Free Republic

AUSTIN, Texas — If anyone wondered whether Texas toll road rage had subsided or lawmakers' irritation at the Texas Department of Transportation had eased, those questions got answered a few days before Christmas: Not so much. Denouncing the massive transportation agency as dysfunctional and out of control, a group of lawmakers reviewing the department said it will be intensely debated in the legislative session that begins Jan. 13. "This is a big agency that is a mess," said Rep. Carl Isett, a Lubbock Republican and one of the leaders of the Sunset Advisory Commission that periodically examines state agencies. He...

The Texas Legislature is coming back Jan. 13, and change may be in the air. The Sunset Advisory Commission, by a narrow margin, recently voted to abolish the five-member commission that oversees the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoOT), and replace it with a single commissioner. This is but the latest in the continuing evolution of Texas state government. When legislators think an agency isn’t working right, the urges generally are to change the agency’s personnel; to change the agency’s structure; to combine it with some other agency; to investigate it; or to abolish it. Such it is with TxDOT. In...

Confronted with a struggling transportation fund, lawmakers in Texas soon are expected to wage battle on various methods to help generate $14 billion for roads and bridges throughout the state. Another bill is intended to sideline the planned Trans-Texas Corridor. A report released this week from the Texas Department of Transportation says that the state will need to come up with $313 billion by 2030 for road and bridge maintenance and for congestion solutions. The report’s unveiling happened a couple of weeks before the Texas Legislature is set to convene its 2009 session. Lawmakers say they already were committed to...

Famed Blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan tells about his involvement in the movement to restore our constitutional republic. Guitar Player magazine called Jimmie Vaughan "a living legend." He's one of the most respected guitarists in the world of popular music. He started playing guitar when he was 13, and his mother said of his immediate adeptness, "It was like he played it all his life." His fans aren't just "fans"; they include other guitarists and musicians of significant renown, including Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and his brother, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. He is that good. But...

A citizens’ advisory committee appointed to advise the Texas Transportation Commission agrees with Texas Farm Bureau that the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) concept needs to be scrapped and new avenues explored to meet the Lone Star State's transportation needs, according to TFB President Kenneth Dierschke. “This advisory committee does not support the TTC concept,” A Citizens’ Report on the Current and Future Needs of the I-35 Corridor, issued Nov. 12, stated. “Instead we recommend a more inclusive solution that respects local communities and private property rights while addressing statewide and local transportation needs.” Dierschke said the state’s largest farm organization agrees...

HOLLAND - A group of rural politicians from East Bell County that have banded together to fight the Trans-Texas Corridor look and act like a governmental body, but the state has yet to recognize it as such. In July 2007, the mayors of Holland, Little-River Academy, Bartlett and Rogers, with help from a special-interest group named Stewards of the Range, created an organization called the Eastern Central Texas Sub-regional Planning Commission. The sole purpose of the group is to quash the corridor, to make sure it doesn’t split up local farmland and school districts. The sub-regional commission held public meetings...

Texas politicians who support toll roads won't have Sal Costello to kick them around anymore. Costello and his family moved to a small town in Southern Illinois this summer. He announced it on his blog Sunday, quietly, an adverb seldom associated with Costello in the past. Costello, if you're new around here or have forgotten, was a Southwest Austin graphics designer who in 2004 made a warp-speed trip from obscurity to notoriety after politicians pushed through a plan to build seven more toll roads. The plan included putting tolls on three roads that were already under construction using nothing but...

A San Antonio lawmaker filed a bill that would repeal the establishment and operation of the Trans-Texas Corridor. It’s not the first time he’s done so. In the 2007 legislative session, Rep. David Leibowitz filed an identical bill, but it languished in the House Transportation Committee without a hearing. Leibowitz spokesman Rob Borja said the legislation may have a better fate the second time around. At least four of the nine committee members will change this session, including the chairman. “Probably most important is there will be a new chairman, because the old chairman Mike Krusee wouldn’t let any bills...

A citizens committee appointed by the Texas Department of Transportation has issued a series of recommendations on what should be done to deal with increasing congestion on Interstate 35, 1200 WOAI news reports. The committee said stretches of Interstate 35, which runs from Laredo to Gainesville and is the most heavily traveled Interstate highway in the country, have 'pushed the limit of the road's design capacity.' Gabby Garcia of TxDOT says the committee reacted strongly against Governor Perry's 'Trans Texas Corridor' toll road plan, saying the TTC 'has come to represent what Texans do not want in transportation project delivery....

History tends to repeat itself in more ways than one. Wichita Falls historian and author Steve Goen has again been asked to give a presentation at George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at the Texas A&M campus at College Station Nov. 22. This will be his second appearance at the library. Goen’s presentation, “The Katy Railroad — Our State’s Original Trans-Texas Corridor,” will showcase the evolution of transportation along the Blackland Prairie in Central Texas. “Gov. Rick Perry and politicians in Austin are pushing for a superhighway with a railroad running through it,” Goen said. “There’s a lot of resistance...

U.S. Highway 281 Presentation >> Priority 1: Spend $75 million to build five overpasses in Falfurrias.>> Priority 2: A $13 million Ben Bolt overpass at Farm-to-Market Road 2508 is proposed to create a safer school zone and eliminate another traffic barrier.>> Priority 3: Dedicate anywhere from $40 million to $104 million to build tolled relief route around Premont or upgrade the existing route with tolled freeway lanes.>> Priority 4: A $50 million project in George West to build connectors to U.S. Highway 59 and Interstate 37.McALLEN -- Whether the route is eventually called Interstate 69 or the Trans-Texas Corridor, four...

Put a fork in it. That’s what two Texas politicians recently said about the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. “Everybody in Austin knows it’s dead. Everybody across the state knows it’s dead. It’s just something to be talking about,” House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, said at a debate in Midland on Oct. 19, according to a published report. But folks fighting the corridor here in Central Texas call it election season bluster. “Yes, they are still planning to do it,” said Mae Smith, Holland mayor. “That’s nothing but political talk. I don’t believe anything Mr. Craddick says, or any politician says prior...

"Everybody in Austin knows it's dead. Everybody across the state knows it's dead. It's just something to be talking about."

CORRIGAN, TX (KTRE)- A draft environmental impact statement prepared by TxDot is at the heart of the I-69 Trans Texas Corridor debate. Members of the Trinity Neches Sub-Regional Planning Committee want to send TxDot back to the drawing board. Bob Dickens, President of the Trinity Neches Sub-Regional Planning Committee says, "We don'think the law and regulations were followed and we do not think TxDot has taken into consideration the impact of the environment, our wildlife, our water districts, our cities, our school districts, and in essence, our way of life. That's why the Sub-Regional Planning Committee met with the Environmental...

In an interview with the Taylor Daily Press, State Sen. Steve Ogden revealed a possible new course for the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Instead of building superhighways across the state, Ogden said, the state may opt to augment the Texas Trunk System, a web of rural highways that includes U.S. 79. The plan would expand those highways to four-lane divided highways, while expanding urban infrastructure with toll roads. “We need to limit that concept to existing highways,” Ogden said of the proposed network of superhighways and tiered rail systems. “I passed a bill last session that did that, but [Gov. Rick...

GROVETON, TX (KTRE) - The Trinity-Neches Texas Sub-Regional Planning Committee, or TNT, is set to meet with the Environmental Protection Agency next week. TNT says TxDOT has not given enough thought to the environmental impact of the corridor, and they need the EPA to examine the findings they will get from TxDOT about the TTC. "We're not in opposition to improvement and expansion. We just want to make sure it's done right because once you cover up rural Texas with concrete you can't change it back," says Connie Fogle with TNT. The Trans-Texas Corridor is expected to use thousands of...

St. Hedwig has homes on large lots and a longtime tradition of rural living. And folks there want to keep it that way. “We want to be able to maintain as best we can the reason we moved out here in the first place,” said Kathy Palmer, the city’s planning and zoning commissioner. But a new master plan and recently updated zoning maps are no match for a proposed route of Trans-Texas Corridor 35 that would slice straight through the city of about 2,000 people and create headaches for several city departments, officials said. With neighboring Wilson County, St. Hedwig...

The Texas Department of Transportation is asking Nueces County residents to attend a public meeting in Driscoll to comment and provide input on proposed upgrades of US 77 to a controlled access facility that meets interstate standards. The purpose of the meetings is to review proposed options for upgrading US 77 and to present recommendations, TxDOT officials said. The first round public meetings were held in early March. This second round of public meetings is being held as part of TxDOT's continued effort to gain public input on issues related to proposed improvements and to provide an opportunity for public...

In my recent letter to you concerning the TTC, I misquoted some information about the company known as Cintra. Mr. Patrick Rhodes of Cintra wrote in response to my mistake. Therefore, I stand corrected with the following: Fellow citizens, the company, Cintra, is not affiliated with ZAI-ACS. Cintra is partnered with Zachry on some TxDOT projects and ACS is partnered with Zachry on some other TxDOT projects. Therefore, I hope this clarifies the over-zealous statements in my letter. Cintra is a Spanish-owned company, and ACS is a larger Spanish-owned company. Zachry, a Texas company, is affiliated with each of them...

TEXARKANA — The company selected to design Interstate 69 has revealed plans to also implement the world’s first air rail freight system in the corridor, possibly starting in Texarkana, Texas. “You [Texarkana ] have railroads here, you already have an interstate, bringing I-69 is another interstate, you’ve got Oklahoma, you’ve got I-49,” said Gary Kuhn, senior project manager for Zachary American Infrastructure. “This is what the logistics world likes to see — that opportunity to go from one mode to another very efficiently.” In a presentation to the Wilbur Smith Rotary Club, Kuhn said the freight shuttle is a new...