|
|
|
|
|
Earlier this month, a spirited crowd, made up of about 300 farmers, ranchers, and other opponents of the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, staged a protest on the south lawn of the State Capitol in Austin. During the May 3 event, TTC opponents carried signs and chanted "one, two, three, four...we don't want no corridor!"
Supporters of HB 3363, a bill asking for a moratorium on the Trans-Texas Corridor, were part of the organizers of the protest rally. Several busloads of supporters of HB 3363 from Wharton and Fayette counties were among those present.
House Bill 3363 includes language that would place a two-year moratorium on the development of the corridor and appoint a 15-person select committee to do a comprehensive study of the corridor and toll roads. It was submitted to the house committee on transportation on March 23 and had a deadline of May 9 for the committee to report on it. The bill was co-authored by Robby Cook, D-Eagle Lake; Garnet Cole-man, D-Houston; and Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville.
Like the rally organizers, the elected politicians looking at the issue were not hopeful of HB 3363's success.
"Actually, I don't think it will be granted a hearing," Cook's legislative director Lisa Craven said. "We've been trying to do everything we can to get a hearing and we don't see the committee acting on it."
Others in the crowd feared condemnation for a proposed Interstate 69 project, the so-called NAFTA highway that would have a spur along U.S. 59 to the Port of Houston.
Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who addressed the protesters, called Gov. Rick Perry's toll-road plan the "largest land grab in Texas history." She also referred to his plan as the "Trans-Texas Catastrophe."
Kathy Walt, speaking on behalf of Gov. Perry, said the alternatives to having private contractors finance and build toll roads are to raise taxes to buy up "some of the most expensive real estate" in the state to expand existing interstate highways.
An estimated 300 protestors carrying signs and voicing opposition to the Trans-Texas Corridor participated in the May 3 rally on the south lawn of the State Capitol.
