Federal Money for State Highway 121 Assured

August 8, 2007

Shelley Kofler, KERA News

DALLAS, TX (2007-08-08) Some good news this for the North Texas Tollway Authority and it's effort to seal a deal to build State Highway 121 in Collin and Denton Counties.

Tuesday regional transportation planners and elected officials expressed grave concern that the federal highway administration would withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars if the North Texas Tollway Authority builds State Highway 121.

The issue first arose earlier this year when state lawmakers passed restrictions on using private companies to build roads. That lead to transportation commissioners taking the $4 billion project away from Cintra, a private company, and awarding it to the tollway authority, a public agency,

Federal highway officials have promoted the fairly new idea of private toll road construction, and they said an agreement with the tollway authority for this project might not meet federal guidelines.

But Wednesday afternoon Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she has spoken to US Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and has received assurances that no federal funds will be lost .

That clears the way for the tollway authority and the state to sign a legal agreement for this project by the end of this week.

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