Free Republic

Governor emphasis on tollways, private road-builders has generated urban and rural unrest Rick Perry's political problem with transportation, to the extent that he has one, may be that he's trying to douse a fire in 2006 that won't ignite for another 10 to 20 years. His critics say, no, the problem is that Perry wants to charge us for the water. What isn't in dispute is that the Republican governor and his appointees over the past six years have turned Texas transportation on its head, moving the state from financing public roads solely with taxes to a system that would...

A plan to bring the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project closer to the heart of North Texas is getting a boost from Gov. Rick Perry. Since April, North Texas leaders have prodded state officials to alter their study maps to include a highway route that circles Dallas and Fort Worth. Until now, the state's preferred study area has prominently featured a route that only clips southeast Dallas County. The local lobbying efforts may have paid off. Mr. Perry has asked the Texas Department of Transportation to take into consideration North Texas' wishes, department officials said late Tuesday. In a letter to...

CorridorWatch.org NEWSLETTER - 07.27.06 TTC-35 PUBLIC HEARINGS CONTINUE NEXT MONDAY - JULY 31ST Overflow crowds are attending TTC-35 hearings!!!! Overwhelming opposition is showing up and speaking. Last Monday in WACO 1,000 - - Wednesday in TEMPLE 1,500 CorridorWatch.org TO FILE FORMAL COMPLAINT AND COMMENTS TONIGHT David Stall will attend the public hearing tonight in Dallas where he will speak and file ten-pages of formal written Tier One TTC-35 DEIS comments on behalf of the more than 5,000 members of CorridorWatch.org. ATTEND A PUBLIC HEARING A public hearing guide is available on the homepage of CorridorWatch.org. Please take a few minutes...

DENTON - "Grandma" lost her argument for a contrived ballot nickname. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn of Austin might have found a plank on which to build a campaign against Gov. Rick Perry. It's a plank 600 miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It's a giant, privately owned, multilane tollway that would part the Texas countryside the way the governor parts his ample hair. Strayhorn, a Republican running as an independent candidate, has criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway plan loudly for months. So have the other principal challengers in this traffic jam of a race, novelist Kinky Friedman of Medina...

North Texas leaders want a giant outer loop around the Metroplex for cars, trucks and trains, rather than allowing the state to build a toll road bypassing the area. The proposed loop could be about 200 miles long — nearly triple the length of the Capital Beltway in Washington — based upon conceptual drawings by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. Motorists who took the loop would likely pay tolls. It’s being pitched by North Texas leaders as an alternative to the Trans-Texas Corridor, a privately funded toll road that according to preliminary plans would steer automobile traffic well...