"Trans Texas Corridor is Dead" per TxDOT

[FloriTexan]

"The Texas Department of Transportation announced this morning that it has officially killed the Trans Texas Corridor, saying that despite the project's visionary aspects, "it is clearly not the choice of Texans."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/010609dnmetttc.43c00ac6.html

[Pab Sungenis]

1. The last thing we need today

is a bunch of new, privately owned, toll roads built with people's tax dollars. Good thing it's dead.

[FloriTexan]

2. Agreed!

Wasn't it going to be operated by a Spanish company?

[Gman]

3. I don't know what to think about this

Perry will have TxDOT do and say whatever they need to say during the sunset process. They've never shown any inclination to do what the people want or not do what the people don't want especially when it comes to toll roads. I do know one thing, if they were to go ahead with the TTC there will be bloodshed.

They may be talking about giving up the TTC but their main goal during the sunset process will be to preserve toll roads where they damn well please. Ultimately it's going to be all about toll roads, Perry, Giulliani and the money they're going to make.

[sonias]

4. I agree - toll roads are going to go up everywhere

Shortcuts blog AAS 1/06/09
Trans-Texas Corridor R.I.P.
(snip)
Those "smaller projects" will apparently include the 300-plus miles of what has been called TTC-35 from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border and the I-69 project from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana. But they will not be called the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Nor will they be 1,200 feet wide, as originally envisioned when TxDOT released the "Crossroads of the Americas: The Trans-Texas Corridor" report in 2002 laying out Gov. Rick Perry’s vision of the Trans-Texas Corridor. Back then, it was to be 4,000 miles of toll roads, rail lines and utility lines criss-crossing Texas in bundles. Thus the very wide potential corridors.

Any and all of those roads and other projects are still a possibility going forward. But the reality is that much of the plan remained unneeded until far into the future, if ever. And the Trans-Texas Corridor project all along had generated fierce opposition, including from some Perry allies like the Texas Farm Bureau.

Declaring it dead as a concept, at the least, removes a political target.

OK so they kill the name and continue building toll roads - mission accomplished. Note that the story above also notes that the TTC remains alive in the Texas Transportation Code so it still has the authority.

Sonia

[Gman]

5. Toll roads don't have to be built

it doesn't have to be inevitable. This sunset process of TxDOT will determine what eventually happens. Here's where I've got real high hopes for Straus.

[Dover]

7. From what I could glean from reports I heard on the news, it's really NOT dead.

Sounded to me like they are breaking it up into smaller projects per region along the route.
If that's correct, then I'm sure there's some financial incentive for the change rather than
an issue of it being unpoplular. Or maybe it will just be shelved until the economy picks up.

And even if its unpopularity IS the reason, then I suppose they think that doing it in smaller
chunks under regional guidance is more difficult to fight and is also lower profile, putting it
together little bit by little bit. And any resistance happens in more isolation.

[derby378]

6. Celebrate!

:woohoo::woohoo:

[cosmik debris]

8. My local TV station reports that it has been down-sized

They said it would be run from Austin to Dallas with extensions planned for the future.

They never give up.

[sonias]

9. That's what my point was above too

Kill the name "TTC" and keep doing the same thing with a different name - building toll roads which they have the authority to do anyway thanks to the TTC language.

Same as it ever was. If anyone call pull off the old bait and switch - it's the Texas Legislature and the transportation special interests.

Shortcuts blog AAS 1/6/09
Trans-Texas Corridor R.I.P.
(snip)
However, Perry, speaking to reporters from Iraq where he had gone on a brief visit to Texas troops there, added that “we really don’t care what name they attach to building infrastructure in the state of Texas. They key is we have to go forward and build it.”

Sonia

[sonias]

10. LESS-atorium on concession agreements By Ben Wear | Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 01:47 PM Lost in a

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2009/01/07/moreatorium.html">Postcards from the Lege blog 1/07/09
LESS-atorium on concession agreements

By Ben Wear | Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 01:47 PM

Lost in all the hullabaloo Tuesday over the tragic and oh-so-sudden "death" of the Trans-Texas Corridor was news that the Legislature’s transportation leader filed a bill that same day giving six more years of life to private toll road agreements.

That the bill, SB 404, came from state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, is no small thing. Carona is chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee. With his counterpart on the other side of the Capitol now retired — former House Transportation Committee chairman Mike Krusee — and a majority of Krusee’s committee gone from the Legislature as well, Carona stands as the main mover-and-shaker on the issue.

Carona dropped news of his bill into the middle of remarks he made on a panel at the Texas Transportation Forum at the Austin Hilton.

Carona dives in to save the transportation toll road industry - as if they needed any help.

Sonia

[tammywammy]

11. The local AM guys I listen to here

said yesterday "So, basically they killed the name, but it'll still happen."

[Paladin]

12. Best News I've Heard In A Long Time

The potential route went right through the old family place in the country, where my relatives have been for more than five generations.

Suck on that, Rick Perry.......

[texastoast]

13. Not quite--TURF update

http://www.texasturf.org/

Support these guys if you can.

Trans Texas Corridor renamed, not dead

After years of being kicked to the curb, San Antonio just moved to the head of the class as it gets its first Speaker of the Texas House, State Representative Joe Straus, in nearly one hundred years! In the last several legislative sessions, former House Transportation Committee Chair Mike Krusee BLOCKED every bill that would have stopped or curbed toll roads or put taxpayer protections in place. Krusee was, of course, appointed by the former Speaker of the House Tom Craddick. Krusee was forced into retirement and his seat taken by a Democrat (in a heavily Republican district) due to his staunch support of the Governor's unpopular push for privatized toll roads.

The Speaker appoints the committee chairs and NO BILL gets to the floor for a vote without getting out of committee. So having a new Speaker from an area with stiff opposition to tolling will go a LONG way toward getting the needed reforms of TxDOT this session. But stay tuned and be ready to go to battle, since this fight is still far from over. The highway lobby is alive and well and money talks. We need to flex our muscles and insist on pro-taxpayer sweeping reforms, starting with a single elected commissioner over TxDOT.

We've contacted the new Speaker asking for a Transportation Committee Chair who is more pro-taxpayer and responsive to the citizens' concerns about toll roads, public private partnerships (PPPs which are used to write sweetheart deals to privatize public infrastructure), and the Trans Texas Corridor. In a nod toward the citizens, particularly rural Texans, Straus has already chosen a former House Transportation Committee Chair as his new Chief of Staff, Clyde Alexander, a former State Representative from Athens.

In the coming days we'll learn who the new House Transportation Committee Chair will be, which will give insight as to the direction Speaker Straus wishes to go in regards to transportation. Straus has already indicated in a speech that transportation is a top priority, so those of you in District 121 (at 210-828-4411, or webmail:Speaker's Contact form and District Rep Contact form) need to make your voices heard early and often in opposition to tolling, especially since Loop 1604 in Straus' district is slated to be tolled!