Jumping on the ban-wagon

May 3, 2007

By Ben Wear

The Texas Farm Bureau today asked Gov. Rick Perry to sign a bill now on his desk “that would establish a two-year moratorium on the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor.” Which would be fine if there were such a bill.

Actually, HB 1892, the bill Perry has before him and must decide on by May 14 or so, does not apply a moratorium to the Trans-Texas Corridor. The bill, along with doing dozens of pages of other things, bans the state for two years from signing agreements with private companies to build, operate and take revenue from tollways.

But the environmental process on TTC-35, the proposed twin to Interstate 35, will take much longer than two more years to complete. And what would be called TTC-69, a possible tollway from the Rio Grande Valley to Texarkana, is even further back in the federally required environmental study chain. No other Trans-Texas Corridor project has progressed beyond a gleam in Ric Williamson’s eye. And the state can’t sign a contract to build a road until that process is done.

The moratorium may stop some private road deals with the state, but none of them will be on the Trans-Texas Corridor. The moratorium’s real value — or threat, from the Texas Department of Transportation’s side of the issue — is that it prevents the state from leasing existing tollways, such as the three in the Austin area, or from reaching such contracts on other projects that might be reading in the next two years.

And of course, a two-year ban can become a permanent ban, if the 2009 Legislature is of a mind to make it so. Then, and only then, might it affect the Trans-Texas Corridor.