Trans-Texas Corridor Is Dead

Rick Perry thought he could pull a fast-one on the citizens of Texas. He was going to let a foreign company build a massive toll road from Laredo to the Oklahoma border, and then that company would get all the tolls collected for the next 50 years. To make matters even worse, if the company didn't make as much toll money as they thought they should then Texas taxpayers would have to make up the difference.

But the people of Texas made it clear that they did NOT support the foreign-owned toll road that would cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable Texas farm and ranch land. Yesterday, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) yielded to the pressure from citizens and announced they had chosen the "no action" alternative for the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC). For the present, that means the TTC will not be built.

Texas Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows said, "The reason that's being given for the no build option is that people don't want it. They said, 'Hell no.' What we basically are doing is we are terminating the process. Formally, absolutely, TTC-35 is dead. We are cancelling the contract with Zachry."

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson's campaign is also speaking out about the TTC. I don't normally agree with much of what the senator says, but I think she's right on this matter. Her campaign manager says, "The Trans-Texas Corridor will not be officially dead until Rick Perry is no longer governor and his political appointees are no longer running TxDOT. Texans can't trust Rick Perry when it comes to protecting their land from the government, ceasing to lease our highways to foreign companies or ending the Trans-Texas Corridor."

I would go even further. The TTC won't truly be dead until the corporate Republican leadership no longer controls Texas state government.

Van Os On The Trans-Texas Corridor

For all of you Texas patriots who have upraised your voices for the last three years against Slick Rick Perry's plans to sell off our public highway system to private interests so they can stuff their bloated pocketbooks with billions of dollars in predatory toll fees while devastating hundreds of thousands of acres of good Texas earth in massive land grabs - IT HAS COME DOWN TO THE NEXT FOUR DAYS.

The 2009 legislative session is nearing its end. The Texas Department of Transportation is facing legislative sunset this year. Various bills have passed one or the other of the two Texas legislative chambers, the Senate and the House, to reauthorize TXDOT's existence under different competing sets of values. Which will it be - democracy of the people, or despotism of the greedy?

In some of the pending versions of transportation legislation, the public will would finally be honored with the long-sought elimination of the Trans-Texas Corridor and the democratization of the Texas Transportation Commission. I want to take this opportunity to express special commendation for Rep. David Leibowitz, whose labors against the toll-building robber barons and the anti-democratic TXDOT bureaucrats are on the verge of success with the potential final enactment of his bills into law.

In other versions of transportation legislation, the use of private contracts to build and operate massive toll roads, particularly TTC-69 through the heart of East Texas, would be re-authorized. In one particularly ugly bit of backroom chicanery, a deal is already made to grant the building and operation of TTC-69 to a private company from Spain. We have been fighting the same spectre for years now, but as we know, the greedy don't give up easy.

It appears probable that the competing value systems will face off in House-Senate conference committee action on Tuesday, May 26. Long hours, days, and years of hard work for many thousands of grassroots Texans who have been fighting for democracy in Texas transportation planning may come down to making sure the legislators hear the voice of the people loudly and clearly over the next four days.

The TXDOT reauthorization bill is HB 300. The bad bills that the people have to defeat to nail the coffin shut on the Trans-Texas Corridor are SB 17 and SB 404. The latter bills would re-authorize CDAs (comprehensive development agreements); in other words, sell-out deals to put billions of dollars in toll fees into private pockets for operating toll roads that the people of Texas do not want.

If you want to do your part to make sure the people are finally rewarded with victory in this fight, CALL your Texas House Representative and your Texas Senator today through the Capitol switchboard at (512) 463-4630 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Tell your Representative and your Senator, or their staffs, you are against SB 17 and SB 404 and anything else that allows comprehensive development agreements in highway construction. Tell them you expect them to GET RID of the Trans-Texas Corridor for good and to GET RID of private toll road development for good. Tell them you want a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.

We the People have been speaking for a long time. We want democracy, not corporate-governmental oligarchy. Now let's bear down. Two years ago some of the legislators who had pledged to support the people's will wavered at the finish line. This time we can't let them waver. Let them hear our voices in this moment of truth. NO private contracts for toll roads, NO Trans-Texas Corridor, NO comprehensive development agreements, and YES to a democratically elected Texas Transportation Commission.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

David Van Os

Another View of the TTC Boondoggle

A friend in Arizona has just written a post about the Texas boondoggle known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. She understands that the TTC is not just a Texas problem, but will affect many other states. This is one of the best in-depth posts about the TTC that I have read. I urge you to go read it at Wild Chihuahuas.

The TTC will cut off many cities and towns along its route, will chew up millions of agricultural acres and remove them from tax rolls, will give our roadway to a foreign company that will get rich off charging tolls, and will help to make NAFTA an even bigger job-killer than it already is.

When you go to the polls this November, remember this Republican disaster known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The best way to stop it is to elect a lot more Democrats on both the state and national level. If we don't stop this now, we will regret it in the future.

Hearings To Begin On Trans-Texas Corridor

The public is finally going to get a little bit of say about the massive construction boondoggle the Republicans (and some Democrats) are trying to foist on the citizens of Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will have a series of public hearings soon on the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC).

The TTC is the name given to 4,000 miles of new toll roads that would criss-cross the state. Through imminent domain, it would gobble up over 500,000 acres of prime Texas farm and ranch land. It would also turn over the control of these new toll roads to foreign companies, who would reap the benefits of exorbitant tolls on Texans for at least the next 50 years.

The Republican leadership in Austin have already reached secret agreement with at least one foreign corporation -- a Spanish company called Cintra. This secret contract would not only turn over the road to the Spanish company for 50 years to collect tolls, but if they don't make the windfall profits they expect then the Texas taxpayers must make up the difference. In other words, those windfall profits are guaranteed by our tax dollars.

State leaders would like for Texans to believe that this is the only way for Texas to get new roads. That is a lie. What they don't tell Texans is that raising the gas tax could fund new FREE highways at a much cheaper cost than the tolls that would be charged.

The TTC is a very bad deal for the citizens of Texas. It would be great for foriegn corporations and the politicians on their payroll, but this $200 billion boondoggle would bleed the citizens of Texas dry.

Do you want to turn our highways over to foreign countries? Do you want to have to pay exorbitant tolls to drive across our state? If not, then you must speak out now.

But even more important, you must vote the TTC supporters out in the next election (most of whom are Republicans). Before you vote for a state senator or representative, make sure they don't support the massive TTC scheme to rob the citizens of Texas.

Here are the scheduled public hearings:

1/15 - Texarkana

1/16 - Carthage

1/17 - Lufkin

1/22 - Hempstead

1/23 - Huntsville

1/24 - Rosenburg

1/28 - Bellville

1/29 - Victoria

1/31 - Weslaco

2/5 - Laredo

2/6 - Robstown

Trans-Texas Corridor Rears Its Ugly Head Again

A group calling itself the North America's SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO) is meeting in Fort Worth this weekend for its annual meeting. This group wants to build a super-highway from Mexico to Canada. They try to make their goals seem innocuous enough. To hear them talk, you'd think all they wanted was to help business along the I-35 corridor.

And they've created a strawman to knock down so they can convince us that they're just trying to help. They say that the folks who don't understand them think they're trying to merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into one giant North American country. Then they proceed to knock this strawman down by telling us they just want to prevent gridlock on I-35.

There may be some conspiracy theorists who believe they want to merge the three countries, but that is not the big threat we face. In case you don't recognize it, Texas' part of the "super-highway" is commonly called the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), and there are plenty of reasons to oppose it without believing in conspiracy theories.

Some may have thought the legislature had killed this nightmare, but that is just not true. They just didn't want to make waves while the legislature was in session. But the legislature has now adjourned, and the ugly beast can now rise again.

This is the same TTC that would create a giant toll-road across Texas, gobbling up million of acres of agricultural land. Even worse, it would be owned by a giant foreign corporation for the next 50 years, which would suck Texas dry with their exorbitant tolls.

Ordinary Texans have already told the politicians they do not want the TTC, but our governor and his cronies won't stop it because there's just too much money to be made and they plan to get their share.

Speak up Texans, and stop this monster now! Don't let the governor sell us out to the corporations. Speak up now, or spend the next 50 years wishing you had.