6/12/2008

“Why should we believe TxDOT now?"

By Harvey Kronberg, The Quorum Report


Choice of existing routes along
TTC-69 met with skepticism


Agency officials say choice of route was based on public feedback, not pressures from lawmakers or the Sunset Commission.

The Texas Department of Transportation can’t catch a break.

Even today’s announcement that TxDOT would narrow its study area on I-69 TTC and use existing highway facilities whenever possible along the route between East Texas and the Texas-Mexico border was met with suspicion from Trans-Texas Corridor critics.

David Stall of the CorridorWatch issued a bulletin last night and called the decision a public relations move that lacked sincerity from TxDOT.

“Faced with pressure from state and federal officials, an unhappy Sunset Advisory Commission, and pending report from the State Auditor, it was time for TxDOT to find something they could give up,” Stall wrote. “Hello, TTC-69.”

Terri Hall of Texans United For Reform and Freedom was scornful.

“Why should we believe TxDOT now? The public has lost all trust in this agency that even the Sunset Committee calls ‘out of control,’” Hall said. “Certain landowners will no longer be affected and can breathe a sigh of relief, this project is still ill-conceived. This corridor was promised as a FREE interstate highway for decades, now they’ll convert existing freeways like Hwy 59 into privately controlled toll roads. Somehow we feel in no mood to celebrate.”

Still, TxDOT has decided to use existing roadways for I-69/TTC. That means long stretches of US Highway 59, along with segments of US Highways 77 and 281 in South Texas; State Highway 44 in the Coastal Bend; and US Highways 84 in East Texas out to Texarkana. Such a configuration would give access points to the highway on the south out of the Valley and Laredo -- possibly a TTC-69E and TTC-69W like IH-35E and IH-35W -- plus north-end access to both Texarkana and Shreveport, Louisiana.

Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, who was in Lufkin for today’s press conference with Phil Russell, said the choice came out of feedback up and down the corridor. Asked by media in Houston why the agency had changed its mind, Saenz said the agency rolled out its initial draft environmental impact statement with both existing and new alignments. Comments out of the communities stated existing roads as the preferred route.

Russell added the choice of a preferred route came when it should have, at the point where the agency sent its environmental impact statement to the Federal Highway Administration. Once that’s approved next spring, the agency will do another round of hearings to narrow down the route further and consider some of the initial options on routing through the metropolitan areas of Corpus Christi, Houston and Texarkana.

“You asked why this is so late,” Russell told the reporters from Houston. “My response is that we did not anticipate this sort of decision. That is what shows the public involvement has worked. It has taken a couple of years, but, ultimately, I think that the process of gathering public comments and doing additional analysis worked. This is exactly the right time to make the decision.”

The TTC-69 route will serve a number of purposes. While much of the initial publicity on the 600-mile route focused on Mexico-Texas commerce, Deputy Director Steve Simmons, in Austin on today’s teleconference call with Turnpike Director Mark Tomlinson, said there is still plenty of activity and new business on the north end of the I-69 highway project to make predicting the phasing of the project difficult. Construction phasing along the route could start on the north end as easily as the south end, depending on traffic, Simmons said.

Simmons said TxDOT intends to secure a consultant contract on TTC-69, just as they did with Cintra Zachry on TTC-35. That partner will work with TxDOT to plan the route; determine the phasing based on demands and traffic; and explore financing options.

Financing is still a question mark on TTC-69. Simmons said the agency would pursue any and every financial option available to the agency to build the road, from gas taxes to bonds and tolling. In addition to the main route, the agency also will consider access connections to regions of the state that want to be connected to TTC-69 through other routes, such as Bryan-College Station. Connections to the ports at Corpus Christi, Houston and Beaumont also are on the table. Funding for those connections could come from public or private funding, as well as state and local options.

In any scenario, tolling will be part of the financing solution for TTC-69, Saenz agreed, but that tolling will be limited to new capacity on the project. This is not a privately tolled road. Lanes that were free before expansion will be free after TTC-69 is complete, Saenz said. If there were four free lanes before construction, there will be four or more free lanes after the construction of TTC-69 is complete.

Read the rest of the report HERE.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think we have our answer based on the press conference comments in Lufkin yesterday. .



Saenz said "the agency rolled out its initial draft environmental impact statement with both existing and new alignments. Comments out of the communities stated existing roads as the preferred route".

No they didn’t, the discussion of using existing Right-of-Way in the DEIS moves this analysis to Tier Two. The only applicable comments in the current DEIS were limited to NO ACTION or PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE CORRIDOR.


“You asked why this is so late,” Russell told the reporters from Houston. “My response is that we did not anticipate this sort of decision".

I give them lots of credit FOR anticipating this decision when they created a “tiered” EIS.

"The TTC-69 route will serve a number of purposes. While much of the initial publicity on the 600-mile route focused on Mexico-Texas commerce".

But wait a minute, Commissioner Houghton claimed that this road had nothing to do with connecting US to Mexico for a trade route in public hearings earlier this year.


Simmons said "TxDOT intends to secure a consultant contract on TTC-69, just as they did with Cintra Zachry on TTC-35. That partner will work with TxDOT to plan the route; determine the phasing based on demands and traffic; and explore financing options".

Okay, but these things need to be in the DEIS and are not.

In addition to the main route, the agency also will consider access connections to regions of the state that want to be connected to TTC-69 through other routes, such as Bryan-College Station. Connections to the ports at Corpus Christi, Houston and Beaumont also are on the table. Funding for those connections could come from public or private funding, as well as state and local options.

So there you have it; people in Polk, Trinity, Walker, Grimes and Brazos County are still exposed. They can only do this by pushing through the existing DEIS because this east-west route is in there under Tier One. Once it moves to Final we are dead in the water and they can decide to build across us in the future whenever and wherever.



Craig Whealy

Anonymous said...

Why in the world should we build roads to Interstate standards to unimportant places like Bryan-College Station? Highway 6 running both ways has always fulfilled their needs and should continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

Anonymous said...

Two words: Senator Ogden