Trans-Texas Corridor opponents organize

February 5, 2008

Landline

The state of Texas has scheduled public meetings to try to sell the public on the Trans-Texas Corridor. If the roads are built, they’ll feature up to 10 lanes of toll roads, with truck-only lanes, and will be as much as four football fields wide.

The proposed Interstate 69 corridor would run near or through the small town of Libby, near Nacogdoches. Libby is Larry Shelton’s hometown, and he’s one of the organizers of a grassroots opposition movement that recently drew more than 300 people to a pair of organizing meetings.

The people who came to the meetings don’t want the state to use imminent domain to take away their property.

“It’s incredible the stories we heard at these meetings. … We have a very politically and demographically diverse crowd here but we are 100 percent united,” Shelton said.

The exact route of the proposed TTC-69 corridor hasn’t been nailed down yet, but the broad, preliminary path the state is considering takes in Shelton’s property and that of his neighbors.

“Some of these people have owned this land for multiple generations, some for multiple centuries. They’re concerned with losing their homes,” said Shelton.

Shelton built his house with his own hands and has a lot of sweat equity in the place. “I stand to lose everything,” he said.