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Challenging the Wisdom of the Trans Texas Corridor.
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Highway Plans August 30, 2002 R.G. Ratcliffe, Houston Chronicle Aug. 30--AUSTIN, Texas--The highways of Texas are built and paved in part by paths of gold leading to the Texas Governor's Mansion. The contractors that build the state's highways and the bond houses that finance them are a lucrative source of campaign contributions for the politicians who influence where highways go and how much is spent to build them. One such highway led to an Austin news conference Thursday, as Republican Gov. Rick Perry touted the sale of the first bonds to finance Texas 130, a toll road that will allow traffic to bypass busy Interstate 35 through Austin. Perry received $30,000 from California-based Fluor Corp. and Houston's S&B Infrastructure in June, less than a week before they signed a $1.5 billion state contract to build Texas 130 -- the first leg of Perry's Trans Texas Corridor plan. Those donations are part of more than $500,000 highway contractors gave the governor since January 2001, his first full month in office. His Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez, is familiar with the other side of that relationship: He and his family-owned bank donated $75,000 to former Gov. George W. Bush while seeking state approval of a private toll road that Sanchez wanted built. "Better transportation planning, innovative transportation financing -- it's about more than concrete and construction crews," Perry said Thursday as the state closed on $2.2 billion in bonds for Texas 130 and its feeder...
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