"We don't have to sit back and let the road's backers run over us with this pork barrel expressway. "
Letter to the Editor: Looking for a home
9/2/2005
The Navasota Examiner
Copyright 2005
The Trans-Texas Corridor is a huge project looking for a home. We've seen some impressive maps and speculative future projections and equally speculative benefits. One thing we haven't seen so far from TxDOT or anyone else is how much it will cost. That is the project's greatest weakness and a weakness that can be exploited.
I've talked to several folks about the impact of this monster road and several have shrugged their shoulders, saying the one thing proponents of this road want to hear: "The government always wins." Big projects have risen and fallen in the past, defeated by taxpayers who were willing to stand up and say no. It can be done. It has been done.
Such a project was the Trinity River Barge Canal Project in 1972, backed by local politicians and other ambitious folks wanting to convert the Trinity into a barge canal from Dallas to the Gulf Coast.
When I asked the TRA chairperson how much it would cost, the exact words were, "Well, let's not put the cart before the horse." Apparently this reasoning did not impress taxpayers, and the project quietly dried up and went away, fortunately for Huntsville and other communities.
The Trinity now supplies 70 percent of Huntsville's drinking water, only 30 percent coming from wells.
Again we are faced with a money and land gobbling project, backed by powerful big shots, that has great potential for becoming an enormous tax burden at a time when many baby boomers are going into retirement.
We don't have to sit back and let the road's backers run over us with this pork barrel expressway. We can write or call our congressmen and let them know we don't want to pay for it. They know for every unhappy taxpayer and voter who does complain, there are many more who don't but who may vote accordingly.
We can write editorials, talk to friends, neighbors, spread the word. There are still people in our area who don't know about this TxDOT plan.
The project has not yet been approved. It's time to speak out.
Regina Levoy,
Shiro
Copyright © 2005 The Navasota Examiner. All rights reserved: www.navasotaexaminer.com
9/2/2005
The Navasota Examiner
Copyright 2005
The Trans-Texas Corridor is a huge project looking for a home. We've seen some impressive maps and speculative future projections and equally speculative benefits. One thing we haven't seen so far from TxDOT or anyone else is how much it will cost. That is the project's greatest weakness and a weakness that can be exploited.
I've talked to several folks about the impact of this monster road and several have shrugged their shoulders, saying the one thing proponents of this road want to hear: "The government always wins." Big projects have risen and fallen in the past, defeated by taxpayers who were willing to stand up and say no. It can be done. It has been done.
Such a project was the Trinity River Barge Canal Project in 1972, backed by local politicians and other ambitious folks wanting to convert the Trinity into a barge canal from Dallas to the Gulf Coast.
When I asked the TRA chairperson how much it would cost, the exact words were, "Well, let's not put the cart before the horse." Apparently this reasoning did not impress taxpayers, and the project quietly dried up and went away, fortunately for Huntsville and other communities.
The Trinity now supplies 70 percent of Huntsville's drinking water, only 30 percent coming from wells.
Again we are faced with a money and land gobbling project, backed by powerful big shots, that has great potential for becoming an enormous tax burden at a time when many baby boomers are going into retirement.
We don't have to sit back and let the road's backers run over us with this pork barrel expressway. We can write or call our congressmen and let them know we don't want to pay for it. They know for every unhappy taxpayer and voter who does complain, there are many more who don't but who may vote accordingly.
We can write editorials, talk to friends, neighbors, spread the word. There are still people in our area who don't know about this TxDOT plan.
The project has not yet been approved. It's time to speak out.
Regina Levoy,
Shiro
Copyright © 2005 The Navasota Examiner. All rights reserved:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Friday, September 02, 2005
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