TxDOT will recommend
no new roads for I-69/TTC

June 19, 2008

By Tim Olmeda, The Nueces County Record Star

The controversial project known as Interstate 69/TransTexas Corridor became a little less so last week after the Texas Department of Transportation announced it would recommend utilizing existing highway routes rather than building new ones.

The announcement comes after months of public meetings during which residents along the path of the proposed path of Interstate 69/TTC voiced varying concerns. TxDOT has designated four priority corridors to address the state's transportation needs in the next decade.

"The preliminary basis for this decision centers on the review of nearly 28,000 public comments made on the Tier One Draft Environmental Impact Statement," TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz said. "The overwhelming sentiment of these comments focused on the need to improve the existing network rather than building a new corridor for the project."

The I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor is envisioned to be part of Interstate 69, a planned multi-state highway running from Texas to the Midwest, and aims to ease traffic, enhance economic development and provide better emergency evacuation routes for residents of South and Coastal Texas.

Texas gains an average of 1,200 new residents each day, and the state's population is expected to grow 65 percent in the next 25 years and road usage is projected to increase 214 percent.

Leon Little, who owns farmland near the Bluntzer area, had previously voiced concern at a town hall meeting in February about the possibility of a new roadway cutting across his property, which he has owned since the 1930s.

But with the latest announcement of no new roads being recommended, Little said it was nothing more than a waste of taxpayer dollars for TxDOT to reach what he felt was the only conclusion.

"That's what they should have done in the first place," Little said. "They've got to have known that they would have been met with a lot of opposition on this."

Public outcry was what the farmer felt served as the biggest catalyst to TxDOT's decision.

"With the town hall meetings, they found out the public is not going to put up with this," Little said.

Even more so, however, is the fact that the state of Texas cannot really afford new roads. TxDOT officials have said that Texas is in a money crunch to finance much-needed new roads. The state's current 20-cent gas tax per gallon is an inadequate funding source for the maintenance of existing roads, let alone the construction of new ones.

Toll roads, which were another source of concern for Texas residents, will still be a part of the I-69/TTC proposal TxDOT will present to the Federal Highway Administration in later this year or in early 2009.

The revamped proposal will recommend adding new lanes, including new toll lanes, to existing highway right-of-ways.