Texas Tollers Tiptoeing Tenaciously (They're BAAAAACK)

[texastoast]

http://texasturf.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=2

Same playbook, different names. The Ports to Plains Coalition is patterned after the Alliance for I-69 and other business and trade groups looking to soak taxpayers for their own personal gain. The article sounds innocuous, but it's just like the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 project that was renamed I-69 in hopes of quelling the controversy surrounding the Trans Texas Corridor. Of course, what this latest group fails to disclose is that ports to plains has been identified in sworn testimony by TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz as part of the Trans Texas Corridor network of foreign-owned toll roads. Buyer beware, it's never as rosy as the big business interests paint it to be.

http://www.reporternews.com/news/2009/jul/27/port-to-plains-hed-goes-right-in-here/

Group promotes ports-to-plains highway

Duffy Hinkle, vice president of membership and marketing for the Ports-to-Plains Coalition, has a photo of a truck circling the Boise City, Okla., courthouse, carrying wind turbines and disrupting traffic. It is a common sight for the small town and others like it where heavy truck traffic causes congestion.

The coalition is hoping for congressional support for a highway expansion project it favors to construct a major freight roadway, better serve rural U.S. areas, and ease trade congestion.

“Everything that travels from south to north or north to south goes right through the middle of our town,” said Gloria McDonald, Big Spring City Council member and city representative for Ports-to-Plains. “We’re very interested in making a pathway.”

A 20-year plan would expand the highway between Laredo and Denver to four lanes at an estimated cost of $2.6 billion. The expansion would allow for an increase in the flow of goods from Mexico to Canada. It is also estimated that the roadwork would generate $4.5 billion in new jobs, sales taxes, lodging and manufacturing.

Full article at link above.

[sonias]

1. Seems like every bad idea is getting re-branded these days

They love shell games.

Sonia

[TxRider]

2. Well honestly...

I-35 north through Texas is a shambles, and is not keeping up with growing traffic.

It also cannot be expanded in many places where it runs through cities.

Something will have to be done, and I45 running N/S isn't a lot better.

Eventually we have to have better transportation infrastructure.


But a foreign owned toll road isn't the right path.

[texastoast]

3. How about a long-term land use plan to start with

Intead of this horrible sprawl that is being allowed willy-nilly? We don't even have a long-term land use plan. We could use someone in the land use area with a small clue about Smart Growth.

Then, if you want to keep the concrete and pavement guys happy (some of which are Perry's biggest donors), let them stack those FREEways tall and proud.