Environmental Impact

Air pollution.

This plan doesn't reduce pollution, it simply pushes vehicle pollution away from the large urban district into rural Texas. In doing so it increases the number of travel miles required to reach and leave the corridor from urban areas which in-turn increases the generation of air pollutants by inducing travel. One analyst has conservatively estimated that an additional annual 5.4 billion vehicle miles will be induced by the TTC over the long run.

TxDOT projects the Trans-Texas Corridor alignments to require 580,000 acres. That's a land area six times greater than the Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas.

The National Resources Inventory released by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in 1999 lists Texas as having the highest land consumption rate of any state. The TTC and ancillary developments will certainly accelerate Texas' land consumption rate.

Fences and barriers required to protect high-speed vehicle lanes and particularly rail tracks will prohibit the movement of wildlife across vast areas of Texas. The affect could be a reduction in the diversity of species.