Jan 15, 2008 12:38 pm US/Central
Many Texans Opposed To Giant Highway Project
TEXARKANA, Texas (AP) ―
Texas Department of Transportation officials were beginning a monthlong series of town hall meetings Tuesday to answer questions about a proposed network of superhighway toll roads that could end up 4,000 miles in length and be the biggest construction project ever in the state.
Texarkana was the site for the first of 11 unprecedented sessions over the next four weeks concerning the Trans-Texas Corridor. On Wednesday, the forum was moving to Carthage, then Thursday to Lufkin. All are communities that would be affected by a major leg of the so-called TTC along the Interstate 69 route long sought by East Texas officials.
"We do expect to have a good turnout at all of these hearings," agency spokeswoman Gaby Garcia said. "We're all interested in seeing how this will turn out."
Gov. Rick Perry first proposed the TTC six years ago. While embraced by many, it's being fought by some who describe it as unneeded and improper.
"We have to do something," Perry spokesman Robert Black, pointing to the state's booming population and less income from traditional sources of highway money: the state gasoline tax and federal funds.
"What the governor has put forward is the only idea that has been put forward that will answer the challenge," he said. "If someone's got a better idea, come forward."
If completed as much as 50 years from now, the TTC could crisscross the state -- roughly paralleling interstate highways -- with up to a quarter-mile-wide stretch of toll roads, rail lines, pipelines and utility lines. Cost of the project has been estimated at approaching $200 billion.
TTC also could require the state to acquire nearly 600,000 acres of private land, much from farmers and ranchers.
"It's going to divide farms and ranches that have been in families for generations," said Gene Hall, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau. "And compensation is very dicey.
"We're very much opposed to it. We'll be keeping an eye on the whole thing and the entire corridor process at every step of the way."
Besides I-69, the Trans-Texas Corridor as proposed also could include new superhighways that parallel existing Interstates 35, 37 and 10.
The proposed first phase of the TTC, along I-35, was planned by the Cintra Zachry consortium, composed of Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA of Spain, one of the world's largest developers of toll roads, and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio.
Amid accusations the state was giving land to a foreign entity, officials insist the property would continue to be owned by Texas like any other state road.
At least one opposition group has taken the transportation department to court with a lawsuit accusing agency officials of improperly using their authority for political purposes.
The sessions move next week to outside Houston, then to South Texas, before winding up Feb. 6 in Robstown, outside Corpus Christi.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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