Texas Governor Seeks to Build Megahighways (NAFTA toll road network)

[Khephra]

AUSTIN, Texas -- In what sounds like another tall tale told by a Texan, the Lone Star State has embarked on an audacious project to build superhighways so big, so complex, that they will make ordinary interstates look like cowpaths.

The Trans-Texas Corridor project, as envisioned by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing an awesome $175 billion over 50 years, financed mostly if not entirely with private money. The builders would then charge motorists tolls.

But these would not be mere highways. Proving anew that everything's big in Texas, they would be megahighways -- corridors up to a quarter-mile across, consisting of as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, plus railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, even broadband transmission cables.

Supporters say the corridors are needed to handle the expected NAFTA-driven boom in the flow of goods to and from Mexico and to enable freight haulers to bypass heavily populated urban centers on straight-shot highways that cut across the countryside.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-texas-superhighways,0,4640959.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[booksenkatz]

1. That would explain all the brush-clearing by * wouldn't it? nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Sounds horrible

"a $7.5 billion, 800-mile corridor that would stretch from Oklahoma to Mexico and run parallel to Interstate 35."

Just what we need - more asphalt.

:puke:

[Occulus]

5. Doesn't that require oil to produce as well?

Hmmmm.

[mourningdove92]

3. Oh yeah, and we will be paying tolls into Spains pocket

for the next 50 years.

[Wright Patman]

4. The almighty market

will turn thumbs down on this project.

Then Texas will turn it over to the federal government and all 50 states will be paying it off after it is renamed the "North American Homeland Security Corridor."

Think of the S&L bailout (also largely centered on Texas) on a larger scale.

[Maple]

6. This is already

being done. Has been underway for some years.

[slor]

7. I guess...

they will make great horse trails after peak oil.

[arcos]

20. so true.... nt

[BulletproofLandshark]

8. Pointless

I'd bet we'll be well into the peak oil crisis years before this monstrosity is finished.

[Book Lover]

9. And maintaining this piece of infrastructure?

Whose pocket is going to be picked for the next 100+ years to keep this up? And please note this tidbit:

Even the governor's own party opposes the plan. The GOP platform drafted at last summer's state convention rejected it because of its effect on property rights.

[Ilsa]

10. The trucks would be exempt from paying tolls, I bet.

God knows, we don't want to do anything to discourage commerce. So, they'll charge people with cars of blue book value that is less than $30,000. Gotta make sure the Mercedes and Hummer drivers aren't too discouraged either.

[Tab]

11. You can see where this is going...

"Financed mostly if not entirely with private money. The builders would then charge motorists tolls."

Privatizing Americas infrastructure, in other words.

[liveoaktx]

13. The other part of this is eminent domain- I live in that huge

area but haven't seen yet exactly what the route will be. If the state of texas decides to go through my area, poof! my home gone, all for PRIVATE interests. Just came back through Dallas today and was considering, what about the people who can't afford toll roads? Will the State of Texas still be maintaining those PUBLIC roads or will it be tough?

[TheFarseer]

15. Yeah, pretty soon every road will be a toll road

Tons of roads in Houston are already toll roads. I suppose phase II is to make enough toll roads to handle all the approaches to the city where people are trying to commute. Phase III will be to get rid of the older free roads and rape the working man once again. Of course phase IV will be to automate it so they don't have to pay any peasants to take tolls.

[David Zephyr]

12. Texas Governor to Seize Private Property to Enrich His Toll Road Investors

The governor of Texas sound like Putin.

[Mist]

14. Sounds horrible

But what a boon for the concrete kings. Or is that boondoggle?

[VegasWolf]

16. If they could fix the highways in Austin, that would be a start. n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. You can fight it...

...and win:

http://www.kurumi.com/roads/3di/sanfran.html

Yeah, yeah... I know it's liberal San Francisco, but NIMBYism (even its benign form) knows no party. :)

[johncoby2]

18. Our Texas Governor is a Dumb*uck.

Governor Rick Perry has his lips sewn to the ass of every polluting, constitution trampling, high paid lobbyist in Texas.

If these lobbyists would suddenly stop, it would take us 3 days to get Perry's head out of their ass.

He is political toast in 2006. Either Kay Bailey or Carolyn Keeton Rylander Strayhorn Mitchell Gonzales Nguyen ORelly, will beat him in the primary.

Toast. 2006.

[Skink]

21. I think you mean Governor Kinky..

Friedman that is.

[Ilsa]

25. Great post.

Especially about Ms. Family Values (is she already divorced from Strayhorn?).

Perry is an absolute shithead. He is the epitome of the wealthy seeking special treatment, such as his episode with DPS ("Why don't you just let us get on down the road..." and his daughter's drivers license. No telling what else is out there that KBH or Carol McClellan Keeton Rylander Strayhorn, etc, will find on him. I heard that CMKRS plays dirty.

[rainbow4321]

27. CMKRS....

UGH---this woman gets on my nerves...she is the one who got to pick and choose which churches in Texas got tax exempt status--tried to deny a UU church theirs til the press got involved <and a few attorneys>..then she backed down. Claimed that because the congregation didn't have a "single belief" they should not be considered a church.


BTW, small tidbit: she's the mother of shrub's press guy McClellan.

[Ilsa]

34. Yeah, I know. She's seems like a very smart but evil woman.

She must have dropped Scotty on his head a few times, though.

[SKKY]

19. I saw the Movie, "The Big Dig"...

...I can tell you how this will end.

[Ilsa]

26. Yeah, we had one started along time ago called the

Supercollider, but it got hosed halfway as well. A pockmark on an already ugly landscape.

[Thor_MN]

32. I'm hoping it won't end in Duluth.

Along I-35...

I just bet they would like to put in big excess pipeline capacity and then in true PNAC style, you have to use it for something. Since there won't be any oil by that time, they will try to stick a hose in Lake Superior and suck it dry.

[Benhurst]

22. When it is finished, we can sell Texas back to Mexico

for a parking lot.

[rainbow4321]

23. Gov. Perry pulls a shrub---aide's former company get contract

In keeping with shrub's tradition of buddies' companies getting contracts:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D879EKA80.html

A top aide to Gov. Rick Perry who had worked for a company that was chosen for a $7.2 billion state road project had no contact about the project with the company or transportation officials once he joined the governor's staff, Perry's office said.

Dan Shelley had been a government affairs consultant for Spain-based Cintra until three months before the company was picked to build the road project. He was to be paid if the road deal went through, Perry spokesman Robert Black said.

But Shelley gave up that deal when he became Perry's legislative director and he had no further contact on the issue with Cintra or the Texas Transportation Commission, the Perry-appointed board that picked the company, Black said.

"The governor's office had no influence at all over who won the contract for the Trans-Texas Corridor," Black said in Wednesday's editions of The Dallas Morning News. The Trans-Texas Corridor, a network of tollways and rail lines across the state projected to cost $175 billion, is the centerpiece of Perry's transportation policy. An opponent of the plan said Shelley's previous employment for Cintra added to questions about the project.

[Javaman]

24. Vacuum form haircut jackass

he's just another repuke spend thrift. He stole the election like moron before him. Not an honest one in the bunch, he can go rot in hell. I'll be protesting against this bullshit.

[Bouncy Ball]

28. Let's see.....

NAFTA has already cost us WAY more jobs than it ever brought in. And we already have monstrosities like this High Five eyesore in north Dallas instead of good mass transportation:



http://dallashighfive.org/

Why don't we just GIVE the country away? The repukes obviously don't give a flying shit about it.

[rainbow4321]

29. Drivers were trapped on top of that sucker with this last ice storm..

For HOURS, per the radio news that night. Every time I drive under that damn thing I fully expect a chunk of concrete to fall onto my car <those that drive it know what I mean>.

[Bouncy Ball]

30. I never go NEAR it

and won't. Fortunately I live in a different part of the metroplex and have no need for it. It's HORRID.

[PunkPop]

31. Drove over it for the first time on the way out of town for Chistmas.

The pavement was uneven - like it had ripples or something. I mean, it's brand new! Wasn't there something about bad concrete being used on some of the ramps that would have to be fixed? Seems I remember hearing something like that.

[rainbow4321]

33. Yep..Concrete cracks..real comforting, isn't it?

http://www.aggregateresearch.com/caf/press.asp?ID=4877&category=113&keyword=&order=

Dallas, Texas) Work at the Dallas High Five Interchange has encountered a few bumps – and a few cracks – in the road.

Small fissures have developed on the concrete surface of some of the interchange's longest ramps, all of which have opened in the last year. The cracks do not pose a safety hazard, Texas Department of Transportation officials say, but they have forced an unplanned makeover for parts of the project.

Cracks have unexpectedly appeared on bridges of the High Five interchange. So asphalt is on the way in, and concrete is on the way out on five of the project's nine ramps.

"We first noticed the cracks several months ago," said Praxedis Garza, the transportation department's area engineer for northwest Dallas County, who is overseeing the High Five project. "There has been no cracking of the concrete bridge segments themselves. It's just a cracking of the riding surface."

To date, inspectors have found cracks on top of two of the opened ramps, both of which were built in small sections and hoisted into place by a $1 million Segment Erector built specifically for the job. Once the segments were in place, crews laid an additional two-inch layer of concrete on the ramps to smooth the ride and prevent moisture from entering the bridge's inner structure.

[PunkPop]

35. That's it. Thanks. nt