Trans-Texas Corridor Timeline:
--Texans rip
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Saturday, May 31, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
--Texans rip
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
Monday, May 19, 2008
"The TTC is a boondoggle of Biblical proportions!"
Trans Texas Calamity
The Trans-Texas Corridor is far and away the most expensive construction project in Texas history!
Environmental Defense Fund
Copyright 2007
Governor Rick Perry envisions the Trans Texas Corridor as a 4,000-mile-long, 1200-foot-wide swath of land containing 10 auto and truck lanes, six railroad tracks for high-speed freight and commuter trains, and right-of-way for electric power lines and gas and water pipelines.1 The $183 billion TTC would require nearly a thousand square miles of right-of-way.2
While proponents tout the Trans Texas Corridor as an answer to traffic congestion, the TTC is first and foremost a massive system of tolled highways designed to ensure the fast flow of goods from Mexico and South America through Texas to the Midwest, the Northeast and Canada. Bypassing major cities, it will gobble up more than 900 square miles of valuable land to create straightaways for trucks to sail through Texas at 85-95 miles per hour.
But as the Christian Science Monitor editorialized, “Ensuring the flow of goods and services from trade agreements remains a valid concern, but not at the expense of more enduring values.” 3
The TTC is a boondoggle of Biblical proportions!
After carefully analyzing the TTC master development plan, travel data, environmental impact statement, economic impact study and other public documents, Environmental Defense has compiled a substantial list of objections to the TTC:
For more information: Contact Mary Sanger at 512-478-5161 or msanger@environmentaldefense.org.
______________________________________
1 The TTC was authorized by HB 3588 in 2003.
2 This excludes the property needed to provide road and rail connection systems.
3 Christian Science Monitor, February, 2005
4 “Shaping the Competitive Advantage of Texas Metropolitan Regions,” prepared by the Texas Transportation Institute for Governors Business Council’s Task Force on Transportation, December 2006.
5 “Moving Toward Prosperity Report, The Potential Impact of the Trans Texas Corridor on Business Activity in Texas: an analysis of the Effects of Key Trans Texas Corridors and the State of Texas relies upon input-output modeling to quantify the indirect effects of the TTC on the economy, but it doesn’t compare the TTC investment to other potential transportation investments. Prepared by the Perryman Group, October, 2006
6 Ronald W. Holder and VergilG. Stover at the Texas Transportation Institute in 1972 (An Evaluation of Induced Traffic on New Highway Facilities, Research Report 167-5). Based on the work of Cervero ("Induced Travel Demand: Research Design, Empirical Evidence, and Normative Policies", Robert Cervero, Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 17, No. 1, August 2002, pp. 3-20),
7 Communities across the state have experienced the dictatorial style of the Texas Transportation Department
8 “Proceed with Caution on Public Private Partnerships: Ground Rules for PPP,” Regional Planning Association, January 8, 2007. Environmental Defense’s Director of Transportation Projects, Michael Replogle, was a principal contributor to the Report
© 2007 Environmental Defense Fund www.edf.org
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
The Trans-Texas Corridor is far and away the most expensive construction project in Texas history!
Environmental Defense Fund
Copyright 2007
Governor Rick Perry envisions the Trans Texas Corridor as a 4,000-mile-long, 1200-foot-wide swath of land containing 10 auto and truck lanes, six railroad tracks for high-speed freight and commuter trains, and right-of-way for electric power lines and gas and water pipelines.1 The $183 billion TTC would require nearly a thousand square miles of right-of-way.2
While proponents tout the Trans Texas Corridor as an answer to traffic congestion, the TTC is first and foremost a massive system of tolled highways designed to ensure the fast flow of goods from Mexico and South America through Texas to the Midwest, the Northeast and Canada. Bypassing major cities, it will gobble up more than 900 square miles of valuable land to create straightaways for trucks to sail through Texas at 85-95 miles per hour.
But as the Christian Science Monitor editorialized, “Ensuring the flow of goods and services from trade agreements remains a valid concern, but not at the expense of more enduring values.” 3
The TTC is a boondoggle of Biblical proportions!
After carefully analyzing the TTC master development plan, travel data, environmental impact statement, economic impact study and other public documents, Environmental Defense has compiled a substantial list of objections to the TTC:
- It’s an environmental disaster. The TTC will change the landscape of Texas by disrupting approximately a million acres of land and negatively impacting 600,000 acres of terrestrial and aquatic habitat. It will destroy vast tracts of prime farmland, harm water quality, air quality and human health, and literally bisect rural communities. It will promote greater sprawl, more miles driven, greater dependence on imported oil and increased greenhouse gas emissions.
- It doesn’t address Texas’ most critical transportation needs. As the governor’s own Business Council agrees, Texas’ most serious transportation problems are within our major urban areas: “The largest transportation problem for Texas, now and well into the foreseeable future is the movement of people, goods, and services from point to point within the urban area [sic]. Transportation improvements are needed to maintain the competitiveness of the Texas metropolitan regions.”4
- TxDOT’s economic impact analysis of the Trans Texas Corridor is flawed. It has major shortcomings which should motivate lawmakers to either pay for a legitimate economic evaluation of the TTC or subject the report to extensive peer review before relying on it to make the case for the Corridor.5 For example, the economic analysis relies upon input-output modeling to quantify the indirect effects of the TTC on the economy, but it doesn’t compare the TTC investment to other potential transportation investments.
- Promises of reduced congestion are vastly overstated. New roads will generate more travel (so-called "induced travel") which will absorb a significant portion—about 40-50% as a rule of thumb—of the new capacity. This induced travel shows up on existing, connecting roads, too, increasing the levels of congestion on them.6 Thus, the benefits of the new capacity are significantly overstated; it is conservatively estimated that an additional annual 5.4 billion vehicle miles will be induced by the TTC over the long run.
- TxDOT has ignored feasible alternatives that would perform better and cost less than the TTC. TxDOT has failed to consider how cost-effective urban mobility improvements would increase the efficiency of existing infrastructure. For example, in the TTC-35 Draft Environmental Statement, TxDOT asserts a fixed 132 percent forecast for growth in freight vehicles on Texas roads by 2025 to justify the proposal. It fails to consider the significant role that transportation investment and pricing policies have in shaping the growth and character of freight traffic.
- The TTC plan has moved forward without serious legislative debate or discussions with County Courts, other local officials and local and regional planning agencies.So far, more than 30 county commissioners courts on the TTC-35 route have passed resolutions against the TTC. Organizations representing millions of Texans have publicly denounced it, including the Texas Republican Party, the Texas Democratic Party, the Texas Farm Bureau, the Texas League of Women Voters, environmental organizations, many local citizen groups, and newspaper editorial boards. The autocratic process steamrolling the TTC over and through a surprised citizenry is simply bad policy, and it undermines any notion of local planning. It has deprived communities of any substantial say in the type of communities they envision in 10, 20 or 30 years.7
- Where’s the accountability? There are major unanswered questions about the TTC and the public-private partnership agreements to build and maintain the TTC and to set toll rates and collect the tolls. Texans deserve full public disclosure of all the agreements and contracts with private entities. What are the transaction costs, including fees to investment banks, financial advisors, lawyers and other professionals retained by the public sector to analyze and craft the partnerships? What are the allowable toll rates, both at startup and into the future? What is the possibility of variable tolling? How much potential revenue will we give up to the private partners? What are the agreed-upon operation and maintenance benchmarks for the TTC? What environmental protections and labor standards are included, and what enforcement mechanisms will ensure that these standards are met?8 Where does the money come from for the eminent domain compensation?
- If we build it, will they come? The major purpose of the TTC is to provide quick movement of goods through Texas, but major questions remain unanswered. What percentage of long-haul truckers will opt for a toll road instead of a freeway? (The American Trucking Association has opposed the TTC.) What are the prospects for—and impacts of—rail freight. Has TxDOT considered the role that transportation investment and pricing policies have in shaping the growth and character of freight traffic?
For more information: Contact Mary Sanger at 512-478-5161 or msanger@environmentaldefense.org.
______________________________________
1 The TTC was authorized by HB 3588 in 2003.
2 This excludes the property needed to provide road and rail connection systems.
3 Christian Science Monitor, February, 2005
4 “Shaping the Competitive Advantage of Texas Metropolitan Regions,” prepared by the Texas Transportation Institute for Governors Business Council’s Task Force on Transportation, December 2006.
5 “Moving Toward Prosperity Report, The Potential Impact of the Trans Texas Corridor on Business Activity in Texas: an analysis of the Effects of Key Trans Texas Corridors and the State of Texas relies upon input-output modeling to quantify the indirect effects of the TTC on the economy, but it doesn’t compare the TTC investment to other potential transportation investments. Prepared by the Perryman Group, October, 2006
6 Ronald W. Holder and VergilG. Stover at the Texas Transportation Institute in 1972 (An Evaluation of Induced Traffic on New Highway Facilities, Research Report 167-5). Based on the work of Cervero ("Induced Travel Demand: Research Design, Empirical Evidence, and Normative Policies", Robert Cervero, Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 17, No. 1, August 2002, pp. 3-20),
7 Communities across the state have experienced the dictatorial style of the Texas Transportation Department
8 “Proceed with Caution on Public Private Partnerships: Ground Rules for PPP,” Regional Planning Association, January 8, 2007. Environmental Defense’s Director of Transportation Projects, Michael Replogle, was a principal contributor to the Report
© 2007 Environmental Defense Fund www.edf.org
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, May 19, 2008
The 'T' is for 'Taking'
Mesa: Picken's rep said mogul's ‘desire to be fair'
May 19, 2008
By DAVID BOWSER
The Pampa News
Copyright 2008
CHILDRESS - Boone Pickens has a public relations problem.
About 120 people crowded into the Childress Fair Park Auditorium here this month for a town hall meeting with a handful of state legislators in response to a series of meetings Pickens' Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 and Mesa Power are holding in connection with their plan to buy up a right-of-way from the Texas Panhandle to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for a water pipeline and power transmission lines. But significantly, Ray Floyd of Collingsworth County voiced a comment at the Childress meeting that others mentioned while waiting for the meeting to start.
“The way it was presented to me was very offensive,” Floyd said.
He said if Pickens had approached the people here differently, it could have helped everyone.
“It looks like it is for his benefit only,” Floyd said.
A number of people commented that when they went to one of Mesa's meetings, Pickens wasn't there.
When State Sen. Robert Duncan asked the people crowded into the auditorium here if the legislators present should support Mesa's project, nary a hand was raised. When he asked if the lawmakers should oppose it, almost everyone raised their hand. Some raised two hands.
The other problem at the meeting was that while most everybody agreed that the wind power project was good, transporting water from the Texas Panhandle was outrageous. No one wanted to talk about eminent domain. They only wanted to talk about sending Panhandle water to Dallas.
Mike Boswell with the Mesa Group said there were a lot of misconceptions about the project as he watched from the back of the auditorium.
Not the least of the misconceptions was that many of the speakers talked of their wells going dry and wanting to keep the water in the Ogallala Aquifer in the Panhandle. The problem in most cases was that the speakers farmed or ranched southeast of the Panhandle and do not get their water from the Ogallala.
In April, Mesa Power, a limited partnership formed by Pickens to produce electricity from the world's largest windmill farm, sent letters out to landowners in counties through which the proposed transmission lines will pass, inviting them to one of five open houses.
At the open houses, Mesa officials could check their computers and tell landowners if the right-of-way is targeting their land.
Mesa and the freshwater district are proposing a $3.5 billion joint project that will require a right-of-way of more than 250 miles. Construction is expected to begin in 2009, according to Ron Bassett, president of Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1.
State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said he and neighboring State Sens. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, were getting numerous calls from their constituents concerning the Mesa project and hastily scheduled their town hall meeting here to listen to constituents.
Duncan, Seliger and Estes were joined at the meeting by State Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, and Delwyn Jones, R-Lubbock.
Duncan said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, House Appropriations Committee chairman, had expressed interest in the meeting but had a scheduling conflict as did Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo.
The meeting was cast as a discussion of eminent domain, a hot topic in Texas since the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, in which the court said a local government could take over private property and give it to developers if it would improve the value of the property, and since Gov. Rick Perry's proposed the Trans Texas Corridor, a toll road from Oklahoma to the Mexican border, but most of the speakers spoke out against sending water from the Panhandle to the Metroplex.
Through two changes in state law during last year's Texas Legislative Session, Pickens formed the Roberts County Fresh Water Conservation District No. 1 on eight acres of his Mesa Vista Ranch in Roberts County. The five directors include his ranch manager and ranch manager's wife and three Mesa associates in Dallas.
The fresh water supply district, under Texas law, has taxing authority, condemnation authority under eminent domain and the authority to sell bonds.
The first was a bill that was amended was initially intended to solve some problems in the Houston area. That bill changed the operation of governance of a fresh water district to allow only property owners in fresh water districts to serve a directors, but it also said property owners do not have to reside in the district.
“In other words,” Duncan said, “you could create a district technically that didn't even have enough people to constitute a board - you have to have five - as long as you had property ownership with people outside the county, they could govern the fresh water district.”
He said that while the amendments to the law passed during the last session, there is another chance to amend the law when the legislature meets again, beginning in January.
The other piece of legislation was Senate Bill 3, the omnibus water bill.
Duncan said that in the Senate there was an attempt to put an amendment on the bill to allow electrical transmission lines to follow water lines.
“In other words,” Duncan said, “if you wanted to develop transmission lines you could piggyback on a fresh water district's pipeline and use that fresh water district's authority of eminent domain to run that transmission line down that right-of-way.”
Duncan said Seliger fought successfully to defeat that in the Senate, but in the House and ultimately in the final bill that amendment was added back and passed in the waning moments of the legislature. But while seemingly everybody at the Childress meeting appeared to support the wind energy initiative, it was the water they were worried about.
About 10 years ago, Pickens established Mesa Water in what he said was an effort to protect the water beneath his Roberts County ranch from being sucked out by the City of Amarillo and the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, who were buying up water rights at the time. Pickens said at the time, he would develop the water resources and sell the water to thirsty cities downstate.
Duncan said he believes that there are more viable and economical water alternatives available to Dallas and other major metropolitan areas than a multi-billion dollar pipeline from the Panhandle to Dallas.
“This is not an attack on Mesa,” Duncan said. “It's not an attack on Boone Pickens, and I don't think that would be appropriate for us to do that.”
The meeting in Childress, he said, was a discussion of the issues.
“I disagree with Mesa with regard to the procedure that they're going through in using this fresh water district in a way it wasn't designed,” Duncan said. “That's my position as a member of the Texas Senate.”
But Ron Harris, a former County Judge for Collin County for 16 years and now a consultant for Mesa, pleaded with those present to have patience. Harris took to the podium to ask landowners only for a chance for Mesa's land staff to make an offer before they said no.
“We're fair in compensating all of you for your land and any damages,” Harris said. “Mesa is not here to steal your land.”
Harris said Pickens' desire is to be fair as he moves on the right-of-way issue. Harris said he is not aware of anyone who has gone to the length that Mesa has to be fair in their dealings.
© 2008 The Pampas news:www.thepampanews.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 19, 2008
By DAVID BOWSER
The Pampa News
Copyright 2008
CHILDRESS - Boone Pickens has a public relations problem.
About 120 people crowded into the Childress Fair Park Auditorium here this month for a town hall meeting with a handful of state legislators in response to a series of meetings Pickens' Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 and Mesa Power are holding in connection with their plan to buy up a right-of-way from the Texas Panhandle to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for a water pipeline and power transmission lines. But significantly, Ray Floyd of Collingsworth County voiced a comment at the Childress meeting that others mentioned while waiting for the meeting to start.
“The way it was presented to me was very offensive,” Floyd said.
He said if Pickens had approached the people here differently, it could have helped everyone.
“It looks like it is for his benefit only,” Floyd said.
A number of people commented that when they went to one of Mesa's meetings, Pickens wasn't there.
When State Sen. Robert Duncan asked the people crowded into the auditorium here if the legislators present should support Mesa's project, nary a hand was raised. When he asked if the lawmakers should oppose it, almost everyone raised their hand. Some raised two hands.
The other problem at the meeting was that while most everybody agreed that the wind power project was good, transporting water from the Texas Panhandle was outrageous. No one wanted to talk about eminent domain. They only wanted to talk about sending Panhandle water to Dallas.
Mike Boswell with the Mesa Group said there were a lot of misconceptions about the project as he watched from the back of the auditorium.
Not the least of the misconceptions was that many of the speakers talked of their wells going dry and wanting to keep the water in the Ogallala Aquifer in the Panhandle. The problem in most cases was that the speakers farmed or ranched southeast of the Panhandle and do not get their water from the Ogallala.
In April, Mesa Power, a limited partnership formed by Pickens to produce electricity from the world's largest windmill farm, sent letters out to landowners in counties through which the proposed transmission lines will pass, inviting them to one of five open houses.
At the open houses, Mesa officials could check their computers and tell landowners if the right-of-way is targeting their land.
Mesa and the freshwater district are proposing a $3.5 billion joint project that will require a right-of-way of more than 250 miles. Construction is expected to begin in 2009, according to Ron Bassett, president of Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1.
State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said he and neighboring State Sens. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, and Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, were getting numerous calls from their constituents concerning the Mesa project and hastily scheduled their town hall meeting here to listen to constituents.
Duncan, Seliger and Estes were joined at the meeting by State Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, and Delwyn Jones, R-Lubbock.
Duncan said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, House Appropriations Committee chairman, had expressed interest in the meeting but had a scheduling conflict as did Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo.
The meeting was cast as a discussion of eminent domain, a hot topic in Texas since the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, in which the court said a local government could take over private property and give it to developers if it would improve the value of the property, and since Gov. Rick Perry's proposed the Trans Texas Corridor, a toll road from Oklahoma to the Mexican border, but most of the speakers spoke out against sending water from the Panhandle to the Metroplex.
Through two changes in state law during last year's Texas Legislative Session, Pickens formed the Roberts County Fresh Water Conservation District No. 1 on eight acres of his Mesa Vista Ranch in Roberts County. The five directors include his ranch manager and ranch manager's wife and three Mesa associates in Dallas.
The fresh water supply district, under Texas law, has taxing authority, condemnation authority under eminent domain and the authority to sell bonds.
The first was a bill that was amended was initially intended to solve some problems in the Houston area. That bill changed the operation of governance of a fresh water district to allow only property owners in fresh water districts to serve a directors, but it also said property owners do not have to reside in the district.
“In other words,” Duncan said, “you could create a district technically that didn't even have enough people to constitute a board - you have to have five - as long as you had property ownership with people outside the county, they could govern the fresh water district.”
He said that while the amendments to the law passed during the last session, there is another chance to amend the law when the legislature meets again, beginning in January.
The other piece of legislation was Senate Bill 3, the omnibus water bill.
Duncan said that in the Senate there was an attempt to put an amendment on the bill to allow electrical transmission lines to follow water lines.
“In other words,” Duncan said, “if you wanted to develop transmission lines you could piggyback on a fresh water district's pipeline and use that fresh water district's authority of eminent domain to run that transmission line down that right-of-way.”
Duncan said Seliger fought successfully to defeat that in the Senate, but in the House and ultimately in the final bill that amendment was added back and passed in the waning moments of the legislature. But while seemingly everybody at the Childress meeting appeared to support the wind energy initiative, it was the water they were worried about.
About 10 years ago, Pickens established Mesa Water in what he said was an effort to protect the water beneath his Roberts County ranch from being sucked out by the City of Amarillo and the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, who were buying up water rights at the time. Pickens said at the time, he would develop the water resources and sell the water to thirsty cities downstate.
Duncan said he believes that there are more viable and economical water alternatives available to Dallas and other major metropolitan areas than a multi-billion dollar pipeline from the Panhandle to Dallas.
“This is not an attack on Mesa,” Duncan said. “It's not an attack on Boone Pickens, and I don't think that would be appropriate for us to do that.”
The meeting in Childress, he said, was a discussion of the issues.
“I disagree with Mesa with regard to the procedure that they're going through in using this fresh water district in a way it wasn't designed,” Duncan said. “That's my position as a member of the Texas Senate.”
But Ron Harris, a former County Judge for Collin County for 16 years and now a consultant for Mesa, pleaded with those present to have patience. Harris took to the podium to ask landowners only for a chance for Mesa's land staff to make an offer before they said no.
“We're fair in compensating all of you for your land and any damages,” Harris said. “Mesa is not here to steal your land.”
Harris said Pickens' desire is to be fair as he moves on the right-of-way issue. Harris said he is not aware of anyone who has gone to the length that Mesa has to be fair in their dealings.
© 2008 The Pampas news:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
"Is paying to take Texas 130 to save time a good bet? Only for high rollers."
The Great Race: Texas 130 loses to I-35
In unscientific experiment, your columnist pays $6 to get there 20 percent slower
May 19, 2008
Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2008
Uh, maybe we just hit a light traffic day.
Based on a highly unscientific experiment conducted last week by your transportation columnist and accomplice Andrea Ball, taking the Texas 130 tollway as an alternative to Interstate 35 might not be such a good idea. At least not all the time, at least not yet. But I get ahead of myself.
Texas 130, if you don't know, branches off southeast from I-35 north of Georgetown, swings past Hutto, Manor and the Austin airport and then connects to U.S. 183 near Mustang Ridge. After a slight jog northward, you can get back to I-35 via FM 1327. In about a year, another toll road, Texas 45 Southeast, will in effect replace the seven-mile-long FM 1327 leg of that loop.
The tollways have been sold as a speedier alternative to the ravages of I-35 rush hour traffic. Toll road proponents have said that truckers, in particular, will flock to Texas 130 (and, eventually, Texas 45 Southeast) because time is money to them. Even with a $24 cash toll for truckers ($6 cash for passenger cars and pickups, $5.40 with a toll tag), the argument goes, it's worth it to save the time.
So I decided to test that claim. I'd drive the tollway during rush hour and recruit a colleague to drive I-35 at the same time, then compare notes.
The hardest part, it turned out, was getting a volunteer.
However, Andrea, who writes a philanthropy column among her other duties, graciously agreed (well, maybe not so graciously, as you'll see below) to be my transportation lab rat.
So last Monday morning, after synchronizing our watches on a frontage road just north of Texas 130's departure from I-35, and agreeing that both of us would drive no faster than 70 mph in unrestricted traffic, we headed off, me to the tollway and Andrea on I-35. Who got to the intersection of FM 1327 and I-35 first?
Andrea's account
(Based on copious notes she somehow took while driving at highway speed):
Early morning on I-35? I should still be sleeping. Maybe I am sleeping.
Awake or not, I am well prepared for my journey into the bowels of Austin traffic.
Nutz Over Chocolate Luna Bars? Check. Bottle of water? Yep. US Magazine to entertain me during the inevitable standstill traffic? Of course.
It's 7:15 a.m. I reset my trip odometer at the Texas 130 overpass. Traffic is light, and my 1997 Saturn clips along at a speedy 70 mph.
At 7:27 a.m. I hit my first patch of traffic at Exit 252 in Round Rock. Drivers slow down to 25 mph. Red brake lights dot the still-gray morning. I'm irritated. Bad traffic already? I hate Ben. Hate him.
By 7:29 a.m., the knot has unsnarled itself. Drivers hit the gas, quickly climbing to 50 mph or so. Not bad. Maybe I don't hate Ben as much as I thought I did.
The brake lights are back at 7:35 a.m., just as I hit the Yager Lane exit. Then, a few seconds later, we are once again cruising.
By 7:39 a.m., I am questioning myself. Have I misjudged you, I-35? Are you, in fact, the interstate highway of my dreams? You are so welcoming that even the other drivers are pleasantly courteous. (Except you, White Nissan. You know what you did.) My love beats strong for this much-maligned stretch of blacktop.
Three minutes later, I-35 and I are on the rocks. I'm in standstill traffic near the Super 8 Motel just south of Cameron Road.
Suddenly, the jam loosens. The next 18 minutes are a driver's dream. Bye bye, Capitol. See ya, Riverside Drive. Later, Stassney Lane.
By 8 a.m., 43.3 miles from our mutual starting point, I am sitting on the I-35 frontage road near FM 1327, waiting for Ben to arrive. I am skeptical. Something stinks here, and it's not just my car.
Meanwhile, on the toll road
The drive on Texas 130 is predictably uneventful and stress-free. With only one car visible about a quarter mile ahead and none in the rearview mirror, I set the cruise control to 70 mph.
I will have to tap the breaks only once in the next 46.8 miles of toll road. Much of the time there are no cars within 100 yards of me, and I see less than two dozen 18-wheelers the whole trip. The view is mostly of cows, green fields and old farm buildings.
Because the southern 8.7 miles of Texas 130 opened only two weeks ago and is still in a free promotional period, my toll tag will get hit with only $4.05 rather than the $5.40 that it will cost starting later this summer.
At 8 a.m., I am turning west on FM 1327. I pull up to Andrea's car at 8:09 p.m. Taking the toll road cost me nine minutes. And the toll I paid. But that's not all it cost.
My total mileage: 54.8 miles, 11.5 miles more than the direct I-35 route. My Taurus tells me that I got 23.7 miles per gallon, so the extra mileage cost me a little less than a half-gallon of gas. That's another $1.75 or so. I averaged 60.6 mph, Andrea 57.7 mph.
So, at rush hour, I paid almost $6 to get there 20 percent slower.
OK, some caveats. Classes are done at most Austin colleges, which might take some student and staff traffic off I-35. The day we did our test drives, the KVET traffic guy called traffic "lighter than normal." Maybe we did our drive slightly too early to catch the worst snarls. Afternoon rush hour traffic is more concentrated (I plan to repeat this experiment soon in the afternoon). No tractor-trailer rigs happened to jackknife on this day. Texas 45 Southeast, which would have save me two or three minutes (but cost me another buck or so), isn't there yet.
And it's not 2015, or 2025, when traffic on I-35 might actually live down to Andrea's expectations every day of the year.
But for now, is paying to take Texas 130 to save time a good bet? Only for high rollers.
Getting There appears Mondays. For questions, tips or story ideas, contact Getting There at 445-3698 or bwear@statesman.com.
© 2008 Austin American-Statesman:www.statesman.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
In unscientific experiment, your columnist pays $6 to get there 20 percent slower
May 19, 2008
Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2008
Uh, maybe we just hit a light traffic day.
Based on a highly unscientific experiment conducted last week by your transportation columnist and accomplice Andrea Ball, taking the Texas 130 tollway as an alternative to Interstate 35 might not be such a good idea. At least not all the time, at least not yet. But I get ahead of myself.
Texas 130, if you don't know, branches off southeast from I-35 north of Georgetown, swings past Hutto, Manor and the Austin airport and then connects to U.S. 183 near Mustang Ridge. After a slight jog northward, you can get back to I-35 via FM 1327. In about a year, another toll road, Texas 45 Southeast, will in effect replace the seven-mile-long FM 1327 leg of that loop.
The tollways have been sold as a speedier alternative to the ravages of I-35 rush hour traffic. Toll road proponents have said that truckers, in particular, will flock to Texas 130 (and, eventually, Texas 45 Southeast) because time is money to them. Even with a $24 cash toll for truckers ($6 cash for passenger cars and pickups, $5.40 with a toll tag), the argument goes, it's worth it to save the time.
So I decided to test that claim. I'd drive the tollway during rush hour and recruit a colleague to drive I-35 at the same time, then compare notes.
The hardest part, it turned out, was getting a volunteer.
However, Andrea, who writes a philanthropy column among her other duties, graciously agreed (well, maybe not so graciously, as you'll see below) to be my transportation lab rat.
So last Monday morning, after synchronizing our watches on a frontage road just north of Texas 130's departure from I-35, and agreeing that both of us would drive no faster than 70 mph in unrestricted traffic, we headed off, me to the tollway and Andrea on I-35. Who got to the intersection of FM 1327 and I-35 first?
Andrea's account
(Based on copious notes she somehow took while driving at highway speed):
Early morning on I-35? I should still be sleeping. Maybe I am sleeping.
Awake or not, I am well prepared for my journey into the bowels of Austin traffic.
Nutz Over Chocolate Luna Bars? Check. Bottle of water? Yep. US Magazine to entertain me during the inevitable standstill traffic? Of course.
It's 7:15 a.m. I reset my trip odometer at the Texas 130 overpass. Traffic is light, and my 1997 Saturn clips along at a speedy 70 mph.
At 7:27 a.m. I hit my first patch of traffic at Exit 252 in Round Rock. Drivers slow down to 25 mph. Red brake lights dot the still-gray morning. I'm irritated. Bad traffic already? I hate Ben. Hate him.
By 7:29 a.m., the knot has unsnarled itself. Drivers hit the gas, quickly climbing to 50 mph or so. Not bad. Maybe I don't hate Ben as much as I thought I did.
The brake lights are back at 7:35 a.m., just as I hit the Yager Lane exit. Then, a few seconds later, we are once again cruising.
By 7:39 a.m., I am questioning myself. Have I misjudged you, I-35? Are you, in fact, the interstate highway of my dreams? You are so welcoming that even the other drivers are pleasantly courteous. (Except you, White Nissan. You know what you did.) My love beats strong for this much-maligned stretch of blacktop.
Three minutes later, I-35 and I are on the rocks. I'm in standstill traffic near the Super 8 Motel just south of Cameron Road.
Suddenly, the jam loosens. The next 18 minutes are a driver's dream. Bye bye, Capitol. See ya, Riverside Drive. Later, Stassney Lane.
By 8 a.m., 43.3 miles from our mutual starting point, I am sitting on the I-35 frontage road near FM 1327, waiting for Ben to arrive. I am skeptical. Something stinks here, and it's not just my car.
Meanwhile, on the toll road
The drive on Texas 130 is predictably uneventful and stress-free. With only one car visible about a quarter mile ahead and none in the rearview mirror, I set the cruise control to 70 mph.
I will have to tap the breaks only once in the next 46.8 miles of toll road. Much of the time there are no cars within 100 yards of me, and I see less than two dozen 18-wheelers the whole trip. The view is mostly of cows, green fields and old farm buildings.
Because the southern 8.7 miles of Texas 130 opened only two weeks ago and is still in a free promotional period, my toll tag will get hit with only $4.05 rather than the $5.40 that it will cost starting later this summer.
At 8 a.m., I am turning west on FM 1327. I pull up to Andrea's car at 8:09 p.m. Taking the toll road cost me nine minutes. And the toll I paid. But that's not all it cost.
My total mileage: 54.8 miles, 11.5 miles more than the direct I-35 route. My Taurus tells me that I got 23.7 miles per gallon, so the extra mileage cost me a little less than a half-gallon of gas. That's another $1.75 or so. I averaged 60.6 mph, Andrea 57.7 mph.
So, at rush hour, I paid almost $6 to get there 20 percent slower.
OK, some caveats. Classes are done at most Austin colleges, which might take some student and staff traffic off I-35. The day we did our test drives, the KVET traffic guy called traffic "lighter than normal." Maybe we did our drive slightly too early to catch the worst snarls. Afternoon rush hour traffic is more concentrated (I plan to repeat this experiment soon in the afternoon). No tractor-trailer rigs happened to jackknife on this day. Texas 45 Southeast, which would have save me two or three minutes (but cost me another buck or so), isn't there yet.
And it's not 2015, or 2025, when traffic on I-35 might actually live down to Andrea's expectations every day of the year.
But for now, is paying to take Texas 130 to save time a good bet? Only for high rollers.
Getting There appears Mondays. For questions, tips or story ideas, contact Getting There at 445-3698 or bwear@statesman.com.
© 2008 Austin American-Statesman:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Sunday, May 18, 2008
Rick Perry's 'Highway Henchwoman'
Diplomacy key for transportation chair
Perry appointee already scrutinized by lawmakers
May 18, 2008
By PEGGY FIKAC
Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News Austin Bureau
Copyright 2008
AUSTIN — Deirdre Delisi once aspired to be a diplomat, and Gov. Rick Perry may have finally granted her wish.
As head of the Texas Transportation Commission, Perry's former chief of staff will test her diplomatic skills in an emotion-filled arena in which a state senator has already called her a "political hack."
In an early sign of her peacemaking potential, the 35-year-old Delisi scheduled one of her first meetings as chair with that senator, Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.
"I was left with the impression that she genuinely wants a new and fresh start for the commission, and I can tell you the Legislature wants that, too," said Carona, who publicly tangled with the former chairman, the late Ric Williamson, as Williamson pushed Perry's vision of private investment in public tollways as a key to meeting mobility needs.
Department under review
The Texas Department of Transportation is under review by lawmakers who've sought to rein in new privately run toll roads and are distrustful of the agency's funding figures. There's also an outcry from many Texans incensed over toll proposals and the possible route of the Perry-pushed Trans-Texas Corridor.
"Drinking from the fire hydrant," is how Delisi described her first days on the job, with months to serve before the Senate next year decides on confirming her appointment.
Focused on meeting huge transportation needs, she describes private investment in toll roads as a tool, noting lawmakers are considering others. She's quick to emphasize the need to work with local officials.
Asked what role a gas-tax increase might play in the mobility picture, she gives an answer that may be diplomatic enough to please lawmakers who felt that Williamson pushed Perry's wishes too hard at the expense of their own.
"That's a decision that the Legislature is going to make," she said. "I don't get a vote."
'Whatever it takes'
Delisi was born in Montreal, grew up in Nashville, Tenn., became a U.S. citizen at 17 and wanted a diplomatic career after getting degrees at Duke and Stanford.
When a U.S. Foreign Service hiring freeze turned her interest to politics, she joined the GOP presidential campaign of Lamar Alexander and met the man who'd lure her to Texas, now-husband Ted Delisi.
Other jobs included a stint on George W. Bush's first presidential campaign, but since late 1997 she has mostly had political and policy roles with Perry, including managing his notoriously tough 2002 race for governor against Laredo Democrat Tony Sanchez.
Delisi resigned as Perry's chief of staff last summer when she had twins, born 10 weeks early and weighing less than 3 pounds each. They're healthy and nearly 1 now.
"I think it would be great for my children to grow up in that environment of understanding what the value of public service is," she said.
Ted, a political consultant, is juggling other complications in addition to being what he calls Mr. Mom when her schedule takes her away. To avoid the appearance of conflict, he ended a joint venture with Hillco Partners because the lobbying firm handles transportation issues, though he said he hadn't done such work himself.
"Any job that takes 95 percent of your time and pays $15,000 a year always makes for an interesting conversation inside the household," he deadpanned of the appointment. (The job pays her $15,914 per year.) "But it's an honor. She believes strongly in public service, and I think she feels strongly there is some new and needed enthusiasm and ... diplomacy."
The new chairwoman quickly plunged in with visits to transportation officials and lawmakers from Dallas to El Paso.
Delisi also will continue to advise Perry and do consulting with her husband through Delisi Communications. She doesn't know how many hours the commission job will take: "Whatever it takes," she said.
Long days aren't new to Delisi, a veteran of campaigns and legislative sessions, including last year's when, pregnant, she rebuffed her doctor's orders to stop work: "We still had a week of session, plus the whole veto-sign period," she said.
Will and David were born after the session adjourned.
"The governor called me and said, 'How's my girl?' " said Delisi's friend Jennifer Lustina, another 30-something political veteran. "I said, 'Governor, how do you think your girl's doing? She's doing how you know she's doing. She's just steady.' "
That's her hallmark, Lustina added: "Nothing rattles Deirdre. ... You can say she's tough. You can say maybe she's overly driven once she starts really pushing on something. But you can't say she's a hack. She's smart as hell."
'Highway henchwoman'
It's that other hallmark — her long history with Perry — that troubles critics.
"She has zero transportation experience. Maybe she drives to work, but that's about it," said Sal Costello, who founded TexasTollParty.com to oppose the way tollways were planned under Perry.
"This is an agency that deals with billions of our tax dollars for transportation, and this person has no experience. That's frightening. What she does bring to the table is she's Gov. Perry's highway henchwoman."
Delisi calls her strongest asset her knowledge of the Legislature, though lawmakers' views on her run the gamut.
Some said they don't know her, and Carona (before their meeting) said she was known as difficult to work with. Others offered praise, including Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, House Ways and Means Committee chair, who said she's focused, capable and "no nonsense."
Politics may be an asset
As Delisi's home senator, Kirk Watson, D-Austin, a TxDOT critic, could have blocked her appointment. He said he didn't know her before, but she impressed him with her intelligence and support for more local decision-making and more TxDOT accountability.
"Some people have said she's too political. I frankly think that that ought to be one of her assets," Watson said. "She will be smart enough to know it ain't working right now."
Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, vice chair of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission reviewing TxDOT, heard from Delisi after dubbing her "a political 'yes man.' " They met, and "wait and see" is his mantra.
"Some people have suggested ... Delisi is the one person that can get the governor to change his mind," he said. "I don't know the answer to that."
RESOURCES
PROFILE: DEIRDRE DELISI
• Age : 35
• Education : Duke University, bachelor's degree in political science, 1994; Stanford University, master's degree in international policy studies, 1995.
• Family : Husband, Ted, political consultant; two children, twins Will and David, nearly 1.
Experience
• Chief of staff, Gov. Rick Perry, 2004-07
• Deputy chief of staff, Gov. Rick Perry, 2000-01,
2002-04
• Campaign manager, Texans for Rick Perry,
2001-02
• Bush for President,
1999-2000
• Special assistant, Lt. Gov. Rick Perry, 1998-99
• Texans for Rick Perry (lieutenant governor's race), 1997-98
• Legislative assistant, Sen. Bill Ratliff, 1996-97
• Texas Department of Commerce, 1996
• Lamar Alexander for President, 1995-96
© 2008 Houston Chronicle:www.chron.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
Perry appointee already scrutinized by lawmakers
May 18, 2008
By PEGGY FIKAC
Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express-News Austin Bureau
Copyright 2008
AUSTIN — Deirdre Delisi once aspired to be a diplomat, and Gov. Rick Perry may have finally granted her wish.
As head of the Texas Transportation Commission, Perry's former chief of staff will test her diplomatic skills in an emotion-filled arena in which a state senator has already called her a "political hack."
In an early sign of her peacemaking potential, the 35-year-old Delisi scheduled one of her first meetings as chair with that senator, Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.
"I was left with the impression that she genuinely wants a new and fresh start for the commission, and I can tell you the Legislature wants that, too," said Carona, who publicly tangled with the former chairman, the late Ric Williamson, as Williamson pushed Perry's vision of private investment in public tollways as a key to meeting mobility needs.
Department under review
The Texas Department of Transportation is under review by lawmakers who've sought to rein in new privately run toll roads and are distrustful of the agency's funding figures. There's also an outcry from many Texans incensed over toll proposals and the possible route of the Perry-pushed Trans-Texas Corridor.
"Drinking from the fire hydrant," is how Delisi described her first days on the job, with months to serve before the Senate next year decides on confirming her appointment.
Focused on meeting huge transportation needs, she describes private investment in toll roads as a tool, noting lawmakers are considering others. She's quick to emphasize the need to work with local officials.
Asked what role a gas-tax increase might play in the mobility picture, she gives an answer that may be diplomatic enough to please lawmakers who felt that Williamson pushed Perry's wishes too hard at the expense of their own.
"That's a decision that the Legislature is going to make," she said. "I don't get a vote."
'Whatever it takes'
Delisi was born in Montreal, grew up in Nashville, Tenn., became a U.S. citizen at 17 and wanted a diplomatic career after getting degrees at Duke and Stanford.
When a U.S. Foreign Service hiring freeze turned her interest to politics, she joined the GOP presidential campaign of Lamar Alexander and met the man who'd lure her to Texas, now-husband Ted Delisi.
Other jobs included a stint on George W. Bush's first presidential campaign, but since late 1997 she has mostly had political and policy roles with Perry, including managing his notoriously tough 2002 race for governor against Laredo Democrat Tony Sanchez.
Delisi resigned as Perry's chief of staff last summer when she had twins, born 10 weeks early and weighing less than 3 pounds each. They're healthy and nearly 1 now.
"I think it would be great for my children to grow up in that environment of understanding what the value of public service is," she said.
Ted, a political consultant, is juggling other complications in addition to being what he calls Mr. Mom when her schedule takes her away. To avoid the appearance of conflict, he ended a joint venture with Hillco Partners because the lobbying firm handles transportation issues, though he said he hadn't done such work himself.
"Any job that takes 95 percent of your time and pays $15,000 a year always makes for an interesting conversation inside the household," he deadpanned of the appointment. (The job pays her $15,914 per year.) "But it's an honor. She believes strongly in public service, and I think she feels strongly there is some new and needed enthusiasm and ... diplomacy."
The new chairwoman quickly plunged in with visits to transportation officials and lawmakers from Dallas to El Paso.
Delisi also will continue to advise Perry and do consulting with her husband through Delisi Communications. She doesn't know how many hours the commission job will take: "Whatever it takes," she said.
Long days aren't new to Delisi, a veteran of campaigns and legislative sessions, including last year's when, pregnant, she rebuffed her doctor's orders to stop work: "We still had a week of session, plus the whole veto-sign period," she said.
Will and David were born after the session adjourned.
"The governor called me and said, 'How's my girl?' " said Delisi's friend Jennifer Lustina, another 30-something political veteran. "I said, 'Governor, how do you think your girl's doing? She's doing how you know she's doing. She's just steady.' "
That's her hallmark, Lustina added: "Nothing rattles Deirdre. ... You can say she's tough. You can say maybe she's overly driven once she starts really pushing on something. But you can't say she's a hack. She's smart as hell."
'Highway henchwoman'
It's that other hallmark — her long history with Perry — that troubles critics.
"She has zero transportation experience. Maybe she drives to work, but that's about it," said Sal Costello, who founded TexasTollParty.com to oppose the way tollways were planned under Perry.
"This is an agency that deals with billions of our tax dollars for transportation, and this person has no experience. That's frightening. What she does bring to the table is she's Gov. Perry's highway henchwoman."
Delisi calls her strongest asset her knowledge of the Legislature, though lawmakers' views on her run the gamut.
Some said they don't know her, and Carona (before their meeting) said she was known as difficult to work with. Others offered praise, including Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, House Ways and Means Committee chair, who said she's focused, capable and "no nonsense."
Politics may be an asset
As Delisi's home senator, Kirk Watson, D-Austin, a TxDOT critic, could have blocked her appointment. He said he didn't know her before, but she impressed him with her intelligence and support for more local decision-making and more TxDOT accountability.
"Some people have said she's too political. I frankly think that that ought to be one of her assets," Watson said. "She will be smart enough to know it ain't working right now."
Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, vice chair of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission reviewing TxDOT, heard from Delisi after dubbing her "a political 'yes man.' " They met, and "wait and see" is his mantra.
"Some people have suggested ... Delisi is the one person that can get the governor to change his mind," he said. "I don't know the answer to that."
RESOURCES
PROFILE: DEIRDRE DELISI
• Age : 35
• Education : Duke University, bachelor's degree in political science, 1994; Stanford University, master's degree in international policy studies, 1995.
• Family : Husband, Ted, political consultant; two children, twins Will and David, nearly 1.
Experience
• Chief of staff, Gov. Rick Perry, 2004-07
• Deputy chief of staff, Gov. Rick Perry, 2000-01,
2002-04
• Campaign manager, Texans for Rick Perry,
2001-02
• Bush for President,
1999-2000
• Special assistant, Lt. Gov. Rick Perry, 1998-99
• Texans for Rick Perry (lieutenant governor's race), 1997-98
• Legislative assistant, Sen. Bill Ratliff, 1996-97
• Texas Department of Commerce, 1996
• Lamar Alexander for President, 1995-96
© 2008 Houston Chronicle:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Sunday, May 18, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
"He does not understand how Texans feel about their land or how we feel about being pushed around by big government."
Governor Perry doesn't understand us
May 17, 2008
Letters to the Editor
Abelene Reporter-News
Copyright 2008
If our pretty Gov. Rick Perry's childhood home in Haskell County were to be split apart by eminent domain for the big highway, would he still be singing this song?
With no regard for his fellow Texans and no input by us, he is determined to get his Trans-Texas Corridor. A half a million acres of what some refer to as the finest farmland in America will be taken in the biggest land-grab in U.S. history. It will divide towns, ranches and farms. Your tax dollars are being used right now for radio ads that tell us how good this is going to be for us.
The Web site impeachperry.com is still there. Go now and sign the petition.
We are trying to get rid of him and he is trying to run for an unprecedented third term. I don't think he gets it! He does not understand how Texans feel about their land or how we feel about being pushed around by big government.
Maybe we should storm the State House and take away his styling gel!
Sandra Kenley
Abilene
© 2008 Abelene Reporter-News:www.reporternews.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 17, 2008
Letters to the Editor
Abelene Reporter-News
Copyright 2008
If our pretty Gov. Rick Perry's childhood home in Haskell County were to be split apart by eminent domain for the big highway, would he still be singing this song?
With no regard for his fellow Texans and no input by us, he is determined to get his Trans-Texas Corridor. A half a million acres of what some refer to as the finest farmland in America will be taken in the biggest land-grab in U.S. history. It will divide towns, ranches and farms. Your tax dollars are being used right now for radio ads that tell us how good this is going to be for us.
The Web site impeachperry.com is still there. Go now and sign the petition.
We are trying to get rid of him and he is trying to run for an unprecedented third term. I don't think he gets it! He does not understand how Texans feel about their land or how we feel about being pushed around by big government.
Maybe we should storm the State House and take away his styling gel!
Sandra Kenley
Abilene
© 2008 Abelene Reporter-News:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
"TxDOT has been prostituted by high-level state politicians with agendas directed toward providing for wealthy corporate benefactors."
Taking the low road
May 16, 2008
Larry Jones
The Weatherford Democrat
Copyright 2008
Just over 40 years ago my life took a quite dramatic turn. At this time I left the comfort of home and family and embarked on an all-expense paid tour of the world — courtesy of the United States Navy. Having lived my entire life in Parker County, I had a quite limited knowledge of any place other than Texas, and typical of most young men with whom I grew up, I was quite proud to be a Texan. Additionally, I wasn’t a bit bashful about letting the rest of the world know what they had missed.
During this time, one of the things we Texans treasured most was our wonderful highway system throughout the state. We had seemingly endless miles of wide and open roads that were as smooth as a baby’s behind. Our state highways, along with an excellent network of rural farm-to-market and ranch roads, were the envy of the nation. These roads were maintained like the Pebble Beach Golf Course, and plans were on the drawing boards to expand this system to even greater dimensions.
When you crossed the state line into Louisiana, Arkansas or Oklahoma, you felt like you’d blown a tire, lost control of your car and were driving in the bar ditch. This was the Texas Highway Department I recollect that day in 1967, when I crossed over into Louisiana at Shreveport en route to Pensacola, Fla., to begin Navy flight training.
What happened during the time I was gone from our great state? When the Highway Department became the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), did they staff the head office in Austin with Okies, Hillbillies and Cajuns?
By the time I returned to my Texas roots, the roads were in a chaotic state, both in physical condition and congestion. Taxes had skyrocketed during my absence, and yet our roadways had been allowed to rot. I could not have imagined how road conditions would continue to deteriorate in subsequent years.
With the continuing influx of newly-minted Texans, many of our major thoroughfares are becoming parking lots.
The solution for fixing our failing highway system that keeps echoing out of Austin is to build toll roads. Wow, how could it get any better than that? Oh wait, I just thought of a way! Let’s allow private companies, even foreign owned ones, to take over our existing roads, build a few new ones, and charge us “little people” to drive on them. That sounds just like a passage out of the book of Revelations.
I read recently TxDOT announced due to funding shortfalls, it was diverting $5 billion from maintenance funds to use for badly needed new construction. Why does this reek of deception?
From my back porch it looks like the bureaucratic weasels are softening us up to the idea of more toll roads.
Potholes can do terrible things to a person’s mind. I understand one rationale for toll roads is to make the ones who drive on them pay for them. This is true, but state gas taxes, which incidentally haven’t been raised in 15 years, accomplish the same thing. However, they do not necessitate massive profits for foreign investors, Zachry Construction Co., or buying on credit. If additional funding is needed for highway infrastructure, state officials should budget for it and it is incumbent that lawmakers provide it. TxDOT has been prostituted by high-level state politicians with agendas directed toward providing for wealthy corporate benefactors.
Until more transparency is achieved within state government we can expect even greater cronyism in Austin, and the “chug-holes” still won’t get filled.
Larry M. Jones is a retired Navy Commander and aviator who raises cattle and hay in the Brock/Lazy Bend part of Parker County. Comments may be directed to nowhearthis@pwhome.com.
© 2008 The Weatherford Democrat:www.weatherforddemocrat.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 16, 2008
Larry Jones
The Weatherford Democrat
Copyright 2008
Just over 40 years ago my life took a quite dramatic turn. At this time I left the comfort of home and family and embarked on an all-expense paid tour of the world — courtesy of the United States Navy. Having lived my entire life in Parker County, I had a quite limited knowledge of any place other than Texas, and typical of most young men with whom I grew up, I was quite proud to be a Texan. Additionally, I wasn’t a bit bashful about letting the rest of the world know what they had missed.
During this time, one of the things we Texans treasured most was our wonderful highway system throughout the state. We had seemingly endless miles of wide and open roads that were as smooth as a baby’s behind. Our state highways, along with an excellent network of rural farm-to-market and ranch roads, were the envy of the nation. These roads were maintained like the Pebble Beach Golf Course, and plans were on the drawing boards to expand this system to even greater dimensions.
When you crossed the state line into Louisiana, Arkansas or Oklahoma, you felt like you’d blown a tire, lost control of your car and were driving in the bar ditch. This was the Texas Highway Department I recollect that day in 1967, when I crossed over into Louisiana at Shreveport en route to Pensacola, Fla., to begin Navy flight training.
What happened during the time I was gone from our great state? When the Highway Department became the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), did they staff the head office in Austin with Okies, Hillbillies and Cajuns?
By the time I returned to my Texas roots, the roads were in a chaotic state, both in physical condition and congestion. Taxes had skyrocketed during my absence, and yet our roadways had been allowed to rot. I could not have imagined how road conditions would continue to deteriorate in subsequent years.
With the continuing influx of newly-minted Texans, many of our major thoroughfares are becoming parking lots.
The solution for fixing our failing highway system that keeps echoing out of Austin is to build toll roads. Wow, how could it get any better than that? Oh wait, I just thought of a way! Let’s allow private companies, even foreign owned ones, to take over our existing roads, build a few new ones, and charge us “little people” to drive on them. That sounds just like a passage out of the book of Revelations.
I read recently TxDOT announced due to funding shortfalls, it was diverting $5 billion from maintenance funds to use for badly needed new construction. Why does this reek of deception?
From my back porch it looks like the bureaucratic weasels are softening us up to the idea of more toll roads.
Potholes can do terrible things to a person’s mind. I understand one rationale for toll roads is to make the ones who drive on them pay for them. This is true, but state gas taxes, which incidentally haven’t been raised in 15 years, accomplish the same thing. However, they do not necessitate massive profits for foreign investors, Zachry Construction Co., or buying on credit. If additional funding is needed for highway infrastructure, state officials should budget for it and it is incumbent that lawmakers provide it. TxDOT has been prostituted by high-level state politicians with agendas directed toward providing for wealthy corporate benefactors.
Until more transparency is achieved within state government we can expect even greater cronyism in Austin, and the “chug-holes” still won’t get filled.
Larry M. Jones is a retired Navy Commander and aviator who raises cattle and hay in the Brock/Lazy Bend part of Parker County. Comments may be directed to nowhearthis@pwhome.com.
© 2008 The Weatherford Democrat:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Friday, May 16, 2008
Texas Legislaure allows 'corporate raider ' to become a 'natural resources raider.'
Billionaire begins to obtain easements
May 16, 2008
By BETSY BLANEY
The Associated Press
Copyright 2008
LUBBOCK, Texas — Cecil Martin is none too pleased at the prospect of losing part of his home in the Texas Panhandle to make way for billionaire T. Boone Pickens' water and wind energy projects.
Depending on the precise location of the outer most marker of the easement being sought by Pickens' projects, the 68-year-old Martin said, he'd have one less room in his Gray County home.
"They'll either get the kitchen or the front porch," he said. "Take your pick."
Representatives of the oil and investment tycoon last month sent letters to about 1,100 landowners along a proposed 250-mile path through 11 Panhandle and Central Texas counties to tell them their "property may be affected" in obtaining rights of way for construction of an underground pipeline and aboveground electrical transmission lines, the letter stated.
The two delivery systems will allow Pickens to transport water from the Ogallala Aquifer — though he has no buyer yet — and deliver wind energy to "customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and potentially elsewhere," the letter states.
Hardeman County landowner Kenneth Horton called Pickens — once was known as a corporate raider for takeovers of oil companies in the 1980s — a "natural resources raider."
The last thing Horton wants to see when he gazes out over his thousands of acres — which include pioneer dugouts and American Indian sites — are power lines, he said.
"He's going to hold everybody hostage," said Horton, a banker in Quanah. "He's going to do to the aquifer what he did to" oil companies in the 1980s.
But Pickens is forging ahead even before obtaining rights of way.
On Thursday, officials with Mesa Power, LP announced the company will buy 667 wind turbines from General Electric Co. It will build the first of four phases of the $12 billion project.
When completed the 2,700 turbine wind farm, will be capable of producing enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes and be the world's largest.
Construction of the pipeline and transmission lines was expected to begin in 2009 under the auspices of the Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 and Mesa Power. The only two residents living within the 8-acre water district — both Pickens' employees — voted to approve its creation in November.
Pickens spokesman Jay Rosser said the goal is to minimize the impact the rights of way have on landowners.
Dealings with them will be open, honest and fair; engineers spent six months using aerial photographs to avoid homes, neighborhoods and businesses, said Rosser and Monty Humble, an attorney working for Pickens.
Also, engineers worked to match the proposed rights of way route to existing high-voltage transmission lines, and to abutt property lines and roadways, Rosser said.
"It has increased the cost of the project significantly, but it's something we feel strongly about," he said.
The letter also sought permission to survey from landowners whose "property lies along this preliminary route." There was also information about informal open houses in various towns nearby the proposed route and two of five scheduled gatherings remain — in Jacksboro and Holliday — next week.
"This is just the first step in the process," said Steve Zerangue, a spokesman for Pickens. "We are optimistic that we'll get these folks signed up for the easement."
If Pickens and the landowners can't reach agreement on payments for rights of way, the water district, a governmental entity, can use eminent domain to sue landowners for condemnation of their property.
"The state of Texas has for over 100 years authorized the use of eminent domain to permit the common necessities of life, water, electricity, telephone service, oil and gas for use in the big cities," said Humble, Pickens' attorney.
Until last year, though, the wind project couldn't not have been included in the process of obtaining rights of way.
Lawmakers in the last legislative session voted to allow renewable and clean-coal energy projects to piggyback obtaining rights of way with a district like the one Pickens formed last year to "construct, maintain, and operate transmission lines."
State Sens. Bob Duncan (R-Lubbock) and Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo), whose districts the route runs through, will hold a town hall meeting in Childress on Friday to discuss the issue with landowners affected by the project.
Seliger said his office has been getting "lots of calls" from affected landowners.
"Eminent domain is hardly anything new but this was different in some respects," Seliger said of the piggyback issue.
The legislation that enables the wind project to piggyback with Pickens water plan was a House amendment that was "brought in very, very late in the session," and added to a statewide water bill, SB 3, Seliger said.
Often, he said, there are unintended consequences to legislation; he wants to revisit the amendment next session.
"That's why we want to go talk to them," Seliger said, referring to the landowners.
© 2008 The Associaed Press:www.ap.prg
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 16, 2008
By BETSY BLANEY
The Associated Press
Copyright 2008
LUBBOCK, Texas — Cecil Martin is none too pleased at the prospect of losing part of his home in the Texas Panhandle to make way for billionaire T. Boone Pickens' water and wind energy projects.
Depending on the precise location of the outer most marker of the easement being sought by Pickens' projects, the 68-year-old Martin said, he'd have one less room in his Gray County home.
"They'll either get the kitchen or the front porch," he said. "Take your pick."
Representatives of the oil and investment tycoon last month sent letters to about 1,100 landowners along a proposed 250-mile path through 11 Panhandle and Central Texas counties to tell them their "property may be affected" in obtaining rights of way for construction of an underground pipeline and aboveground electrical transmission lines, the letter stated.
The two delivery systems will allow Pickens to transport water from the Ogallala Aquifer — though he has no buyer yet — and deliver wind energy to "customers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and potentially elsewhere," the letter states.
Hardeman County landowner Kenneth Horton called Pickens — once was known as a corporate raider for takeovers of oil companies in the 1980s — a "natural resources raider."
The last thing Horton wants to see when he gazes out over his thousands of acres — which include pioneer dugouts and American Indian sites — are power lines, he said.
"He's going to hold everybody hostage," said Horton, a banker in Quanah. "He's going to do to the aquifer what he did to" oil companies in the 1980s.
But Pickens is forging ahead even before obtaining rights of way.
On Thursday, officials with Mesa Power, LP announced the company will buy 667 wind turbines from General Electric Co. It will build the first of four phases of the $12 billion project.
When completed the 2,700 turbine wind farm, will be capable of producing enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes and be the world's largest.
Construction of the pipeline and transmission lines was expected to begin in 2009 under the auspices of the Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 and Mesa Power. The only two residents living within the 8-acre water district — both Pickens' employees — voted to approve its creation in November.
Pickens spokesman Jay Rosser said the goal is to minimize the impact the rights of way have on landowners.
Dealings with them will be open, honest and fair; engineers spent six months using aerial photographs to avoid homes, neighborhoods and businesses, said Rosser and Monty Humble, an attorney working for Pickens.
Also, engineers worked to match the proposed rights of way route to existing high-voltage transmission lines, and to abutt property lines and roadways, Rosser said.
"It has increased the cost of the project significantly, but it's something we feel strongly about," he said.
The letter also sought permission to survey from landowners whose "property lies along this preliminary route." There was also information about informal open houses in various towns nearby the proposed route and two of five scheduled gatherings remain — in Jacksboro and Holliday — next week.
"This is just the first step in the process," said Steve Zerangue, a spokesman for Pickens. "We are optimistic that we'll get these folks signed up for the easement."
If Pickens and the landowners can't reach agreement on payments for rights of way, the water district, a governmental entity, can use eminent domain to sue landowners for condemnation of their property.
"The state of Texas has for over 100 years authorized the use of eminent domain to permit the common necessities of life, water, electricity, telephone service, oil and gas for use in the big cities," said Humble, Pickens' attorney.
Until last year, though, the wind project couldn't not have been included in the process of obtaining rights of way.
Lawmakers in the last legislative session voted to allow renewable and clean-coal energy projects to piggyback obtaining rights of way with a district like the one Pickens formed last year to "construct, maintain, and operate transmission lines."
State Sens. Bob Duncan (R-Lubbock) and Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo), whose districts the route runs through, will hold a town hall meeting in Childress on Friday to discuss the issue with landowners affected by the project.
Seliger said his office has been getting "lots of calls" from affected landowners.
"Eminent domain is hardly anything new but this was different in some respects," Seliger said of the piggyback issue.
The legislation that enables the wind project to piggyback with Pickens water plan was a House amendment that was "brought in very, very late in the session," and added to a statewide water bill, SB 3, Seliger said.
Often, he said, there are unintended consequences to legislation; he wants to revisit the amendment next session.
"That's why we want to go talk to them," Seliger said, referring to the landowners.
© 2008 The Associaed Press:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Friday, May 16, 2008
"Virtually unregulated foreign ownership of American assets."
Carlyle Group buyout would add billions in sensitive U.S. contracts to portfolio partially owned by Abu Dhabi government
$2.54 billion deal warrants close scrutiny, heightened standards for review, given "critical services" involved
May 16, 2008
Service Employees International Union
PRNewswire-USNewswire
Copyright 2008
WASHINGTON--Today's announcement that global buyout firm Carlyle Group will pay $2.54 billion for Booz Allen's government consulting arm demands immediate congressional attention to examine any national security implications and to clarify present and future control issues before the deal receives regulatory approval.
Last September, Carlyle announced that the Mubadala Development fund of the government of Abu Dhabi paid $1.35 billion for a 7.5% ownership stake in Carlyle. Driven by rising oil prices and the falling dollar, foreign countries are increasingly investing in the U.S. economy through the purchase of stakes in leading American companies by sovereign wealth funds.
Carlyle's acquisition of Booz-Allen's government business, which held $1.2 billion in Department of Defense contracts last year, raises the question if foreign governments could potentially gain access to sensitive national security information through their stakes in private equity firms.
The stakes are becoming alarmingly high, as the Carlyle Group announced its intention to invest billions in developing U.S. infrastructure such as toll roads, water and sewer systems, bridges, tunnels, highways and airports.
In a report released last month, "Sovereign Wealth Funds and Private Equity: Increased Access, Decreased Transparency," the Service Employees International Union outlined issues that arise when opaque foreign funds team up with secretive buyout firms. SEIU is sharing its concerns about the proposed Booz Allen buyout with Senate and House committees on armed services.
"Current U.S. rules exempting private equity from many disclosure requirements coupled with gaps in laws concerning foreign ownership have inadvertently left a door open for virtually unregulated foreign ownership of American assets," according to the report, which included the following recommendations:
1) The beneficial ownership structure of the general partnership/management company and/or limited partnerships controlling funds must be disclosed -- particularly if their portfolio companies contract for the U.S. government;
2) Mandatory CFIUS investigation of proposed deals involving private equity firms and SWFs;
3) New SEC rules concerning Regulation D should be rescinded;
4) Representatives of a sovereign wealth fund, including private equity advisers, fund managers, or others acting on its behalf, must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Related links:
© 2008 PR Newswire:www.prnewswire.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
$2.54 billion deal warrants close scrutiny, heightened standards for review, given "critical services" involved
May 16, 2008
Service Employees International Union
PRNewswire-USNewswire
Copyright 2008
WASHINGTON--Today's announcement that global buyout firm Carlyle Group will pay $2.54 billion for Booz Allen's government consulting arm demands immediate congressional attention to examine any national security implications and to clarify present and future control issues before the deal receives regulatory approval.
Last September, Carlyle announced that the Mubadala Development fund of the government of Abu Dhabi paid $1.35 billion for a 7.5% ownership stake in Carlyle. Driven by rising oil prices and the falling dollar, foreign countries are increasingly investing in the U.S. economy through the purchase of stakes in leading American companies by sovereign wealth funds.
Carlyle's acquisition of Booz-Allen's government business, which held $1.2 billion in Department of Defense contracts last year, raises the question if foreign governments could potentially gain access to sensitive national security information through their stakes in private equity firms.
The stakes are becoming alarmingly high, as the Carlyle Group announced its intention to invest billions in developing U.S. infrastructure such as toll roads, water and sewer systems, bridges, tunnels, highways and airports.
In a report released last month, "Sovereign Wealth Funds and Private Equity: Increased Access, Decreased Transparency," the Service Employees International Union outlined issues that arise when opaque foreign funds team up with secretive buyout firms. SEIU is sharing its concerns about the proposed Booz Allen buyout with Senate and House committees on armed services.
"Current U.S. rules exempting private equity from many disclosure requirements coupled with gaps in laws concerning foreign ownership have inadvertently left a door open for virtually unregulated foreign ownership of American assets," according to the report, which included the following recommendations:
1) The beneficial ownership structure of the general partnership/management company and/or limited partnerships controlling funds must be disclosed -- particularly if their portfolio companies contract for the U.S. government;
2) Mandatory CFIUS investigation of proposed deals involving private equity firms and SWFs;
3) New SEC rules concerning Regulation D should be rescinded;
4) Representatives of a sovereign wealth fund, including private equity advisers, fund managers, or others acting on its behalf, must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Related links:
© 2008 PR Newswire:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Friday, May 16, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
"It just offends me that a farce would allow eminent domain to apply."
Pickens-led water, power project stirs concerns
May 15, 2008
By Elliott Blackburn
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Copyright 2008
Miles of rolling grassland and mesquite surround Kenneth Horton's hilltop home, carpeting a view that reaches beyond the Red River on a clear day and into stars tossed like sand across the inky, rural night.
He can tour pioneer dugouts and American Indian sites tucked throughout the few thousand acres of ranch land near Quanah his family has held for more than a century. For the past 25 years, he's opened the land to hunters from the Dallas area who bring their families to explore the property.
Horton treasures the remote setting that drew him back from the Metroplex. The last thing the landscape needs, the small-town bank president said, is a power line.
Plans for a $3.5 billion water and power transmission project stretching from Roberts County to just west of Fort Worth worry him.
The project, proposed by a wind energy company and an unusual water district dominated by the company's owner, T. Boone Pickens, plans to bring billions of gallons of Ogallala water to thirsty North Texas residents and enough clean, renewable wind energy to power up to 1.2 million homes.
But state legislators and rural landowners like Horton are balking at a project that exports water from a waning aquifer and an arrangement that seems to give a private project the public's power to take land.
"It just offends me that a farce would allow eminent domain to apply," Horton said.
Property owners along a 250-mile stretch between Roberts and Jack counties received letters in April alerting them of the proposed pipeline route. The letters, from the Roberts County Freshwater Supply District and Mesa Power, took the latest step in what even its detractors call an ingenious business plan.
Pickens' ranch manager, Alton Boone, and his wife, Lu, cast the lone votes in November to create the 8-acre freshwater supply district. The couple and three other Pickens employees sit on the district's board.
The freshwater district gives Pickens a governmental body that can move aquifer water held by the billionaire oilman and other Panhandle landowners to customers outside the region. Pickens could provide 200,000 acre feet of water - or roughly five times the water Lubbock uses each year - from beneath Roberts County to any buyer willing to pay for it.
State law grants the district the powers of any other government, including the ability to force the sale of private property for fair market value. Project spokesman Steve Zerangue estimated more than 30 of the 650 tracts involved may end up in such proceedings, based on past experience with similar projects.
An amendment that seemed to attract little notice in the last legislative session allows wind energy projects to use right of way held by a freshwater district to host transmission lines from wind energy projects. That works nicely for an enormous Pickens wind farm planned to supply up to 4,000 megawatts of power.
The right-of-way route stops just west of Lake Bridgeport, roughly 60 miles northwest of Fort Worth. That allows the pipeline to deliver water to a region of the state forecasting that it can supply less than half of the water it needs in 2050.
Mesa would string power lines along the route to a substation in Oklaunion, near Vernon, and then on to Jacksboro. Both facilities tie into the electrical grid that carries power to Dallas, Houston and almost all of Texas except for the Panhandle, a setup that has stranded the region's wind power from the rest of the state.
Mesa has the resources and, with the right of way, may have the means to move them, but so far the project does not have customers. Major North Texas water providers included the proposal in the most recent state water plan while publicly expressing little interest in drawing from a region with its own long-term supply problems. The Roberts County water competes with well fields that supply roughly 60 percent of Lubbock's drinking water, and feeds Amarillo, Plainview and eight other Panhandle cities.
The more than $1.6 billion price tag associated with the project wasn't enticing for the region, either.
Mesa and the freshwater district were willing to take the chance that a water customer would not be found, Zerangue said.
"That's a risk they're taking," he said. "Obviously they're not going to build a pipeline if there are no buyers, but we're still a year to 18 months from that."
A water buyer may seem elusive now, but officials felt closer on an energy deal, he said.
"I was told that or at least understand that that part of the project may begin before the construction of the water line," Zerangue said.
Residents across the Panhandle risk losing a critical agricultural and municipal water supply to a region with better options, Lubbock Sen. Robert Duncan said. He and Amarillo Sen. Kel Seliger will host a town hall meeting for affected landowners Friday morning in Childress.
Duncan felt the freshwater district seemed little more than an alter-ego for Mesa Power. Dallas had closer and more cost-effective ways to solve its water problems without using a plan pushed by a private company, he said.
"It's just not feasible based on better alternatives that can be developed," Duncan said.
Seliger said most of the worried residents who called his office had questions about eminent domain. The public doesn't benefit from a pipeline that burrows through rural homes to draw from a depleted aquifer, as the early path of the Mesa tract in some cases does, he said.
"It's for private gain, is what's at the base of this," Seliger said.
Horton planned to attend the meeting. The idea of exporting water from the aquifer, especially through his family ranch against his wishes, upset him, even if Dallas needs the water, he said.
But he didn't give himself much of a chance.
"I'm a little guy, but the Constitution of Texas and the United States guarantees that the little guy supposedly should have a say," Horton said. "That may be all I have, but I wanted to say it."
© 2008 The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:www.lubbockonline.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 15, 2008
By Elliott Blackburn
The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Copyright 2008
Miles of rolling grassland and mesquite surround Kenneth Horton's hilltop home, carpeting a view that reaches beyond the Red River on a clear day and into stars tossed like sand across the inky, rural night.
He can tour pioneer dugouts and American Indian sites tucked throughout the few thousand acres of ranch land near Quanah his family has held for more than a century. For the past 25 years, he's opened the land to hunters from the Dallas area who bring their families to explore the property.
Horton treasures the remote setting that drew him back from the Metroplex. The last thing the landscape needs, the small-town bank president said, is a power line.
Plans for a $3.5 billion water and power transmission project stretching from Roberts County to just west of Fort Worth worry him.
The project, proposed by a wind energy company and an unusual water district dominated by the company's owner, T. Boone Pickens, plans to bring billions of gallons of Ogallala water to thirsty North Texas residents and enough clean, renewable wind energy to power up to 1.2 million homes.
But state legislators and rural landowners like Horton are balking at a project that exports water from a waning aquifer and an arrangement that seems to give a private project the public's power to take land.
"It just offends me that a farce would allow eminent domain to apply," Horton said.
Property owners along a 250-mile stretch between Roberts and Jack counties received letters in April alerting them of the proposed pipeline route. The letters, from the Roberts County Freshwater Supply District and Mesa Power, took the latest step in what even its detractors call an ingenious business plan.
Pickens' ranch manager, Alton Boone, and his wife, Lu, cast the lone votes in November to create the 8-acre freshwater supply district. The couple and three other Pickens employees sit on the district's board.
The freshwater district gives Pickens a governmental body that can move aquifer water held by the billionaire oilman and other Panhandle landowners to customers outside the region. Pickens could provide 200,000 acre feet of water - or roughly five times the water Lubbock uses each year - from beneath Roberts County to any buyer willing to pay for it.
State law grants the district the powers of any other government, including the ability to force the sale of private property for fair market value. Project spokesman Steve Zerangue estimated more than 30 of the 650 tracts involved may end up in such proceedings, based on past experience with similar projects.
An amendment that seemed to attract little notice in the last legislative session allows wind energy projects to use right of way held by a freshwater district to host transmission lines from wind energy projects. That works nicely for an enormous Pickens wind farm planned to supply up to 4,000 megawatts of power.
The right-of-way route stops just west of Lake Bridgeport, roughly 60 miles northwest of Fort Worth. That allows the pipeline to deliver water to a region of the state forecasting that it can supply less than half of the water it needs in 2050.
Mesa would string power lines along the route to a substation in Oklaunion, near Vernon, and then on to Jacksboro. Both facilities tie into the electrical grid that carries power to Dallas, Houston and almost all of Texas except for the Panhandle, a setup that has stranded the region's wind power from the rest of the state.
Mesa has the resources and, with the right of way, may have the means to move them, but so far the project does not have customers. Major North Texas water providers included the proposal in the most recent state water plan while publicly expressing little interest in drawing from a region with its own long-term supply problems. The Roberts County water competes with well fields that supply roughly 60 percent of Lubbock's drinking water, and feeds Amarillo, Plainview and eight other Panhandle cities.
The more than $1.6 billion price tag associated with the project wasn't enticing for the region, either.
Mesa and the freshwater district were willing to take the chance that a water customer would not be found, Zerangue said.
"That's a risk they're taking," he said. "Obviously they're not going to build a pipeline if there are no buyers, but we're still a year to 18 months from that."
A water buyer may seem elusive now, but officials felt closer on an energy deal, he said.
"I was told that or at least understand that that part of the project may begin before the construction of the water line," Zerangue said.
Residents across the Panhandle risk losing a critical agricultural and municipal water supply to a region with better options, Lubbock Sen. Robert Duncan said. He and Amarillo Sen. Kel Seliger will host a town hall meeting for affected landowners Friday morning in Childress.
Duncan felt the freshwater district seemed little more than an alter-ego for Mesa Power. Dallas had closer and more cost-effective ways to solve its water problems without using a plan pushed by a private company, he said.
"It's just not feasible based on better alternatives that can be developed," Duncan said.
Seliger said most of the worried residents who called his office had questions about eminent domain. The public doesn't benefit from a pipeline that burrows through rural homes to draw from a depleted aquifer, as the early path of the Mesa tract in some cases does, he said.
"It's for private gain, is what's at the base of this," Seliger said.
Horton planned to attend the meeting. The idea of exporting water from the aquifer, especially through his family ranch against his wishes, upset him, even if Dallas needs the water, he said.
But he didn't give himself much of a chance.
"I'm a little guy, but the Constitution of Texas and the United States guarantees that the little guy supposedly should have a say," Horton said. "That may be all I have, but I wanted to say it."
© 2008 The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Thursday, May 15, 2008
“We’ve become a real burr in their side and we’re going to keep at it.”
Byfields fight Trans-Texas Corridor
5/15/08
By Philip Janksowski
Taylor Daily Press
Copyright 2008
Taylor-area residents Dan and Margaret Byfield hope to become the Trans-Texas Corridor’s worst nightmare.
The married couple head up two land rights organizations, the American Land Foundation and Stewards of the Range, that aim to keep rural communities from having land encroached upon by state and federal agencies through eminent domain.
Both organizations operate across the U.S., in Wyoming, California, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska, but their current main goal is to challenge TxDOT in hopes of completely eliminating proposals for the quarter-mile wide superhighway.
Currently they offer advice to residents of small towns and rural communities on how to corral TxDOT into coordinating with them, rather than just listening to and ignoring grievances some cities have with the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The Byfields work in Texas is based on a local government code from 2001, which requires state and federal agencies to coordinate “to the greatest extent feasible” with future planning commissions created by two or more governmental entities — usually a city or county.
“As individual cities, their opinions aren’t going to be listened to,” Dan Byfield said.
They provide extensive literature with step-by-step instruction on how to create planning commissions and how opponents to the Trans-Texas Corridor should approach cities and counties that are sitting on proposed future areas for the highway.
According to what they think are the most accurate plans — aerial photos indicating where roads and railroad tracks would be constructed — the corridor would come right through Rices Crossing, just west of Taylor Airport up to about a mile from the Byfields’ home and office on State Highway 29. None of the photos are official plans.
Margaret and Dan Byfield both founded their own land rights advocacy groups prior to marrying. The 5,000-member strong Stewards of the Range emerged in order to support a lawsuit filed in 1991 by Margaret Byfield’s family in Nevada to keep the U.S Forest Service from seizing their land for water rights. That lawsuit is still ongoing.
The American Land Foundation, created by Dan Byfield, was created by his own interest in land rights and is funded by the Farm Credit Bank of Texas.
“It’s probably why we’re married, because we found each other out in this big country fighting the same fight,” Margaret Byfield said.
Already they have forced TxDOT and the Environmental Protection Agency to the table with officials in Bell County, where four cities along with four school districts created a planning committee at their guidance. In that county, the Byfields said the corridor would take away between 4,000 and 5,500 acres of farmland while cutting many communities off from their only area hospital.
“The TTC plan currently says an overpass would be every five or eight miles, or at a major road. They would force fire trucks to go up and down the highway in order to just get to the other side. If their neighboring fire department can’t get to the other side that’s huge,” Dan Byfield said.
They also have created coalitions between government entities in Trinity, Waller and Nacogdoches counties. The two organizations will hold a seminar Thursday in El Campo to instruct government officials on how to create commissions.
The Byfields have not contacted Taylor city officials or Williamson County commissioners about the Trans-Texas Corridor because of their perception that the two are both strongly in favor of the corridor—Taylor because of the rail possibilities and the county because of economic outgrowth that may arise from the superhighway.
Their ultimate goal is to completely halt any future planning or construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor. They believe IH-35 should be expanded instead. The most probable course of action will likely involve multiple lawsuits, they said, which their organization will help fund. The Byfields also said they have connections to lawyers who will try those cases for bargain rates. Dan Byfield has a law degree himself.
“We’ve become a real burr in their side and we’re going to keep at it,” Dan Byfield said.
© 2008 Taylor Daily Press: www.taylordailypress.net
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
5/15/08
By Philip Janksowski
Taylor Daily Press
Copyright 2008
Taylor-area residents Dan and Margaret Byfield hope to become the Trans-Texas Corridor’s worst nightmare.
The married couple head up two land rights organizations, the American Land Foundation and Stewards of the Range, that aim to keep rural communities from having land encroached upon by state and federal agencies through eminent domain.
Both organizations operate across the U.S., in Wyoming, California, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska, but their current main goal is to challenge TxDOT in hopes of completely eliminating proposals for the quarter-mile wide superhighway.
Currently they offer advice to residents of small towns and rural communities on how to corral TxDOT into coordinating with them, rather than just listening to and ignoring grievances some cities have with the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The Byfields work in Texas is based on a local government code from 2001, which requires state and federal agencies to coordinate “to the greatest extent feasible” with future planning commissions created by two or more governmental entities — usually a city or county.
“As individual cities, their opinions aren’t going to be listened to,” Dan Byfield said.
They provide extensive literature with step-by-step instruction on how to create planning commissions and how opponents to the Trans-Texas Corridor should approach cities and counties that are sitting on proposed future areas for the highway.
According to what they think are the most accurate plans — aerial photos indicating where roads and railroad tracks would be constructed — the corridor would come right through Rices Crossing, just west of Taylor Airport up to about a mile from the Byfields’ home and office on State Highway 29. None of the photos are official plans.
Margaret and Dan Byfield both founded their own land rights advocacy groups prior to marrying. The 5,000-member strong Stewards of the Range emerged in order to support a lawsuit filed in 1991 by Margaret Byfield’s family in Nevada to keep the U.S Forest Service from seizing their land for water rights. That lawsuit is still ongoing.
The American Land Foundation, created by Dan Byfield, was created by his own interest in land rights and is funded by the Farm Credit Bank of Texas.
“It’s probably why we’re married, because we found each other out in this big country fighting the same fight,” Margaret Byfield said.
Already they have forced TxDOT and the Environmental Protection Agency to the table with officials in Bell County, where four cities along with four school districts created a planning committee at their guidance. In that county, the Byfields said the corridor would take away between 4,000 and 5,500 acres of farmland while cutting many communities off from their only area hospital.
“The TTC plan currently says an overpass would be every five or eight miles, or at a major road. They would force fire trucks to go up and down the highway in order to just get to the other side. If their neighboring fire department can’t get to the other side that’s huge,” Dan Byfield said.
They also have created coalitions between government entities in Trinity, Waller and Nacogdoches counties. The two organizations will hold a seminar Thursday in El Campo to instruct government officials on how to create commissions.
The Byfields have not contacted Taylor city officials or Williamson County commissioners about the Trans-Texas Corridor because of their perception that the two are both strongly in favor of the corridor—Taylor because of the rail possibilities and the county because of economic outgrowth that may arise from the superhighway.
Their ultimate goal is to completely halt any future planning or construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor. They believe IH-35 should be expanded instead. The most probable course of action will likely involve multiple lawsuits, they said, which their organization will help fund. The Byfields also said they have connections to lawyers who will try those cases for bargain rates. Dan Byfield has a law degree himself.
“We’ve become a real burr in their side and we’re going to keep at it,” Dan Byfield said.
© 2008 Taylor Daily Press:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Conversion disorder: US 281 to be bulldozed and rebuilt as a toll road.
Design/build team selected for U.S. Highway 281 toll project
May 14, 2008
San Antonio Business Journal
Copyright 2008
The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday selected Cibolo Creek Infrastructure JV to serve as the design/builder for the 281 North Toll Project.
© 2008 San Antonio Business Journal: www.bizjournals.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 14, 2008
San Antonio Business Journal
Copyright 2008
The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday selected Cibolo Creek Infrastructure JV to serve as the design/builder for the 281 North Toll Project.
The value of the contract is $330 million and it will be paid for by a combination of public funds from the Texas Mobility Fund, money generated from the sale of toll revenue-backed bonds and financing from the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), a U.S. Department of Transportation loan program, says the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority's (Alamo RMA) spokesman Leroy Alloway.
However, this amount does not include the cost of acquiring all of the right-of-way needed to proceed with the project, Alloway says.
Once the toll lanes are complete, the money generated from drivers on the lanes will pay off the debt on the project. Drivers will pay 17 cents per mile and will be charged through the use of a toll tag on their vehicles. Drivers will be able to use this same tag on toll roads in Austin, Houston and Dallas because the systems will be interoperable, Alloway says.
People who do not have a toll tag will be charged through a video billing system. Video cameras aligned along the toll route will track a vehicle's license plate number and send the person's toll charge through the mail. Drivers will not have to carry cash or coins to pay their tolls.
Alamo RMA wants to begin construction on two to three new "non-toll" lanes along U.S. Highway 281 from Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Parkway possibly as early as this fall.
The next phase of the project will involve building out new "non-toll" lanes from Stone Oak Parkway to the Comal County line along Highway 281, Alloway says. In all, Cibolo Creek Infrastructure will be building new highway lanes along a 7.9 mile route.
Once the non-toll lanes are complete, the Alamo RMA's contractors will build three new toll lanes in each direction. Cibolo Creek has committed to complete the project in 44 months after construction begins.
Cibolo Creek Infrastructure is owned by joint venture partners Fluor Enterprises Inc. and Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc. Atlanta-based Balfour Beatty is an engineering, construction, services and investment business. Fluor Enterprises is an engineering and construction services firm based in Dallas.
The other team members are HDR Engineering Inc., Raba-Kistner Consultants, Guerra DeBerry Coody, Donze Lopez Public Affairs, Vickery & Associates Inc., Bain Medina Bain, AIA Engineers Ltd. and Pinnacle Consulting Management Group Inc.
Alamo RMA officials say this approach is not a concession or a private sector model and the Alamo RMA will retain ownership and operations of the toll project.
"This has been an open and transparent process," Alamo RMA Chairman William Thornton says. "The Alamo RMA has ensured the highest possible value for our community and we will see this needed roadway constructed in the shortest possible time through the use of the design build approach."
The widening and expansion of U.S. Highway 281 using toll lanes will be the first official toll project in Bexar County.
© 2008 San Antonio Business Journal:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Dallas Logistics Hub, a foreign trade zone, is located near four major highway connecters, including I-20, I-45, I-35 and Loop 9/Trans-Texas Corridor
BNSF Railway Takes 198 Acres at Dallas Logistic Hub, May Buy 164 More
May 14, 2008
By: Amanda Marsh, Associate Editor
Commercial Property News
Copyright 2008
The Allen Group has announced the sale of 198 acres of land in the Dallas Logistics Hub to BNSF Railway Co., with the additional option agreement giving BNSF the right to purchase an additional 164 acres.
The property is located in the cities of Lancaster and Dallas, and provides more than 9,000 feet of rail frontage, representing a portion of the 2.5 miles of BNSF track frontage within the project. No further details of the transaction were available.
“There is definitely a lot of momentum with this deal, and it will be one of many we hope to announce over the next two months,” an Allen Group spokesperson told CPN. One of these forthcoming deals will be The Hub’s first build-to-suit, which is expected to be announced in the beginning of June.
Although details about what BNSF plans to do with the land have not been discussed, analysts have ventured that it might be a possible intermodal terminal. If that is indeed true, it will be the first logistics park in the world to have two intermodal terminals, the other being a 360-acre Union Pacific terminal, the spokesperson said, noting, “It will be the first of its kind and unique in the supply chain and shipping world.”
The Hub is already positioned to receive 95 percent of its trade from the Port of Los Angeles, but well-positioned to receive trade from the Ports of Houston and Mexico as well. This is important as manufacturers and retailers are looking to limit their transportation costs as fuel prices continue to rise, the spokesperson said.
The Hub, which spans across the communities of Dallas, Lancaster, Wilmer and Hutchins, is one of the newest logistic parks in North America, with 6,000 acres master-planned for approximately 60 million square feet of distribution, manufacturing, office and retail development. The project, a foreign trade zone, is located near four major highway connecters, including I-20, I-45, I-35 and Loop 9/Trans-Texas Corridor and a future air cargo facility at Lancaster airport. Overall, the project is expect to create 32,000 direct jobs and 33,000 indirect jobs in the southern sector of Dallas.
In October, the Allen Group started construction on the first two industrial buildings in The Hub, which total 827,000 square feet of space. The first, DLH Building 1, is a 635,000-square-foot cross-dock distribution facility, and the second, DLH Building 2, is a 192,800-square-goot warehouse facility. Both are scheduled to be completed by the end of this month. The development team includes GSO Architects, Kimley-Horn & Associates, MYCON and 3i Construction.
The Dallas-Fort Worth industrial market experienced activity slowdown in the first quarter, with 2.1 million square feet of positive net absorption, down from last quarter’s 3.8 million square feet, according to CB Richard Ellis Inc. Despite a decrease in tenants moving into new space, total and direct vacancy rates are still down at their respective 9.2 and 8.4 percent. The firm expects stable rental rates and healthy leasing activity for the remainder of the year.
© 2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc: www.commercialpropertynews.com
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To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
May 14, 2008
By: Amanda Marsh, Associate Editor
Commercial Property News
Copyright 2008
The Allen Group has announced the sale of 198 acres of land in the Dallas Logistics Hub to BNSF Railway Co., with the additional option agreement giving BNSF the right to purchase an additional 164 acres.
The property is located in the cities of Lancaster and Dallas, and provides more than 9,000 feet of rail frontage, representing a portion of the 2.5 miles of BNSF track frontage within the project. No further details of the transaction were available.
“There is definitely a lot of momentum with this deal, and it will be one of many we hope to announce over the next two months,” an Allen Group spokesperson told CPN. One of these forthcoming deals will be The Hub’s first build-to-suit, which is expected to be announced in the beginning of June.
Although details about what BNSF plans to do with the land have not been discussed, analysts have ventured that it might be a possible intermodal terminal. If that is indeed true, it will be the first logistics park in the world to have two intermodal terminals, the other being a 360-acre Union Pacific terminal, the spokesperson said, noting, “It will be the first of its kind and unique in the supply chain and shipping world.”
The Hub is already positioned to receive 95 percent of its trade from the Port of Los Angeles, but well-positioned to receive trade from the Ports of Houston and Mexico as well. This is important as manufacturers and retailers are looking to limit their transportation costs as fuel prices continue to rise, the spokesperson said.
The Hub, which spans across the communities of Dallas, Lancaster, Wilmer and Hutchins, is one of the newest logistic parks in North America, with 6,000 acres master-planned for approximately 60 million square feet of distribution, manufacturing, office and retail development. The project, a foreign trade zone, is located near four major highway connecters, including I-20, I-45, I-35 and Loop 9/Trans-Texas Corridor and a future air cargo facility at Lancaster airport. Overall, the project is expect to create 32,000 direct jobs and 33,000 indirect jobs in the southern sector of Dallas.
In October, the Allen Group started construction on the first two industrial buildings in The Hub, which total 827,000 square feet of space. The first, DLH Building 1, is a 635,000-square-foot cross-dock distribution facility, and the second, DLH Building 2, is a 192,800-square-goot warehouse facility. Both are scheduled to be completed by the end of this month. The development team includes GSO Architects, Kimley-Horn & Associates, MYCON and 3i Construction.
The Dallas-Fort Worth industrial market experienced activity slowdown in the first quarter, with 2.1 million square feet of positive net absorption, down from last quarter’s 3.8 million square feet, according to CB Richard Ellis Inc. Despite a decrease in tenants moving into new space, total and direct vacancy rates are still down at their respective 9.2 and 8.4 percent. The firm expects stable rental rates and healthy leasing activity for the remainder of the year.
© 2008 Nielsen Business Media, Inc:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Wednesday, May 14, 2008
"Local citizens and governments can protect private property from 'high-handed' governmental takeovers..."
County to explore possible creation of 391 Commission
5/14/08
BY DAVE KUCIFER
The Navasota Examner
Copyright 2008
After listening to presentations by three lawyers familiar with the creation of a Sub-Regional Planning Commission (SRPC), then having questions answered during a 391 workshop last Thursday, Grimes County Commissioners decided to place the item on their May 26 agenda as a discussion item.
The workshop at the Navasota center drew a large crowd of area property owners, along with officials from Madison, Waller and Walker counties. Anderson, Bedias and Navasota city officials were also in attendance.
Those attending the meeting heard Fred Grant, President of Stewards of the Range and an attorney with over 30 years experience as a planning and zoning officer in Idaho, explain how local government and citizens banded together through a SRPC to protect private land and grazing rights.
Dan Bayfield an attorney and President of the American Land Foundation in Taylor followed Grant. Bayfield presented a comprehensive step-by-step outline on forming a SRPC.
Trey Duhon, a Waller attorney instrumental in the formation of the Waller County SRPC shared his views regarding a commission in Grimes County.
Focal point of the meeting was how local citizens and governments can protect private property from “high-handed” governmental take overs such as the action proposed by TXDOT’s I69/TTC plans.
*
Those involved with the possible formation of a 391 commission said they could do nothing without governmental action. “It will take the county plus one or more city to get the commission formed.”
Once formed, the commission would have governmental and non-governmental members.
County Judge Betty Shiflett said Monday that commissioners want to study the information and have an open discussion before committing to any action regarding the formation of a 391 SRPC.
© 2008 The Navasota Examiner:www.navasotaexaminer.com
To search TTC News Archives clickHERE
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog clickHERE
5/14/08
BY DAVE KUCIFER
The Navasota Examner
Copyright 2008
After listening to presentations by three lawyers familiar with the creation of a Sub-Regional Planning Commission (SRPC), then having questions answered during a 391 workshop last Thursday, Grimes County Commissioners decided to place the item on their May 26 agenda as a discussion item.
The workshop at the Navasota center drew a large crowd of area property owners, along with officials from Madison, Waller and Walker counties. Anderson, Bedias and Navasota city officials were also in attendance.
Those attending the meeting heard Fred Grant, President of Stewards of the Range and an attorney with over 30 years experience as a planning and zoning officer in Idaho, explain how local government and citizens banded together through a SRPC to protect private land and grazing rights.
Dan Bayfield an attorney and President of the American Land Foundation in Taylor followed Grant. Bayfield presented a comprehensive step-by-step outline on forming a SRPC.
Trey Duhon, a Waller attorney instrumental in the formation of the Waller County SRPC shared his views regarding a commission in Grimes County.
Focal point of the meeting was how local citizens and governments can protect private property from “high-handed” governmental take overs such as the action proposed by TXDOT’s I69/TTC plans.
*
Those involved with the possible formation of a 391 commission said they could do nothing without governmental action. “It will take the county plus one or more city to get the commission formed.”
Once formed, the commission would have governmental and non-governmental members.
County Judge Betty Shiflett said Monday that commissioners want to study the information and have an open discussion before committing to any action regarding the formation of a 391 SRPC.
© 2008 The Navasota Examiner:
To search TTC News Archives click
To view the Trans-Texas Corridor Blog click
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Perry Plays Trans-Texas Toreador
PolyTex
Perry, US Ambassador to Spain, tout trade in Dallas
May 12, 2008
Aman Batheja
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2008
Gov. Rick Perry tied Texas history with trade talk at a Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce reception today along with Eduardo Aguirre, ambassador of the United States to Spain.
"Both our friends from France and Spain and Mexico all can claim they owned us at one time so we do have a very common heritage from that standpoint," Perry said. "Although we do have a blended culture, we have a singular future."
The governor touted Spanish investment in Texas and vice versa as key to the growth of both countries, singling out banking and biotech as two key Spanish industries.
"The best government program is the one that gets out of the way and lets the private sector work," Perry said. "I'm encouraged by the increasing amount of Spanish investment in the state of Texas."
Perry name-dropped a few Spanish companies setting up offices in Texas including biotech firm Grifols.
The company that notably didn't get a mention: Cintra, the controversial highway firm that he signed a $1.3 billion deal with for the Trans-Texas Corridor.
© 2008 Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
Perry, US Ambassador to Spain, tout trade in Dallas
May 12, 2008
Aman Batheja
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2008
Gov. Rick Perry tied Texas history with trade talk at a Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce reception today along with Eduardo Aguirre, ambassador of the United States to Spain.
"Both our friends from France and Spain and Mexico all can claim they owned us at one time so we do have a very common heritage from that standpoint," Perry said. "Although we do have a blended culture, we have a singular future."
The governor touted Spanish investment in Texas and vice versa as key to the growth of both countries, singling out banking and biotech as two key Spanish industries.
"The best government program is the one that gets out of the way and lets the private sector work," Perry said. "I'm encouraged by the increasing amount of Spanish investment in the state of Texas."
Perry name-dropped a few Spanish companies setting up offices in Texas including biotech firm Grifols.
The company that notably didn't get a mention: Cintra, the controversial highway firm that he signed a $1.3 billion deal with for the Trans-Texas Corridor.
© 2008 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: