Texas Plan Will Fight Congestion With 1/4-Mile Wide Highways - McPaper

[hatrack]

Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense . . .

AUSTIN — "Texans are known for doing things in a big way. But the state is planning a futuristic highway system that's gargantuan even by Texas standards: 4,000 miles of expressways, mostly toll lanes.

The Trans-Texas Corridor, almost a quarter-mile wide, would carry cars, trucks, trains and pipelines for water, oil, natural gas, electricity and fiber optics. The roads would be built over the next 50 years at a cost of up to $185 billion, mostly with private money. The network eventually would crisscross the state, diverting long-distance traffic onto superhighways designed to skirt crowded urban centers. Trucks and trains carrying hazardous materials also would use the highways.

The state's goal: relieve some of the nation's worst traffic congestion, fed by Texas' booming population and the exchange of goods with Mexico that has been accelerated since 1994 by the North American Free Trade Agreement. Gov. Rick Perry, creator of the Trans-Texas Corridor, calls it a "visionary transportation plan" that could become a national model. Perry touts it as the USA's most ambitious transportation project since President Dwight Eisenhower and Congress launched the interstate highway system in 1956. "We looked at our interstate system and thought, 'This system is 50 or 60 years old.' At the choke points in our cities, it has basically reached the end of its useful life," says state Rep. Mike Krusee, an Austin Republican and author of the legislation authorizing the corridor. "We thought it was time for us to think 50 years in advance."

But criticism is rolling in from farm groups, environmentalists and some local politicians, targeting the project's proposed route, width and financing — and even the need for it. "We think it's financially ... irresponsible," says Dick Kallerman, transportation issues coordinator for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We're a sprawl state. The whole state should be making efforts to build in more compact ways." The state is holding 640 public meetings, and initial federal approval is expected in the spring of 2006. (emphasis added)

EDIT

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-03-06-texas-highway_x.htm

[leveymg]

1. Wow! Drag races ACROSS the road! Can you spell H-E-M-I?

The first $185 billion race track. Ah, those Texans!

[punpirate]

2. It's a $185 billion project now...

... but it will be $500-600 billion by the time it's done.

I drive a lot on Texas roads, and the congestion is in the cities, not between them, and this system will only feed that congestion, even though the route is designed to bypass the cities, where is all that traffic ultimately going to go?--to the cities.

And, what a wonderful idea--having all your utilities centrally located so that a major traffic accident can interfere with gas, water and fiber optic service....

Texans had better be watching the bidding on this one very carefully--it sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime for graft and corruption, on an even larger scale than the project itself.

[Boomer]

3. Eminent Domain Bulldozer...

...coming to a community near you.

Yet again, a lot of beautiful homes in small communities will be swept away by this gargantuan project.

[hunter]

4. And so the United States becomes a cargo-cult...

If we build a big highway the market gods will bring us water, food, oil, and consumer goods.

[hatrack]

5. Well said!

I wish I'd said that!

You will, James, you will.

Ah, Your Majesty is like a stream of bat's piss . . .

[Massacure]

6. And I thought Texans didn't come dumber than Bush!

All I can say is wow.

180 billion dollars would be SO much better used on subways and an interstate train system.