Trans Texas Corridor is declared dead -- again

Published October 6, 2009 by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

By Gordon Dickson / Star-Telegram

The Texas Department of Transportation has formally pulled the plug on the Trans Texas Corridor, a hotly contested plan to build toll roads, rail lines and utilities across the state, officials said.

But the state’s once-lofty plan to build $184 billion worth of new statewide infrastructure promises to live on in the governor’s race, where the need to reduce gridlock is often pitted against issues such as property rights, the impact of tolls on residents’ pocketbooks and foreign control of toll projects.

State officials have scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. today in Austin to announce that the department has selected the "no action alternative" for the proposed first leg of the Trans Texas Corridor from the border region to Dallas-Fort Worth.

During months of testimony in the project’s environmental review, a process governed by the Federal Highway Administration, simply too many Texans voiced opposition to the project, officials said.

"The reason that’s being given for the no-build option is that people don’t want it," Texas Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows of Fort Worth said Tuesday in a phone interview. "They said, 'Hell no.’ What we basically are doing is we are terminating the process. Formally, absolutely, TTC-35 is dead. We are canceling the contract with Zachry."

Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio and Cintra of Madrid have been under contract to create a Trans Texas Corridor master plan and to provide a more detailed development plan for the first Trans Texas Corridor leg along the I-35 corridor.

But while that process has reached an end, Gov. Rick Perry and his challenger in the Republican primary, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, continued to exchange barbs Tuesday over the Trans Texas Corridor.

Perry, who initially proposed the corridor in 2002 as a futuristic way to pay for roads — and to revolutionize highway safety and freight movement — has said in recent interviews that he still believes that Texans must find creative ways to pay for transportation improvements.

Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner noted that the Transportation Department had already announced less formally in January that it wouldn’t pursue the Trans Texas Corridor.

"The Trans Texas Corridor has been out of existence since January, so it’s further proof that the senator and her campaign lack any knowledge of transportation issues in Texas," Miner said. "Since Sen. Hutchison has been asleep at the wheel in Washington, Texas has been shortchanged on transportation dollars coming back to Texas, and it has forced us to look at transportation alternatives in the state."

But Hutchison accused the department under Perry’s guidance of continuing to plan the corridor behind the scenes.

"The Trans Texas Corridor will not be officially dead until Rick Perry is no longer governor and his political appointees are no longer running TxDOT," Hutchison campaign spokesman Joe Pounder said in a statement.

"Texans can’t trust Rick Perry when it comes to protecting their land from the government, ceasing to lease our highways to foreign companies or ending the Trans Texas Corridor," he added.

Copyright © 2009 Fort Worth Star-Telegram