Trans-Texas Detour?

June 11, 2008

Eye on Williamson County

This looks more like a PR stunt, than anything else right now, only time will tell. But it looks like East Texas may be getting a reprieve, for now, when it comes to TTC 69. No word whether this kind of change will come to TTC 35 as well. HChron has the story, Trans-Texas Corridor plans take a detour.

The Texas Department of Transportation said Tuesday it has abandoned plans to build part of the controversial Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor through rural areas north and west of Houston.

Instead, TxDOT said, it will stick to major highways — principally U.S. 59 — for most of the route. Through the Houston area, it could stay on U.S. 59 or go on Loop 610 or the planned Grand Parkway.

In other words instead of building a new road they’ll make an existing one bigger. What a concept. The corridor concept keeps all the concessions - gas stations, convenience stores, hotels, etc.. - inside the corridor and freezes out the local communities along it’s path from any of the economic benefit. That’s been a problem for corridor proponents all along.  It gets  not just the farmers and ranchers against it but the local business person as well.  And takes away the local economic benefit argument from the TTC’s.

Merchants along U.S. 59 who had supported the idea of making the route an interstate highway were incensed at TxDOT’s announced plan to name a private partner to build and operate the corridor as a toll road and develop its own concessions along it.

The concession scam deal would be part of the lease agreement with the corporation that won bid for the road. Of course without raising the gas tax the new lanes will be tolled, and the rail and utility portion may still be added later.

In each of eight segments, he said, the route would be decided by TxDOT with input from advisory committees of local residents and officials.

The initial phase likely would involve adding toll lanes to the present lanes of U.S. 59 and building bypasses around many built-up areas, Saenz said.

Other corridor components, such as dedicated lanes for trucks or cars, tracks for passenger or freight rail and easements for utilities, could be added later as needed, he said.

The best part of this story is that TxDOT finally appears to be listening to the public. Or as Sal put it,

Isn’t it amazing how a Sunset Review can get an agency’s attention?

Yes it is. And as Vince points out, this is a purely political move on the Texas GOP’s part. It’s an attempt to distance themselves from their free market bonanza, and hope they can hold enough seats, and fool enough people, to keep it going in 2009.

Let’s face facts: the TTC isn’t about moving people–it is about moving goods. And, it has become the biggest political disaster for TxDOT and the Perry administration one could imagine.

Of course, that leads us to asking, “why now?” Well, it’s pretty simple really.

Everyone in Austin knows that, for months, GOP lawmakers in districts that will be crossed by TTC 69 (or other TTC routes) have been begging TxDOT to do something in private. The truth is that the Republican Party of Texas realized that this was the biggest possible albatross that Perry could have strapped to the necks of many legislators, and that folks at all levels of state government were trying to get this announcement forced out before the November elections. That the announcement came the same week of the Republican Party Convention in Houston is probably not by accident, we’re told by some Austin insiders. It was expected that Ron Paul supporters would raise not an insignificant amount of hell about the TTC at this weekend’s convention.

And remember Texas, if you reelect Republicans there is no other option, because they won’t even think about paying for this any other way than tolls.