Despite assertions by the Texas Department of Transportation that the Trans Texas Corridor is "dead," the fact is a leopard cannot change its spots. Even Governor Good Hair chimed in with as much wisdom today:
AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry, talking from Iraq to reporters, suggested that the Texas Department of Transportation's decision to pull the plug on one of his biggest initiatives - the Trans Texas Corridor - was mostly a name change, and that public-private partnerships on toll roads would continue.
TxDOT may wish to claim that the TTC has been scrapped due to unpopularity, but the fact remains that toll projects are on the drawing board and, in some cases, shovel ready. That means as federal dollars begin to flow toward the Lone Star State due to President-Elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan that elements of the TTC most likely will be built, incorporating the P3 (public-private-partnerships) toll concept along the way.
Even TxDOT admitted that although the TTC project by name, and in whole, was "not the choice of Texans," that aspects of the project would stand alone with different names. In other words the Perry TTC dream might not come to fruition under the toxic name of "Trans Texas Corridor," but elements of the project will be built as separate transportation projects--most likely with our federal tax dollars.
Instead of shovel ready projects with TTC fingerprints, weighed down with P3 toll motives, we must begin investing in the current transportation system we have in place now. Bridges, highways, and more are in desperate need of upgrade in order to maintain current transportation demand. Moreover, such upgrades to existing infrastructure actually yield more jobs per dollar invested according to a 2004 study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project.
If Perry and his legion of supporters have their way we will get the Trans Texas Corridor. Perhaps not in the form of its toxic name, or the full project itself, but most certainly broken up and disguised with more appealing project names that are easier to implement at a local level, easier to fund with federal tax dollars, and therefore sneak through the inattentive eyes of everyday Texans.
We as taxpayers must demand oversight and accountability of all transportation projects that TxDOT intends to put forth to the Obama administration for transportation funding to ensure the project creates jobs for hardworking Texans, repairs and rebuilds existing dilapidated infrastructure, and is not a TTC retread project with P3 motives. Only then will we ensure that every day Texans have put the Rick Perry Trans Texas Corridor project out to pasture. |
