July 18, 2006

by Clay Coppedge, Temple Daily Telegram

MCGREGOR - The proposed Trans-Texas Corridor would take land off county rolls, provide an inviting target for terrorists and benefit a foreign country more than it would benefit Texas, according to some of the 18 people who spoke at a public hearing on the corridor at McGregor High School Monday night.

The public hearing, attended by several hundred people, was one of 54 being held across the state this summer to gather comments on the draft environmental impact study on the corridor completed in April.

The meeting was hosted by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT,) which will oversee construction and administration of the long-term, multi-billion dollar project.

But several speakers disputed the idea that TxDOT will have much to do with the project, since the Texas Transportation Commission chose Cintra, based in Madrid, Spain, to construct the 800-mile traffic and trade route from Oklahoma to Texas known as TTC-35.

“I object to a foreign country having any part of Texas,” Suzanne Lammert said.

Falls County commissioner Bernhard Neuman said he is “very opposed to a foreign country coming in and doing this.”

Neuman said the elaborate plans, which call for a 4,000-mile, 1,200-foot wide six-lane highway along with freight and passenger rails, two high-speed rail lines, a natural gas pipeline and a fiber optic and utilities zone, will provide a hardship for rural communities.

“In Falls County, we need all the tax base we have,” he said. “This would take a lot of real estate off the county rolls, as well as cutting through some of the most productive farmland in the Blacklands. It’s hard to build a road and make it stand up. It shifts.”

Presley Donaldson said that TxDOT has said it has the technology to build solid and reliable roads in the Blacklands. “My question is: Why haven’t they done it?”