TxDOT Announces Extended Comment Period for I-69/TTC

AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Transportation today announced that its request for a 30-
day extension of the public comment period for the Interstate-69/Trans-Texas Corridor Tier One
Draft Environmental Impact Statement has been granted. The request was approved by the
Federal Highway Administration which oversees the environmental review process for
transportation projects.

"Public comment plays a significant role in shaping the outcome projects like I-69/TTC," said
TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz. "The Trans-Texas Corridor is the most scrutinized
infrastructure project in history." Saenz noted that TxDOT has held over 500 meetings on the
TTC including 254 county meetings, 95 environmental meetings and hearings on I-69/TTC, 171
environmental meetings and hearings on TTC-35, and 12 town hall meetings.

"TxDOT's request results in a 30-day extension beyond the original closing date of March 19th.
The public comment period opened in December, and an extension through April 18th allows
more citizens the opportunity to express their views regarding I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor," said
Saenz. "We have already received over 14,000 comments regarding I-69/TTC, and although an
extension may affect the project’s schedule, we are committed to public awareness and public
involvement."

Although no additional public hearings are scheduled for I-69/TTC, interested Texans can
submit comments online at keeptexasmoving.com or mail them to I-69/TTC, P.O. Box 14428,
Austin, TX 78761.

NAFTA transportation network alive and well

Link to article here.

PREMEDITATED MERGER
Mexican official says NAFTA includes superhighways
'Transportation linking the United States, Mexico and Canada is key to the future'
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
March 18, 2008

While President Bush and other U.S. officials have derided fears of a NAFTA superhighway as merely conspiracy theory, a Mexican transportation expert contends the trade agreement includes plans for a network of international ship, rail and truck connections to deliver consumer goods from China and the Far East to Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

"Transportation linking the United States, Mexico and Canada is key to the future of NAFTA," Eduardo Aspero, president of the Mexican Intermodal Association, told a recent luncheon sponsored by the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio.

In transportation economics, the term "intermodal" refers to the ability to move a container by crane to different modes of transportation, including ship, truck and railroad, without having to unpack or repack the container.

"It was interesting how the NAFTA transportation network so vehemently denied by the U.S. government was alive and well in Aspero's speech and openly discussed in San Antonio," said Terri Hall, founder of the San Antonio Toll Party.


WND reported President Bush, while attending the third annual summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting in Quebec last August said in an internationally televised press conference that those who believe the SPP might lead to NAFTA superhighways or a North American Union are "conspiracy theorists."

Hall, who attended Aspero's San Antonio speech, is a political activist whose website, TexasTurf.org, is dedicated to fighting the Trans-Texas Corridor and the expansion of toll roads in the state.

Aspero focused on plans by the Chinese firm of Hutchison Ports Holdings to develop the deep-water Mexican ports of Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo, on the Pacific Ocean south of Texas, to bring containers from China into North America.

As WND has reported, Hutchison Ports Holdings is paying billions of dollars to deepen Mexican ports such as Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo in anticipation of the arrival of post-Pamamex mega-ships capable of holding up to 12,500 containers currently being built for Chinese shipping lines.

WND also has reported how the U.S. southern border is being blurred for the benefit of global trade, with the official website of the Mexican northeastern state of Nuevo Leon disclosing plans to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor south through Monterrey to connect with Pacific ports in Mexico.

Aspero noted that currently 400,000 containers a year are being transported by truck and rail from Mexican ports on the Pacific into the U.S.

"The purpose of ports such as Lazaro Cardenas is to facilitate the cost-efficient transportation of container goods from Asia into the United States," he explained.

"Lazaro Cardenas is the new hope for intermodalism in Mexico," Aspero said, noting that Lazaro Cardenas is Mexico's deepest port at 49 feet, capable of accepting virtually any cargo ship in the world.

"Aspero noted that the largest markets for the Chinese-manufactured goods are at the center of the United States and in the Northeast," Hall said.

"He was trying to explain why multi-national corporations engaged in global trade continue to pressure the Bush administration," she continued. "Their goal is to cut loose American longshoremen on the West Coast in favor of the cheaper Mexican labor that can get goods into the interior of the United States through the southern route from these Mexican ports on the Pacific."

Aspero also argued the Automated Manifest System (AMS) put in place by U.S. Customs in 2002 is a key development in North American intermodal transportation.

"AMS allows cargo from Asia to go through Mexican ports virtually without any physical inspection," he explained. "AMS pre-clears cargo at the point of origin, not at the border when the container enters the United States."

Lufkin workshop showed local government how to STOP the TTC


Link to article here.

Road bloc: Anti-corridor groups apprise locals of ways to 'jut say no to TTC'
By STEVEN ALFORD
The Lufkin Daily News
Monday, March 17, 2008

Plots by Communists to infiltrate America. The disintegration of borders and rural areas. Citizens mobilizing and rising up against government agencies and big business.

It all sounds like the plot for a summer blockbuster, but those were some of the topics addressed in a "How to Fight the TTC Workshop" held Monday at the Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin. The conference focused on informing citizens and local government officials how they can unite in trying to stop the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor 69 project.

 
Andy Adams/The Lufkin Daily News
(ENLARGE)
Reuben Grassl of Shiro, Texas, asks a question during a 'How to Fight the Trans-Texas Corridor' workshop held Monday at Pitser Garrison Civic Center in Lufkin.
The TTC, a new grid of superhighway being proposed by the Texas Department of Transportation, would crisscross the state and connect Texas with the rest of the nation in a thoroughfare that would take large trucks and heavy traffic off of local roads and place them into one, fast-moving highway. But with a budget at an estimated $145 billion to $183 billion, many organizations are questioning if the money could be spent elsewhere. The potential confiscation of 584,000 acres of privately owned Texas land doesn't have environmentalists too pleased, either.

"There is a rogue agency out there that isn't listening to you and what you have to say," said Dan Byfield, president of the American Land Foundation, one of the hosts of Monday's workshop. "If you form your own committees, you can force TxDOT to work with you and let them know how you feel." Byfield gave a step-by-step process on how activists could form a sub-regional planning commission and circumvent local government committees altogether in a continued grass-roots effort to stop the TTC.

The conference was hosted by the American Land Foundation, the Stewards of the Range, and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, with the heads of all the organizations giving seminars on topics ranging from community coordination and organization, to detailed legalities that groups can utilize to fight TxDOT and possibly stop the construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

"This plan has not considered the environmental impacts on our communities," said Hank Gilbert, director for TURF, and the program's moderator. "The more community involvement, the louder the community voice, and the more the state government will be forced to take notice."

One of the bigger underlying issues at hand was that the TTC would be the first step toward a unification of Canada, America and Mexico in an effort to create a "North American Union" similar to the European Union, which could even maintain its own currency, the Amero. In its final realization, the highway would begin in Chinese-controlled ports in Mexico and run all the way up through Canada, basically dissolving any ideas of borders or searchable cargo.

Standing Ground, a newsletter printed by the ALF that was distributed at the conference, touched deeper on the subject: "This treatise is the blueprint for the North American Union... which would signal the destruction of America as we know it by merging the United States, Canada and Mexico into a single economic and political entity... Once only considered a conspiracy theory, the NAU is dangerously close to reality, with timetables set for partial completion in this decade."

Attempts to reach a TxDOT official for comment Monday afternoon were unsuccessful, but TxDOT's Web site, www.keeptexasmoving.com, states that because of the corridor, "drivers will face less congestion, businesses will have more reliable transportation networks, users will have more choices, including rail and transit, and more job opportunities will arise due to new and improved trade and transport corridors." All of that sounds good on paper, opponents said Monday, but it remains fishy in the eyes of the various organizations gathered at Monday's meeting.

With the deadline for proposals from developers to orchestrate the project being pushed back to March 26, there is still time for advocacy groups to let TxDOT know how they feel. Opinions may vary about the TTC, but one Texan landowner who asked not to be named said, "If TxDOT tries to come and take my land, they'll find me waiting on the porch with a loaded gun."

On the Web: www.amland.us, www.stewards.us and www.texasturf.org.

Spanish firm using loan from U.S. to build segments of Texas toll road

Link to article here.

Spanish firm using loan from U.S. to build segments of Texas toll road
By David Tanner
Landline Magazine
March 13, 2008
Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas.

Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10.

OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to pay off bonds.

“I’m skeptical of any funding schemes that involve the private sector,” Joyce said.

Truck tolls on Segment 5 and Segment 6 of Highway 130 are contracted to be 50 cents per mile when the road opens. The 50-year contract includes a formula for increases. Tolls for cars will start at 12.5 cents per mile.

Cintra and its partner in the project, Texas-based Zachry American Infrastructure, signed a contract a year ago to design and build a 40-mile portion of Texas Highway 130, a tolled bypass of Austin running parallel to Interstate 35 in the Austin-San Antonio corridor.

The first four segments of the Highway 130 project, totaling about 50 miles, are part of the Central Texas Turnpike System constructed from 2002 through early 2008 with bonds issued through the Texas Transportation Commission. Tolls on those sections are being used to pay the bonds on the first four segments.

The Cintry-Zachry consortium, formed in 2005, expects to begin construction next year on Segment 5 and Segment 6 of Highway 130 on rights of way leased from the Texas Department of Transportation. The 40-mile section is scheduled to open in 2012.

A similar Cintra-Zachry partnership is designing the first leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads and railway lines to increase the flow of freight and people from South Texas to the U.S. heartland.

Cintra also has a 55-percent share of the lease for the Indiana Toll Road and a 50-percent share of the Chicago Skyway lease. The company partnered with companies affiliated with Macquarie Bank of Australia for those deals.

For the Highway 130 segments being built by Cintra-Zachry, TxDOT has agreed to provide and pay for “back office” functions including toll collectors, other staff, call center, equipment, transponders and maintenance for the roadway.

Cintra’s financing will come from a 35-year, $430 million loan from the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998 – a U.S. Department of Transportation program for jump-starting construction – along with a $686 million private bank loan and $197 million in shareholder equity. Cintra will also draw on other equity accounts, officials stated in a press release.

The TIFI Act program is designed to match a certain percentage of the cost for a road built using private sector money. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters stated in a press release that the TIFI Act loan will give Highway 130 “the push it needs.”

OOIDA’s Joyce points to the comparison between Cintra’s 35-year loan from the federal TIFI Act program and the 50-year concession agreement for Segments 5 and 6.

“We know that they’re looking to turn a profit,” he said.

Click here to read some quick facts and figures posted by Cintra about Highway 130.

Click here to read contractual documents on the project posted by the Texas Department of Transportation.

How to Stop the TTC Workshop


Local control is alive and well in Texas.

At least that is the case in the jurisdiction of the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission (ECTSRPC), where the four towns and school districts have used Chapter 391 of the Local Government Code to put a major roadblock in the Trans Texas Corridor I-35 segment.

On Monday, March 17, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., in Lufkin, Texas, the strategy used by the ECTSRPC will be taught to others within the path of the TTC.

The workshop is sponsored by the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF, all of which have been actively fighting the corridor since it first took hold in Texas.

But it wasn’t until attorney and president of Stewards of the Range, Fred Grant, found a key provision in Chapter 391 of the Local Government Code, which requires state agencies to coordinate projects such as the TTC with local governments, that they had a way to stop the TTC.

“Forming a commission is a very simple procedure that took the ECTSRPC less than a month to complete,” commented Dan Byfield.  Byfield is president of the American Land Foundation and will be showing the step-by-step process needed to form a 391 Commission at the March 17th workshop.  He, along with his wife, Margaret Byfield, executive director of Stewards, have been helping direct the Commission’s formation and coordination efforts.

Once a Commission is formed, it is a political subdivision of the state and TXDOT has to coordinate the TTC with them.  This gives local governments and citizens a meaningful opportunity to ensure TXDOT addresses the local impact and come up with either alternatives or solutions.

But while the ECTSRPC is in a good position to protect its citizens, until other communities take this same step, they will continue to be ignored by TXDOT and will have no way to prevent the TTC from coming through their area.

“We can’t count on the legislature to do the right thing.  They have already had three chances to stop the largest land grab in the state of Texas, and have failed,” commented Byfield.  “But we’ve seen what local governments can do through the 391 Commission, and how effective they can insist the local priorities and way of life are respected and protected.”
 
Time is of the essence on the I-69 Corridor.  TXDOT only allowed less than four months of public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and appears to have it on the fast track for final approval.
 
It may even be finalized before the I-35 Corridor, which has been delayed ever sense the ECTSRPC began insisting on coordination meetings with TXDOT and the Region 6 EPA office. TXDOT now says it will be June before they can send the DEIS 35 for final review to the Federal Highway Administration, when in October they informed the Commission their target date for final environmental clearance was January.

“The Commissions that are established now have a chance to insert themselves into the process and require the same accountability to their local issues as the ECTSRPC,” commented Margaret Byfield.  At the workshop she will discuss the opportunities that local governments have to challenge the DEIS through the coordination process, which has been a key strategy used by the ECTSRPC.
 
“If we can get Commissions established up and down the I-69 Corridor we have a real shot at stopping this monster,” commented Hank Gilbert, Director of TURF, who will also be speaking at the workshop.

You can register today by calling 1-800-452-6389, or click here to reserve your seat on-line.  Registration is $20 through Friday March 14th, and $30 at the door.  A workbook and barbeque lunch will be provided.

Click here to read more about 391 Commissions, including the latest paper by Fred Grant titled “The Creation of the Eastern Central Texas Sub Regional Planning Commission.”

EPA tightens air quality standards...not the time to build toll roads

Link to article here. Considering most toll roads in Texas are taking twice the footprint as keeping them freeways, now is not the time to build excessively large, more expensive toll roads that fewer and fewer people can afford.

EPA Corrective Action: Limit transportation projects to those that don't create more pollution.

Solution: No 20 lane MEGA toll road on 281 (or elsewhere) that will only increase car and truck emissions.

Knowing TXDOT, it will promote the TTC and toll roads as the Holy Grail to relieve congestion and pollution...not so! Take a look at TxDOT's vision of congestion relief. Toll roads DO NOT solve congestion.

Air rules cloud future for S.A.
03/13/2008
By Anton Caputo
Express-News

Federal regulators strengthened the nation's air quality regulations Wednesday, likely putting hundreds of new communities including San Antonio on the nation's bad air list, but falling short of what environmental groups and the federal government's own scientific advisers wanted.The long-awaited decision by the Environmental Protection Agency tightened ground-level ozone pollution standards from 84 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion. The change means communities like San Antonio, which has had average ozone readings of 82 parts per billion over the past three years, will have to come up with plans to control pollution or face federal measures.

Local and state officials had been lobbying hard against the change, arguing the medical science behind the stronger standard was not justified. They also contend communities like San Antonio will have a hard time determining their own destiny because pollution often is blown in from other parts of the state and country.

"First of all, I think we're the only major American city that is meeting the 84 standard," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said. "I don't know how they expect us to meet 75. I'm just real concerned that it's a big overreaction that is really not going to do anything for anybody other than cause an economic hardship."

The federal government won't compile its new list of failing counties until 2010. At that time, local leaders will have three years to formulate a plan to lower pollution.

Communities that fail are required to take pollution-control steps such as vehicle-emission testing and installing vapor recovery systems at gas stations.


Many also have been required to institute a pollution program that makes it difficult for industry to expand. Road projects can be affected because local transportation planners have to prove the projects won't create more pollution before spending federal highway funds.

Peter Bella of the Alamo Area Council of Governments said he would continue to work with area cement companies and other industry to voluntarily reduce pollution. But he said it was unlikely that voluntary measures would net the kind of improvements needed.

"It's going to be real challenging," he said. "There are no two ways about it."

Joe Stanko, a Washington-based attorney who represents the power industry, said Wednesday's decision probably will set off a flurry of lawsuits.

"Various industries are likely to sue because they believe the standards are too stringent," he said. "The environmental community may sue because it was looking for the standards to be even lower."

Ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, is formed when pollutants from vehicles, industrial plants and other sources bake in the hot sun.

It's a lung irritant that has been linked to asthma attacks, reduced lung function and other ailments.

The EPA's own scientific advisory board had recommended setting the standard at 70 parts per billion or lower, a recommendation shared by a federal advisory panel on children's health. But EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, who said he also was bombarded by politicians and industry representatives asking for no change at all, decided on the 75 parts per billion.

"It doesn't make anybody happy," former EPA administrator Jeff Holmstead said. "He was trying to thread the needle between what the environmental groups wanted and what the business community was hoping for."

Regulators estimate as many as 345 counties nationally will fail to meet the new standard when the federal agency compiles its official list in 2010. The San Antonio region includes Bexar, Comal and Guadalupe counties.

Federal regulators believe that by 2020, the number of failing counties will fall to 28.

They expect the health benefit of the new standard to be substantial. Based on a number of studies, the EPA reports, the new standards will help avoid as many as 2,300 premature deaths, 380 cases of chronic bronchitis, 6,100 cases of aggravated asthma and 750,000 days missed from school or work a year by 2020.

The new rules will cost an estimated $7.6 billion to $8.5 billion a year to implement by 2020, but will save $2 billion to $19 billion a year in health costs and other benefits.

Johnson said he didn't take into account the cost analysis or the ability to implement the plan when making a decision because the Clean Air Act precludes him from doing so. But the nation's top environmental regulator also said Wednesday that he wanted to change the landmark environmental law so things like cost and feasibility can be used in determining future regulations.

Any such move is likely to be met with strong opposition in Congress. Health experts and environmentalists view the setting of health standards without consideration of cost as essential for assuring public health.

Such changes "would gut the Clean Air Act, which has saved countless lives and protected the health of millions of Americans for more than 35 years," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Dewhurst/Craddick want TxDOT to use the bonds available & get the show on the road

Link to article here.

After pushing for $5 billion more in bonds with Prop 12 last November, TxDOT now pretends to have an aversion to bond debt? Convenient! By the time the Governor and his Transportation Commission are finished playing politics with our roads, they won't be able to sell bonds because lending conditions are souring every day, and congestion will be eliminated by the high price of gas.

Borrow more for roads, legislators urge transportation department
Perry rejects Dewhurst/Craddick suggestion as a 'two-year stopgap.'
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Go borrow some money and build some things, legislative leaders told the Texas Department of Transportation in a letter Tuesday.

The short letter — signed by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Tom Craddick, Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden and House Appropriations Chairman Warren Chisum — recommends that TxDOT borrow another $1.5 billion against future gas tax revenue to bridge a temporary financial tight spot. The Legislature, the letter promises, will make sure that some of the gas tax money now diverted to other, nonhighway-construction needs will be returned to the agency to back the bonds.

TxDOT issued a statement that in effect punted the ball to Gov. Rick Perry's office. Spokesman Robert Black said Perry has no interest, at least for now, in more debt of this kind.


"What this letter is asking TxDOT to do is a two-year stopgap, two years of going further into debt," Black said. "A long-term solution comes first. Last year the Legislature came in and all they did was say 'no.' With the rate this state is growing and the needs and challenges we have in transportation, we can't afford to say 'no' anymore."

The Legislature has authorized TxDOT to borrow up to $6 billion against the gas tax; the agency so far has issued just $2.9 billion. Agency officials and Perry, citing slowing gas tax revenue, have resisted issuing more bonds backed by gas taxes.

The state budget for the 2008-09 biennium, according to TxDOT's count, uses almost $1.6 billion from gas taxes and vehicle fees for agencies other than TxDOT. About three-fourths of that, $1.25 billion, pays for operations of the Department of Public Safety and the state troopers who patrol the state highway system.

The agency has said it ceased pursuing many new construction projects as of Feb. 1 because it wouldn't have the money in later years to pay for them. So, if the agency in the current fiscal year spent the $1.5 billion suggested by Tuesday's letter to begin a series of projects, it could have trouble paying the rest later on.

But the legislative letter to Hope Andrade, Texas Transportation Commission chairwoman, says TxDOT should expect more help from the Legislature.

"This action will allow transportation construction to return to reasonable levels in the short-term, but this is just the beginning of the conversation," the letter says.

In Central Texas, where this year's engineering budget was cut from $45.2 million to $19.6 million, road projects were put on hold or became candidates for local funding. Those projects included adding lanes to MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and the widening of FM 1460 between Round Rock and Georgetown, RM 2338 in Williamson County, and Texas 195, which runs from Interstate 35 in Williamson County to Killeen.

It also forced Central Texas' local toll authority to carry more of the cost of the design and construction of a second wave of toll roads approved in October

TxDOT had announced the construction slowdown in November, citing inflation in construction costs and cutbacks in federal grants. In early February, at a hearing called by two Senate committees, TxDOT revealed that it had double-counted $1.1 billion in scheduling construction projects. That mistake, officials said at the time, had a lot to do with the crunch.

The state auditor is now looking at TxDOT's finances.

U.S. DOT violating the law by continuing Mexican trucking program

Link to article here.

It shouldn't surprise any of us that those eroding our sovereignty and those who care more about NAFTA than they do their own country's citizens think they're above the law. Here, here, Senator Dorgan. There had better be a consequence for such a flagrant violation of the law by President Bush and Secretary of Transportation Peters!

Senator questions allowing Mexican trucks in U.S.
Associated Press / USA Today
March 11, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senator wants Congress' investigative arm to determine whether the Transportation Department has broken the law by spending federal money on a program allowing Mexican trucks on U.S. roads.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called for the investigation by the Government Accountability Office a few hours after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters warned of economic losses if Mexican trucks are prohibited from driving deep into the U.S.

Peters has been fighting in court to prevent the program's end. But Dorgan and others say Congress prohibited spending money on the program last year.


"When Congress passes a law that says no funds can be used for this program, we mean no funds can be used for this program," Dorgan said in a news release. "The Department of Transportation cannot simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow and which laws they want to break."

Dorgan said the agency is violating the Anti-deficiency Act, which prohibits spending federal money that has not been authorized or appropriated.

The North American Free Trade Agreement gave Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. roads beginning in 1995. But the U.S. only opened the roads to a few trucks when the pilot program began last September.

Long-standing opposition from labor and safety groups had kept the trucks off most U.S. roads. Without the program, Mexican trucks are confined to about 25 miles beyond the border, where goods they bring are picked up by U.S. truck drivers.

Peters said Monday the agency is not violating the law. The law prohibits using funds to establish the program, she said, but the money is being used on the existing program. The agency has made similar arguments in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is considering an appeal by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to stop the program.

The action was a prelude to a potentially bitter Senate committee hearing on the program planned for Tuesday, with Peters scheduled to testify.

Earlier Monday, Peters said U.S. business would suffer if the trucking program is stopped.

"Should Congress ... end the cross-border trucking, Mexico has every right to impose fees and tariffs on the very goods we see before us this morning and many more," Peters told a news conference. Before her were tables loaded with apples, ham, soybeans, rice, eggs, canned chili and meat, beef, milk, whiskey and other products.

Todd Spencer, vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, called Peters' claims "economic fear-mongering."

"The program is supposed to work both ways across the border, and yet there are very few signing up on either side," Spencer said in a statement. "Big businesses want the cheap labor, but for a number of reasons trucking companies on both sides of the border don't want to get involved."

The latest numbers from the Transportation Department show 18 Mexican carriers with 62 trucks and six U.S. carriers with 46 trucks are participating in the program. Up to 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers can participate.

Mexican trucks have made 322 crossings into the U.S., while U.S. trucking companies have made 683 crossings into Mexico.

James Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said he does not buy Peters' argument that Mexico will sanction U.S. goods with higher tariffs in retaliation. Mexico has a $70 billion trade surplus because of NAFTA and "they'd be foolish to do it," Hoffa said.

Ricardo Alday, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said Mexico is keeping its options open.

Feds give Cintra-Zachry taxpayer-backed, low interest loan for private gain

Link to release here.
.
Read about the public-private partnership the State of Texas inked with Cintra, a Spanish company, and Zachry, a San Antonio Construction Company, here. The low interest loan mentioned below is backed by the U.S. taxpayers and represents about a third of the cash brought to the table for the SH 130/TTC-35 project. It also exploits the taxpayers in order to benefit a private, for-profit company!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 10, 2008
Contact: Nancy Singer
(202) 366-0660
FHWA 06-08

U.S. Department of Transportation Approves $430 Million Loan to Complete New Alternative to Congested I-35

WASHINGTON, DC - A $430 million loan from the U.S. Department of Transportation will give Texas the financial push it needs to help complete a new north-south highway as an alternative to the congested I-35 from Austin to San Antonio, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.

"We're helping give this project the push it needs so commuters can experience less congestion, shippers less delays and the region less headaches," Secretary Peters said.


The new southern portion of the four-lane highway is scheduled to link to the already opened northern one in 2012. When complete, the 91-mile SH 130 corridor will be entirely tolled and provide a new route to take traffic off the most congested section of I-35 in the central United States.

Cintra and Zachry American Infrastructure will finance the $1.36 billion project through the USDOT loan, bank loans and investor capital. Electronic tolling will make it possible for drivers to pay the toll without having to use cash at a tollbooth.

The loan was made possible through the Department's innovative Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program which encourages private sector participation in the financing of highway projects with flexible repayment terms.

Secretary Peters added that the Texas project was another example of the private sector's readiness to invest in U.S. transportation infrastructure and of an evolving federal approach to financing major capacity improvements.
# # #

First highway under foreign control, TxDOT inks deal for 1st leg of Trans Texas Corridor


Link to article here.

It's referred to as SH 130 in this story, but it's also the first leg of Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35. Anyone who still thinks privatized toll roads speed up construction and save us money needs to look no further than the third paragraph of this story which states: "Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA (Federal Highway Administration), and Cintra and Zachry."

Twenty lawyers? The waste of taxpayer money and the time it takes to negotiate these contracts is OUTRAGEOUS! TxDOT first announced Cintra-Zachry was being awarded the SH 130 contract in March of 2007. Here it is a year later and they're just now inking the deal?

Cintra/Zachry complete legal work on $1.36 billion financial close with TxDOT on SH 130
Toll Road News
March 10, 2008

SH 130 Concession Company LLC finalized the legal details of a financial close with Texas DOT on a $1,360m toll concession to build SH130 segments 5&6 Thursday and Friday last week in bankers' offices in New York City - at Orrick, 666 Fifth Avenue. The actual money flows should occur on Thursday or Friday (Mar 13 or 14) this week, Jose Maria Lopez de Fuentes, president of Cintra North America, told us this morning.

Hundreds of documents and over 20 lawyers were involved last week representing TxDOT, private equity people, banks, mostly European, the TIFIA loan group from FHWA, and Cintra and Zachry. SH 130 Concession Company LLC is the special purpose company is owned 65% Cintra, 35% Zachry.

Lopez told us: "The details were all done and the champagne was brought out (by Friday afternoon). It was hard work. But it was good. Everyone was there wanting to be helpful. There are now two or three business days for due diligence (before the money moves)."

Despite "constriction" in financial markets

In a statement Lopez is quoted: "This is an exciting milestone in the development of a much-needed roadway in Central Texas. This financial achievement on the part of our team is especially noteworthy given the current constriction in the financial markets. We now look forward to developing a state-of-the-art expressway system that will provide drivers congestion relief and greater safety."

 The concession contract was signed in June 2006. However it could not be brought to financial close until permitting was complete.

The concession company has paid TxDOT the $25.8m upfront concession fee for the right to collect tolls on the new road for 50 years. It has a contract with associated companies Ferrovial Agroman and Zachry Construction for construction of the 40 mile (64km) 2x2 lane expressway which will extend the TxDOT constructed SH130 segments 1 thru 4 from the the interchange with TX45 South, on southeast edge of Austin to I-10 at Seguin. Seguin is not far outside San Antonio in a northeasterly direction.

Final design and land acquisition is under way and construction work should start early 2009, Cintra says. Completion should be by 2012 or earlier.

The road will be an all electronic tollroad - no cash collected.

On completion segments 5 and 6 will turn SH130 into an alternative route to I-35 for traffic between Georgetown and San Antonio - constituting a bypass of the Austin metro area and many other settlements that have clustered along the old interstate.

Cintra says the new expressway will "serve not only regional traffic but also offer an alternative to Interstate Highway 35 (I-35) between San Antonio and north Austin, making it possible for medium- and long-distance drivers to avoid the bottlenecks that are becoming increasingly common in Central Texas. This new high-capacity expressway will also help absorb existing and expected growth in long-distance truck traffic, further relieving congestion on I-35, Texas’ primary north-south route."

Skeptics say the new tollroad will not even attract 5-digit - let alone viable 25k+ - daily traffic volumes for many years and that it is too dependent on congestion on I-35 and on development occurring close-by it. Only on the northern end of the new tollroad will there be much local traffic oriented for trips into the rest of the Austin region and that traffic will have free alternates.

The road does seem to make most sense as part of a longer route from the Dallas area to San Antonio and beyond - to the Trans Texas Corridor 35 (TTC35). In any case the investors are putting their money, as the saying goes, where their mouth is. Central Texas gets a valuable new highway without expense to taxpayers.

Speed/concession fee tradeoff

An innovative aspect of the TX130/5&6 concession is the arrangement for higher concession payments if higher posted speeds are approved by the legislature. Details of the concession were posted in these articles:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3433

and http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/1535

Concessions may follow from TTC master contract

Cintra has a right of first refusal to negotiate any new concessions for Trans Texas Corridor 35 (TTC35) from near Georgetown north into the Dallas area and onto the border. Cintra was selected in December 2004 to work toward concessions on 509km (316mi) of TTC35 tollway that was said to involve a possible $6 billion worth of work. This was called a Master Development comprehensive development agreement (CDA). CDA is the unique TxDOT umbrella term for a variety of contracts that range from small consulting jobs through design-build, project development work and large multistage concessions.

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/953

The TTC35 Master Development CDA was only firmed up into a < $10m project development contract with TxDOT for studies and planning of the first part of TTC35 extending from the Oklahoma border through Dallas area to San Antonio, though it gives Cintra a kind of right-of-first-refusal to negotiate actual concessions.

SH130 is not formally part of TTC35 yet, but it is logically part of it, and noone has suggested any separate road would be viable.

BACKGROUND: Cintra, one of the world's largest private-sector transportation infrastructure developers, is a publicly traded company whose majority stockholder is the 100k employee Ferrovial Group. Cintra manages and operates more than 2,800km (1740 miles) of toll road, which represents a managed investment of more than $24 billion. With this project, Cintra will have a stake in companies managing 23 toll roads, in Spain (7), Ireland (2), Greece (2), Portugal (3), Chile (5), Canada (1) and the United States (3). Additionally, Cintra is Spain's leading parking lot operator and manages more than 266k parking spaces, a Cintra statement says.

Gas prices sucking U.S. economy dry, tolls exacerbate the problem

Link to article here. The price of gas is quickly becoming the number one economic concern among voters, and considering even a 20 cent per mile toll is like adding $5 to every gallon of gas you buy (if your vehicle gets 20 MPG), who are the tollers kidding? The average American cannot afford tolls and even TxDOT's own studies show toll roads aren't financially viable once gas hits $3 a gallon...now there's talk of it hitting $4 a gallon unabated!

So why are the tollers still pushing a system they know will financially fail? Rather than discard the toll plans, they subsidize them. That's right, expect to see more and more of our gas taxes and public funds subsidize what government already knows is a financial sinkhole for taxpayers! They now represent and care more about road contractors who fund their campaigns than they do the taxpayers footing the bill.

Fuel Prices Siphoning Money From U.S. Economy
Cheney Visit to Saudi Arabia May Include Plea on Oil Output
By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer
March 11, 2008

Crude oil prices continued a record-breaking climb today that pushed it past $109 a barrel, while the price of regular unleaded gasoline at the pump came within half a cent of its all-time high.

A White House announcement that Vice President Cheney would probably ask Saudi Arabia to boost oil output during a trip to the Middle East next week did nothing to blunt a run-up in prices that yesterday added $3 to the cost of a barrel.


As the rising cost of crude oil trickles down to the gasoline pump, fuel prices are siphoning cash away from other consumer spending, making it harder to revive the flagging U.S. economy and putting pressure on the Bush administration. It also siphoned more money out of the country: The Commerce Department reported today that the U.S. trade deficit jumped in January to $58.2 billion, compared to $57.9 billion in December, as a record, $27.1 billion monthly bill for imported crude helped offset an increase in U.S. exports.

According to the auto club AAA, the price of gasoline climbed to $3.222 a gallon yesterday, just shy of the $3.227 record set May 24.

"We're hurting in this thing, and it doesn't look like there's any end of it," said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. "It looks like it's heading to $4" a gallon.

Bombardiere, who said members of his group of small service stations were having trouble raising pump prices fast enough to keep up with rising wholesale costs, added: "As the price goes up, it becomes a concern for us. We're the last line. We're the guys you face."

An opinion poll conducted in early February by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that 35 percent of Americans named the rising price of gasoline as the economic issue that worried them most. In the same poll, 60 percent of those surveyed said it was "difficult" for their families to afford gasoline. Since the poll was completed, retail gasoline prices have risen 24.7 cents a gallon.

The prices of other petroleum products are also soaring. Diesel fuel, usually cheaper than gasoline, is now more expensive. The Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said the average U.S. price of diesel was $3.819 a gallon in the week ending yesterday, up 53.9 cents in just four weeks. Heating-oil prices are also at all-time highs, up more than a dollar a gallon over the past year.

Cheney is scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah during a trip that starts Sunday. Discussions are expected to deal with oil and the security situation in Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest oil exporter and has more excess production capacity than any other member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. However, despite President Bush's entreaties, Saudi officials have asserted that oil markets have adequate supplies.

"I'm sure that energy issues will come up there," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. "Certainly the position of the United States and the president is that we believe that more supplies should be out there on the market. And the president does want OPEC to take into consideration that its biggest customer, the United States, that our economy is weakened, and part of the reason is because of higher oil prices; we think that more supply would help."

Democrats seized on the price increases to hammer Bush for his threat to veto an energy tax bill that would eliminate a tax break for the five biggest oil companies and extend tax breaks for solar and wind projects.

"How many records does the price of oil have to set and surpass before President Bush stands up for hardworking American families and stops taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil?" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked in a statement.

Analysts blamed the relentless increase in petroleum prices on an influx of investors fleeing sinking and unsteady financial markets and those searching for hedges against inflation. Unlike most other days recently, however, prices of other commodities -- including gold, copper and platinum -- fell while oil prices rose again.

While there are signs that U.S. gasoline consumption has flattened or declined slightly in the past few weeks, traders and investors still expect world demand for oil to remain strong. China's crude oil imports grew 18 percent last month, according to Bloomberg News.

Last week, Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for 2009 U.S. crude prices to $105 a barrel from $90 a barrel. Lehman Brothers has also raised its first-quarter forecast for crude prices, and today the Energy Information Administration is expected to increase its short-term oil price forecast. Its last forecast, issued only a month ago, had predicted oil prices of just $88 a barrel for March.

Gasoline prices are rising as crude costs grow. Tancred Lidderdale, an analyst with the EIA, said gasoline prices rise about 2.4 cents a gallon for every $1-per-barrel increase in crude oil.

Lidderdale said an additional factor in rising gasoline prices was the annual switch of refineries to make summer-grade gasoline, a more expensive form designed to minimize the evaporation of fuel in the summer heat.

Congress gets courted by the pro-privatization lobby

Link to article here. Let's remember that the Minnesota bridge collapse was deemed an engineering flaw not a result of age. Having a public bank get cozy with private hogs at the trough sends up a flurry of red flags. Follow the money and campaign accounts...Dodd and Hagel are far too willing to sell out the public interest.

If the federal government would stop diverting 40% of our federal gas taxes away from roads, and if it would stop loading up spending bills with more than 6,000 earmarks like it did on the last federal highway bill, there would be PLENTY of money for the nation's infrastructure. They know it; however, they'd rather spew the pro-toll propaganda that creates an artificial "crisis" that only the hogs at the trough can solve!

CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
March 11, 2008
Senate Panel Considers Public-Private Partnership for Infrastructure Funding
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing Tuesday on legislation to create a public-private partnership to finance needed improvements in the nation’s infrastructure.

The bill, sponsored by Chairman Christopher J. Dodd , D-Conn., and Chuck Hagel , R-Neb., was introduced Aug. 1, the same day an Interstate highway bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, killing 13.

“Some might say that our legislation is ‘too expensive,’ or that ‘we can’t afford to implement such a policy.’ I say we can’t afford not to.” Dodd said.


Hagel said the national infrastructure bank envisioned in the bill would be able to leverage private capital to supplement the current levels of public spending.

“The federal government does not have and will not have the resources to appropriate the required funding necessary to meet our future national infrastructure goals,” he said.

All sides agree that the nation’s transportation infrastructure — especially highways and bridges — needs help if it is to survive projected surges in population, freight traffic and trade. But everyone seems to have a different plan to generate the necessary revenue.

A Jan. 15 report by the 12-member National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission recommended raising the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax to 40 cents a gallon over five years to help raise at least $225 billion a year for transportation improvements. The commission also urged the federal government to assume more of the financing burden from states.

The federal government currently covers about 40 percent of the nation’s transportation costs. President Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget request proposes $57.1 billion for the Transportation Department, a 10 percent cut from fiscal 2008. Of that total, $39.4 billion would go to highways, about $1.8 billion less than Congress appropriated in fiscal 2008.

San Antonio airport officially port of entry, cargo doesn't clear customs until SA

Link to article here.

S.A. airport finally gets port of entry status
By Sean M. Wood
Express-News Business Writer
03/04/2008

Private aircraft inbound from foreign countries no longer will have to stop in Laredo or other locations before continuing to San Antonio.The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection will designate San Antonio International Airport permanently as an "airport of first landing" for private aircraft. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed the order, and it was sent Tuesday to the Federal Register.

The order is expected to take effect in about 30 days.

"This is very exciting news," Aviation Director Mark Webb said. "This is something that has been worked on for almost 10 years by a number of staff members and congressional delegations."

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, has been one of those at the front of the campaign for the permanent change.


"This designation will significantly enhance business, commerce and trade relationships throughout Mexico," Smith said in a statement. "The city of San Antonio will benefit from this greatly."

Temporary legislation had granted the airport the designation, which is sometimes called "port of entry." Airport officials reported an increase in general aviation traffic while the legislation was in effect during two 24-month periods.

"In 2000, when there was no port-of-entry status, we saw 841 private aircraft," airport spokesman David Hebert said. "In 2006, we had it and it expired in November. So for 11 months, we saw 2,237."

San Antonio International made the request Dec. 12, 2006, for permanent port-of-entry status.

Permanent status means private aircraft arriving in the United States from foreign countries can come straight to San Antonio International Airport to clear customs. Without that status, private aircraft were going elsewhere, like Laredo.

Smith and local officials argued that situation cost travelers time and the city money. The airport generates fuel fees from these aircraft, but Webb said those extra revenues are not the main benefit.

"This is more about our place as an economic engine in San Antonio," he said. "The H-E-Bs, the AT&Ts, the Valeros, the corporate community in town flying back and forth from Mexico can do it on a much easier basis."

Oil hits new high, toll roads no longer financially viable

Link to article here. In case anyone needs reminding, with gas prices this high, toll roads are no longer financially viable. People just plain don't have the extra money to pay tolls to get to work. Can't squeeze blood from a turnip!

AP
Oil Jumps to New Record on Dollar's Fall
Monday, March 3
By John Wilen, AP Business Writer
 
Oil Jumps to a New Record Above $103 As the Dollar Declines to a New Low Against the Euro
 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The surging price of oil reached another milestone Monday, jumping to an inflation adjusted record high of $103.95.
The weaker dollar that has propelled oil and other commodities prices higher sent light, sweet crude for April delivery past $103.76 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That's the level many analysts consider to be the true record high for oil, after its $38 barrel price from 1980 is translated into 2008 dollars.

Futures later retreated from that high to settle up 61 cents at $102.45 after Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it would resume oil shipments from Nigeria that had been disrupted by rebel attacks.

Oil's most recent run into record territory has been driven by the greenback's slump against other world currencies. Crude futures offer a hedge against a falling dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the dollar is falling.


Gold, copper and wheat are among the other commodities that have rallied as the dollar has fallen.

"It's coming down to another commodity price rally," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Alaron Trading Corp., in Chicago.

The dollar has been weighed down by concerns about the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve's interest rate cutting campaign. Lower interest rates tend to weaken the dollar, which fell Monday to a new low of $1.5275 against the euro.

The struggling dollar has prompted a wave of speculative buying by oil investors seeking a safe haven from the ongoing volatility of the stock market. Such speculation can become self-perpetuating, driving prices higher and attracting even more speculators.

Many analysts believe oil prices aren't justified by crude's underlying supply and demand fundamentals, and are due to fall at some point. While supply disruptions in Nigeria and the prospect of supply cutoffs from Iraq and Venezuela helped boost oil prices last year, domestic oil inventories are now rising even as a number of forecasters are cutting their demand growth predictions due to the slowing economy.

Late in Monday's session Shell said it would resume oil shipments from two of its Nigerian facilities that had been suspended under a declaration of force majeure, in which a company says it can't meet contractual delivery obligations due to events beyond its control, Dow Jones Newswires reported. It was unclear how much oil the facilities will pump. The news fed some of the late pullback in oil.

Investors are keeping an eye on OPEC, which meets Wednesday to consider production levels. Most expect the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to hold output steady.

"Unless there's a surprise ... I think it's a non-factor at this time," said Linda Rafield, senior oil analyst at Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos., of OPEC's impact on trading Monday.

As for where oil goes from here, analyst estimates vary widely, with some predicting an eventual decline to the $65 or $70 range as supplies continue to grow and demand falls, and others seeing oil rising as high as $120 as investment capital continues to flow into oil markets from overseas.

For its part, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration's latest prediction is that oil will average $86 a barrel in 2008, up 19 percent from 2007, when oil averaged $72 a barrel.

Surging oil prices are boosting prices at the pump. The average price of a gallon of gas stood at $3.165 Monday, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. That's down 0.1 cent overnight, but up nearly 70 cents from a year ago. The Energy Department expects gas prices to peak near $3.40 this spring, well above May's record of $3.227, but some analysts predict prices could rise to nearly $4 a gallon.

Diesel prices, used to transport the vast majority of the nation's goods, are also surging. Diesel prices hit another new record of $3.674 a gallon Monday.

In other Nymex trading, April heating oil futures rose 3.39 cents to settle at $2.8408 a gallon, and April gasoline futures rose 0.21 cent to settle at $2.672 a gallon. April natural gas futures fell 2 cents to settle at $9.346 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude futures rose 38 cents to settle at $100.48 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

TxDOT pushes another leg of Trans Texas Corridor called Ports to Plains

Link to article here. Ports to Plains, once promised as a free highway relief route to I-35, is now part of the Trans Texas Corridor, according to Amadeo Saenz, Executive Director fo TxDOT (under oath in TURF lawsuit).

Web-posted Sunday, March 2, 2008

Trade corridor pushed

Officials call for plan on cost

By Enrique Rangel
Globe-News, Austin Bureau
advertisement


AUSTIN - With all the attention the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor has gotten in recent years, mainly because of growing public opposition, it is easy to forget that West Texas has its own corridor in the works, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor.The Ports-to-Plains Corridor is a proposed divided highway stretching from Laredo through West Texas to Denver to facilitate international trade from Mexico to Canada.

And though Congress designated it as a high priority 10 years ago, it has yet to get full funding.


"It is time to establish the financial plan so we know exactly what we're aiming for," Fred Underwood, a Lubbock businessman and member of the Texas Transportation Commission, said on Sept. 20 at a three-day Great Plains International Conference in Denver.

"Our agency will devote the resources to getting this done in partnership with the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition," Underwood said. "We must make this corridor a reality and make Ports-to-Plains a familiar name to communities along this route who will benefit tremendously from its completion."

Although the state has yet to devise the complete financing plan for its share of the almost 1,400-mile interstate corridor, the project is under way, said Michael Reeves, president of the Ports-to-Plains Corridor Coalition.

"We have some projects underway in Del Rio and on Highway 87 (U.S. 87) in the Panhandle," Reeves said. "What we're trying to do is incorporate highways into the system."

The Coalition is optimistic that the project can be completed in 20 years, Reeves said.

At $2.8 billion for the entire route, the estimated cost is a bargain compared to other TxDOT projects. For example, it would cost $46 billion just to upgrade the Texas portion of Interstate 35.

"The challenge we face is inflation," Reeves said. "We really need to make a commitment. The gas tax is not producing the money so we're trying to get federal money ... we're trying to get every resource we can."

The benefits for West Texas are incalculable, Reeves said.

The corridor would be the nation's freight alternative, offering shippers a low-density, low-congestion alternative to the major trade corridors.

In addition, the Plains-to-Port Corridor would help the state expand its booming wind power sector, Reeves said.

Although they are not part of the corridor, Denver is connected to Canada through two routes, Reeves said, one through Wyoming and Montana to Alberta and the other through the Dakotas to Saskatchewan.

In all, the Ports-to-Plains Corridor is vital for a healthy Texas economy because even though Mexico is the state's largest trading partner, the Lone Star State is also doing booming business with Canada, especially with Alberta, he said.

"It's very important to see the corridor underway," said Mark Tomlinson, district engineer for TxDOT in the Panhandle. "It encourages growth."

But because of the financial problems the agency faces, "I anticipate that part of the plan most likely will be delayed," Tomlinson said.

However, Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, is optimistic that the project eventually will be fully funded.

He said it is in the entire's state interest to see it completed because it will take away some of the freight traffic from I-35.

"My colleagues understand that the Ports-to-Plains Corridor helps their districts as well," said Isett who is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government, which recommends funding for all government agencies, and chairman of the Sunset Advisory Commission, the 10-member legislative panel which oversees the state bureaucracy.

Generally, each government agency is reviewed every 12 years. This year TxDOT is one of 27 due for review.

"This is a big part of the conversation in the Sunset Commission," Isett said. "The long-term structure of the agency will be part of the review process."

Opposition to Grand Parkway toll road getting stronger

Link to article here.

Fort Bend County News    
This segment of the parkway, running from Mont Belvieu toward Baytown, is scheduled to open for motorists this week. Out of the parkway's planned 185 miles, 28 have been built. Opponents say the other segments should be abandoned.

GARY FOUNTAIN: FOR THE CHRONICLE

March 1, 2008, 9:43PM
GRAND PARKWAY
Opposition doesn't detour the next loop
The latest segment is ready, but not everyone is excited about the highway's progress

By RAD SALLEE and MIKE SNYDER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

With fears of $4 gasoline and global warming looming and with the grass roots already in revolt against toll roads, one might think backers of the long-delayed Grand Parkway would be ready to give up.

But a spacious, affordable home and a good school in a safe neighborhood still is a strong magnet, even if it comes with a long commute. And just as strong, in Texas anyway, is the ability of developers to build subdivisions on rice fields quickly and get roads built to service them.

As the second segment of the parkway opens to traffic this week — a 9-mile-long stretch connecting Interstate 10 at Mont Belvieu to FM 1405 south of Baytown — the long fight over the project shows no signs of abating.

Billy Burge, a developer and president of the Grand Parkway Association, is optimistic. Although the parkway plan has been on the books 25 years and only 28 of its planned 185 miles have been built, Burge said last week that he expects to see it completed within a decade.

He discounted the opposition increasingly voiced by local elected officials.

"Everybody wants it — not in their backyard, but they want it," he said. "They want to control it, and they want the revenue it generates."


Many of the 180 people who attended a Feb. 20 public forum in Fort Bend County, where design of the parkway's Segment C is scheduled to begin in September, would strongly disagree.

Every candidate for public office who attended pledged to help residents fight the segment, which would run from the Southwest Freeway to Texas 288, passing near Brazos Bend State Park and bridging the Brazos River and its wildlife-rich bottomlands.

Opponents included County Commissioner Tom Stavinoha whose precinct includes the planned route, along with both of his challengers in Tuesday's Republican primary and all five Democratic candidates.

"We're saying, 'Leave off on the Grand Parkway,' " Stavinoha said.

The commissioner said he thinks the county's mobility needs can be met by expanding existing roads.

Opposition also has emerged in the Spring area, where the parkway's segments F2 and G between the North and Eastex freeways would cut through subdivisions; in Brazoria County, where the Grand Parkway Association moved the planned route south because of residents' concerns; and in Waller County, where environmentalists worry about the impact on the Katy Prairie.

Planning ahead

Burge replied with what Grand Parkway backers have been saying for years: Growth and roads are inevitable, and it's better to plan for them. As an example of what the parkway is meant to avoid, the association often cites the hodgepodge of development along Texas 6/FM 1960."I grew up in Houston and saw the city of Bellaire fight Loop 610 and delay it 12 or 15 years," Burge said. "And then Beltway 8 — the idea had been out there forever before (County) Judge (Jon) Lindsay really went out and made it happen."

"My point is that because Beltway 8 was so slow in coming, it forced 1960 to be the way you'd travel around Houston, and that's one reason it's so tacky," Burge said.

Grass-roots opposition to the parkway may have been increased by the 2003 decision to develop it as a toll project, said Robin Holzer, chairwoman of the Citizens' Transportation Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group on transportation issues.

Early plans for the parkway called for right of way to be donated by landowners who expected to profit by developing adjoining land. That tactic fizzled.

Backers then sought tax funding, and the Texas Department of Transportation partially completed one of the 11 planned parkway segments in 1994, an 18-mile-long, four-lane free road linking the Katy and Southwest freeways.

For a time, TxDOT kept additional segments on the back burner, saying other roads were more urgently needed. Since the late 1990s, however, most of the parkway segments have been going through the lengthy federal environmental and public outreach process required in selecting a route.

Taking toll

The idea of financing these segments with tolls has been caught up in the larger debate over long-term tolling contracts between the state and private investors.The foremost example is the Trans-Texas Corridor-35, which involves a proposed 50-year contract with a Spanish-led group.

Opposition to tolling also was fueled by TxDOT proposals, since abandoned, to make toll roads out of highways already paid for by taxpayers.

A legislative revolt against TxDOT's toll plans last year led to a law giving local governments the first shot at developing toll projects. Under that law, toll authorities in Harris County and surrounding counties have the right of first refusal to complete the Grand Parkway.

With help from the Houston-Galveston Area Council and consultants, TxDOT and the Harris County Toll Road Authority are determining the market value of the future completed parkway — a value that would be used in negotiating a contract between TxDOT and HCTRA to develop it.

If the parties cannot agree on how the project should be developed, it cannot proceed; if they agree, but the counties decide not to participate, TxDOT may seek private investors to build the parkway or undertake the work itself, said Alan Clark, chief transportation planner of the Houston-Galveston Area Council.

Opponents, however, say most remaining segments of the project simply should be abandoned.

New way of thinking

Rising gasoline prices and concern about air quality and climate change are making the public increasingly wary of massive highway projects serving far-flung, sparsely populated areas, Holzer said.

"Since the Grand Parkway was first conceived on the back of an envelope, the world has changed," Holzer said. "We recognize that how we grow affects our quality of life."

Daryl Howsley, a Spring resident who has been active in opposing the parkway's Segment F-2, said the project would divert trucks through his community, increasing noise and air quality problems.

On the Katy Prairie, which provides important habitat for migratory waterfowl, the parkway and associated development would increase flood risks by paving over areas that absorb and retain water, said Brandt Mannchen, a longtime leader of Houston's Sierra Club chapter.

The federal environmental impact study for this segment says the prairie's natural depressions and artificial basins used for rice farming may reduce flows by as much as 80 percent.

Burge is unfazed. At the grand opening Feb. 19 of the Baytown-area segment, local officials "were really excited," he says.

"They wanted to stay ahead of growth and to say, 'Hey, we're here to attract economic development and we welcome you all being out here.' "

He continued: "I think that if you do your homework and do it right, and if the public officials will stand tall, it will come together. There's too much future in it if these counties will really work together.

"If they don't, we'll end up like a Los Angeles or some of those cities that didn't pull on the same rope."

La Entrada de Pacifico, yet another Trans Texas Corridor in the works

Link to article here. The Executive Director of TxDOT, Amadeo Saenz, told TURF under oath that La Entrada is part of the Trans Texas Corridor.

Trade route is still a road to nowhere
By John MacCormack
Express-News
03/02/2008

ALPINE — In most settings, likening a West Texas highway project to a symbol of Cold War oppression and comparing its promoters to terrorists might be a bit of a stretch.But at a public hearing here last week, such hyperbole resonated perfectly with the mood.

"Borrowing words spoken in Berlin 20 years ago, 'Mr. Craddick, Mr. Perry, Mr. Bush, tear down these signs,'" said John Wotowicz of Marfa, prompting a standing ovation from the more than 450 attendees.

Another speaker called the state's mild-mannered transportation consultant a "bloodsucker."

For years, highway signs marking the proposed route of La Entrada al Pacifico have stirred hope, anxiety and perplexity among Big Bend area residents.

A NAFTA-era brainchild of businessmen in Midland and Odessa, the project has had the support of heavyweight Austin and Washington elected officials.


So far, however, it has received far more study and debate than money. Only a small relief route around Midland is funded. For all the passion it is stirring, it is far from certain its backers will see their vision become a reality.

As originally conceived, a divided four-lane highway from the border town of Presidio to Amarillo would allow Mexican trucks loaded with Asian imports more direct access to East Coast markets.

But the thought of hundreds of heavy trucks rumbling daily through the quaint downtowns of Marfa, Alpine and Fort Davis has fired broad opposition.

Plague or boon

Critics say the trucks would bring a plague of congestion, noise and pollution, destroying an ambience that has made tourism an area economic mainstay and Marfa a mecca for wealthy outsiders such as Wotowicz, an investment banker from New York City."I don't know one soul in this county who doesn't oppose it. It's that simple," said Brewster County Judge Val Beard.


"It's a concept whose time has passed. It went out the window when everyone thought there would be a huge maquila industry in northern Mexico, but now that has been whacked by the Chinese," she said.

And while many at the Alpine hearing argued for improving rail connections to Mexico through Presidio, the decrepit condition of the line on the U.S. side makes that less likely than a truck route.

The Texas Department of Transportation, which owns the now-idle rail line that stretches to San Angelo, estimates it would take more than $150 million to make it commercially viable.

Only in needier corners of West Texas — like Presidio, Fort Stockton and Pecos, where the vistas are a bit less inspiring and tourists are fewer — does La Entrada find support as a source of jobs and development.

At public hearings last week around the region, a TxDOT consultant gave both sides reason to be unhappy.

"We're not recommending widening anything to a four-lane capacity and we're also eliminating the new corridor alternatives," said Brian Swindell of HDR, a Dallas firm.

Instead, he said, existing two-lane roads will be able to handle the anticipated growth in truck traffic with the addition of passing zones, relief routes and other improvements.

50 trucks a day

About 50 trucks a day now cross the two-lane bridge at Presidio from Ojinaga, Mexico. Until some recent highway improvements, the remote border city was largely isolated from the rest of Mexico by mountains and canyons.By comparison, some 2,500 trucks arrive daily in El Paso from Mexico, and more than twice that many cross over at Laredo.

According to Swindell's study, which will be completed this fall, Presidio can expect between 338 and 739 trucks arriving per day by 2030, depending on numerous variables and uncertainties, almost all on the Mexican side of the equation.

Chief among them is how quickly — if ever — Mexico provides a highway link from Ojinaga to the Pacific port of Topolobampo, and how soon it improves the port, which cannot yet handle large ships.

The opening or expansion of other commercial border crossings could also affect the Presidio traffic. And while the consultant's truck numbers were far lower than other estimates, they did not go down well in Alpine.

"What I'm hearing sounds like a done deal, with bogus, made-up statistics," griped Tom Williams of Terlingua.

"I'm not hearing anything about moving it all to El Paso," he added.

The next day, Swindell and the TxDOT crew got a warmer reception in Presidio, about one hour south and a cultural giant step from Marfa.

One glance at the two cities explains their conflicting takes on La Entrada.

Marfa has a majestic courthouse and a manicured, restored downtown, complete with a fine hotel, cultural foundations and a bookstore and art galleries.

Hip outsiders arrive from California and New York to reflect on wide-open spaces, shoot cowboy movies and discuss art.

'West Texas in the raw'

Presidio, by contrast, has small-block houses and low-end retail commerce amid unpaved roads. Alfalfa fields, junked cars and abandoned mobile homes decorate the landscape.And the first thing visitors arriving from Mexico encounter in Presidio is "La Casa de Oro," a highway flea market spilling over with bicycles, tires and used clothing. There is no doctor, and the nearest hospital is 90 miles away in Alpine.

While fewer than 40 people turned out to hear Swindell's talk at Presidio High School, most locals favored La Entrada.

"Presidio is West Texas in the raw. We have to scratch for everything we can get here," said John Ferguson, a former mayor who is the school bandleader.

Years ago, melon and onion harvests produced steady seasonal work, but agriculture is almost entirely gone, leaving only cross-border traffic and public employment, he said.

"We're sensitive to the concerns about the environment and to what the people are saying in Marfa and Alpine, and we empathize, but being on the border, truck traffic is good for Presidio," he said.

Benny Manchett, 75, who works for Bullet Transport in Presidio, scoffs at the notion that a good highway will ever connect Ojinaga with the Pacific.

"It's a joke. You've got an 8,000-foot natural barrier between here and Topolobampo," he said.

"It took them 100 years to build a railroad through there. Why would you want to go through the Copper Canyon to come here when you can go straight north over flat land to Nogales?" he said.

Others in Presidio are equally skeptical.

"You might as well say we're going to have aliens come through Presidio. It's a dream. You have to get more realistic to get my attention," said Jake Giesbrecht, Bullet Transport's owner.

"I'm part of the Mexican government's planning committee. There is nothing planned in the next 10-15 years for a corridor through here. It's a ghost. Everyone is making things up," he said.

Contacted by telephone in Chihuahua City, Mexico, the overseer of the project for Chihuahua state, Armando Correa Nuñez, said great progress has been made on the highway but confirmed the uncertainty of ever cutting a truck route through Copper Canyon.

"They will build a road through the canyon someday, but at the beginning it will be a very narrow road for tourism. I just don't know if they will ever build one for trucks," he said.

"It's a lot of money and the state doesn't have it. It would have to come from the federal government, and President Calderón hasn't designated it as a priority route," Correa said.

With or without good access to the Pacific, truck traffic will increase in Presidio no matter what anyone in the United States does or wants, said Charles Perry of Odessa, who founded the Midland Odessa Transportation Alliance in the early '90s to promote La Entrada.

"The Mexicans have been moving along a lot faster than we have in the United States in getting the corridor open, and that's astounding everyone," said Perry, 78.

Neither Texas nor Mexico "is in a position to direct traffic on which highway the trucks will take," he said. "Traffic is like water: It will take the path of least resistance."

"In 10 years, you'll see traffic sufficient to begin the need for a four-lane highway. Somewhere around 5,000 vehicles a day is the limit for a two-lane. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."

See 281 lawsuit press conference on YouTube

[This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.]

Read TURF's press release here.
Read Express-News coverage here.

San Antonio Greater Chamber lacks understanding of basic economics, throws tantrum over 281 lawsuit

Link to article here.

Pro-toll former City Councilman turned Greater Chamber President Richard Perez, has turned into the whiner-in-chief on behalf of the Chamber's big dog, Zachry. This propaganda campaign is a bankrupt attempt to blame those looking out for the taxpayers and advocating for the economic survival of families for the greed of government and road contractors. The overpasses we’ve advocated for 3 years could be built tomorrow for one-quarter the cost, use half the footprint, take half the construction time, and 281 would remain a freeway we can ALL use.

If the big business community understood anything about economics, they'd know paying a toll to get to and from work equals a pay cut for employees. Good luck getting/retaining employees if you're located in a tolled corridor. I just talked to a guy the other day who works along 281. He told me he'd have to get a new job and move since he can't afford to pay tolls on top of high gas prices that are already killing him. Let's start telling their stories...

These rabidly pro-toll whiners who stand to make four times the money off toll roads as freeways can cry wolf all they want. At the end of the day, San Antonio cannot afford toll roads. TxDOT's own studies (toll roads aren't viable at $3 a gallon for gas), the bond market (increasing cost of borrowing), and the declining dollar prove it.

Economic Leaders Fear Job Losses from Latest Anti Toll Move
Worry latest lawsuit will show a 'polarized city unable to solve its infrastructure problems'
By Jim Forsyth
Thursday, February 28, 2008

Lose your job, or can't find a job? Blame anti toll road groups.

That's the powerful new message coming from the city's business and economic development leaders as Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, an anti toll group, and the environmental organization Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, filed a federal lawsuit this week seeking to block plans to build toll lanes on U.S. 281 outside Loop 1604, claiming the construction would threaten the Edwards Aquifer and endangered species, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Several economic development groups tell 1200 WOAI news that now that the decision has been made to proceed with toll lanes as a way to fight congestion, any attempts to delay the process threaten the entire region's economic growth.

"I think what they're doing through this lawsuit is hurting families," Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Richard Perez said from India. The Greater Chamber has long supported toll road construction.

"At the end of the day, it's families that need to get out of their homes to work, to shop, to live their lives."

The argument among economic development officials is that the issue of toll lanes on U. S. 281 has been the subject of a robust debate over the past two years, with lawsuits filed before to attempt to block the toll lanes. Despite widespread opposition, the Metropolitan Planning Agency voted in December to begin construction of toll lanes this year, and now that the debate has happened, lawsuits have been settled and the decision has been made, it's time to move on.

"All of this is going to cost us an additional millions and millions of dollars that we just don't have right now," Perez said.

Several economic development officials cited the weakening national economy, and pointed to the fact that congestion on the city's north side can be accepted by companies looking to locate in the region if those companies know that the city has planned ahead and relief is on the way. But if companies see a city where transportation solutions are tied up in court, potentially for years, and traffic gridlock on one the most desirable sections of the city getting worse and worse, the image will be of a polarized community which is unable to solve basic infrastructure problems.

One person who helped with the latest lawsuit conceded that the group's real goal is to tie up the toll lane construction indefinitely, in hopes of forcing the RMA to accept non toll alternatives for U.S. 281, including a long dormant plan to build overpasses at Evans, Marshall, and Stone Oak Roads.

"The last thing we need to be is alienating people who are putting our people to work," Perez said.

TTC keeps stoking the grassroots angst over eminent domain abuse, foreign control

Trans-Texas corridor stirs controversy
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 2/26/2008

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state's existing highway system is heating up

More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the "NAFTA superhighway." It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report)

Terri Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. "They're taking huge swaths of land, up to a million acres of private Texas farm and ranch land," warns Hall. "Some of it is prime agriculture land ... and they're going to take that land and hand it over to private entities for commercial gain."

Hall accuses Congress of pulling a "bait and switch" when they promised Texas taxpayers a free interstate. "They designated this corridor route an international trade corridor back in 1995," argues Hall. "So for Governor Perry, or any of those folks who are trying to push toll roads here in Texas, to try and say that this road stops at the Texas border ... that it's not a NAFTA superhighway ... it is an international corridor and it has been designated as such."


Hall alleges that Governor Perry is "representing the interest of private industry over the public good," noting he has accepted more than $1 million worth of campaign contributions from road contractors and the "road lobby."

But the Republican governor is dismissing the concerns of some state residents who are upset the proposed 4,000-mile Trans-Texas Corridor running from Laredo to Canada will turn operation of the public highway system over to private, if not foreign companies. (hear part two of audio report)

Critics of the proposed highway project claim it was never approved by voters, and Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), CNN's Lou Dobbs, and others call the project a "NAFTA superhighway" and warn it will be part of a "North American Union" between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

Governor Perry calls critics of the Trans-Texas Corridor "unenlightened." "Here's what's more important rather than all of the black helicopter ... conspiracy theories," argues Perry. "We have many, many multi-national groups that run various things ... in the United States as we do in other countries, and nobody is going to roll up our highways and carry them back to Spain."

According to Perry, there is a reason CEO Magazine selected Texas as the number-one state to do business. "... [U]nderstand you have to have a transportation infrastructure system in place so that people can get from point A to point B, and they don't spend all their time in gridlock instead of being with their kids at soccer practice or back home with their families," Perry explains.

Governor Perry maintains the controversial transportation network is necessary to "move [the state's] people and product around" and reduce road congestion.

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