9/08/2005

GUEST BLOGGER: I-35 or Trans Texas Corridor?


Lately, there has been much discussion and speculation about the Trans Texas Corridor that Governor Perry has introduced into Texas. No one seems to know where, exactly, the toll roads will be or even why we need them.

The TTC is 4000 miles of .25 mile wide toll roads, broken into 11 separate corridors and covering 584,000 acres of productive Texas farm and ranchland. Cintra, a company from Spain has been selected to build it and even though the document they signed remains secret, we do know that this foreign company will be allowed to keep all the revenue from the tolls and the businesses built in and around the toll road, for the next 50 years.

We also are aware that Texas will monetarily compensate Cintra using "shadow tolling" until the TTC is able generate revenue agreeable to Cintra's projected estimates. This compensation will exist for an estimated 26 to 28 years at the tax payer's expense.

Recently some public documents have surfaced shedding light on all the unanswered questions surrounding this massive set of toll roads. The following information can be found in "Crossroads of the Americas: Trans Texas Corridor Plan", "I-35 Trade Corridor Study" and "1991 NAFTA Agreement":

In 1999, while George W. Bush Jr. was still Governor of Texas, a study was completed that had been undertaken by TXDOT/Texas, the FWHA and five other states: Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. This study was in compliance with the 1991 NAFTA agreement signed into law by then President George Bush Sr. According to this law, three, (not four as proposed by the TTC) primary trade corridors were to be selected in Texas that originated at the Texas/Mexican border, traveling to the north Texas/Oklahoma border. This document studied the feasibility of widening and improving I-35 in its entirety, from Laredo, Texas to Duluth, Minnesota to facilitate the anticipated new NAFTA truck traffic.

The study stated that I-35 would be able to accommodate traffic needs until 2025 by adding two truck lanes, and if warranted, additional lanes could be added by using relief routes and/or double decking, all accomplished using existing Right of Way. It also included increased transit use in and around urban areas and acknowledged that "actual lanes might be less than expected".

Environmentally, the I-35 improvements were concluded to "have fewer environmental impacts" than other alternatives that were also studied. TTC has had no environmental study and if built as proposed, will devastate thousands of acres of endangered Blackland prairie and pave over untold numbers of historic sites, while simultaneously separating Texas wildlife into fenced sections from which they cannot escape.

And what would be the price for this I-35 Freeway, wide enough to accommodate all our traffic until 2025, from Laredo, TX to Duluth, Minnesota? $10.9 billion dollars.

Incredibly, the I-35 study would not require any additional right of way from Texas land owners. And the study stated "that by using this recommended plan it would produce an annual cost savings of almost $2.38 billion annually in travel efficiency benefits by 2025".

And: "the economic impact of this plan was projected to be 43,100 permanent jobs created by the I-35 improvements",
And: "$20.9 billion in discounted value added",
And: "$30.8 billion in personal income added",
And: "$18.4 billion in added wages".
AND "When the total cost to implement this strategy, ($10.9 billion) is compared to the benefit from it, the projection is that $1.86 in BENEFITS will be realized for EACH DOLLAR EXPENDED." (Emphasis mine.)

We need to ask our legislators why they voted in favor of this Trans Texas Corridor in the first place. And why, when a constitutional amendment called Proposition 15 came before the 77th Legislature in 2001, that gave the Department of Transportation additional authority to finance, construct and operate toll roads, why…did you not inform the people who voted you into office that Proposition 15 was deceitful, unethical legislation designed not to help TXDOT improve our existing roads, but to make possible the creation of the Trans Texas Corridor?

We need to know why, soon after Perry was sworn into office the TXDOT study for I-35 was ignored and then shoved under the rug when it would solve our traffic congestion until 2025, actually financially benefit Texans and Texas, allow Texans to keep their private land and profit Texas $1.86 for every $1.00 spent to build it. And are there other studies buried somewhere that would allow the same type of beneficial improvements to the other designated primary corridors?

It would seem our Governor and our Legislators have some straightforward questions to answer and a 4000 mile planned toll road to abandon.

– By Cynthia Ross of the TTC Research Committee of Bell County with permission. email http://www.blogger.com/GadeRoss@aol.com for sources of information.

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