Jul 11, 2006 9:09 pm US/Central
Plans For New Superhighway Get Emotional Response
by Bud Gillett
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 News) ―
A second round of public hearings over the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor got underway in north Texas Tuesday.
The controversial proposal would build a new North American Free Trade Agreement superhighway between Mexico and Oklahoma.
A public hearing in Denton was one of 54 planned meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation. Residents and interested parties who want to see, in what will in all probability be a toll road for separate car, truck, and train routes, came out to the University of North Texas Gateway Center.
The proposed corridor is designed to relieve traffic on Interstate-35 through Texas. The route preferred by the Texas Department of Transportation would go 40 miles east of Dallas. The department's backup plan would swing west of Fort Worth and Denton, and through smaller cites like Ponder.
"The concerns about homeland security, we've been going through all this in the senate, and the congress about our border security, and with illegal immigration. If we're creating a giant highway, how does that affect us? They haven't addressed that," Cheri Phillips, Ponder resident.
Neither plan sits well with the North Central Texas Council of Governments. It would like to see a corridor that would split, to go through both Fort Worth and Dallas as I-35 does now.
Some folks attending Tuesday's hearing were unhappy, others took a wait and see attitude.
"I don't know whether this is the right plan or not, but I'm certainly happy that they're trying to do something," said Joe Cantrell, Flower Mound resident.
Similar meetings occurred on Tuesday in Decatur and Bonham.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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