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Governor signs Cintra contract for TTC master plan
By Lana Robinson
Field Editor
On March 11, Texas Department of Transportation officials, joined by Governor Perry and Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters, signed a 342-page agreement with Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA (Madrid, Spain) to create a master plan to finance and build the TTC-35 Trans Texas Corridor. Governor Perry and state officials are moving rapidly to get the first 600-mile segment of the 4,000-mile Trans Texas Corridor underway. Texas Farm Bureau delegates overwhelmingly rejected the statewide transportation plan during their annual convention in December, 2004.
In addition to property rights issues, many Texans are concerned that the State is creating a transportation, communication, utility and economic development monopoly.
"I am a citizen concerned about a $186 billion bill passed on a voice vote between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. that gives a Spanish company a 50 year monopoly and also gives them 'quick obtain' for property, avoiding normal procedures for obtaining property under land aquired for highway use. When a senator tells me he voted for it and now says he had no idea what he voted for, we do have a problem!" said Rick Wegwerth of Robinson, a McLennan County landowner who opposes the TTC project.
Introduced in January 2002, the Trans Texas Corridor calls for a 4,000-mile system (up to 1,200 feet wide) that incorporates toll and non-toll roads, high-speed freight and commuter rail, water lines, oil and gas pipelines, electric transmission lines, broadband and other telecommunications infrastructure in the same corridors. The massive network, which would pass through 143 of the state's 254 counties, is projected to cost between $145 billion and $183 billion. Cintra proposes to invest $6 billion in a toll road between Dallas and San Antonio by 2010, give the state $1.2 billion for additional transportation improvements between Oklahoma and Mexico, and to extend the corridor into the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Mexico. Cintra's package also includes funding options for a route connecting southeast San Antonio to State Highway 130 and for relocating — to the east—the existing Union Pacific Railroad between San Antonio and Austin. TTC officials say granting the contract to Cintra is in keeping with the Commission's goal of first looking to private money before asking taxpayers to pay for the project.
Countering the TTC agreement, also filed March 11, was House Bill 3363, by State Rep. Garnet Coleman (D-Houston). Coleman's bill would place a two-year moratorium on TxDOT tolls and the Trans Texas Corridor.
The one-page bill would: 1) require TxDOT to report obligated funds and discretionary funds available in each district. Every elected city, county and state official would be copied on the report each year; 2) place a two-year moratorium on TxDOT imposing a toll on any portion of a state highway or roadway that did not have a toll in effect on or before the effective date of the Act; 3) place a two-year moratorium on implementation of the Trans Texas Corridor; and 4) establish a 15-member committee to perform a comprehensive study of the Trans Texas Corridor and the use of tolls, bonds, and other revenue sources for the financing of state highway and roadway construction and maintenance. The committee would hold meetings and public hearings and make a complete report, including findings, recommendations and drafts of any legislation considered necessary, available to the public not later than Oct. 1, 2006.
Coleman's bill comes on the heels of HB 1273, filed by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican whose district borders on the hotbed of anti-Trans Texas Corridor sentiment in Fayette County. Kolkhorst's amendment would limit the width of the proposed 4,000 miles of corridors to 800 feet. In addition, the legislation would require that at each point where a state highway or farm-to-market road intersects a corridor, the minor road would have full access to the turnpike and "uninterrupted service across the corridor." Further, the bill would outlaw noncompete clauses in any private agreements to build or operate corridor segments.
House Bill 1794 by Glenn Hegar, Jr. (R-Katy) calls for environmental impact studies in each county through which the TTC would pass. The bill requires TXDOT to identify each mode of transportation that is projected to use the corridor and each proposed entrance to and from that segment of the corridor; and requires that affected county and state officials be notified at least 30 days prior to the public hearing.
Hegar's bill prohibits any limitation of access to the Corridor which economically benefits a particular facility or group of facilities located on the corridor. Also included is a prohibition to the capture of groundwater from under the corridor and its export. If an entity begins negotiations or discussions regarding using the corridor to transport groundwater, they must notify the local water authority and commissioners court of the county in which the groundwater originates.
TxDOT held public hearings throughout the state in 2004 to assess the impact on currently planned construction projects. A second series of public meetings for both the I-69/TTC and TTC-35 elements concluded at the end of March. A statement on the Trans Texas Corridor web site (www.keeptexasmoving.org) pertaining to I-69/TTC Public Information Meetings says: "A round of approximately 38 meetings, contemplated for March and April 2005, will likely be scheduled for Summer 2005. The additional time will be used to evaluate numerous preliminary corridor alternatives using engineering, planning, and environmental factors. This evaluation and public input will be used to decide which reasonable alternatives will be assessed in the Tier 1 Draft Environmental Impact Statement."
There are no meetings scheduled for the North, Central, or South area of the proposed route. Stay tuned to the web site. Meeting details will be posted at least 30 days in advance.
For more information and a three-part series detailing the Trans Texas Corridor, visit the Texas Farm Bureau website: http://www.txfb.org/corridorlinks.asp.
