"This is a titanic land grab that benefits a foreign company. I don't know what these documents could show that would make that worse."
Disputed toll road documents might be released soon
Plans for Trans-Texas Corridor had sparked lawsuit and provided fodder for Perry foes.
September 28, 2006
By Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
State transportation officials say that, with the expected approval today of a master plan on the Trans-Texas Corridor's Interstate 35 twin, they can now release previously confidential documents that have sparked a lawsuit and played a prominent role in the governor's race.
The release of the documents, assuming they contain nothing explosive, will probably muffle charges from Gov. Rick Perry's gubernatorial opponents that he and his administration had a secret contract for the big toll road project. The agency, which posted the completed master plan on www.keeptexasmoving.org by noon, said the 253 pages of conceptual plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor likely will be released later today.
In addition, the agency and its development partner on the corridor alternative to I-35, the Spanish-American partnership Cintra-Zachry, will drop a lawsuit contesting an order to release the documents.
"We're as anxious to remove this from the table as anyone is," Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said this week.
The Transportation Department and Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-American partnership, in March 2005 signed a 104-page contract under which the agency would pay the partnership $3.5 million to prepare the master plan. The agreement also contemplated that Cintra-Zachry might build most of the roads and other facilities growing from such a plan. The agency immediately released that contract along with hundreds of pages of exhibits.
But it withheld two exhibits totaling 253 pages, a "conceptual development plan" and a "conceptual financial plan" for how the company might build what is now called TTC-35 and other facilities in the I-35 corridor. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, like Perry a Republican, on May 31, 2005, ruled that the Transportation Department should release the two exhibits because the contract had been signed and was thus final.
Disagreeing with Abbott's reasoning, Cintra-Zachry and the agency in June 2005 sued in District Court in Travis County to overturn his ruling. A trial in the case is set for Oct. 10.
In the meantime, Perry's three main challengers, in particular independent candidate Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, have made hay with the confidential documents. Rumors flew about what might be in those 253 pages, the implication being that they contained some sort of political dynamite that Perry wanted to suppress until after the Nov. 7 elections.
Jason Stanford, a spokesman for Chris Bell, Perry's Democratic opponent, said putting out the documents will not change the candidate's opinion about the corridor deal.
"Even if it's not a secret deal, it's still a really horrible deal," Stanford said. "This is a titanic land grab that benefits a foreign company. I don't know what these documents could show that would make that worse."
Strayhorn's campaign at midday had not returned a call seeking comment on the impending release of the disputed documents.
The Transportation Department's position, Williamson said, has been that until the master plan was prepared to the agency's satisfaction, the chance existed that the agency could throw out the whole effort and start anew with another contractor. In that case, the information presented in those withheld exhibits would give other vendors a free and unfair gander at Cintra-Zachry's thinking, the department said.
With the approval today of the master plan by Michael Behrens,, executive director of the Transportation Department, the agency will consider the contract final and release all information, Behrens and Williamson said. When?
"We want to do it soon," Behrens said this week.
The 1,500-page plan, presented this morning to the commission, lays out which roads, railroads and utility facilities should be built in the next 50 years, including what they might cost, how Cintra-Zachry would pay for them and which projects should be built when. It also includes estimates of what the state might receive in concession fees from Cintra-Zachry if the company builds and operates those projects.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry envisions spending $8.8 billion to build a four-lane toll road that would run 373 miles from I-35 at the Oklahoma border, circle east of Dallas, parallel I-35 from east of Hillsboro to Interstate 10 at Seguin, and then loop around the east and south sides of San Antonio to reconnect to I-35.
There would be two spots with no Cintra-Zachry roads: a segment of 50 miles or so from near Waxahachie to Hillsboro, where drivers would return to the current I-35, and the 49 miles of the Texas 130 toll road under construction by Lone Star Infrastructure.
For the right to build and operate the corridor roads for 50 years, setting maximum tolls under formulas to be approved by the Transportation Commission, Cintra-Zachry estimates that it would pay the state $1.96 billion in 2006 dollars. That could be in single upfront concession payments when contracts to build those roads are signed, or in a combination of upfront payments and sharing of tolls once the roads open.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry assumes it would pay for the full 1,200-foot-wide right-of-way swath contemplated in the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, although the state would retain title to the land. The relatively modest expressway it would build in the beginning — the company believes it could start construction on all eight segments of the 373 miles by 2011 — would take only a few hundred feet to build, leaving the rest for railroads, more highway lanes and utility and pipeline easements.
Cintra-Zachry's contract with the state, however, guarantees the partnership first shot at only $400 million of the work on TTC-35, and the company has already called in that marker. The department has agreed to let Cintra-Zachry build the southernmost 40 miles of what is now called Texas 130, from Mustang Ridge southeast of Austin to Seguin. That road, which along with its northern 49 miles east of Austin likely will become a part of TTC-35 eventually, will cost $1.35 billion to construct and generate $270 million in 2006 revenue for the Transportation Department, according to the plan.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry estimates that construction would start on the Hillsboro-to-Georgetown segments next, in 2010, with work on all eight areas beginning by May 2013 and all segments complete by 2017.
The master plan also contemplates construction over the next several decades of dozens of other connecting roads (most of them also toll roads), freight rail lines and high-speed rail lines.
The master plan, however, is only that: a several-volume how-to manual for attempting a massive infrastructure project unlike anything Texas or any state has ever done. It commits the state and Cintra-Zachry to very little, and even the $8.8 billion cost estimate and $1.96 billion concession fee numbers will inevitably be rendered inaccurate by time and circumstance.
"The master development plan is a living document," Transportation Department engineering director Amadeo Saenz said this week. "As things change, changes will have to be made to the master plan."
bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman: www. statesman.com
Plans for Trans-Texas Corridor had sparked lawsuit and provided fodder for Perry foes.
September 28, 2006
By Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2006
State transportation officials say that, with the expected approval today of a master plan on the Trans-Texas Corridor's Interstate 35 twin, they can now release previously confidential documents that have sparked a lawsuit and played a prominent role in the governor's race.
The release of the documents, assuming they contain nothing explosive, will probably muffle charges from Gov. Rick Perry's gubernatorial opponents that he and his administration had a secret contract for the big toll road project. The agency, which posted the completed master plan on www.keeptexasmoving.org by noon, said the 253 pages of conceptual plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor likely will be released later today.
In addition, the agency and its development partner on the corridor alternative to I-35, the Spanish-American partnership Cintra-Zachry, will drop a lawsuit contesting an order to release the documents.
"We're as anxious to remove this from the table as anyone is," Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said this week.
The Transportation Department and Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-American partnership, in March 2005 signed a 104-page contract under which the agency would pay the partnership $3.5 million to prepare the master plan. The agreement also contemplated that Cintra-Zachry might build most of the roads and other facilities growing from such a plan. The agency immediately released that contract along with hundreds of pages of exhibits.
But it withheld two exhibits totaling 253 pages, a "conceptual development plan" and a "conceptual financial plan" for how the company might build what is now called TTC-35 and other facilities in the I-35 corridor. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, like Perry a Republican, on May 31, 2005, ruled that the Transportation Department should release the two exhibits because the contract had been signed and was thus final.
Disagreeing with Abbott's reasoning, Cintra-Zachry and the agency in June 2005 sued in District Court in Travis County to overturn his ruling. A trial in the case is set for Oct. 10.
In the meantime, Perry's three main challengers, in particular independent candidate Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, have made hay with the confidential documents. Rumors flew about what might be in those 253 pages, the implication being that they contained some sort of political dynamite that Perry wanted to suppress until after the Nov. 7 elections.
Jason Stanford, a spokesman for Chris Bell, Perry's Democratic opponent, said putting out the documents will not change the candidate's opinion about the corridor deal.
"Even if it's not a secret deal, it's still a really horrible deal," Stanford said. "This is a titanic land grab that benefits a foreign company. I don't know what these documents could show that would make that worse."
Strayhorn's campaign at midday had not returned a call seeking comment on the impending release of the disputed documents.
The Transportation Department's position, Williamson said, has been that until the master plan was prepared to the agency's satisfaction, the chance existed that the agency could throw out the whole effort and start anew with another contractor. In that case, the information presented in those withheld exhibits would give other vendors a free and unfair gander at Cintra-Zachry's thinking, the department said.
With the approval today of the master plan by Michael Behrens,, executive director of the Transportation Department, the agency will consider the contract final and release all information, Behrens and Williamson said. When?
"We want to do it soon," Behrens said this week.
The 1,500-page plan, presented this morning to the commission, lays out which roads, railroads and utility facilities should be built in the next 50 years, including what they might cost, how Cintra-Zachry would pay for them and which projects should be built when. It also includes estimates of what the state might receive in concession fees from Cintra-Zachry if the company builds and operates those projects.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry envisions spending $8.8 billion to build a four-lane toll road that would run 373 miles from I-35 at the Oklahoma border, circle east of Dallas, parallel I-35 from east of Hillsboro to Interstate 10 at Seguin, and then loop around the east and south sides of San Antonio to reconnect to I-35.
There would be two spots with no Cintra-Zachry roads: a segment of 50 miles or so from near Waxahachie to Hillsboro, where drivers would return to the current I-35, and the 49 miles of the Texas 130 toll road under construction by Lone Star Infrastructure.
For the right to build and operate the corridor roads for 50 years, setting maximum tolls under formulas to be approved by the Transportation Commission, Cintra-Zachry estimates that it would pay the state $1.96 billion in 2006 dollars. That could be in single upfront concession payments when contracts to build those roads are signed, or in a combination of upfront payments and sharing of tolls once the roads open.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry assumes it would pay for the full 1,200-foot-wide right-of-way swath contemplated in the Trans-Texas Corridor plan, although the state would retain title to the land. The relatively modest expressway it would build in the beginning — the company believes it could start construction on all eight segments of the 373 miles by 2011 — would take only a few hundred feet to build, leaving the rest for railroads, more highway lanes and utility and pipeline easements.
Cintra-Zachry's contract with the state, however, guarantees the partnership first shot at only $400 million of the work on TTC-35, and the company has already called in that marker. The department has agreed to let Cintra-Zachry build the southernmost 40 miles of what is now called Texas 130, from Mustang Ridge southeast of Austin to Seguin. That road, which along with its northern 49 miles east of Austin likely will become a part of TTC-35 eventually, will cost $1.35 billion to construct and generate $270 million in 2006 revenue for the Transportation Department, according to the plan.
In the plan, Cintra-Zachry estimates that construction would start on the Hillsboro-to-Georgetown segments next, in 2010, with work on all eight areas beginning by May 2013 and all segments complete by 2017.
The master plan also contemplates construction over the next several decades of dozens of other connecting roads (most of them also toll roads), freight rail lines and high-speed rail lines.
The master plan, however, is only that: a several-volume how-to manual for attempting a massive infrastructure project unlike anything Texas or any state has ever done. It commits the state and Cintra-Zachry to very little, and even the $8.8 billion cost estimate and $1.96 billion concession fee numbers will inevitably be rendered inaccurate by time and circumstance.
"The master development plan is a living document," Transportation Department engineering director Amadeo Saenz said this week. "As things change, changes will have to be made to the master plan."
bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698
© 2006 Austin American-Statesman:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Thursday, September 28, 2006
<< Home