Strayhorn: "Scrap the Corridor."
Gubernatorial candidates take stand on Trans-Texas Corridor
11/04/2006
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006
Where they stand
The gubernatorial candidates stake out their plans for Texas' transportation future:
When voters approved the Texas Mobility Fund by a 2-1 ratio in November 2001, authorizing bonds and toll roads, few likely knew that state officials would take that as a mandate to build as many toll roads as possible.
Two months later, Republican Gov. Rick Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile network of corridors up to 1,200 feet wide that would include toll lanes, railways and utility lines. Private companies would finance, build and operate the corridors in return for collecting tolls and user fees for up to 50 years.
Perry says rapid growth in population and international trade is straining highways, and it will get much worse without adding several billion dollars' worth of projects a year. Private sector involvement and toll roads will raise money without increasing taxes and speed up construction.
Here's what his challengers would do:
Carole Keeton Strayhorn — independent
Would scrap the corridor, which she says is the biggest land grab in Texas history and puts special interests and foreign companies ahead of Texans.
'I'm going to blast the Trans-Texas Catastrophe right off the bureaucratic books,' she said.
Also opposes tollways in cities, and does not support a state gas tax increase because the state is awash in money. The biennium transportation budget doubled to $15.2 billion in six years, and $7 billion in bonds are available.
Long-term solutions include adding lanes to highways such as I-35 by using existing rights of way, increasing efficiency of rail lines and ports and expanding telecommuting.
Chris Bell — Democrat
Would try to stop the corridor because it would confiscate too much land, reeks of backroom favors to road builders and gives too much control to foreign companies.
Toll roads in cities are OK if put in new locations and supported and overseen by local governments. Putting toll roads on existing rights of way and replacing free highway lanes with frontage roads isn't fair.
Opposes any increase in the state gas tax but would allow voters to raise gas taxes at local levels. Other ways to get more money are to squeeze more efficiency out of the state transportation department, stop diverting gas-tax funds to other uses and push hard for more federal funds for highways and transit.
Kinky Friedman — independent
Opposes all toll roads and would work to purge the corridor and toll plans in cities, and also try to convert existing tollways to free roads.
Saying 'pay roads need to go the way of the pay toilet,' Friedman would seek an aggressive hike in the gas tax and other new funding measures but did not provide details.
James Werner — Libertarian
The problem with the corridor and other toll plans is that government is involved, and confiscating land to benefit private corporations is wrong and probably illegal.
The private sector is the answer to traffic problems, but firms should negotiate land deals and finance construction for toll roads on their own. Government should auction its existing roads to the highest bidders, and the gas tax along with all other taxes should be abolished in favor of a point-of-purchase sales tax on new goods and services.
'Virtually anything that the government can do, the private sector can do better,' he said.
Compiled by Express-News transportation writer Patrick Driscoll
© 2006 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com
11/04/2006
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006
Where they stand
The gubernatorial candidates stake out their plans for Texas' transportation future:
When voters approved the Texas Mobility Fund by a 2-1 ratio in November 2001, authorizing bonds and toll roads, few likely knew that state officials would take that as a mandate to build as many toll roads as possible.
Two months later, Republican Gov. Rick Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile network of corridors up to 1,200 feet wide that would include toll lanes, railways and utility lines. Private companies would finance, build and operate the corridors in return for collecting tolls and user fees for up to 50 years.
Perry says rapid growth in population and international trade is straining highways, and it will get much worse without adding several billion dollars' worth of projects a year. Private sector involvement and toll roads will raise money without increasing taxes and speed up construction.
Here's what his challengers would do:
Carole Keeton Strayhorn — independent
Would scrap the corridor, which she says is the biggest land grab in Texas history and puts special interests and foreign companies ahead of Texans.
'I'm going to blast the Trans-Texas Catastrophe right off the bureaucratic books,' she said.
Also opposes tollways in cities, and does not support a state gas tax increase because the state is awash in money. The biennium transportation budget doubled to $15.2 billion in six years, and $7 billion in bonds are available.
Long-term solutions include adding lanes to highways such as I-35 by using existing rights of way, increasing efficiency of rail lines and ports and expanding telecommuting.
Chris Bell — Democrat
Would try to stop the corridor because it would confiscate too much land, reeks of backroom favors to road builders and gives too much control to foreign companies.
Toll roads in cities are OK if put in new locations and supported and overseen by local governments. Putting toll roads on existing rights of way and replacing free highway lanes with frontage roads isn't fair.
Opposes any increase in the state gas tax but would allow voters to raise gas taxes at local levels. Other ways to get more money are to squeeze more efficiency out of the state transportation department, stop diverting gas-tax funds to other uses and push hard for more federal funds for highways and transit.
Kinky Friedman — independent
Opposes all toll roads and would work to purge the corridor and toll plans in cities, and also try to convert existing tollways to free roads.
Saying 'pay roads need to go the way of the pay toilet,' Friedman would seek an aggressive hike in the gas tax and other new funding measures but did not provide details.
James Werner — Libertarian
The problem with the corridor and other toll plans is that government is involved, and confiscating land to benefit private corporations is wrong and probably illegal.
The private sector is the answer to traffic problems, but firms should negotiate land deals and finance construction for toll roads on their own. Government should auction its existing roads to the highest bidders, and the gas tax along with all other taxes should be abolished in favor of a point-of-purchase sales tax on new goods and services.
'Virtually anything that the government can do, the private sector can do better,' he said.
Compiled by Express-News transportation writer Patrick Driscoll
© 2006 San Antonio Express-News:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Saturday, November 04, 2006
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