Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Commission Room
Dewitt Greer Building
125 East 11th Street
Austin, Texas 78701-2483

9:00 a.m. Thursday, January 31, 2002

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

JOHN W. JOHNSON, Chairman
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
RIC WILLIAMSON

STAFF:

MICHAEL W. BEHRENS, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
HELEN HAVELKA, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director
 

PROCEEDINGS

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. It is 9:11 a.m. and this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission is called to order. Welcome to our January meeting; it is a pleasure to have you here today. Please note for the record that public notice of this meeting, containing all items of the agenda, was filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at 10:25 a.m. on January 23.

It says here that before we get started, I am to ask my esteemed colleagues if they have any comments that they would like to make. Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: I like that esteemed part; I’ve been called a lot of other things.

Just welcome everybody to be here. I know a lot of you have taken out of your day, volunteered your time in the interest of your community. We appreciate it and your comments are helpful. That’s all. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Esteemed colleague Commissioner Williamson.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Same thing, glad everybody came, and I’ve noticed every month the last year or so the room gets more full and more full. We’re glad that there’s so much interest in our state in transportation, and I’m just proud to serve with two guys like Nichols and Johnson.

MR. JOHNSON: That doesn’t need to be in the record, does it?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Sure it does.

(General laughter.)

WILLIAMSON COUNTY

(Sen. Steve Ogden, Nancy Ledbetter, Frankie Limmer, Rep. Mike Krusee)

MR. JOHNSON: Again, welcome. We’re delighted that there’s a delegation -- which is the first item on our agenda -- from a long way up the road in Williamson County, although we do know that sometimes that short trip by miles can take a long time due to circumstances, but we are delighted that you’re here. I understand Senator Ogden is going to be the lead batter. Is that correct? Senator Ogden, we’re delighted that you’re here and welcome on up. Rainy day.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And is the Chair aware that he has been indeed a great batter his lifetime?

MR. JOHNSON: I do know that.

SEN. OGDEN: If it was right-handed pitching.

(General laughter.)

SEN. OGDEN: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, Mr. Executive Director, thank you for having us here today. It’s my privilege to stand before you as the state senator that represents approximately half of Williamson County, and after redistricting will represent all of Williamson County, and today we have several of the county leaders here that have come up to request making US 79 a Priority 2 project. I’d like to introduce County Judge John Doerfler, County Commissioners Frankie Limmer and Greg Boatright.

I would like to make two quick points about US 79 and this particular request to make it a Priority 2 project, basically from the Dell Diamond on the west over to the Taylor Loop on the east.

One is that this highway, which is four-lane undivided, is subject to almost one accident every other day. The statistics I’ve seen said that over a five-year period on this stretch of the highway there were 780 accidents. Knowing what the growth and the traffic volumes have been, I would estimate that on average there’s probably 200 accidents a year on Highway 79 from the Dell Diamond to Taylor, and a significant number result in fatalities. The reason for that is traffic is traveling at 70 miles an hour, the dividing line between the east and west lane is about 12 inches wide, and there’s no improved shoulder, and from a safety standpoint, this needs our attention, in my opinion.

The second point that I would like to make is I would like to mention on a statewide scale a project that TxDOT is helping to pay for and would encourage your attention to. It’s called the Crash Records Information System. The Department of Public Safety now collects data on accidents in Texas but the system is archaic; it is at least 30 years old and it takes over a year from the time an accident report enters the system till it gets out on the other side and can be used for any type of useful data. The fact of the matter is that we cannot tell, with any high level of certainty, in Texas where the most dangerous roads are, where the most accidents are occurring, what’s causing those accidents, and what we can do to reduce their incidence and reduce the number of fatalities.

During the last session, in the Appropriations Bill, approximately, as I remember, $3-1/2 million was funded to begin an effort to modernize this Crash Records Information System. Half of that money is coming from you all, and I understand that Carol Rawson is representing TxDOT on that effort, but from my view, in order for you all to make good decisions and in order for us to make good decisions, we desperately need that system to be up and running as soon as possible, and I would encourage your attention and involvement.

The last point I’d like to make is that one of the reasons that US 79 needs to be on Priority 2 status, besides the high traffic volumes and the number of accidents that are occurring out there, is that half of the cost right now of making that four-lane divided is estimated to be right of way cost, and as I understand it, if you will make this a Priority 2 project, we can go out and begin to acquire right of way. Williamson County is willing to participate in that at a very high level of percentage and they’re going to talk about that, but you and I both know that the longer we wait to acquire the right of way, the much more difficult it is to finish that project. So I urge you, for safety reasons, to raise US 79 from Dell Diamond to Taylor to Priority 2 status.

And I’d like to introduce Nancy Ledbetter, who is the director of transportation planning for Williamson County, to give you some more details about the project. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MS. LEDBETTER: Good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity for us to appear today. I’m Nancy Ledbetter, the director of transportation planning for Williamson County. I’m going to be expanding on some of the technical information that Senator Ogden mentioned. The three main areas that I’m going to talk about are: the roadway’s significance, the growth and safety issues, and the county’s support of TxDOT’s strategic plan and proposed access policies.

US 79 is the major east-west corridor in eastern Williamson County. It links Round Rock, Hutto and Taylor and it serves as the spine of eastern Williamson County. US 79 connects to SH 95, the future SH 130, and ties directly into IH 35. 79 is used by major employers and manufacturing businesses located in the county to move people and goods both within and throughout the Central Texas region, and companies include Dell, Round Rock Express, DuPont, Austin White Lime, and many others.

79 is a significant component of the Texas Trunk System. The highway in our county represents over 10 percent of the total length of 79 through Texas and it connects to significant NHS corridors. The Bryan, Tyler, and Atlanta District offices are currently pursuing expansion of their portions of US 79 to a four-lane divided facility; last year the Austin District completed the upgrade of 79 east of Round Rock past the Dell Diamond and the district recently requested a new approved Priority 1 funding to add a turn lane between the Taylor Loop and SH 95.

So our project request is for a divided roadway with a median, from McNutt Creek which is just past the Dell Diamond to the Taylor Loop, and it’s currently an undivided facility so it’s really the missing piece in eastern Williamson County. Our county is the second fastest growing county in Texas; it grew over 79 percent between 1990 and 2000, but it’s also the 19th fastest growing county nationwide. Round Rock, Hutto and Taylor collectively grew over 75 percent between 1990 and 2000, and the most current population projections that were performed in coordination with CAMPO, the local MPO, indicate that our population will double by the year 2015, and then double again by the year 2025, for a population of over 800,000.

The highest traffic volumes on 79 in our project area are just east of Dell Diamond near FM 685. There were 17,500 vehicles per day in the year 2000 and these volumes are expected to increase nearly 170 percent to 47,000 per day by the year 2025. And even after improving 79 to a four-lane divided facility, we’ll still have a high level of congestion in this area. The main line of the Union Pacific Railroad that carries freight from Mexico runs along the south side of 79, and all the roads that cross the tracks cause bottlenecks and frequent collisions, and the situation could worsen since UP is talking about double-tracking the line, and currently there’s about 20 trains a day that go through there.

In a county traffic safety report, the accidents on 79 from IH 35 to the Milam County line totaled 860 accidents with 16 fatalities between 1995 and 2000, and this is at a cost of over $74 million. EMS reports many occurrences of pile-up collisions at the UP rail line crossings as well as secondary collisions throughout the county. Because of the severity of some of these accidents, the county is now averaging 1.1 Life Flights per day.

The last set of issues that I’m going to talk about is the county’s support of TxDOT’s strategic plan and proposed access policies. We’re very committed to working with the Austin District to address access issues. In fact, we’ve already begun coordinating with district staff to prepare an access management plan that will support the department’s policy to minimize driveway access onto 79. Last year our county commissioners adopted a traffic impact analysis policy that requires municipalities to identify a method for right of way preservation and also to minimize the driveway access. We’re also developing facilities that are parallel to 79, such as the Hutto Bypass and Chandler Road -- these are funded from our road bond election -- and these roads would provide additional east-west capacity and also assist in reducing traffic on 79.

As far as planned compatibility, the project is included in the county’s long-range plan, it was included in the county’s successful November 2000 bond election, it’s consistent with the CAMPO 2025 plan, and it’s also included in the current CAMPO Regional Air Quality Modeling Program.

In summary, expansion of US 79 to a four-lane divided facility would improve the local and regional mobility, will improve the safety conditions, will generally support TxDOT’s current and proposed policies regarding improved traffic flow operation and safety. But furthermore, these improvements would complete the US 79 trunk system.

So thank you for your time, and now Williamson County Commissioner Frankie Limmer will present the county’s participation plan.

MR. JOHNSON: I think Commissioner Williamson has a question, Nancy.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If you could flash back the maps to the one that shows the red and the blue line going through Taylor. That’s it. Is your request for that entire length of red and blue to move into Priority 2?

MS. LEDBETTER: The request is from McNutt Creek which is the left side where the red starts to the area where it starts at blue, so it’s just that segment right in there for Priority 2.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you’re not proposing to take it through Taylor at this time?

MS. LEDBETTER: Not at this time. The blue section is the area that already has a Priority 1 funding that the district is working on.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, if we were to proceed to Priority 2 and right of way partnership could be worked out and we started buying right of way, would you anticipate that we would only be buying for divided four-lane, or would you anticipate we would buy wide enough for our favorite topic around here right now, frontage roads?

MS. LEDBETTER: The county is looking at approximately 200 feet of right of way in this segment for buying right of way for that, which in the future could accommodate six lanes, divided.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let me just say -- I’m sure the chair will say at the end of it we don’t make decisions, and let me just say that I want to be as supportive as I can of one of my favorite senators and one of my favorite house members and a community that’s demonstrated tremendous willingness to partner with us; however, the longer I’m here, the less excited I am about expanding on top of the same corridor where I know that congestion is not going to get any better. It’s just going to become four-lane divided congestion and then six-lane divided congestion. In other words, congestion is not going to go away as a result of the money your taxpayers and the state taxpayers spend, so just so you know, I’m kind of on the get-off-the-footpath bandwagon myself.

MS. LEDBETTER: Mike, did you want to address this?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean, what you didn’t display on your map -- and I’m not being critical, it’s just an observation -- you didn’t display the planned residential development on each side of this proposed Priority 2 corridor, but I know because Senator Ogden and Representative Krusee have taken the time to make me go out there and look at that area, I know that those subdivisions are planned. And so here’s how it hits me: let’s divide it, let’s prepare to divide it again, and as we divide it, we’ll build more homes so it will become more congested so that we can build some more. And it’s just a little unsettling for me, that’s all.

MS. LEDBETTER: Yes, there’s an awful lot of growth that’s occurring in the Hutto area. And I think the development of the Hutto Bypass and the Chandler Road will not only help reduce some of the traffic on 79, but it would also help us to control some of the access onto 79. So if development occurs right on 79, you could see the development but they wouldn’t necessarily have cuts onto 79, they would access probably the Hutto Bypass or Chandler and then eventually get onto 79.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Two observations: one is with the presence of the railroad to the south, we’re limited in expansion; and secondly, yesterday Commissioner Limmer and Representative Krusee explained to me that the county is working on infrastructure to ease the burden of this main artery 79, so the county, I think, is doing some very appropriate things to address the concern that you have.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And there’s not any doubt Williamson County is the single most aggressive partner with TxDOT, I think, in the state and we are very appreciative of that, and very, as you would expect, supportive of Williamson County’s needs. It just strikes me that congestion doesn’t go away; if you keep building houses next to the congested artery, you can keep adding all the lanes you want to but the problem never gets solved.

MS. LEDBETTER: Sure, yes. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. LIMMER: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, Mr. Behrens. I’m Commissioner Frankie Limmer from Precinct 4; I’m a lifelong resident of eastern Williamson County. I’ve watched Williamson County go from a toddling agricultural county to a bustling business county; I’ve watched the population increase from around 35,000 to just under 250,000. I’ve also watched 79, and a good example of it this morning, it took me one hour and 32 minutes from my house at Norman’s Crossing to get to downtown Austin. I used to do a lot of business in Austin with my company and out at the Lakeway area; I stopped that back probably in the mid '80s and the reason being transportation, I simply couldn’t get around. If you’re going to do business in this area, you need to live here.

Expanding 79 in eastern Williamson County is a critical project to our future growth and safety of the county. We have to have that highway divided for safety. When you see what happened at the Dell Diamond when we divided the highway there, there has been, to my knowledge, only one or two deaths occur on that section, and one of them was during the construction period. So we see that safety greatly increases.

The only way that you can possibly get onto 79 now from the south side from Taylor to Hutto is get on the light there in the city of Hutto in the south side and access it that way in the morning traffic, as I did this morning.

In 1993 we only had four EMS stations in the entire county; today we have 12. We placed an additional one, one of our latest ones on the west side in Taylor. I built that for the county and donated the land so that we would have a seven-minute response time over to the Hutto area because of the number of accidents that were happening there. We’ve also stationed a helicopter -- we haven’t, but the Scott & White unit has a helicopter, full-time staffed, sitting on a pad at the Taylor Municipal Airport. The county is adding, as we grow, one new EMS station for every 20,000 residents, so you see what we’ve done since that period of time.

With all these new residents, we have to simply provide all the basic services, including an efficient roadway and a safe roadway system, and that means dividing Highway 79. Expansion of 79 to a four-lane roadway is roughly somewhere in the neighborhood of $23 million in construction and the balance in the cost of right of way which we’ve seen go from $20,000 an acre to $179,000 an acre is the most I’ve paid for right of way on that area. We are at this time pursuing businesses that are willing to sell and property owners that are willing to sell along that right of way. We will continue doing this hopefully to avoid some relocation costs, and as we see projects that are coming onto 79, we will go after those pieces of property to acquire them to keep the right of way costs down as much as possible.

As Senator Ogden noted, this is the first time I think we’ve been before the commission since the '80s, so we really haven’t been a thorn in your side, but we truly do need your help at this point. We’re preparing the environmental documents all the way to the Milam County line and are here today, as was mentioned, for the first project, and that’s from McNutt Creek where we stopped the divided highway just past County Road 110 all the way to Taylor. When you get to Taylor, you’ll be able to access the loop around Taylor which is in place; that is a four-lane divided system.

The county is offering over 30 percent of the cost in this project. Over $13 million comes from a road bond which we passed in November. That was a pretty big step for us as commissioners and the judge. We felt that we had to have a number that we could really do something with; we toyed with the idea of $200 million, we went back and forth, and finally we decided that we had to have this many dollars to make a difference, and we’re here today to ask you to please give consideration to making 79 a safer highway by granting it Priority 2 so that we can divide it all the way to Taylor. Thank you.

We’ll have Mike Krusee, our state rep.

MR. KRUSEE: Good morning, commissioners. You can tell this is important to us; Judge Doerfler is wearing a tie.

(General laughter.)

MR. KRUSEE: I met with Chairman Johnson yesterday and I told you, after you graciously gave us about an hour to explain the importance of this project to you, I told you: Well, tomorrow we’re going to come and explain it again. And we’ve met with you, Commissioner Nichols and Commissioner Williamson, so I’m not going to repeat all that, but I do want to take this opportunity today to say something about the commissioners court of Williamson County -- which you’ve already noted.

These guys have really stuck their necks out. There is not another county in this state that has been more proactive on the RMA, the regional mobility authorities, than this county. It’s new, it’s untested, but they see an opportunity to make the governor’s vision a reality and to get some roads done for the people of Williamson County.

We’re a county of 250,000 people and they passed bonds of $350 million; that’s a big property tax increase, and our schools are increasing our property taxes too. The people of Williamson County are very sensitive to their taxes being increased, especially by a Republican commissioners court, but these guys did it. What they need is to show some results for that. The people of Williamson County are willing to pay these taxes to get these roads built, but they have got to see results pretty soon or they’re going to wonder why they’re paying these taxes.

On 79, you’ve heard Commissioner Limmer talk; we’re going ahead. I mean, this is not Priority 2, it’s not really anywhere on your radar screen to get this road built, but we’re going ahead anyway, buying the right of way, spending the taxpayers’ money. But there’s a problem with the litigation in Bexar County and our lawyers have told us, and Bill Garbade confirmed for me yesterday, there is a problem. If you’re not in Priority 2 and you go out and you start condemning property, you just can’t do that anymore.

So again, with our taxpayers, we’re going to be in trouble if we go out and we’re spending money on right of way from willing sellers and then we have to sit around for years and years watching the value of that property go up. They’re going to wonder why did you have to wait two or three or four years while that property doubled and tripled and sometimes as much as ten times. Not only the taxpayers of Williamson County but that’s a situation where the taxpayers of the state are paying for that too.

So I just want to conclude by saying there is not a better example of what you want a county to do in this whole state than Williamson County. These guys have done their part, they’ve stuck their necks out; please don’t leave them hanging. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any observations?

MR. NICHOLS: Do you have anybody else that’s going to talk? I didn’t know if the judge was.

MR. JOHNSON: The tie has his vocal chords a little restricted.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: I’m going to repeat a little bit -- well, we’ve got something coming up here.

MR. JOHNSON: Is this Nolan Ryan?

MR. NICHOLS: I may add something to my comments.

SPEAKER FROM AUDIENCE: Nolan couldn’t be with us today but Mike wanted to give you an autographed baseball from Nolan and invite you out to Round Rock and Dell Diamond. If we get 79 fixed, even Chairman Johnson can get there from Houston.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What I want to know is are we going to get our picture on the front page of the Statesman now?

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: I was going to also brag on Williamson County Commissioners Court a little bit myself, I mean, not just because of what’s happening on this project but the way you have stepped up and participated willingly in a very uniform manner on some of these other projects we’ve worked on together, very much appreciated and recognized.

In my conversations with the judge on this particular project and some of you, planning ahead, particularly on the infrastructure -- because you’ve got water lines and all these other lines you’ve got to lay and you want to make sure you put them in the right spot so when this road is widened, they don’t have to be moved again, so I think that’s very good planning ahead and appreciate everything you’re doing. Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating. Mike and Steve, you’ve been strong for the state’s transportation system and everyone in this room I think appreciates your leadership in the legislature, and I can tell you we appreciate it. It’s good to have partners in the legislature; I know that. And I just associate myself with Robert’s remarks about your county judge and commissioners court. We’ve got no better local partners than Williamson County Commissioners Court, and we appreciate that.

MR. JOHNSON: As you’re aware, we don’t make immediate decisions on presentations from delegations, but I believe that you’ve made some very compelling reasons that we need to look seriously at your request, and I’m optimistic that we’ll get there and hopefully as quickly as possible to meet some of the time lines that will help you.

Senator Ogden, I think your observations about safety are at bull’s eye. For the first six months of 2001, I convened a work group to work on goals for TxDOT that were meaningful and measurable to the people who use our system, and the five areas that they want us to focus on are: mobility, safety, project preservation and operation, project delivery, and economic vitality. Safety has to be a centerpiece of what this department is all about, and without the crash records, we don’t have the appropriate data to really see where the problem areas are on on our system, and so I think your comments are very well made, and we need to move along as expeditiously as possible on the crash records project.

We appreciate your being here, we appreciate everyone in Williamson County's efforts. As my colleagues have said, you’re wonderful partners for this department, and we look forward to not leaving you hanging out there because you have been such great partners. Thank you.

We will take a short recess so that our friends from Williamson County can return.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. JOHNSON: We are hereby reconvened. Before we get started, let me remind anyone who would like to address the commission to please register in the lobby. To comment on an agenda item, you will need to complete a yellow card, and if it’s not an agenda item, we will take your comments during the open comment session at the end of the meeting, and for that we would like for you to fill out a blue card. One very important note, and that is, regardless of the color of the card, each speaker will be allowed three minutes.

We will begin with the approval of the minutes of our commission meeting held in December. Are there any additions, deletions or corrections?

MR. NICHOLS: I move we accept.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: There’s a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

Agenda item 3 deals with the Statewide Transportation Enhancement Program, and I will ask our new director of Design, Ken Bohuslav, to present this agenda item.

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, my name is Ken Bohuslav and I am the director of the Design Division.

The minute order before you today is the selection of projects for the 2001 program of the Statewide Transportation Enhancement Program. This is the fifth program call and was initiated January 8 of 2001 and closed June 18 of 2001. The department received 348 project nominations of which 315 were deemed eligible, totaling $528 million.

The projects were evaluated and rated by the local district staff, TPEC, and the Design Division. The ratings were furnished to the commission for their consideration during the project selection process.

It is important to implement these projects in a reasonable time. In consultation with the nominating entity and in the absence of information suggesting that a shorter or longer period is appropriate, three years or less from the date of inclusion in the STIP will be presumed to be a reasonable time.

From the 315 eligible project nominations, the commission has selected 106 projects totaling $143,059,671. The list of selected projects is included as Exhibit A in this minute order. Staff recommends your approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Ken, we have three people who have requested to speak. Deborah January-Bevers from Houston, representing the Greater Houston Partnership. Deborah, welcome.

MS. JANUARY-BEVERS: Good morning, chairman and commissioners. I’m up here to let you know I’m manager of the Quality of Life Programs for the Greater Houston Partnership and for the Quality of Life Coalition, and we mainly wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your consideration of the STEP projects from the Houston region, and we appreciate all the assistance that you’ve given in that regard. We just wanted to let you know that this morning. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Deborah, thank you for making the effort to come on such a dreary day.

Mary Margaret Hansen, representing the Greater East End District. We’re delighted you’re here.

MS. HANSEN: Good morning. I want to thank all the commissioners for what I know has been your very careful consideration of all the applications for 2001 STEP program, and today I’m speaking on behalf of all of the Houston projects and specifically those for the east end of Houston. Your positive response today will give us a great push forward for further economic development in our area and a finer quality of life for the entire Houston region. So today I again thank each of you for your careful consideration.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Andrew Perez, also from the Greater East End Management District.

MR. PEREZ: Yes, thank you. I’m the vice-chairman of the board of directors of our East End Management District. Just to give you a few tidbits of information, our district is two years old now; our location is between downtown Houston and the Port of Houston. History has it that the Battle of San Jacinto by one day could have been the Battle of Harrisburg because by one day those forces missed each other; they both camped, apparently, at Harrisburg, so it could have easily been the Battle of Harrisburg.

Our management district has had two major goals in the past dealing with crime and security and litter abatement. We’ve worked very hard towards those goals and we’re having great success. The streetscape project which you’ve been giving consideration would represent an investment in our community, allowing us to help reinvest in ourselves. Your assistance helps one of the oldest communities in Houston prepare and shape itself for the 21st Century, and it directly helps the business community enhance itself.

So once again I’d just like to thank the commission for its full consideration.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much. Before we call for a vote on this agenda item, two notes. One, as Ken mentioned, there were 315 eligible requests of which we had the resources to fund 106, and so obviously when you’re dealing with numbers like that, there are going to be some disappointed people. We understand that Federal Highway has ascertained that the state will receive some additional funds, exactly how much, we’re uncertain, but there will be some additional projects awarded at the February meeting which is four weeks from today.

I say this so that those who do not receive their request might pay attention to that February date and hopefully they’ll be rewarded, although given that there are 200-and-some projects that will not be accepted, unfortunately, there will remain some disappointed people. All three commissioners have studied the proposals and they are all meritorious and it’s just unfortunate we don’t have the resources to award every one of them their desired amount.

The second thing I want to mention is that once we take a vote on this, copies of the successful enhancement projects we are awarding will be available through the Public Information Office which is also on the first floor here in the Greer Building.

Any observations or comments, Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: There’s no more speakers on it?

MR. JOHNSON: No.

MR. NICHOLS: All the way through this process -- I think this is the fourth round or fifth round -- fifth, and I think it gets better each time. In the processing of these things, not only at the commission level and administration on down and into the districts, there was project numbers assigned that had the district numbers and so the communities could follow those numbers all the way through the process, make presentations on them and things like that. At the last minute -- at least I think by the time we saw this minute order -- rather than using project numbers that had the districts and the cross-reference all that, I think they used a state project number which I know when we got it, Sally has been working for a period of time kind of cross-checking some of those numbers; they certainly all seem to be the same. But I would suggest as we do this again in the future that one set of numbers be used consistently all the way through the process. And if we send out a public notification of projects using staff project numbers as opposed to the numbers the public was used to, I think there will be a lot of confusion out there, so I would certainly suggest referencing the original numbers out there in the notification process.

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: Yes, Commissioner, we use tracking numbers as the projects come in and they’re assigned a number, and the number did change last night to a project number, and we can certainly show the original the tracking number on those projects, as well as the project number.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to, Ken, associate myself with those remarks. I was perhaps even more upset than Commissioner Nichols because I think one goal in the new TxDOT is that we need to operate in a way that the public really understands what we’re doing, and I think what’s going to happen is a whole lot of people for the next couple of hours are going to be going back and forth trying to figure out does Houston-506 mean STTP-517. Maybe not, maybe I’m the only person that had problems crossing that, but I suspect not.

Mr. Chairman, I know that you take the lead in solving problems and this is an ideal opportunity for you to solve a problem that affects this department across the state. I want to know once and for all is it Boslav or Bohuslav. I want to get this settled.

MR. JOHNSON: We will go to the source and inquire within.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because there’s at least three of you in the room, maybe more, and I’ve got three different pronunciations, I can’t figure it out.

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: Well, I am older than Thomas, so I think that should carry some weight. Thomas reminded me that Czechs pronounce all of their syllables so he thinks he’s correct, but since I can say the name quicker, I think I’m more efficient. I would make that argument.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: On a serious note, Chair, do we anticipate that the Congress will continue this program into the future?

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: It’s been a very popular program and we would anticipate that it would be continued.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I want to get on the record -- and not by way of being critical, certainly, to the people from Houston, but in stating to the whole state -- coming out of the legislative process where winners and losers have to be selected every two years and where resources have to be allocated on some sort of rational basis, I have been a bit uncomfortable with the notion that certain parts of the state feel that they are deserving of certain minimum levels of financial sharing in this pie based on just the fact that they have a certain number of the state’s population. And it’s not just Houston, there are other areas who have made that argument.

As you develop our approach for the commission’s consideration in the future, I would appreciate it if you would give us a couple of clear paths: either we’re going to allocate this based on population, or we’re going to allocate this based on quality only, or we’re going to allocate this based on income adjustment, or property tax wealth. And I can think of ten other allocation schemes the government follows to distribute its cash, but sort of the position I felt like I was put in this year is trying to explain to at least three of our urban areas why it’s fair to distribute based on something other than population when, in fact, there doesn’t seem to be a department rationale for doing that.

I mean, we know that we’re distributing based on what we think are the most defensible projects, but people who live in Houston or Dallas or San Antonio feel like it should be distributed based on just pure population. And while I’m not prepared to say I agree with that or disagree, I do think it would be helpful to this commission to be given some choices in the future. I personally might prefer the public education approach to distribute based upon community wealth, and I recognize that would result in a reduction for the wealthier districts but perhaps since they’re accustomed to dealing with that in public education anyway, perhaps that wouldn’t be uncomfortable for them, I don’t know.

But I have been a bit surprised at the newspaper editorials that have suggested we don’t think about what we’re doing or we’re not fair with one part of the state or the other, and I might even say offended by some of them. And I would rather the commission have an allocation scheme that everybody in the state understands and can’t claim that they’re being treated unfairly in the future -- for what that’s worth.

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: Okay, we’ll look into it.

MR. JOHNSON: Ken, to echo what Robert said and I think Ric also said, and that is consistency and uniformity of our nomenclature. It is confusing and I think at the bare minimum we ought to, on our reporting, have both sets so that people can readily identify their project and other projects by the numbers that they’ve seen throughout the time that we’ve been going through this process as opposed to a change at the last moment. It might confuse some and that’s unfortunate. I know in trying to go through and make sure that these things were the ones that were selected, that was a laborious task and really didn’t need to be as difficult as it was. So I think not only in this area but all our reporting needs to be consistent and uniform.

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: And I do apologize for the confusion and we will have both numbers added on the list.

MR. JOHNSON: Great, I think that will be very helpful.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we need a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, we do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

Mr. Behrens, I believe that the other agenda items I will turn over to your capable hands.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll go to agenda item 4 concerning Aviation, and we’ll have a minute order on various airport improvement projects, Dave Fulton.

MR. FULTON: Thank you, Mike, commissioners. For the record, my name is David Fulton, I’m the director of the TxDOT Aviation Division.

This minute order contains a request for grant funding approval for eight airport improvement projects. The total estimated cost of all requests, as shown in Exhibit A, is approximately $4.7 million, $395,000 federal, $3.8 million state, and approximately $476,000 local funds.

A public hearing was held on January 7, 2002; no comments were received. We would recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, David.

MR. FULTON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 5 will be Public Transportation and Margot Massey will present two minute orders concerning public transit.

MS. MASSEY: Good morning. I’m Margot Massey from the Public Transportation Division. First off, we have our obligatory toll credits minute order. There was a revision late yesterday to correct the amount of $18,750 worth of toll credits for the City of Mesquite for an alternatively fueled small bus. We recommend your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: There’s a motion, second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MS. MASSEY: Second, we are asking your approval on the allocation of some unobligated funds from the previous fiscal year. This is around $900,000 in federal dollars. It pretty much follows the formula allocation scheme that we use on the federal program. There is one slight difference in awarding some funds to serve Jack County which has previously been unserved by rural transit. We recommend your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: I’ll second it but I had a question or a comment.

MR. JOHNSON: All right.

MR. NICHOLS: I’m going to ask the question that I think I have asked every year that this comes up and that is in the distribution of these funds, are they being distributed more based on who cost the most or the cost of operation that’s the most, or is there any factor whatsoever for effectiveness, either efficiency and cost of operation or effectiveness in number of units carried or anything like that?

MS. MASSEY: If you look at the formula that is currently in the Administrative Code, there’s not a direct link to performance or efficiency or effectiveness. There is an historical link, in that there was a formula used previously which included performance-based elements along with the square mileage of the service area and the population. So there are vestiges because the current allocation has a link to the previous formula which considered those performance measures.

MR. NICHOLS: We’ve had numerous talks over the past about trying to -- we’ve seen some transit operations who have been very aggressive in trying to pick up other sources of funds other than just subsidies by either working with colleges which is beneficial to the college or large industries or groups of industries who could pay to have people, to help encourage that in planning and use of routes and stuff. I think that we had suggested some type of an incentive program where somebody could be rewarded in some manner in this distribution based on some of that as opposed to historically whichever one cost the most getting the most. Have you had any work on that?

MS. MASSEY: We have had some preliminary conversations with both the transit operators and the Texas Transit Association. It is a very diverse industry and it is difficult to find consensus around this area, but we will continue those conversations. We also have a consultant study under way now that is looking at 10 of the rural systems and producing some interesting results in terms of size of the organization and operating characteristics that I think are going to give us some information to contribute to this allocation discussion.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay. I will continue to ask in the future, though.

MS. MASSEY: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: There is a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Margot.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 6(a) Proposed Adoption of rules, and 6(a)(1) will be the Green Ribbon Projects, Ken Bohuslav.

(Pause.)

MR. K. BOHUSLAV: The minute order we have for your consideration proposes new Sections 11.100 through 11.103 to the department’s Design policy contained in Title 43, Part 1, Chapter 11, Subchapter (d) of the Texas Administrative Code.

The 77th Legislature added Rider 57 to the department’s appropriation legislation. The rider requires the department to expand the concept of the Houston District’s Green Ribbon Project to other areas of the state and to allocate funding for landscaping and other enhancement activities to the districts that have air quality nonattainment and near nonattainment counties.

Compliance with the rider requires two actions by the department. One action was accomplished on August 30, 2001 when the commission adopted Minute Order 108615 that directed staff to allocate funds and to implement the landscaping improvement program required in the rider. The second action required in the rider will be accomplished under the proposed new rules emphasizing the department’s commitment to expanding the Green Ribbon Project by initiating a landscape and master planning effort in urban areas that contain cities with populations over 100,000 or more.

Staff recommends your approval of the minute order to propose these rules for publication in the Texas Register.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: 6(a)(2) is proposed rules for regional mobility authorities, and that will be presented by Phil Russell.

MR. RUSSELL: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, my name is Phillip Russell and I’m the director of the Texas Turnpike Authority Division.

As everyone knows, Senate Bill 342 provides a great many transportation opportunities for the state. One of those opportunities is described in Section 361.003 of the Transportation Code. That section provides that the Texas Transportation Commission may authorize the creation of a regional mobility authority for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating a turnpike project in the region of the state.

The rules before you today prescribe the policies and procedures under which a regional mobility authority may be created and may be operated. These rules also specifically describe project eligibility criteria, the development, construction, maintenance and operation of specific turnpike projects, as well as potential future surplus revenue. Prior to developing these proposed rules, the department solicited comments from MPOs, from state and local officials, and we also had several listening sessions throughout the state to gather additional public input.

The minute order today proposes new Chapter 26 for adoption and authorizes publication in the Texas Register. We recommend approval of this minute order. I’d be happy to try to address any questions you might have.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions, observations?

MR. NICHOLS: Go ahead.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. I guess you’ll become Mr. RMA for TxDOT, is that what we think?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: How will you aggressively seek out opportunities for the department to encourage and assist communities to form RMAs? Are you going to go on the road?

MR. RUSSELL: I would like to. I think we need to have an aggressive outreach program where we can deal on a local level, one-on-one level with metropolitan areas, metropolitan planning organizations, or counties that will ultimately be involved in these.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think the Central Texas effort is probably off and running locally as we wanted it to without much encouragement, but let me just say for the record I encourage you, San Antonio, Victoria, Corpus Christi, and in particular Brownsville through Laredo. I mean, let’s be entrepreneurs, let’s go down and talk to those folks about the possibilities for them and for us. I think these rules, the three of us have spent a lot of time with them, we think we’ve got them to the minimum that also encourages local entrepreneurship and I just want to encourage you.

MR. RUSSELL: I’ll do it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just get after it; let’s get these people as full partners. It will be a while before we get to NTTA or HCTRA, but we can build some local-regional powerhouses like that in the state. Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: Just a couple of comments. First of all, I’m just very excited that we have finally gotten to the point that we can start going out with a set of proposed rules from concept on these things all the way out. It’s been a multi-year process with a lot of people across the state working on this and a very cooperative legislature.

Basically I would like, because I know some of them are here in the room or listening, to the counties and some of the regional coalitions, transportation coalitions that at least do regional planning and stuff, take a real good look at these rules. I know there are certain things in there that I think are going to be necessary from a control standpoint, from TxDOT’s standpoint, but also in the application process and some of these other things, I think we may still be open to some really good suggestions in here.

I think most of my questions to the staff related to this had to do with the application process. I was concerned that we may be asking too much up front in an application process when initially most counties or groups of counties are going to have a lot of questions, but before they get those questions answered, we’ve got to start applying and we don’t want to stack up too many requirements up front. So although it requires a lot of stuff, I think there’s also provisions for the executive director to make waivers which seems to be a simple approach. Anyway, we look forward to everyone’s comments on these.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Phillip, if you would go ahead with 6(a)(3).

MR. RUSSELL: A companion to the RMA rules also came out of Senate Bill 342 and that provision amends Transportation Code Section 222.103. Specifically, that authorizes the department to expend funds by grant or loan for the cost of public or private toll projects, commonly referred to as toll equity.

These rules describe the policies and procedures by which the department can participate in the financing of a toll project. The rules apply to the North Texas Toll Authority, the Harris County Toll Authority, local governments constructing or operating international toll bridges, regional mobility authorities, and private toll corporations. By law, a private entity is not eligible for a grant; they’re eligible for a loan but not for a grant.

The rules provide for a two-step approval process for a loan or a grant, very much like our current State Infrastructure Bank rules. The requester would submit general information necessary for the department to effectively evaluate the request. The commission may then grant preliminary approval and authorize the department to negotiate terms with the requester. Upon the completion of the negotiations, the commission may then, on a second appearance before the commission, grant final approval.

This minute order proposes the new Chapter 27, or an addition to it, Chapter 27.50 through 27.58 for adoption and authorizes the publication in the Register. Staff would recommend approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir?

MR. WILLIAMSON: And so now, not only Mr. RMA but is he also Mr. Toll Road?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, sir. He was that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: He was already that? Oh, he’s Mr. Toll Equity now. Got a lot of hats.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: So while you’re out there aggressively promoting RMAs, you’re also going to be calling on NTTA and aggressively promoting toll equity and HCTRA promoting toll equity on things that they can do?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir, had those discussions this morning.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And would it be safe to say that this is the next logical step in bringing the Trans-Texas Corridor to reality in the state?

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir, I think so.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: I’m not going to repeat the comments I made on RMAs, but obviously these are somewhat related or interconnected, and just everyone listening or for the record, please do the same thing on these toll equity things. If it’s done properly -- which we certainly are trying to do -- it’s going to be extremely important.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: Before we vote, one observation, Phil, and others, I know that last week Dallas and Houston and probably Fort Bend, the recognized and established toll authorities, had a session where you were present. I know that Robert Nichols was present, and one of the issues was the compatibility of the hardware/software where somebody with a toll tag in Houston could drive on the North Dallas Tollway or the new George Bush Tollway and not have to stop at the booths. And I just wanted to state for the record that I think it is extremely important that this department take the lead in making sure there is compatibility because I think everybody in Texas expects people to work together when these things are so integral to mobility but also important to each part of the state, and I just think it would be foolish if each authority went out on its on and we ended up with a collage of three or four different systems that were not compatible, and it would become a frustration and an inconvenience to the people who use the system and pay for it.

So I just wanted to speak my piece and I appreciate that.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. As our project comes on line, it’s becoming a critical issue between Harris County and NTTA and our project, and it’s only going to be exacerbated as these RMAs come along and the Trans-Texas Corridor, we hear it quite often in the public sector. There’s certainly some critical issues that we’re going to have to work out between us, but last week’s forum I think was a great springboard for us.

MR. JOHNSON: I know that under consideration and hopefully approval will be a toll aspect of Interstate 10 West in Houston, and I understand that one of the prime considerations is basically no toll booths; it would just be done strictly on a toll tag basis. And if there was not compatibility, it means that somebody from an area where either an RMA or the other systems were prevalent, they couldn’t utilize that, and I think that’s not proceeding with the way we should and putting our brains to work and finding solutions to those challenges.

MR. RUSSELL: I think Mr. Nichols probably said it all last week when he held out his credit card -- not for me to use, but he held up his credit card over he used to have a dozen gas cards or whatever and now he has a Visa or a MasterCard and a lot of the back room stuff is worked out. And he doesn’t care how it’s worked out; he just wants one bill. And I think that’s pretty much the same philosophy that the customers are seeing now.

MR. NICHOLS: What I noted from all the different regionals -- and I think they are cooperating very well; it just tickled me to death to see them all in the room together trying to work out individual issues, whether it be signage or technology -- it seemed to be that roughly everybody agreed in the room that they needed inter-operability, they just wanted the other to use their system.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: But I think as you move forward, everybody knows technology is going to improve and within five years, as everybody upgrades, surely by then at some point we’ll have an upgrade together.

MR. JOHNSON: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Phil.

MR. BEHRENS: Commissioners, I’d like to thank you for the time that all of you individually worked with staff on these two rules that have been adopted, and I also want to thank all the staff for all the work that you did on these rules because it was a big effort.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we have a golden opportunity, Mr. Behrens, to build a completely new transportation system from the ground floor up and get it exactly right the first time. With guys like you and ladies like those who work for us, we can do it.

MR. BEHRENS: We’re up to the challenge. I’d also add that both of these rules on RMAs and on toll equity, they’ll be on our website sometime this afternoon, so those of you interested and want to get a quick glance at them, I urge you to do so. These are proposed rules, they’ll be out, and then they’ll come back at some later date to the commission for final approval.

MR. NICHOLS: So we’re only going to have one public hearing on these proposed rules. Is that correct?

MR. BEHRENS: Richard says one.

MR. JOHNSON: For the both of them. Please note that that’s scheduled for February 27 at one o’clock in the afternoon here in the Greer Building.

MR. BEHRENS: There will be one in the morning for RMAs and the one in the afternoon will be for the toll equity. We will get the word out as to exactly which one is in the morning and which one is in the afternoon.

Moving on to item 6(b)(1)(a) which is rules for final adoption, we will be deferring 6(b)(1)(a); we’re still awaiting some further communication from the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

Going to 6(b)(1)(b), we’ll have Zane Webb present the rules on repealing Adopt-an-Area.

MR. WEBB: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, I’m Zane Webb, director of the Maintenance Division.

The minute order you have proposed before you today is for the adoption of the repeal of Section 2.67 concerning the Adopt-an-Area Program. The Adopt-an-Area Program was originally designed to entice private funding of maintenance and safety rest areas. The program was promoted through the state’s Adopt-a-Highway Program. Since the inception of the program, there have been no adoptions. It’s felt that the cost to support these labor-intensive programs is too great for potential adopters to bear, therefore discouraging participation. There have been no comments. Staff recommends approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I think it’s a shame the program didn’t work, but I’m real proud that we’re eliminating a set of rules that everybody doesn’t have to keep all over the state. With that, I’ll move that we accept the motion to repeal.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: 6(b)(2) Final Adoption of Rules concerning Road Utility Districts, Jim Randall.

MR. RANDALL: Good morning, commissioners. I’m Jim Randall, director of Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

The minute order we bring before you today adopts the repeals of Sections 21.171 to 21.312 and simultaneously adopts new Sections 15.130 to 15.136 to be codified under Title 43, Texas Administrative Code relating to Road Utility Districts. The commission last adopted rules relating to Road Utility Districts in 1985 as part of Chapter 21, Right of Way. Since that time there have been numerous changes in the organization of the department and in titles of employees.

In addition, Title 43 was originally organized by department division but is now organized by subject matter. Therefore, the Road Utility District rules more appropriately pertain to Chapter 15, Transportation Planning and Programming.

Finally, the revision to reorganize the rules to follow the statute more closely and significantly shorten the rules to make them easier to understand and apply.

Minute Order 108675, dated October 25, 2001, proposed the repeals and new sections. No comments were received on the proposed changes. The minute order presented for your consideration authorizes the final adoption of the repeal of Sections 21.171 to 21.312 and adopts new Sections 15.130 to 136. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: Congratulations on going from 27 pages to 18 pages.

MR. RANDALL: You need to relay that to the OGC; they had a major hand in that.

MR. NICHOLS: Congratulations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I agree.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Jim.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 6(b)(3) Final Adoption of rules on Use of State Property, and then item (c) which also Richard will present on Rule Review.

MR. MONROE: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Richard Monroe and I’m the General Counsel of the department.

If you approve the minute order currently before you, you will finalize our new, revised and hopefully improved rules on department ownership of intellectual property and the licensing of that same property. These rules have already been published for comment in the Texas Register; no comments were received. You had previously put these out for public consideration in a minute order dated October 25, 2001. I would recommend your approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions, observations?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. NICHOLS: Is there a speaker?

MR. JOHNSON: We have you down for 6(c).

(Pause.)

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: I moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I seconded.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

MR. MONROE: Thank you, commissioners.

Pursuant to the law that requires it, before you right now is a minute order which deals with our Rule Review process. I will not belabor and delay this proceeding by going through all of the rules which were put out for public comment; however, there were no comments. It has been deemed by staff that these rules are still necessary, and therefore, I would urge you to approve this minute order continuing these rules in force.

MR. JOHNSON: We have a gentleman who wishes to speak on this item, Tommy Eden from here in Austin.

MR. EDEN: Please excuse my interruption. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and commission members. My name is Tommy Eden.

You are about to adopt a section of the Texas Administrative Code regarding the purpose of Subchapter (a) setting standards for metropolitan transportation planning. Commissioner Williamson, please don’t get off the footpath. I don’t mind if you get off the bandwagon, but we really need you on the footpath.

I recommend that you raise your standards for including sidewalks with new highway construction projects in urban areas. Last month I came to you and mentioned that the minimum standards for sidewalk construction do not conform with the Federal Highway Administration’s policies and thus violate the federal TEA-21 requirement that bicycle facilities and pedestrian walkways be considered. Today I’m bringing to your attention a possible loss of federal funding because of a violation of the Civil Rights Act and Executive Order 12898.

In March I plan to speak about a specific highway construction project which may not achieve environmental justice if sidewalks are not included. I’m referring to the disproportionately high and adverse health effects on minority populations and low income populations. Last year in Austin the number of pedestrians and bicyclists struck and killed by motor vehicles was the highest number on record as far back as the Austin Police Department’s database has records. The overwhelming majority of the pedestrians killed are minorities.

If TxDOT continues to build new highways without sidewalks and without safe crossing places for pedestrians, Texas could lose federal highway funding.

I notice the letters MO on your agenda; I hope that stands for minute order and not modus operandi. Please amend Section 15.54 regarding construction of pedestrian facilities. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes. Well, maybe the question is more appropriately directed to Mr. Monroe. Did you have an opportunity to comment on these proposed rules ahead of time?

MR. EDEN: I was not aware of a time when it was appropriate to comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Did we post publicly, Mr. Monroe?

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir, we most certainly did.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Eden, out of curiosity, why weren’t your remarks offered to us at a time where we could consider them quietly in the privacy of our own offices to kind of look and consider what you have to say?

MR. EDEN: Well, what I’m really asking you to do is to amend another section for which this only describes the purpose.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is that appropriate, Mr. Monroe?

MR. MONROE: I would point out that the section to which the gentleman refers was not part of this rule review, and no, sir, it would not be appropriate to amend any rule on an ad hoc suggestion during a commission meeting.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Eden, we’ve seen you before and you brought similar issues like this to us before, and all three of us recognize your concern with this matter. Would it be possible for you to make some suggestions to the department in a way other than your public plea now that we could perhaps come to a better understanding of what you want to accomplish?

MR. EDEN: I have requested of TxDOT that sidewalks be included in specific highway projects; I have requested information from the Federal Highway Administration; I have gotten legislators to write letters to TxDOT; my state senator has written a letter to the Federal Highway Administration. I believe that TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration are aware of the fact that we really need to change the policy regarding sidewalk construction on new highways that are being built.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, certainly your remarks today made me even more aware, and I appreciate that.

MR. JOHNSON: And the section you refer to is 15.54.

MR. EDEN: That’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Which we’re not voting on?

MR. JOHNSON: No, we’re not.

MR. EDEN: That’s right.

MR. NICHOLS: I’d like to say something that might be a little show of encouragement for you. In the group of projects we approved earlier in the Transportation Enhancement Program -- which was a lot of money -- there were a lot of projects that were related to bicycle and pedestrian trails to help get people, particularly school kids, Safe Routes to Schools, that ranked fairly high in those things as I was looking at some of the weighting. Well, I’m not going to ask somebody out in the audience how many dollars, but I know it’s more than $18 million, substantially more than that, that went into the type of programs you’re talking about.

I know what you’re also referring to is doing it routinely on the widenings and stuff.

MR. EDEN: Exactly.

MR. NICHOLS: But if it’s any encouragement, we just got through approving a lot of money for those type trails.

MR. EDEN: And what you’re saying is exactly what I’m trying to say: we need this done as a routine matter when a highway is constructed, widened, rebuilt, whatever it is done to it, that’s the time when we need to have sidewalks built on them. That’s the way it’s done in most places, as I understand it. Why can’t we do that here in Texas? This is the best state in the country.

MR. JOHNSON: We certainly agree with that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We agree with that. See, already by talking we’re reaching common ground.

(General laughter.)

MR. EDEN: I will be back to discuss a specific highway project in March.

MR. JOHNSON: What we will do is ask staff to investigate this area as a whole, and I think you have illuminated this idea for us and we will look at it. I don’t know if we’ll arrive at common ground or definitive ground that will please you or not, but we’ll certainly look at the situation.

MR. EDEN: I appreciate your attention to this matter.

MR. NICHOLS: I move we adopt the minute order on the rule review recommended.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. MONROE: Thank you, gentlemen.

MR. BEHRENS: Going to item 7 which concerns Frontage Roads and Access Rights.

MR. WILLIAMSON: My favorite topic.

MR. BEHRENS: We have three items on that that will be presented by John Campbell.

MR. CAMPBELL: Good morning. For the record, my name is John Campbell; I'm the director of the Right of Way Division.

The first item that I’d like to present for your consideration is item 7(a) in the city of Dallas, Dallas County, along the eastbound frontage road of IH-20 at Bonnie View Road. This minute order proposes a determination by the commission that existing access control is found to be surplus to the needs of the department for highway purposes such that the right of access may be considered for sale to the adjacent property owner. The current owner of record is T.A. Operating Corporation, also referred to as Travel Centers of America, and they have requested this determination in order to accommodate the construction of a single 40-foot driveway. Staff recommends your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions, observations?

MR. NICHOLS: I’ve got quite a long list.

MR. JOHNSON: Proceed.

MR. NICHOLS: There’s no one here representing Travel Centers in the audience? No speakers signed up on that?

MR. JOHNSON: We have some later.

MR. NICHOLS: On some of the others? This is a situation, as I understand it, where the company spent, it appears, $5- or $6 million building a facility that pulls in a lot of cars and trucks and travel trailers and things of that nature, and from all their correspondence and notes I’ve seen on that, they seemed to be under the impression they were going to get access rights and they built, actually spent the money and construction is over with.

Jay Nelson is in the audience, the district engineer, he may be more familiar with it, but I’ll leave it with you right now. I’m trying to understand, since this was an existing frontage road, how we ended up in the situation today with them having already built this not having assurance of access rights.

MR. CAMPBELL: Well, sir, they proceeded, I’m sure, under their understanding of our previous procedures with regard to consideration of access sales. The Travel Center is in existence and is operating with access locations on Bonnie View Road as alternatives to what they’ve requested which would be direct access onto the IH-20 frontage road.

MR. JOHNSON: John, when did dialogue or consideration, a proposal to the district commence? I’m going to ask the same question on each one of these; I think that’s important to me as to when the requests were made or when discussions commenced, or when the owners felt that they had a commitment or had made commitments with reaction to their understanding that they were going to get these access rights, those sorts of issues.

MR. CAMPBELL: In this particular instance, we know that this item was initiated subsequent to our discussion and the change in commission policy with regard to frontage roads. I’ll point out that this is also a departure from the traditional way in which we handle these potential sales of access control and that this is the first of the four that I’m going to present to you but it’s the only one of the four that we’re considering in a two-part process. The first part was at the request of the commission that you get an opportunity to act on the issue of whether or not access control is surplus before we develop the costs associated with surveying and appraising the value of the access rights.

So this action on this one is just to consider is it surplus. We would then approach you with a subsequent minute order, if you took positive action on this one, which would include the traditional costs that they incur for those surveys and for the appraisals.

MR. NICHOLS: Are you saying on the other three that we’re going to be handling them differently?

MR. CAMPBELL: We’re presenting them differently, in that they’re presented as a single approach to the Transportation Commission.

MR. NICHOLS: So this is two-step process: first we declare whether or not it’s surplus, and then you go through the appraisal process and all that, and then we come back and decide whether or not we want to grant it?

MR. CAMPBELL: The second action would be to approve the values that we’ve determined for the access right and to make the recommendation to the Governor’s Office that we convey the real property interest.

MR. NICHOLS: Can you imagine in any manner that you would approve it as surplus, particularly after somebody spent $6 million building a facility and not go through with the second half of it?

MR. CAMPBELL: No, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: Jay, did you have any comment on that? I saw you raise your hand.

MR. NELSON: Thank you. Travel America’s group spent about $8 million and they spent with driveways onto Bonnie View Road which is one of the perpendicular streets crossing Interstate 20 which had exit ramps and a full diamond interchange. What they’re asking for is a driveway which would allow access from the frontage road side which is a 90-degree break from where the main drives are. They’re looking at trying to separate the vehicular traffic, the cars, from the trucks. The trucks use the Bonnie View entrances and exits, and they wanted something to separate the cars from the trucks from the frontage roads.

Our first inquiry from Travel America was back in February of 2001, and they were informed of our process and there were no promises made. We just started going through what was the process in the rules at the time which did not allow -- we did not perform the pre-approval of the entire concept before proceeding with it, so we were following what was standard at the time. They followed through with this and are looking for the driveway access to separate the cars from the trucks in this situation.

MR. NICHOLS: So they started construction -- if you’re saying the first record of contact with the department for access was in February and they’ve already built an $8 million facility --

MR. NELSON: I believe the facility opened in September of 2001.

MR. NICHOLS: They did a design, layout and began construction before ever coming to the district.

MR. NELSON: They had already begun the construction -- it had not been completed but they began it before they came to us and asked for access from the frontage road.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is it safe to say that they did that based upon practices or habits or expectations that we had allowed owners or users of property next to our frontage roads has developed over time?

MR. NELSON: I believe that they did that -- well, I can’t speak for them specifically. When we first found out about the access question was when they wanted a driveway permit and they were told that that was a controlled access facility and they could not have a driveway permit for that connection, and then we explained the process to purchase access rights, and that’s what began in February.

With the rules that were in place at the time, there was a process by which they could acquire access, and when these inquiries come, they’re always informed that the access may or may not be approved. It takes commission action to do that and they are at risk in the investment that they make prior to receiving approval from the commission.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, prior to that had we turned down any applications to sell access rights in that area?

MR. NELSON: Not in that area, no; not along Interstate 20 we did not. There was another similar driveway that -- well, it’s on another part of Interstate 20 but there was another similar access question that came up between Hampton and Polk on Interstate 20 with Mr. Penn some months ago, if you remember that one. That’s in the southern sector of Dallas County also. But I’m not aware of any other applications that took place near the Bonnie View area.

MR. NICHOLS: Let me ask you another question related to this. I mean, this is built, there’s cars, trucks, RVs going in there right now off the frontage road at that intersection. It looks like that intersection with Bonnie View has, it looks like, dividers or medians in the road there, too, so you’ve got a real strange pattern of cars and trucks and RVs at that intersection. If this is approved -- and I’m not talking about approving access all across there, just at that specific location where they’ve laid out their side driveway -- do you think that would improve the flow of traffic in that area at that intersection?

MR. NELSON: Mr. Nichols, what it will do, in our estimation, it will pull the cars out of the mix with the trucks and the travel trailers and it will decrease the number of left turn movements that are made out of the facility onto Bonnie View, whereas when those cars leave, they will be making a right turn and go back onto the frontage road, through the signal, and back onto the freeway. So I think that there are some safety considerations that would be of benefit to the Bonnie View intersection area with the driveway. Of course, you’re putting another movement, introducing that into the frontage road, so there would be some detraction from what’s out there now along the frontage road, but you’ll also see benefits on Bonnie View, so there is a tradeoff involved in that.

MR. NICHOLS: From a transportation standpoint, you as district engineer, do you think this will help, hurt, improve transportation at that area?

MR. NELSON: I don’t believe it’s going to have any effect on the main lanes of Interstate 20; it will be just very minimal or nothing at all. I think it will help the travel in the intersection itself because that is a congested intersection.

MR. JOHNSON: In your estimation, it will not impede or impair safety on either the main lanes or the frontage roads or Bonnie View, and the same question for mobility?

MR. NELSON: It’s not going to tax the mobility in that area, it’s an incremental change, but as I said, the mobility of the intersection may actually be improved by reducing left turns out of the facility back to Bonnie View.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I don’t mean to pick a fight with you, Jay, but actually it seems to me like it does improve safety for the area. I’m not talking about for our main lanes; what I heard you say is it’s kind of neutral on its impact of our main lanes. But if I’m hearing you correctly, it does improve safety in the community because it separates the truck and the car traffic.

MR. NELSON: It does provide that benefit. And I’m not going to argue with you either; I agree with you. We’re saying the same thing, that it removes the cars from the truck and heavier traffic and reduces the number of left turns that need to be made, so that is an improvement in safety. The tradeoff, the detriment, if there is one, would be that traffic on the frontage road must slow down to make this turn and must be careful of traffic on the frontage road as they come out to make the right turn to move toward the intersection.

MR. NICHOLS: Mr. Chairman, I move that we -- so the proper procedure is we’re declaring surplus at this step.

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: I move that we accept this request of the access rights surplus declaration, but make sure that that is restricted to that specific spot and length and not the entire length of that thing, just that driveway area that was requested, because I do think it will improve safety, as you’ve stated, and obviously someone felt -- either our process or whatever, I can give you a lot of different explanations -- when somebody spends $8 million building a facility like that, thinking they’re going to have access rights and the flow is improved under the old rules. Anyway, I move we accept that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you want to second?

MR. BEHRENS: No. I’d like to make a comment, if I could, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: All right.

MR. BEHRENS: Jay, when you’re talking about the vehicles that would be turning into the driveway and then also the vehicles exiting the driveway coming onto the frontage road, do we have room for deceleration and acceleration lanes?

MR. NELSON: I think we do, Mr. Behrens. We have not required that at this time; we could go back and look at that specifically.

MR. BEHRENS: I would just recommend that we go back and visit that.

MR. NELSON: That’s certainly a good practice.

MR. BEHRENS: If the commission approves this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. NICHOLS: I’ll also say it certainly shows that we need a much improved process for our granting access rights; it’s an access rights issue, because we keep seeing these kind of things that people have already built things.

MR. CAMPBELL: Item 7(b), also in the city of Dallas, Dallas County, along the westbound frontage road of IH-20 at South Polk Street. This minute order is for a determination that existing access control is surplus to the needs of the department for highway purposes and to recommend the sale of the access rights to the adjacent property owner, the Hargrove Trust, for the appraised value of $28,905. This would be for a single 80-foot wide driveway location. Staff recommends approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What I want to know is how did they talk you into being the one to present all these things?.

MR. CAMPBELL: I drew the black bean.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: We’ve got a situation -- are you looking for comments?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: This is a situation where the state did purchase the access rights many years ago; certainly the property owner who does not have those access rights would like those access rights. Do we have any speakers on this?

MR. BEHRENS: On the next item.

MR. NICHOLS: But I’m fearful, particularly on the interstates, that we are creating a situation where we’ll have endless requests for driveway cuts, in effect, on these kind of things, and until we get through the entire process -- we still have hearings on frontage road issues and access rights going on, one next week or the first week in February -- I’m going to be suggesting that we not grant these access rights, but I will defer and see what other type of motions -- I will make a motion to that effect, but I’d like to see what the other comments are.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, tell me again, John, whereabouts is this? Or maybe I need Jay to answer. This is my backyard, Jay; where is this located?

MR. NELSON: This is located on Interstate 20 on the south side of Dallas County at Polk Street on the north side of I-20 at Polk.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What community does that cut through?

MR. NELSON: Well, it’s City of Dallas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Isn’t there a smaller city on the other side of 20 right through there?

MR. NELSON: Well, there’s a series of cities on the south side other than Dallas, but this is in the Lancaster area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So Lancaster is directly across the street south?

MR. NELSON: Basically, yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Who is the Hargrove Trust? Are they spending any money on their property?

MR. NELSON: On the property for improvements, no, not that we’ve identified.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So unlike the previous situation where some individual or company spent $8 million, there hasn’t been any money expended building anything here?

MR. NELSON: No, there hasn’t.

MR. WILLIAMSON: This is an eight-foot driveway on a frontage road?

MR. NELSON: Eighty foot, an 80-foot driveway removed from the intersection about 128 feet, I believe. The history of this is that it began back in early 2000, right after the first of the year in 2000, so it’s been going on for some time. So there was a lot of work done in anticipation that the access rights would take place, it would be sold to the property owner, and they have made some investments with respect to surveying and appraisals and other accompanying efforts.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We don’t have to do this right now, though, do we?

MR. NELSON: It does not have to be done at this time, no. It does seem like we’re covering you up with Dallas area access questions now, and these are all questions that were in the process when you had the June meeting and adopted the new approach or your new direction as far as access, so these are all driveways that have been in consideration from about that time. We have four on the agenda today and I believe we have just one more, maybe two more in the Dallas area that would have some history that we’ll bring to you in the future. This one is the one that does not have any improvements on the property, but there have been some expenditures by the owners in order to try to make the purchase of the access rights.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Chairman, if you’re looking for opinions, Colleague Nichols has, I think, given us one. My opinion is we’re in the process of trying to develop some rules and all three of us have spent a lot of time listening to different people in the state, and I think we all three maybe have a bit different perspective than we had a few months ago, I don’t know. But kind of the guiding thing for me through all of this has been has the private sector or the city already spent money in anticipation of the way we used to do things. Because I think it’s not Texan to back up on your word, if you’ve given your work implicitly or explicitly.

Then the other guiding principle for me, particularly in this area, would be is there a concrete plan -- concrete plan, get that? -- is there a proposal on the table that this department can look at that says this will improve the economic and social and cultural strength of that neighborhood. And absent those two things, my opinion is that this can wait. We’ve got rules being developed on this kind of stuff

I agree with Mr. Nichols on the previous one, I mean, those guys/gals spent a lot of money. Now, I might feel differently, Jay, if there were some people in the audience who said if you do this, we will build, here’s the plans, we’re fixing to hire 2,000 people in the Lancaster community; that would have an effect on me. But we don’t have to do things in life and this might be one of those things we don’t have to do.

MR. JOHNSON: I’m basically coming from the same place that Ric is. We don’t really know what’s going to be on this tract and I think I’m on record as saying mobility and safety are the two utmost concerns of mine relative to the policies that we’re trying to develop and then the subsequent exceptions or additions or deletions to those policies as they come before us on a case-by-case basis. And there’s still a lot of unknowns here, and to grant an access between the exit ramp and the next road without knowing what’s there, I think we’re taking a risk to really impair safety and perhaps mobility not only on the frontage roads but on the main lanes, certainly the mobility aspects of people queue by coming off that exit ramp to get into that access point on this tract.

So for that reason, I think we’re not saying that this is impossible, but I think more information is needed to develop to satisfy in my mind the two issues of mobility and safety.

MR. NICHOLS: Could I ask a question? Probably to Mr. Campbell. We’re still working on frontage road rules; it may be several months before these things are finalized because we still haven’t even finished all the hearings. The question is if we deny the access rights -- in other words, we vote no here -- then once those rules are completed, there’s nothing to prevent the person from reapplying.

MR. CAMPBELL: That’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: But if you defer, you keep somebody in limbo. I’m always of the feeling that people need to know where they are, up, down or indifferent, and I’m a little hesitant to drag things out. I’m going to throw a motion out and let’s just see where it goes; if it doesn’t go anywhere, fine. I move that we deny these rights, and in that motion, I suggest that the applicant take a look at whatever frontage road rules we do end up with and once the community or the applicant meets those rules, reapply. That’s my motion to deny.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, you’re opening the door through the process that they can reapply maybe for a different location or whatever once whatever is known. We’d have more information, we can consider that, it comes through staff and normal channels.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I second that motion.

MR. JOHNSON: There’s a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Comment to Jay?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Speaking for this commission, Jay, it helps me also to know what would be the benefit to the citizens of that community from a proposed development. I mean, I think it’s our responsibility -- in fact, I think our lawyer chided me a little bit for ignoring this in one of our earlier public hearings, and I took it as a positive thing -- it is our responsibility to consider the impact on the school district’s tax base, on the employment base of the community, on mobility and safety, as the chairman has said, and I wouldn’t want whoever -- I don’t know these people who own this land, but I wish you would convey to them if you know them that this is not an anti-business and anti-development commission, but it sure would help if we kind of knew it was going to be something that would be positive for the tax base and for the community.

Inevitably, what happens is a commission in the future, when these access rights are sold for whatever they’re sold for, whether it’s $29,000 or $29 million, inevitably this commission at some future date is going to have to spend some money in that area in response to high traffic conditions. And that may be okay if it resulted in hiring 2,000 people who live in Lancaster and increase the tax base of the school district by $10 million. That might be all right. But inevitably we have to confront the reality that our decisions today mean additional cost for the taxpayers of 20 years from now.

So this commissioner would like to know what is intended for the piece of property; that helps in making a decision.

MR. NELSON: I’ll be glad to take that message back to the property owners, and we’ll work with them and see if we can establish something, with the locals also, the local authorities, the City of Lancaster and possibly the City of Dallas and see how they feel about this development and the potential that it has on this corner.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Great dialogue.

MR. CAMPBELL: Item 7(c) covers two separate minute orders, both located in the city of Terrell, Kaufman County, along the eastbound frontage road of IH-20 at State Highway 34. The first of these is for a determination that existing access control is surplus to the needs of the department for highway purposes and to recommend the sale of access rights to the adjacent property owner, Terrell I Joint Venture for the appraised value of $23,400 for two 70-foot wide driveway locations.

There’s also a note on this one that this is the item that’s subject to pending litigation to which the department is a party.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What? You brought something before this commission and we’re involved in a lawsuit?

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I guarantee you, Monroe is not going to let us say a thing.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: We have four speakers on agenda item 7(c). They are Ben Campbell, representing State Representative Betty Brown.

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Williamson. My name is Ben Campbell, I’m here on behalf of State Representative Betty Brown. Representative Brown asked that I convey to you her full support of this program, part because of the safety issues but also not only the safety issues to people going through the community on Interstate 20 but also local traffic, and then in part because her staff has a certain fondness for spicy chicken sandwiches at Wendy’s.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Outstanding former House member Ben Campbell, I might add.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or observations?

MR. NICHOLS: This is where the Wendy’s is. Correct?

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: Yes, sir. It’s my understanding this has been a long drawn-out kind of process, several years.

MR. NICHOLS: It’s my understanding that the Wendy’s built at that intersection and has access onto Highway 34.

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: That’s correct, on the back side.

MR. NICHOLS: But it’s right at that intersection.

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: That’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: So you’ve got the ramp that you’re basically coming off the interstate which you pull up to 34.

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: And then make a turn and come back, yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there anything on the site where these access rights are attempting to be acquired?

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: In addition to what’s there already, you mean?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, there’s a Wendy’s on the corner but the tract looks to me like where the access rights are being sought is undeveloped; there’s a five-acre parcel there.

MR. BEN CAMPBELL: The people that own that tract and the Wendy’s are here and can address that issue. I’m not sure what their plans are there. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: James Caldwell.

MR. CALDWELL: Commissioners, my name is James Caldwell. Me and my partner own the undeveloped tract of land where the proposed driveways are; we also own the Wendy’s so I can answer any question you might have in that regard.

MR. NICHOLS: So this is on both of these? You own the land on both of these?

MR. CALDWELL: We’re not asking for any access at the Wendy’s, no, sir, it’s just the undeveloped tract next to the Wendy’s that we also own.

MR. NICHOLS: We have two different ones. Excuse me, it’s not you. I’m trying to make sure I stay --

MR. CALDWELL: I think you have one issue there with Tanger which is our neighbor and then one which is our application.

MR. NICHOLS: The driveway to Wendy’s, is that the one you’re talking about?

MR. CALDWELL: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: But you’re also asking for another driveway on a piece of property right next to it.

MR. CALDWELL: No, sir. We’re asking for the driveways on the vacant property next to the Wendy’s; we also own the Wendy’s but we’re not asking for any direct access for the Wendy’s. It will have access, should you grant this, through the undeveloped parcel.

MR. NICHOLS: Are you asking for two driveways?

MR. CALDWELL: Two driveways, yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: And the two different driveways are on two different tracts?

MR. CALDWELL: On one tract, one vacant tract.

MR. NICHOLS: Was that tract part of the Wendy’s tract at one time?

MR. CALDWELL: Until it was platted, yes, sir. We bought it six years ago.

MR. NICHOLS: So it was one tract and then you subdivided it.

MR. CALDWELL: Right, several years ago before we built the Wendy’s.

To give you a little history on this -- he alluded to the fact that it’s been kind of an ongoing process -- back when we started considering this development, we visited with the highway department about the possibility of getting access onto the service road, and their position was that they wouldn’t allow it because: number one, the state owned the rights of access; and number two, that the design and safety considerations wouldn’t let them do it. So we kind of forgot about it for a while until the access road was redeveloped and especially designed to include access.

We went back, were still denied this under the premise that the state owned the access rights. We went to court and got a summary judgement to the effect that they never bought the access rights, so that’s where we are now. What you’re seeing today is an attempt to mediate the dispute.

MR. JOHNSON: What we’re going to do is we have two other speakers. We’re going to listen to them and then we’re going to recess so the commission can meet in executive session for consultation with and advice from our legal counsel. Mr. Caldwell, did you have anything else?

MR. CALDWELL: Not unless you have something.

MR. JOHNSON: The next speaker is Danny Booth, president of the Terrell Chamber of Commerce.

MR. BOOTH: Mr. Chairman, members, I’m Danny Booth with the Terrell Chamber of Commerce; I also am administrator of the Terrell Economic Development Corporation, so I’m really wearing two hats today.

In listening to many of your comments about economic impact and about what’s been spent there -- and I’m really also in support of both your minute orders and I hope I can just talk about both of them together -- Tanger Outlet Center has built in Terrell an outlet mall that certainly has had an impact on a community of 14,000 folks. Terrell is about 25 miles from Dallas and so we always had a hard time attracting much retail development because of our proximity to Town East Shopping Center and all the other major retail in the area. The outlet mall was kind of a savior for our community and what’s happened now, sales tax has become more than 50 percent of the city’s budget and a large percent of that sales tax comes from Tanger Outlet Mall.

We’re certainly in support of Tanger expanding. Tanger owns some tracts across the street from the current location that they’re trying to develop, and I think they’ve requested a couple of cuts into that to help develop that property. We do have contracts pending on that. I think one of you asked about what might go there. We have a multi-million dollar project that has a contract on the property to develop a series of restaurants and a truck-travel center on that property contingent on access from the service road, so it will certainly have an impact on Terrell; it will have an impact on our sales tax; it will have an impact on our school district that Mr. Williamson alluded to; it will be a tremendous economic benefit for Terrell to see this area develop.

So I would certainly ask any support, any consideration you can give in granting these cuts in Terrell, and I’ll be happy to answer questions.

MR. JOHNSON: I have one, Mr. Booth. The Tanger Outlet Mall and the tract that this access right is going to affect, in your mind there is definitive development that is going to take place there? You mentioned restaurants.

MR. BOOTH: There is a contract on the property for a barbecue restaurant, a truck-travel center, and we’re trying to get Chile’s to move to that location and build. We specifically have a contract I know for one restaurant and a truck-travel center. Past that, I think the entire 5-1/2-acre -- I think it’s a 5-acre tract, in my opinion will develop as soon as access issues are resolved. And again, as I said, it will have an impact not only on sales tax but property taxes, both to the city, the county and the school district, and it’s important to us. Little towns have enough trouble, as most of you realize, attracting much retail.

And Terrell has another problem in that when the interstate was originally built, there were no service roads put in, for whatever reason, back in the '50s or '60s, and so all the retail development we’ve been able to entice is strictly around the intersections and the interchanges because we don’t have any service roads in the classic sense of a service road.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Jay, may I ask you, back to this issue of mobility and safety relative to what the good president of the Chamber has presented, if that is the case, what happens to the Tanger tract, are safety and mobility impeded, impaired?

MR. NELSON: If I could, let me address mobility first. The situation that was described -- I don’t know if it was fully described -- at one time when the Wendy’s group wanted access to the access road, it wasn’t really an access road there as a true access road is defined, it was more just a long ramp connection, and there was a project that was developed between the City of Terrell and I think that they worked intimately with Tanger and TxDOT to rebuild the ramp -- the ramp needed reconstruction -- we rebuilt the ramp and we added lanes to the access road connecting to the interchange which virtually turned it into a short segment of frontage road. And there is access to the frontage to Tanger Mall area from a city street -- I believe there’s two city streets it’s connected to but no private drives at this time.

There is sufficient capacity on the frontage roads to handle the projected traffic that we’ve seen and it will be slower speed traffic on the frontage road. It is, we think, sufficiently removed from the exit ramp from the interstate, so that I don’t believe mobility is a question on the frontage road. We have a similar situation -- and it could be even a degree worse than what we discussed earlier with the Travel America Center -- in that if you have ever been through the intersection of State Highway 34 and Interstate 20 connection from the freeway ramps and short segments of frontage road, it’s a very confusing area.

There’s a lot of traffic going in and out, there’s a truck stop, there’s a McDonald’s, a Wendy’s, I think two service stations, a motel all in the same area, and the grade is coming up and over a hump when you cross 20 and it’s not the best situation, and I think the access drives would take some traffic out of that mix, would actually improve our safety situation at that intersection by not having those people make those turns, left and right, in that what is somewhat sight-restricted area, so I think we can see some good benefits to this from the safety aspect.

MR. JOHNSON: That’s the Tanger -- I mean, not the Tanger, what’s been referred to as the Wendy’s thing.

MR. NELSON: I think they both have similar benefits because they’re in the same area and they would both relieve State Highway 34 turning movements.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Did you have anything of Jay?

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: Gordon Pierce.

MR. PIERCE: Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Williamson, Commissioner Nichols. I’m certainly not here representing the Wendy’s group but I’m here in support of them. I am, unfortunately, representing the Tanger Group because Mr. Tanger was detained on the East Coast and was not able to come in for this meeting.

One thing that I’d like to add -- and I know you want to talk about this apparently in executive session -- is that it’s hard to separate these two issues. The City of Terrell, Tanger Outlet Centers, and the State of Texas jointly built this service road; the city and Tanger paid for 50 percent of the service road, the city and Tanger paid for 100 percent of all the engineering and the design for this road, and I think there was certainly anticipation that access was included.

The Tanger property is a 5-acre tract that, as Mr. Nelson says, will not impair mobility and will increase safety to that tract, and that tract definitely has a contract contingent upon access to this service road which we certainly can provide to you. We cannot provide you the name because of confidentiality.

I did make a list of all your points that you talked about on the other issues, but I really think --

MR. WILLIAMSON: What if it’s an adult video store.

MR. PIERCE: Zoning takes care of that; it’s too close to some things.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It is within the city?

MR. PIERCE: Absolutely, and very important to the city, yes, sir. It’s zoned light industrial and there are other businesses or opportunities that are in that area that are within 1,500 feet of that property that would not allow that type of use. But we know what the use is and it’s certainly not that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But we don’t.

MR. PIERCE: Well, it’s going to be a restaurant and a travel center; I just can’t reveal the name of the entity.

The Tanger Group and the city felt that we were working within the system. We worked very closely with both the district and area engineer. Again, there has been payment for access to a portion of this property; apparently there was some confusion over this 5-acre tract and not payment made for that access which the Tanger folks have agreed to pay for to the state. They’re looking for two drive cuts. Wendy's has already in place two driveways that were installed during the construction of this service road, and they’re simply wanting access to driveways that exist today that are barricaded and blocked.

This provides for us economic development; we think it provides for us both state and local participation; we know that it provides the opportunity for better access to these properties off the service road. And I think it’s also important for the commission to realize that all these things were being worked on with the area and the regional folks before this change in policy came about, and so again, this is one that’s caught kind of in that catch-22 in that they were moving forward to get access to this 5-acre tract when the service road policy discussion to change came up, and of course, this is not a service road -- we built the service road -- this is an access to a road that the company and the city built with the state.

So we certainly hope that you’ll give us consideration for this. I don’t feel that there are any other tracts in that area that will meet the district or the area rules for additional cuts. I think Mr. Nelson can address that better than I, but I don’t think there will be any other requests in this area. I think that it does provide for much safer access as well as much safer egress from I-20 versus that State Highway 34 area, and we built a big, nice, wide service road to take care of these things with the state, and we’d certainly recommend and request that you give us favorable consideration on this item. And I’ll try to answer questions if there be any.

MR. NICHOLS: I had several comments and then some questions. This is really, I guess, addressed to the other commission members and to some of the people here from Terrell. Gordon Pierce, in my opinion, is probably one of the finest city managers in the state of Texas, and I really truthfully mean that because the reason I know that was he was my city manager when I was mayor, so we have a relationship that goes back quite a few years, and I can attest for the fact that he is very thorough, very detailed, and does not get into steps that he has not researched and very process-oriented. So I wanted to throw that out.

MR. PIERCE: Thank you, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: We spent a lot of years working on stuff -- some of them coming to this hearing, by the way, from the other side.

MR. PIERCE: For other reasons at other times, yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: That aside -- that does not prejudice my opinion, by the way.

MR. PIERCE: And I’m completely aware of that, Commissioner; I understand your modus operandi -- as I believe someone said before -- very well.

MR. NICHOLS: Anyway, Terrell did real good when you went up there.

You paid 100 percent for the engineering, right of way, whatever, and then 50 percent of the cost of construction.

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: And construction was about a million-six, you paid about $800-, something like that.

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir, a million-five or six, yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: In anticipation and primarily -- that is not a full service road that connects one road to another; in effect, it’s a ramp off the interstate that was moved back. Is that correct?

MR. PIERCE: I think that is.

MR. NICHOLS: So actually the service road did not serve a transportation purpose to connect a through -- what you’d call a seamless -- flow adjacent to the interstate, as you see when you get closer into the more urbanized area.

MR. PIERCE: I think that’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Where people talk about seamless flows of service road. It’s actually just a ramp that was made longer primarily so that you could build a shopping center.

MR. PIERCE: And much wider, also; it was doubled in size.

MR. NICHOLS: So in anticipation of that, this whole project was laid out. The access rights were granted to Tanger, so they did receive access rights; the shopping center is built.

MR. PIERCE: Yes.

MR. NICHOLS: And the commission at some time in the past did approve those access rights, so there is a flow of traffic off of that service road into the Tanger. Yes, sir? I see my district engineer raise his hand.

MR. NELSON: I wanted to comment when you finished your thoughts. The shopping center existed prior to this work, the shopping center was already there.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay. I’ve seen the flow and diagrams of the shopping center, and you’ve got a Tanger Drive that is built that does go from road to road. Is that a city street?

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: So now with the access rights that Tanger has, you’ve got a free flow into the shopping center to the Tanger Drive.

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir, but this access right is for an out parcel that is not connected to that shopping center.

MR. NICHOLS: So these are subdivisions of the original tract.

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir, that’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: So now that you did help pay for the road, the road was built -- I’m talking about the service road -- the shopping center currently exists, has access along Tanger Drive.

MR. PIERCE: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: So the state did live up, in effect, to whatever the original deal was, but now the property is being subdivided and in effect we need more driveway cuts.

MR. PIERCE: It was always subdivided and I think it was the intention -- the subdivision is not new. These out parcels have always been there since Tanger was built in the early 1990s. What has happened is that I think there was some anticipation and even documentation filed by Tanger to go ahead and get access to these out parcels during the time that the commission was in the process, and still is in the process, of studying new rules for service roads and it’s placed any access to these roads kind of in abeyance, and I think Jay can attest that Tanger has been in the loop for quite some time.

MR. NELSON: If I could comment, the access that exists between the frontage road and Tanger Drive is city street. Tanger does not actually have any driveways onto the frontage road; this is the first attempt, first request of Tanger to actually get a driveway onto their property.

Gordon, I believe that we received a request to do this for the Tanger parcel in July.

MR. PIERCE: June or July, I believe, yes.

MR. NELSON: And at that time we replied that there was a process ongoing with the commission where the rules were changing or possibly could change and so we tried to defer that until we learned more about the driveway policy as it developed. So that is where we stand on that.

Tanger and the city contributed, like I say, 100 percent of the PS&E work, the plan work, and they were contributing about 50 percent. I believe we set that up after a while as a lump sum agreement so that the city would contribute a lump sum that was equivalent to our estimate of 50 percent at that time.

MR. NICHOLS: Are you saying that access rights have never been granted off that service road to any of this property?

MR. NELSON: The access rights have not been granted to Tanger; the City of Terrell was allowed to cross that access line with a city street.

MR. NICHOLS: My notes are not all straight with everything I’m hearing. Until I hear the same answer two or three times the same way -- the ramp, in effect, was backed up, the shopping center is in there, there is a driveway, you can get from the access road off the interstate into that shopping center.

MR. PIERCE: Across a city street, yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: A city street which connects to a city street.

MR. PIERCE: That’s correct.

MR. NICHOLS: And that city street connects all these tracts.

MR. PIERCE: Not on the interstate side.

MR. NICHOLS: Not on the interstate side but on the Tanger Drive side.

MR. PIERCE: You can get to them in a circuitous way on the Tanger Drive side, yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: So there is some access rights that have been granted.

MR. PIERCE: No, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: But not on these new tracts.

MR. PIERCE: There’s access, again as Mr. Nelson said, the road was built with access to an existing city street. That city street does provide access to the Tanger Outlet Center; it does not provide any access to the Wendy’s or to the other tract.

One thing Mr. Nelson said -- and I’m certainly not attempting to contradict and his recollection is probably better than mine -- I think that one of the first correspondence from Tanger was they felt they had purchased access rights by doing what they did and the response back was well, you really didn’t and you need to follow the process and file for access, so then they filed for the access and then the policy changes started coming into play, and that’s where we’ve gotten to midstream.

Going back to Commissioner Williamson’s comments, we definitely do have a firm economic prospect on this out parcel 5-acre tract. It is contingent upon access to that service road or it will not be built, regardless of the city street that’s there.

MR. NELSON: Mr. Nichols, if I could, let me talk about the extension of the frontage road back beyond the exit ramp. There is anticipation and we have a feasibility study that there will be a new location roadway in that area that will have a connection to that frontage road from what would be an interchange to the west, so that’s in anticipation of that future road being developed as we have in our long-range plan also.

MR. NICHOLS: Thanks.

You said we’re going to be going in closed session with our attorney because there’s a lawsuit going on over part of this -- or one of these, not both.

MR. JOHNSON: Any other questions, comments? If there are none, the meeting will be recessed for the commission to meet in executive session, pursuant to notices given in the meeting agenda filed with the Office of the Secretary of State. For the record, please note it is 11:32 a.m. and we will be in recess for executive session.

(Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the meeting was recessed, to reconvene following conclusion of the executive session.)

MR. JOHNSON: It is 12:09 and we will reconvene this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission. Mike, do you want to recognize where we are on the agenda?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes. We’re back on agenda item 7(c). John?

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, and I’ll remind you that there are two separate minute orders under item 7(c), the first of which has been presented. Just for your recollection, this is for the determination that existing access control with surplus to the needs of the department for highway purposes and to recommend the sale of access rights to the adjacent property owner, Terrell I Joint Venture, for an appraised value of $23,400 for two 70-foot wide driveway locations.

MR. NICHOLS: With regards to both of the minute orders in 7(c) in Kaufman County, I move that the access rights be denied.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I second.

MR. JOHNSON: Any discussion? There’s a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: If I could, commissioners, we would like to move up to agenda item 11 and have Thomas B. come up. He has to catch a plane and should be through with his presentation very shortly.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: Thank you, commissioners. My name is Thomas Bohuslav, director of the Construction Division.

Item 11(a) is for consideration of award or rejection of highway maintenance contracts let on January 8 and 9, 2002 whose engineers’ estimated cost were $300,000 or more. We had ten projects, average of 3.3 bids per project. We recommend all projects be awarded.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: Item 11(a)(2) is for the award or rejection of highway construction contracts let on January 8 and 9, 2002. We had 41 projects, we have one project we’d recommend for rejection, Project Number 3016 in Waller County. On this project we’d like to go back, we’ve got a material requirement on this project and we’re currently using it on another job and we’re having some problems with it and we’re going to have to do some redesign and reconsider how we set this project up. Staff recommends award of all projects with the exception noted.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thomas always tries to be so formal.

MR. NICHOLS: Thomas, we’ve already voted on these but I did have a question. On that one that was the STEP grant, one of them was an overrun on a STEP grant.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: It’s an enhancement project.

MR. NICHOLS: Yes.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: I had asked a question and gotten a note back, I guess from Gary Trietsch, in Houston. That assumes the locals are going to kick in their extra 20 percent on the overrun.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: We have a list of conditional awards from projects that require funding from third parties.

MR. NICHOLS: That answers it, thanks.

MR. T. BOHUSLAV: We don’t release those projects until we get that funding.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: To conclude item 11, we’ll go to 11(b) which is a contract claim.

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon, commissioners. For the record, I’m Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director of Engineering Operations.

The minute order before you under this item approves a claim settlement for a contract by Zachry Construction Corporation on Project STP 96 (826)MM in Bexar County. On December 19, TxDOT’s Contract Claims Committee considered a claim and made a recommendation for settlement to the contractor and the contractor has accepted. The committee considers this to be a fair and reasonable settlement of the claim and recommends your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I always ask this question. Are we sure we didn’t -- although it’s hard to ask it about Mr. Zachry -- are we sure we didn’t put the contractor at a disadvantage by negotiating unfairly?

MR. SAENZ: We think it’s a fair and equitable offer and they’ve accepted it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Moving back to item 8, Transportation Planning, we have two minute orders, the first being presented by Jim Randall.

MR. RANDALL: Jim Randall, Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

Item 8(a), this minute order authorizes the executive director to negotiate and develop an agreement with the Houston-Galveston Area Council to participate in the US 90A corridor commuter rail feasibility study, extending westward from Houston’s central business district through Missouri City, Stafford, Sugarland, to the Richmond-Rosenberg area. Rider 61 to the department’s appropriations for fiscal years 2002-2003 requires the department to contribute an amount not to exceed $175,000 toward a shared cost feasibility study for commuter rail along this section of US 90A in Harris and Fort Bend counties.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council, as the metropolitan planning organization, desires to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the US 90A corridor from Houston’s central business district to proposed State Highway 36 bypass west of Rosenberg. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the future transportation needs of the corridor and assess the feasibility of implementing commuter rail as a transportation option for meeting these needs.

Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 8(b) the development of temporary border safety inspection facilities for Laredo and El Paso districts, and Amadeo will present this.

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon again, commissioners. I’m Amadeo Saenz.

The minute order before you authorizes the department to develop eight temporary border safety inspection sites in Pharr, Laredo, and El Paso districts. The Texas Transportation Commission recognizes the need to work with the Texas Department of Public Safety and other federal agencies to protect national security by providing adequate sites for inspection of vehicles at the border. In order to meet that need, authorization is needed for the development of weigh and motion facilities and adjacent inspection sites. The Department of Public Safety has notified the department of the locations it feels best suits its purpose of fulfilling the needs to inspect vehicles at the border.

Federal funds in the amount of $12 million have been earmarked for the development of the sites as part of the National Corridor Planning and Development Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program. Of this amount, $3.2 million will be applied towards the development of the eight temporary inspection sites; the remaining $8.8 million will be used to obligate preliminary engineering for the development of permanent sites that were authorized previously; the state will authorize a 20 percent match to be applied. The estimated cost for each location is about $500,000 which includes 20 percent state match programmed under Category 16 Miscellaneous of the 2002 UTP for a total cost of $4 million.

Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have several questions.

MR. JOHNSON: We have one person scheduled to speak.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you prefer me to ask Mr. Saenz now or wait?

MR. JOHNSON: Why don’t we wait.

Mario A. Martinez representing the City of Laredo.

MR. MARTINEZ: Mr. Chairman, my name is Mario Martinez. Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, Director, good morning.

I am primarily here on behalf of the mayor of the City of Laredo to submit the letter that she had drafted yesterday, primarily addressing this particular item on the agenda. Additionally, there was a letter from the Faskens organization that had also asked that being that I was here on behalf of the mayor, if I would have that letter submitted on their behalf. I checked with the mayor prior to doing this and acknowledged that that was acceptable.

I have had an opportunity to visit with Mr. Saenz’s office yesterday afternoon in trying to set up a meeting with the mayor, and I believe it’s scheduled for next week, next Thursday. The mayor is very appreciative of the fact that she’ll have that opportunity.

I know of some concerns that have been expressed due to a particular article that was released yesterday, but in visiting with the mayor late yesterday evening, she did express her sincere appreciation in having the opportunity to visit with Mr. Saenz next week and wanted to hold off until she had that opportunity to do that, and hopefully other meetings should the need arise.

I’m here primarily to make those comments, I’m not here as a resource person at this time, but if you do have specific questions, I’d be most happy to obtain the information or the responses and get those back to you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Any questions of Mr. Martinez?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, yes.

MR. MARTINEZ: I’ve also got a heart condition, just for the record.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: First of all, the record should reflect that Mario and I are very close personal friends; we do not try to hide that.

MR. MARTINEZ: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I’m curious why you’re delivering letters to us from both the City of Laredo and from the Faskens family.

MR. MARTINEZ: That was a surprise to me when I got a call yesterday evening about five o’clock from an individual from the Faskens group. I assured them that there was no intent on my part to hand-deliver or carry a letter that was representative of their interest. They indicated to me at that time that they had had this discussion with the mayor. They had also been made aware of the fact that this item was on the agenda. At that particular time, the mayor had indicated to them that she was submitting a letter to me and they felt that it would be sufficient for them to go ahead and have the letter sent to my office in order for me to carry it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you’re just doing it as a favor.

MR. MARTINEZ: Well, I’m doing it --

MR. WILLIAMSON: The implication is, if you look at the newspaper article a day or so ago -- and it’s public record, it’s out there now -- and then these two letters are presented together, the question appears in my mind is Mayor Flores representing the taxpayers of Laredo or does she represent the Faskens family in Midland?

MR. MARTINEZ: I think it was just more a matter of logistics, of having an individual here already to be submitting the letter on behalf of the mayor, representing the constituency, and in doing that, having the Faskens submit that letter.

To finish the response to your initial question, once that letter was submitted to my office, I contacted the mayor late yesterday evening, indicated to her that I did receive the letter, and she said, Go ahead and submit it. And I said, Mayor, should this be submitted jointly? And she said, Well, no, my letter is separate and apart, but just --

MR. WILLIAMSON: At the same time.

MR. MARTINEZ: Yes, go ahead and submit it at the same time.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The reason, Mario, that I asked the question, the mayor’s letter expresses opposition to a temporary border inspection facility in Laredo sort of generically and says "at the location of the Laredo bridges" which I assume she means World Trade and Colombia.

MR. MARTINEZ: I believe that’s correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The Faskens letter says -- and this is from actually the Faskens general counsel -- the letter is written in opposition to our authorization to construct temporary border inspection stations. And I want you to listen carefully to this, "If it is the intent of the department to construct those facilities in the immediate vicinity of the World Trade Bridge and the Colombia Bridge." Now, I’m not aware of any property the Faskens family owns at the Colombia Bridge.

MR. MARTINEZ: I’m not aware of that either.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I’m wondering why the Faskens feel compelled to write a letter to this commission asking us to not move forward on the Colombia Bridge when the Faskens family doesn’t have anything to do with the Colombia Bridge, unless it’s because the Faskens family owns all the property at the World Trade Bridge and so public policy should be fashioned to be sure the Faskens family is protected at the expense of whoever owns the land at the Colombia.

What I’m trying to say, Mario, is this letter from the mayor I understand, she doesn’t want the inspection facility at the bridge for a lot of reasons. This letter from the Faskens family, this is like, you know, we don’t want it at the bridge because of the environmental impact and the impact on our drayage business, and be sure and take care of the Faskens family for whatever reason, and oh, by the way, don’t look at anything at Colombia. It just kind of smells -- I just can’t put it any other way.

MR. MARTINEZ: Commissioner, I can appreciate your question; I do understand the nature of your question, and respectfully submit to you that I cannot respond as to why the Faskens were also representing Colombia.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And let me also say the Faskens family is a long-time Texas resident and have been great contributors to charitable and cultural causes in our state, and I don’t mean to imply that they individually are bad people. It’s just that this is a really unusual way of coming to a governing body and saying we wish you wouldn’t do this to us; it just kind of smells.

MR. MARTINEZ: I believe the initial intent was to just have them individually express their intent to the opposition of the World Trade Bridge. As far as the drafting of the Faskens letter, with the inclusion of the Colombia Bridge, I once again respectfully submit that I cannot respond to that because I have no idea.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If you happen to be asked by the representatives, you might pass along, speaking only for myself, I find it very inappropriate.

MR. MARTINEZ: I assure you I understand, for the record, and will request --

MR. WILLIAMSON: I also want to be sure that you and the mayor understand -- this is the reason I wanted to ask Amadeo a question -- we are constructors, are we not, Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we don’t want to be painted as in opposition to the DPS and the Office of the Governor; we have a working group to deal with this, but the truth is it is the Department of Public Safety who prefers these sites.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. The Department of Public Safety provided us the information as to what sites they wanted to address, and it was based on that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So would you please tell the mayor, Mario, we are constructors, we’re not site selectors. We’ve said it many times, we wish the borders were wide open as the president anticipated under NAFTA, but unfortunately, we’re the guys and gals who build these things. If she is concerned about the selection of the sites, she should properly focus her attention on the Department of Public Safety and the United States Congress. It is horrible for us to be placed in an adversarial relationship with the mayor of one of our cities over something over which we don’t have any control, and actually it’s just not fair. That’s my view.

MR. MARTINEZ: Thank you, Commissioner. I assure you that message will be delivered crystal clear.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Two other questions, sir, and then I’ll be done. You have a political background, do you not?

MR. MARTINEZ: Can anyone plead the Fifth here?

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Isn’t your father an elected official?

MR. MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, he is.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And he has some experience with the kinds of things that we’re going through.

MR. MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, he does and I do.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you understand how difficult this is.

MR. MARTINEZ: Most definitely, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Just from a personal perspective.

MR. MARTINEZ: Yes, sir, from a personal perspective.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And your father is?

MR. MARTINEZ: My father is Charlie Martinez, Jr. from Bay City.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The mayor of Bay City.

MR. MARTINEZ: The small community but yet very humble, very proud.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The excellent, outstanding mayor.

MR. MARTINEZ: Thank you very much, Commissioner.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I wanted the world to know that we’re all proud of your father; he is a good mayor.

MR. MARTINEZ: Thank you, sir, and I appreciate those words.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But I still wish that Mayor Flores understood that we’re not her enemy.

MR. MARTINEZ: And I assure you that message will be delivered, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That was all I need.

MR. JOHNSON: Did you have any questions of Amadeo?

MR. WILLIAMSON: They’re answered now. I just wanted to establish for the record we’re constructors, we’re not selectors or inspectors and we have a lot more important things to spend our money on than these inspection stations; we wish that this was not the way our world was.

MR. MARTINEZ: If I may, Mr. Chairman. Excuse me, I’m sorry, Commissioner Nichols. I can assure you that the mayor is extremely willing to maintain an open dialogue and to continue in trying to find a solution, even though it is felt that the situation addressing Laredo is somewhat different than the other portions of the border region, but I believe that just for the simple fact that Mr. Saenz, by way of his office, stepped forward and decided to go ahead and coordinate and try to set the meeting with the mayor in trying to diffuse any potential problems, was received extremely well by her and allowed her to step back and make the meeting and spend some time addressing some of those concerns that are in Laredo directly to Mr. Saenz.

MR. JOHNSON: Did Representative Pickett want to say something for the record.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Maybe he represents the Faskens family.

(General laughter.)

MR. PICKETT: If they own a McDonald’s, yes; I’ve got all these little kids, that’s where I hang out.

Thank you for the opportunity. I didn’t fill out a card, I waited, I just wanted to hear what some of the dialogue was. I want to play off something, Commissioner, that you had said, and maybe you might want to add this in the comments that TxDOT receives when you said we’re just constructors and DPS is picking the locations. I would also say that why don’t you suggest that they arrange for DPS to give them a demonstration. Being constructors, you did have the foresight to buy a piece of property in El Paso, Texas.

I thought I had a wonderful opportunity this week to arrange for a demonstration for the Senate State Affairs Committee; however, that never happened. They were diverted, were not allowed to come see the inspection station, so there’s still a lot of misinformation out there about what this is.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I hope we weren’t part of that diversion.

MR. PICKETT: You guys owned the vans that they were in but you did not control the destination of the vans.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because we’re proud of our department.

MR. PICKETT: So you did have something to do with it, yes, you provided the vans, I understand.

The reason I say that is I still hear all this stuff about the environment and the air quality and the queuing of the lines, and it’s blurred as to who does what, and this group that was to tour there was not allowed to see the safety inspections undertaken but they were taken into Customs and INS, so they saw trucks backed up and were told this is what the inspections do, yet they were not the ones that we’re doing on our temporary station.

So in your conversations with these other communities -- and Laredo has their own opinion and I have mine, and I worry about my community, my constituents, and mine want them checked at the border. But what I’m offering, again, is let’s go ahead and put more of this on DPS. When someone comes to TxDOT and raises cane, say: Look, go over to DPS, they’ve got a temporary one up, why don’t you arrange, Representative Pickett will be happy to take you out there himself, will show you what they’re doing, and it might change some people’s minds. Again, unfortunately, we had a Senate State Affairs Committee that probably would have had a lot of people proposing this is what we need everywhere had they had the opportunity to even see how it operates.

So again, let’s pass the buck to a certain degree and get DPS to offer tours to anyone who wants them. I’ll make sure there are other than TxDOT vans so they know that they’ll stop.

MR. NICHOLS: Would you also volunteer to be a tour guide for each group?

MR. PICKETT: I volunteer to be a tour guide; I can almost do a complete Level I myself, almost; I’m not quite qualified but I can do just about a Level I inspection myself. So I think it’s inherent that since we do have one and even though there are some problems there, there is something actually working, so all this guessing and wondering what it’s like, why don’t we go ahead and arrange some tours with DPS to see what really transpires in an eight-hour shift. I think people would be amazed to see how efficient -- it’s the reverse. We aren’t backing up trucks; we don’t need to touch every one like INS and Customs does; it’s extremely efficient.

And here’s something that probably most people don’t realize, the Mexican trucking companies are all for it. It’s giving them the opportunity to keep a vehicle in repair to give to their route; before, DPS would put them out of service, give them one hour to fix it or tow it. Now they’ve got a place to make those repairs, several hours to do it in, commerce is flowing better than it was before, so unfortunately, again, not very many people outside myself have actually witnessed this happening.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Mr. Pickett -- I’m sure the commission employees want me to say this -- I wouldn’t want to have misled you that we view DPS as our enemy.

MR. PICKETT: Oh, not at all.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We have a working group, DPS and the Office of the Governor, trying to solve these problems expeditiously for each community.

MR. PICKETT: Oh, you gave me an opportunity. You opened it up by saying you’re the constructors, DPS is recommending the sites. You gave me the opportunity to say we have one operating and also tell people why don’t you arrange for a demonstration so that there isn’t a little pretty picture on a computer screen and how they might work and what is or isn’t going to happen, we have one up and running that nobody has seen.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Plus we believe that the United States Department of Transportation has made it somewhat clear that we are to be immediately adjacent to the border. It is difficult in Laredo because, if I understand it correctly, Mario, the mayor of Laredo is actually the only elected official I’m aware of that is disputing that interpretation of the Department of Transportation’s letters.

MR. MARTINEZ: That’s correct.

MR. PICKETT: And I want to be clear. Obviously, I have no opinion on Laredo’s situation and I would never attempt to get up here and tell you what I think they ought to do. That’s your job; that’s DPS’s job; mine is my community. We want them at the border; we’re appreciative of the fact that you at least bought property that we’re able to use. And unfortunately, I think because of some of the controversy, it has slowed down the others; thank goodness we’ve got at least one operating.

On Monday, had the Senate committee been able to drive in there, they would have seen 35 Level Is and 35 vehicles put out of inspection, 32 citations written, 395 warnings given, but they didn’t have that opportunity. We never backed up traffic; we never had a queue line going; there were no trucks sitting idling for hours. It did not happen. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Representative Pickett, thank you for bringing that information forward.

Clearly, we are charged with being the landlord for the Department of Public Safety who is clearly charged with the enforcement of truck safety laws that govern vehicles entering the state of Texas, whether international or domestic port of entry. This is a very sensitive issue, both federally and locally, but I think as Commissioner Williamson has stated, we’re charged with providing resources for the Department of Public Safety who is charged with the enforcement, and for them to do their job adequately, we need to provide, according to them, the best spots available. So you know, it’s pretty simple what our charge is.

Any questions of either of these gentlemen?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Temporary inspection sites are automatically permanent, or two different things?

MR. SAENZ: They’re two different things.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we want to be sure the world knows that, absolutely two different things.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We’re doing the temporary program because as we’ve stated so many times, the home state of the president of the United States is not going to be not ready.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you have anything?

MR. NICHOLS: I was fixing to say something until the lawyer got up.

MR. MONROE: Excuse me. This is Richard Monroe, for the record. I don’t want someone that may wish us less than the best to try to jump on something that may be in the transcript. There is no doubt about the fact that it is our duty finally to choose the sites and build the buildings. What I hope has been conveyed is that it just wouldn’t make any sense, absent egregious circumstances, to ignore the recommendation of the Department of Public Safety.

MR. MARTINEZ: I heard that loud and clear also.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I move that we accept the minute order as written.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, gentlemen.

MR. MARTINEZ: Mr. Chairman, commissioners, thank you very much, appreciate it.

MR. BEHRENS: We’ll move to item 9, a minute order from Traffic Operations concerning the Houston-Galveston environmental speed limits.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We don’t have witnesses on this one? Oh, we do have witnesses.

MS. RAWSON: Good afternoon. I’m Carol Rawson, the deputy director of the Traffic Operations Division.

The minute order before you makes a minor modification to the original commission minute establishing environmental speed limits in the Houston-Galveston area. In order to create an environmental speed limit, the Texas National Resource Conservation Commission must make a written request to the department. Minute Order 108749 referenced the wrong date of the TNRCC request. This proposed action modifies Minute Order 108749 to note the correct dates of the TNRCC request, there are no other changes. We recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: We have one individual who has signed up to speak on this item, Robin Morse. Did you want to speak on this item or environmental speed limits in general?

MR. MORSE: Mr. Chairman, I’ve also signed up for the public comment session and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to address the environmental speed limit, but I understand the narrow purpose of this particular modification to the minute order from December 13, so if you’d prefer, I’d be happy to wait till the public comment session.

MR. JOHNSON: I guess the question is are your comments specific to this agenda item or are they general comments relative to the environmental speed limits.

MR. MORSE: They’re probably more general to the environmental speed limits, so it would probably be best to wait till the public comment session.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. MORSE: We are opposed to it, of course, and I don’t want to waive that as far as the record is concerned, and I’m speaking on behalf of Brazoria and Fort Bend counties, so I’ll wait till the public comment.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments relative to the minute order?

MR. NICHOLS: I move we accept the recommendation.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Carol.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 10, our SIB loans, item 10(a), the SIB loan for the City of Baytown will be deferred, and then we’ll move to 10(b) the SIB loan for Wise County.

MR. BASS: Good afternoon. For the record, I’m James Bass of TxDOT’s Finance Division.

Item 10(b) seeks final approval of financial assistance to the Wise County Water Supply District through the purchase of $4.15 million of tax bonds to fund the relocation of utilities that are made necessary by the expansion and reconstruction of US 380.

Back in October of 2001 you gave final approval of financial assistance to the water supply district in the form of a loan. This would change the structure of that financial assistance to the purchase of bonds. This change has been prompted by the advice of the water supply district’s attorney.

The terms for the bonds would be exactly the same as the earlier loan that was approved; the bonds would mature over a period of 20 years and would accrue interest at 4 percent per year, and staff recommends your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: One question.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Does this in your mind, James, satisfy their concerns about whether or not they can match up their tax rates to pay their debts?

MR. BASS: Yes. We’ve presented them with the draft minute order and I believe their attorney has reviewed it, and they have no concerns, to my knowledge.

MR. WILLIAMSON: The community was very happy and very appreciative of what we agreed to do several months ago; the concern was being able to hold up their obligations.

MR. BASS: In actuality, the voters of that community had actually approved a tax rate increase to be able to pay off the debt. It was then that the attorney came in and said they were not allowed to have a tax referendum to increase it to pay off a loan but they could use that increased tax to pay off bonds; therefore, the need to change the structure.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And John and Robert, I want to publicly and aggressively compliment James and staff. This is a good example of how TxDOT can adjust entrepreneurially to the needs of our partners without cost to ourselves and help communities make it, and I’m very appreciative.

MR. BASS: I appreciate that and I’ll pass it along to the staff in the SIB office.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: We have item 12, our routine minute orders. They are listed as they were duly posted. I would like to point out to the commission that under the speed zone minute orders they contain the first sections of where the speed limit will be raised from 70 miles an hour to 75 miles per hour which will include 417 miles on Interstate 10 in West Texas and 48 miles on Interstate 20 in West Texas.

MR. JOHNSON: Commissioner Nichols wants to know if the route between here and Jacksonville if the speed limits were designated?

MR. BEHRENS: No, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: How long will it take for those signs to go up?

MS. RAWSON: They’re ready to go, we’re ready; the district is waiting for you to pass the minute order.

MR. BEHRENS: It usually doesn’t take very long. And then also we have the highway designation, we do have resolutions from all the appropriate government entities that are involved with that that approve those highway designations and redesignations. And then when we go to right of way, under item 12(c)(2), I would just like to point out that we had a surplus maintenance site that was appraised at $440,000; we went out to sealed bids on that particular site, and we are proposing that we’ll take the high bid of $2,005,000. And I would ask that these routine minute orders be approved as recommended.

MR. JOHNSON: Was that an approved appraiser?

MR. BEHRENS: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, should we not compliment the TxDOT employee that said let's go out for sealed bids?

MR. BEHRENS: The procedure on that is if there’s a governmental entity that would like to get that property, they can purchase it for the appraised value; if none of them come forward, then we automatically go out with sealed bids on these properties to dispose of them.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hat’s off to us.

MR. BEHRENS: It’s probably hat’s off to the previous commission that established the rules for that policy to be implemented.

I recommend approval of these minute orders.

MR. JOHNSON: All the items in agenda item 12: speed zones, highway designations, right of way disposition?

MR. BEHRENS: And eminent domain.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

This brings us to the open comment period of the meeting, and Mr. Robin Morse, representing Brazoria and Fort Bend counties, wishes to address the commission and the meeting on environmental speed limits for the Houston-Galveston area. Welcome, Mr. Morse. Please be mindful of the time, that’s my only request.

MR. MORSE: I will. In fact, I intend to keep my comments very brief this morning -- or it’s afternoon now.

For the record, my name is Robin Morse; I’m an attorney in Houston that was retained last year by Fort Bend and Brazoria County after those two governmental entities had already filed suit challenging certain provisions of the State Implementation Plan under the Federal Clean Air Act and State Clean Air Act with the TNRCC.

Included in that lawsuit -- and apparently this was not known to this commission when you voted on the December 13 minute order on the environmental speed limits -- was a challenge to those environmental speed limits as they have been referred to your agency. The position of Fort Bend and Brazoria counties has been clear with the TNRCC that we do not feel that these are necessary to achieve attainment of the ozone standard, as it’s called. We believe it affects an unnecessary lifestyle change and it’s based on less than perfect science.

We have asked for reconsideration with TNRCC and their executive director, and we’ve been working with that agency. We’re not trying to upset the apple cart unnecessarily, but we’re trying to come up with the best combination or mix of control technologies and strategies that result in ultimate attainment. We don’t think the 55 mile an hour speed limit is one of those. In fact, EPA just published a recent announcement in the Federal Register just this month coming out with a new Mobile 6 model that credits even less emissions reductions to reduced speeds.

We think it needs another look, and again, we’re working with TNRCC to try and come up with something better. We are concerned, from what we’ve understood your agency has done adopting the minute order and proceeding with the development and expenditure of approximately a million dollars, as it was stated in the record on December 13, to post signs commencing here perhaps as early as tomorrow. We understood it was starting in February.

We would ask while the litigation and the negotiation is going on that you work with your staff to do whatever you can to delay posting the signs, perhaps saving state tax money, if there is some other solution that is worked out. We anticipate that this matter may come to a judicial determination later this spring. We understand that you’re trying to meet, at the request of the TNRCC, a May 1 deadline to effect those environmental speed limits; we’re hoping something else comes up before then.

We have, unfortunately, had to bring this agency into the prior lawsuit just to be consistent with our approach to the problem, and I hope to meet with Mr. Monroe and the assistant attorney general for the Transportation Division after this agenda item so we can begin to talk about what might be done. But our main message today to you is to see if you can work with staff to put off as long as possible the posting and the expenditure of funds to place those signs while we try and come up with something better.

And that’s our message today, and the rest of it I’ll leave to other negotiations and possibly litigation, but we wanted to get that message across because we were not directly notified of the December 13 matter and so we did not appear at that time, and we wanted to appear before you today and make that known.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Any questions or comments?

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: Appreciate your being here.

MR. MORSE: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Any other business to come before the commission.

MR. NICHOLS: Move we adjourn.

MR. JOHNSON: There’s a motion.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: And a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Please note for the record, it’s 12:48 p.m. on the last day of January 2002.

(Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the meeting was concluded.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission

LOCATION: Austin, Texas

DATE: January 31, 2002

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages, numbers 1 through 144, inclusive, are the true, accurate, and complete transcript prepared from the verbal recording made by electronic recording by Penny Bynum before the Texas Department of Transportation.

                      02/04/02
(Transcriber) (Date)

On the Record Reporting, Inc.
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