Perry's Trans Texas Corridor: Do Brown County Republicans Support This ?

April 4, 2006, 11:29PM
Proposed toll road could displace 1 million residents
Report shows $6 billion project would cover 2,400 square miles of prime farm land

Associated Press
DALLAS - The study of a proposed toll road stretching from North Texas to Laredo will include an area with more than 2,400 square miles of prime farm land and nearly 1 million residents, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
About half of those in the path of the $6 billion project are minorities and nearly a quarter are below the poverty level. The findings were included in a 4,000-page draft environmental study by the Federal Highway Administration.
The tollway, which officials hope to open by 2015, is part of the Trans Texas Corridor, a $184 billion plan to build thousands of miles of highways, railways and utilities crisscrossing the state.
Rural farmers worried about losing large chunks of land have opposed the plan. If the corridor is 1,200 feet wide in some areas as planned, a farmer could lose up to 146 acres per mile, according to the Texas Farm Bureau.
The federal study also reports the 521-mile tollway could affect the homes of 46 threatened or endangered plant and animal species. Thirteen square miles of parks could be affected, too.
The plan calls for the corridor to begin at the Red River and skirt the eastern side of Dallas County before running parallel along Interstate 35.
In 2004, Spanish consortium Cintra-Zachary signed a $3.5 million project development agreement with the state to help plan the corridor.
About 50 public hearings are scheduled around the state to give residents a closer look at the plan.
Last month, more than 700 residents attended a meeting with gubernatorial hopefuls in Seaton, about 60 miles north of Austin and near the path of the corridor.
Democratic nominee Chris Bell and independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman blasted the plan. Gov. Rick Perry, who supports the toll road, did not attend.
source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3771918.html
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State narrows area for toll road twin to I-35
Cross-state toll road would run east of I-35, cut through Blackland Prairie, south to Laredo.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
GRAPEVINE — The Trans-Texas Corridor toll road twin to Interstate 35 will flank the freeway to the east from Dallas to San Antonio, include the Texas 130 turnpike in Central Texas and go to Laredo rather than Brownsville, according to a draft environmental report that state officials released Tuesday.
The centerpiece of the 4,300-page, 2-foot-thick draft report is a fat blue line showing an approximately 10-mile-wide area from Gainesville to San Antonio and a thinner line running south, delineating what has been a much-anticipated path for the turnpike. The road, to be called TTC-35, is part of Gov. Rick Perry's plan for a network of intrastate toll roads, railroads and utility easements.
Rural Texans, in particular, have been waiting to see whether their lands would fall in that blue swath — indicating that they might have to sell their land someday for the road. Even if a particular parcel lies within that corridor, however, the tale is far from being told.
The draft environmental impact statement is still subject to review, more public hearings and tinkering over the next year.
Then, for particular road segments or rail projects, the state will conduct a second-tier study that will narrow the path to a few hundred feet in width.
The report did little to mollify critics from the Dallas and Hillsboro areas who think that the road should be cheek to jowl with I-35 the whole way and cut through the center of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, not loop around it, possibly drawing business away from the established I-35 corridor.
Nor did it change the position of the Texas Farm Bureau, which opposes the corridor altogether because of the widespread belief among farmers and ranchers that the road will take valuable land out of production and create logistical problems for owners whose parcels are bisected.
"We looked at (the map) and said, 'That kills us,' " said Will Lowrance, mayor of Hillsboro, noting that the blue swath is at least 15 miles away from his town on I-35. "That's too far east."
As for the farm bureau, spokesman Gene Hall said, "We're still opposed to it, and we'll do everything we can to stop it."
Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson, leading the news conference at a Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Hyatt hotel where the map was unveiled, said that I-35 from San Antonio to north of Dallas simply cannot be widened much beyond its current configuration.
With that highly populated area of the state due to get an additional 15 million people over the next quarter-century, Williamson said, a twin road is crucial to the state's future.
"You're going to have moments where the state's interests and local interests collide," Williamson said. "No one enjoys having to contemplate taking another person's property. But almost all the property in Texas is owned privately. You can't expand the footprint of the transportation system without taking someone's property."
Construction of any kind is unlikely until 2010 or later. But Tuesday's report, preliminary though it is, answers some big-picture questions:
• East, west or down the middle? East. The state had at least held open the possibility that TTC-35 (and the rail lines likely to accompany it eventually) could go west of Fort Worth or even in between Fort Worth and Dallas. Although the report leaves a slight opening, including 11 other "reasonable" alternatives that include swinging west around Fort Worth, it makes it clear that a western route would be bad for rail lines because of that area's steeper hills and would divert much less traffic from I-35.
"In Texas, goods tend to go to the eastern United States," said Doug Booher, environmental manager for the Texas Department of Transportation's turnpike division. "The alternatives that go east of Dallas-Fort Worth do a much better job of relieving congestion."
•Is Texas 130 part of the corridor? Yes, for all but its northerly few miles where it juts back and connects to I-35. This always seemed inevitable, given that the state would hardly want to have two toll roads flanking Austin.
The 10-mile-wide corridor leaves plenty of room east of Texas 130, which is under construction and should open in 2007, for rail lines.
But, significantly, the recommended corridor does not go far enough east to include an existing Union Pacific line that runs north-south through Elgin and Bastrop.
State officials happily announced last week that Cintra-Zachry, the partnership in line to build the TTC-35 toll road, has submitted a proposal to build a rail line along the corridor from Oklahoma to Mexico.
Cintra-Zachry, composed of the Spanish toll road builder Cintra and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio, has said it would spend $6 billion on a four-lane turnpike from Oklahoma to San Antonio, paying the state $1.2 billion in concession fees.
The 600-mile rail line, which would be built to avoid all road crossings and allow freight trains to go 70 mph, could go up to an additional $6 billion, Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton said last week.
• Will the corridor avoid the best cropland? No. Although alternatives west of I-35 would have run over less fruitful lands, rather than the rich Blackland Prairie east of I-35, they scored low on fulfilling the road's purpose: to take cars and trucks off I-35.
The 10-mile swath does hug I-35 closely, with its western edge typically within two to five miles of the interstate, which might allow much of it to be built on the less-valued chalky soils there.
But north of Waco, it cuts away from I-35 and I-35 East significantly to follow the most direct route toward Dallas' eastern side, a path that puts it over the Blacklands area.
The recommended corridor, according to the report, includes 2,403 square miles of prime farmland soils, the highest amount of the 12 alternatives studied. (However, the narrower actual route would take perhaps only 2 percent of that much.
Aside from considering cropland, the report analyzed the various routes for environmental features, such as wetlands, aquifers and river and stream crossings.
Analysts said all 12 of the "reasonable alternatives" had substantially similar impact on the environment.
•Laredo or Brownsville? Laredo. This was perhaps the most surprising element of the report. Not the destination, but the path. South of San Antonio, the study corridor narrows from 10 miles to 4 miles and falls right on top of I-35, rather than to the side of it.
Critics had said during the past few years that Perry's plan for the toll roads, most of them flanking various interstate highways, was unnecessary in some lightly traveled parts of the state. South of San Antonio, for instance, current traffic on I-35 is only a little over 10,000 cars a day on a road that can accommodate several times that many.
Showing the corridor on top of the road indicates that state officials have taken that criticism to heart and would simply widen I-35 through sparsely populated and flat South Texas when additional road capacity is needed.
Michael Behrens, executive director of the state Transportation Department, said the agency in about two weeks will announce a series of public hearings on the draft report. In addition, copies of the tome will be sent to libraries up and down the I-35 corridor, he said.
And the complete study and maps are available on the state's Web site for the Trans-Texas Corridor, www.keeptexasmoving.org.
Environmental impact
Each of the 12 routes considered "reasonable alternatives" would have substantially similar effects on the environment. The recommended route:
•Contains more than 2,400 square miles of prime farmland, 13 square miles of parks and 63 landfills.
•Area includes almost 1 million residents, almost half of them minorities and almost a quarter below the poverty level.
•Could affect the homes of 46 threatened or endangered plant and animal species.
•Includes five federally recognized historic sites of 23 acres or greater.
•Would traverse three major and six minor aquifers.
Source: Texas Department of Transportation draft environmental impact statement
source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/5ttc.html
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State wants corridor to shadow I-35
Trans-Texas road and rail route narrowed to 10-mile-wide study area
09:40 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 4, 2006
By TONY HARTZEL / The Dallas Morning News
A coordinated network of new toll roads, rail lines and utility lines should be built on or very near one of the main concrete arteries of Texas commerce, according to a new report and study released Tuesday.
Texas transportation officials have chosen "a study area" closely associated with Interstate 35 as the preferred route for the so-called Trans-Texas Corridor.
Also Online
The path being studied (.pdf)
Maps and more information
(TxDOT)
Recommended area for the Trans-Texas Corridor (.pdf)
Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, said the gigantic public works project would help ease terrible traffic congestion on I-35 as the population continues to grow.
"The Interstate 35 corridor is the single most important economic generator in the state of Texas," Mr. Williamson said. "We would not have pursued this solution if we were not convinced that this is the best solution and the only solution."
The 4,300-page draft environmental report represents a significant early step in a long process that could lead to construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor. At the earliest, a toll road or freight rail line could open in about 10 years. State highway officials and the project's private developers do not have any plans to build passenger rail lines in the foreseeable future.
The draft report, two years in the making, narrows the corridor's potential location to a 10-mile-wide study area that, in part, clips the southeast corner of Dallas County, runs just east of Lake Ray Hubbard and winds through much of Rockwall County.
Local concerns
Local leaders throughout the state – and particularly in North Texas – have expressed worries that the study area would be too far away from urban areas, effectively drawing new development away from cities and increasing traffic in rural areas.
Dallas City Council member Bill Blaydes said if the corridor is built in the proposed study area, it would do nothing for southern Dallas, which is underdeveloped and would benefit greatly from a closer corridor location. "We will not accept the plan as it currently exists," he said.
In addition, a route as far away as central Kaufman County or Rockwall County could entice existing manufacturing and freight businesses to move farther east, Mr. Blaydes said.
State highway officials say it would be impractical or impossible to put a 1,200-foot-wide corridor through the urban landscape in Dallas.
The proposed route area was a closely held secret until Tuesday morning. Local leaders were not briefed before the unveiling.
The state did conduct 117 public meetings and received more than 4,000 videotaped or written comments, said Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman Gaby Garcia.
But Dallas County Commissioner Maurine Dickey said the state should have held formal public hearings to take testimony about route options.
"I'm sorry to say our neighbors in Austin feel like they should have more input than the people in North Texas," Ms. Dickey said.
Ms. Garcia, however, said, "Public input is public input."
As proposed in the report, the corridor will run 521 miles from Gainesville on the Red River to Laredo on the Rio Grande. In areas where roads, rail and utility lines are built together, the corridor will be 800 to 1,200 feet wide.
The challenge for state leaders may be balancing the needs of a statewide corridor with the interests of North Texas. The largest part of that challenge will lie in how the state or project developers connect the main corridor study route with urban areas.
State officials say that North Texas leaders have come up with good ideas to connect Dallas to the proposed road and rail corridor.
Those ideas include construction of toll roads along a State Highway 360 southern extension and along a long-planned Loop 9 in southern Dallas County.
"I want to tell anyone who will listen that we are not opposed to that route," Mr. Williamson said. Project developers "are not going to build a road that doesn't have interconnecting facilities."
In the new plan, the state has designated almost all of North Texas as a "modal transition zone" where road and rail connections can run directly from urban areas around Dallas into the corridor project to the east.
Rockwall County leaders have anticipated the Trans-Texas Corridor coming through their area since the idea was first raised, Commissioner Bruce Beaty said.
"If you're a resident and in the path, it's going to be a bad thing," Mr. Beaty said. "In the long run, it'll probably be good. We keep talking about economic development, and this is something that could help us."
Rockwall and Collin counties are working on a long-term highway project that they hope will eventually mesh with the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor.
"It [the corridor] is a wide swath," said Collin County Commissioner Joe Jaynes. "If it does happen, there will be some issues to work on."
The public will have its say on the corridor this summer, when the Texas Department of Transportation holds more than 50 public hearings on the draft report. A report outlining the final study area is expected in mid-2007.
After the 10-mile-wide study area is finalized, the state then may begin environmental reviews of specific projects. To build the toll roads from San Antonio to Dallas, for example, is expected to involve about six separate projects.
In general, those detailed reviews can take an average of almost four years to complete, said Doug Booher, environmental manager for the state transportation department's turnpike division.
Proposed in 2002
Gov. Rick Perry first announced plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor in 2002 as a way to solve the state's increasing highway congestion woes. The project has at times drawn opposition from the Texas Farm Bureau and from three of Mr. Perry's opponents in this fall's gubernatorial election.
The farm bureau said the corridor would take too much agricultural land to complete and split some farms in half.
"Our position is fundamentally unchanged. We are opposed to the corridor," said Gene Hall, a farm bureau spokesman who pledged to get the corridor shelved in the next legislative session.
As part of the corridor, project developer Cintra-Zachry has laid out general plans to build $6 billion in toll roads. Last week, the partners announced plans for another $6 billion in new freight rail lines from San Antonio to North Texas.
The Blackland Coalition, a group representing rural interests in Central Texas, said the proposed corridor is not needed and serves to benefit foreign investors.
"They seem to be in a rush to build without a common-sense understanding of who is going to use this road," Chris Hammel, the group's co-founder, said recently.
Staff writer Ian McCann contributed to this report.
E-mail thartzel@dallasnews.com
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040506dnmettranstexas.1d51651.html
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