There's some bad news for opponents of the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation met last week with the North Texas Council of Governments, and it looks like they have come to an agreement. Officials in and around the Metroplex have been opposed to the TTC because of the route the Spanish company wanted it to take. It was going to go east of Dallas.
Well, in an effort to save the TTC and garner some support for it, TxDot has given in to the demands of north Texas officials. They now say the TTC will run parallel to I-35 and then split into a new outer loop going around both sides of the Metroplex. It will come together again north of the DFW area and run north to the Oklahoma border near Gainesville. Now that they have gotten what they want from the state, you can expect many DFW officials to come out in favor of the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The opposition of the north Texas area was one of the main impediments to the building of the TTC. Now that NTCOG has what it wants, they will probably get busy trying to convince urban voters that the TTC is needed. This will be a change in the dynamics of the situation. Until now, there have been no government officials supporting the TTC in the north Texas area. With local officials on board, the TTC now has some supporters in this area, and voters who don't know much about the issue could be convinced to support it.
Will this change by TxDot get them the support they desperately need? We won't know for a while yet, but TxDot is in a much better position this week than they were last week, and the TTC is that much closer to being built.
Glad you posted this. If the NTCOG can say they will fight this on the basis of WHERE the route will go, then we can still fight this on WHETHER this route will go - http://salon.glenrose.net/default.asp?view=plink&id=1632
ReplyDeleteHere's what I propose to fight this. Someone in a county that understands this issue takes it on and does a meeting about it that REALLY explains it and then arranges to talk to the adjoining counties. And then someone in those counties talks to THEIR adjoining counties, etc. We could really have a brushfire about this before the elections.
They've done a good job of flying this TTc under the radar. I'm still amazed at how many people in the DFW area still don't know about it. We've got to get the word out that even with this change, the TTC is a bad deal for all Texans, even the urbanites.
ReplyDeleteCooke County was not consulted in these matters. If you view their proposal in full [25 pages] and look at the maps they clearly show Cooke County becoming a truck only county. Trucks come up I-35 and autos come up North Dallas Tollway into Grayson County.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nctcog.org/trans/goods/ttc/
http://www.nctcog.org/trans/goods/ttc/TTC-35RegionalBriefing7.13.06.pdf [direct]
View these maps in particular to see "larger picture">
page 9 ["related to truck operations"]
page 11 ["goods movement" map clearly shows truck stops on I-35]
page 12 [I-35 is "truck corridor"]
page 16 [autos come up North Dallas Tollway at top of the DFW loop along Denton and Collin County line]
page 17 [map is 100% false when compared to others - pay attention to red line cutting through loop and compare to other maps and you'll see they want it to continue up North Dallas Tollway into Grayson County - not Cooke County]
page 20 [finish superimposing the loop and you will see this is the TTC-35 they want - trucks come up I-35 and automobiles come up North Dallas Tollway]
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"The last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of comments from leaders in this area endorsing this plan," Whitley said. "Recent conversations lead me to believe that TxDOT is going to listen to those comments."
That's funny. I thought I read that hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of CITIZENS had comments for TxDOT too. Thanks for exposing that we have/had no say in the matter and that it really was a "done deal" and our comments were/are being ignored. Talk about a revolt. Just wait til this gets alot of press.