Free Republic

State transportation officials are poised to issue billions of dollars in debt to help speed road construction, a move that will keep Dallas-area projects on schedule for now but will do little to shore up the state's long-term road-funding crisis. The Texas Department of Transportation will likely begin issuing $1.5 billion in bonds within 60 days, pending the recovery of the nation's upended credit markets, and is taking steps to borrow another $6.4 billion over the next few years. Historic turmoil in the credit markets is already costing the department hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra interest payments each...

AUSTIN — Maybe Texas’ transportation problems are a lot simpler to understand than recent fights over toll roads make it seem, North Texas leaders told state senators Wednesday. “My first recommendation: You need to provide a lot more revenue for transportation,” Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the Texas Senate transportation committee. That was hardly the only suggestion from Mr. Morris or the many others who spoke to the committee, which is seeking input as it readies an approach on toll roads, TxDOT and more for the next legislative session. But it might...

FORT WORTH -- The Trans-Texas Corridor is now so controversial, merely uttering the words in most political circles is taboo. "We're calling it a 'regional loop' because you can't say 'Trans-Texas Corridor' in the state of Texas anymore," said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. "The Trans-Texas Corridor is a lightning rod," he told visiting state representatives this week while explaining how the corridor would connect to regional highways by 2030. Opposition to the proposed construction of a $184 billion network of toll roads during the next 50 years is so strong statewide that...

Driving down to Austin lately has become a real trip. I-35 is usually packed for most of the 185 miles, and what used to take three or four hours now can take five or six. Flying down can take almost as long, when you figure in airline security delays, more flight delays, and the time it takes getting into and out of crowded airports. But what if it took 45 minutes to travel from the Metroplex to Austin by train or an hour to make a trip to Houston? Advocates of high-speed rail lines are floating these ideas once again...

Push for higher gas tax could follow chief's death The death of Ric Williamson, the fiery, whip-smart chairman of the state transportation commission, could upend the still-roiling debate over toll roads in Texas in the new year. Mr. Williamson died Saturday of a heart attack at age 55, sending shock waves through the nearly 15,000-employee department he led as well as the political and policy circles where his combative style and pro-toll-road agenda had engendered enormous change – and criticism. Always careful to credit Gov. Rick Perry, a close friend and former roommate, Mr. Williamson emerged as a lightning rod...

In the political world, rapid change only occurs when the public focuses attention on a specific issue. We have that situation right now in Austin. Public and legislative attention is focused on the Texas Department of Transportation and a proposed moratorium on the Comprehensive Development Agreement process, including the recently announced CDA to construct State Highway 121 in Collin County. This public and legislative attention may offer an opportunity for Texas to reaffirm our commitment to focus government spending on core functions – in this case, transportation. There are many subplots swirling in this complex CDA moratorium issue – reining...

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...

A recent poll posted at KeepTexasMoving.org, shows that visitors to the site consider land acquisition as the most pressing issue needing to be addressed regarding the planned Trans-Texas Corridor. Visitors to the site chose acquisition of property by an overwhelming 64 percent of the vote, with 14,280 votes. The next highest vote was for connectivity to cities with only 12 percent, or 2,659 votes. The Web site is published by the Texas Department of Transportation to release information regarding the planned Trans-Texas Corridor. The Trans-Texas Corridor is a large transportation plan envisioned by Gov. Rick Perry and TxDOT to provide...

Elected officials, business leaders and environmental watchdogs, invited by the editorial board, recently met at The Dallas Morning News to discuss clean air issues. This is the first of three excerpted transcripts from the roundtable. The speakers quoted: Colleen McCain Nelson, editorial writer; Margaret Keliher, Dallas County judge through 2006; Richard Greene, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency; Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office; Jim Schermbeck, Downwinders at Risk board member; Todd Campbell, director of public policy for Clean Energy and mayor of Burbank, Calif.; Al Armendariz, assistant professor, SMU School of Engineering; Robert Cluck, Arlington...

The controversial Trans-Texas Corridor was a topic of discussion at the Plano Republican Women’s meeting Tuesday morning. The group of politically motivated women listened and asked questions of Gov. Rick Perry’s transportation advisor, Kris Heckman. It was confirmed by Heckman that the TTC’s outer loop will encompass Plano, something for which the Collin County Commissioner’s Court members have been lobbying. There is still much planning before the road is constructed and of use to drivers. “This road is about economic development,” Heckman said. TTC is a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and...

The final approved version was whittled down from its original form, but the Ellis County Commissioners Court passed a resolution Monday morning asking the Texas Legislature to reconsider legislation regarding the Trans-Texas Corridor. At the request of Heath Sims, Pct. 3, the commissioners had discussed a possible resolution during their last two meetings that would have opposed the TTC project. During Monday morning’s meeting and the meeting of Oct. 23, a number of Ellis County residents spoke out against the TTC and encouraged the court to pass a resolution showing the county’s opposition to the planned toll road. Jimmie Simmons...

Opponents: Trans-Texas Corridor Too Big, Even For Texas DALLAS -- Gov. Rick Perry has proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, and now his political opponents are making it a big issue in the race for governor. It would cost billions of dollars to build a new highway running across Texas near Interstate 35. I-35 is the only major north-south corridor in the state of Texas. “It’s impossible to widen the highway in some areas,” Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Mark Ball said. “So the alternative is to build a separate corridor.” But the Texas Transportation Corridor is much more than just a...

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...

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...

Who's calling the shots? Who will have final say on where and how the Trans-Texas Corridor system is developed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area? Will it be the Texas Transportation Commission, working with North Central Texas elected officials and transportation planners who know the region and its long-term mobility needs better than anyone? Or will it be a Madrid-based company, Cintra, whose primary interest is making bucks by extracting tolls? The Star-Telegram Editorial Board strongly believes that state and regional officials and transportation planners should decide. The primary determinant should be what best meets the current and future transportation and...

The Trans-Texas Corridor project, proposing four to six toll truck lanes and four to six toll passenger lanes from Laredo to Oklahoma, may be as near as five years. Greg Massey, a member of the Oklahoma Highway Authority, recently met with the Texas Department of Transportation. “We really didn't get any new information. The project is still proposed to cross over and connect with I-35 to come into Oklahoma. TxDOT did say they are five years out on the project,” Massey said. Ten different routes are proposed for the corridor. The major variations in the routes follow the three represented...

In the next few decades, the ever-growing Dallas-Fort Worth area could experience striking changes in the way that people and goods move. North Central Texas' population has been ballooning faster than the transportation infrastructure -- a situation akin to that of a growing middle-schooler whose old jeans don't quite fit anymore. With the Metroplex expected to add about 4 million people by 2030, it's hard to imagine the hellish traffic jams that we'll face in the future unless we take giant steps to reverse course. New transportation projects and strategies are being hashed out now that might someday save us...

Regional planners are considering three Collin County routes as options for the state's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which would link Mexico to the Oklahoma border. The President George Bush Turnpike, Dallas North Tollway and the proposed Collin County Outer Loop are included on a Trans-Texas Corridor study conducted by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The agency manages the Regional Transportation Council, which allocates federal transportation funds. The agency developed maps for potential auto, freight and rail traffic. The state will narrow study options for the corridor's future in the next few weeks. No decisions on narrowing potential paths for...