the meeting represented a cross section of Texans and included a veterans group out of Houston. “We didn’t fight a war so our government could give away our land,” said ret. Col. Sam Horton of Houston. World War II veteran, ret. Col. Arthur Peterson of Houston, said national security is at stake because the Gov. Rick Perry-supported transportation project would help erase borders between the United States and Mexico...

Across the country, state highway officials are almost giddy about the prospects of selling the right to build toll roads to private investors. Financial wizards have learned how to amass gigantic pools of capital to pay the states for the privilege. Prestigious financial institutions are promoting the new method of financing infrastructure as the greatest development since sliced bread. Left out of the equation is the consumer – the poor working stiff who has paid exorbitant local, state and federal taxes on every gallon of gasoline he ever purchased so that highway officials would have the funds necessary to construct...

Gov. Rick Perry should find someone other than his long-time friend Ric Williamson to lead the Texas Transportation Commission, the incoming chairman of the Senate's transportation committee said today. Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said Williamson's "abrasiveness" and single-minded commitment to toll roads and privatization as the only solution to traffic congestion "has worn out his welcome in many communities across the state. I think it would be in the best interest of the state that he step aside in favor of new leadership on the commission." Williamson, whose six-year appointed term ends Feb. 1, declined to comment, citing a standing...

Four thousand miles of smooth blacktop. Six open lanes of road with never a traffic jam. Four lanes for trucks to keep the 18-wheelers from bothering Joe Motorist. High-speed rail to get you from San Antonio to Dallas in just a couple of comfy hours. Oil, gas, and water lines running from Oklahoma to the Mexican border. Handy motels, shops, and gas stations to keep you from having to get off the road until you hit the state line. That’s the dream of the backers of the Trans-Texas Corridor, the biggest public works project in the history of the state...

More than 54,000 cars a day pass through Interstate 35 near Hillsboro where the highway splits, leading motorists either through Dallas or Fort Worth. Added volume on New year's Day slowed traffic to 5 mph through the town, with cars stuck in medians and map-savvy drivers turning the Hill County Courthouse square into a traffic jam. Hillsboro is more than 150 miles from Tyler, Longview and Marshall, but one official says the growing pressure on the Central Texas highway is beginning to affect East Texas arteries. "I-35 is one of the busiest in the state, and people are already coming...

Toll-road skeptics and others who oppose long-term leases on Texas roads to private companies, especially foreign ones, are citing the work of a Texas Transportation Institute scholar to make their case for traditional road financing with fuel taxes. Ironically, the findings by associate research scientist David Ellis appear in a report by the Governor's Business Council. And the council, reflecting Gov. Rick Perry's own strong views, is very much in favor of tolls. Caught in the middle, Ellis says his work is being misinterpreted. "People find in there what they want to find and read what they want to read,"...

A new study claims the Texas toll road project is inefficient and will not support the future population of the Lone Star State. When garnering support for the new toll roads, politicians argued it was the only feasible way to fund new roads. With the amount needed for construction, it would increase gas prices to $3 a gallon if they were to fund the roads instead with a gas tax. The Texas Transportation Institute out of Texas A&M reports TxDOT overestimated the cost of the toll roads by $30 billion. The study also says even with the Trans-Texas Corridor, it...

Texas' gasoline tax has been stuck at 20 cents per gallon since 1991. Unfortunately, the cost of building new roads and expanding existing ones is no longer anywhere near the levels of 1991. Fifteen years of inflation have sharply increased the cost of building new highways, as well as expanding and maintaining existing ones. In terms of purchasing power, the 20-cent gas tax is now worth only about 14 cents when adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, Texas' need for more roads is greatly expanding because of the population explosion that has occurred over the past 15 years and is expected to...

The proposed Trans-Texas Corridor has been touted as a means to ease congestion along Interstate 35 by siphoning off some of the thousands of trucks that use the interstate each day. Unfortunately, proponents of the massive project may have trouble getting some truckers interested in paying a toll to haul their goods across the state. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, passenger vehicles could pay 15.2 cents per mile and truck drivers 58.5 cents per mile to drive on the 370-mile corridor. The fees were set as part of a master plan for the 1,200-foot-wide tollway, rail and utility...