(Welcome Adam, another one of our new BOR staff writers. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
With Texas facing dual crises of sharply rising transportation costs and inadequate, and often crumbling, infrastructure in the early 21st century, Rick Perry unveiled a grandiose plan, the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), that managed to infuriate Texans across the political spectrum, and failed under the threat of massive legal action.
At first glance, the Trans-Texas Corridor seemed like a reasonable solution to a very real problem. Texas has added over 4.5 million new citizens since 2000, and according to texastransportation.org existing revenue streams will not be able to fund new transportation projects past 2012. Perry's vision was to use private funding to create a system of highways (separated into to truck and passenger lanes), high speed rail, and modern utility lines that would parallel existing roadways, alleviating congestion and contributing to Texas's position as an international point of entry for goods. Less congestion! High speed rail! More trade! Well, as it turns out the TTC had more than a few problems associated with it, and Perry's failed leadership during the legislative process has left Texas without any answers to our continued infrastructure crisis.
The first big problem with the TTC was geographical. The corridor was to be 1200 feet wide and ultimately 4000 miles long. That is a lot of land! Land that would have required unprecedented abuse of eminent domain laws for the "state" to acquire. The full system would have needed over 500,000 acres of land that was usually privately owned and often adjacent to critical wildlife habitats.
Rick Perry, the supposed champion of minimal government and conservatism, was going to decree, via fiat, that an area of the state larger than New Jersey would suddenly belong not even to Texas itself, but to a Spanish developer, Cintra-Zachary.
Needless to say, this upset more than a few people. Conservatives objected to the prospect of widespread seizures of private lands. Progressives despised the proposed sale of such a vast region to a company that would have turned Texas into a pipeline for cheap goods from Mexico and Asia and left ordinary Texans watching vast sums of money flow by while gaining little, if any, benefits.
The TTC was essentially shelved in 2009 as a result of public outrage, yet Perry continues to believe that massive toll roads owned and operated by private developers is the only answer to Texas's transportation woes. It is not at all clear that privately owned toll roads offer any congestion relief. A much smaller project built and owned entirely through private funding, the Camino Columbia Toll Road (a bridge between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo), failed as drivers refused to pay its onerous tolls, and it only carried 13% of the traffic it had been projected to carry.
And now we are back where we started. Texans face increasing traffic congestion and costs. Austinites pay more to operate and maintain their vehicles than residents of any other city in the country, Laredo has the busiest freight border crossing in the country, and drivers in Houston and Dallas face some of the ), longest commutes in the nation.
Rick Perry is incapable of creating solutions that do not enrich either himself or his cronies. Do we really want him shaping the economic future of the United States?
Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that transportation projects funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are moving swiftly.
As part of the Administration's effort to infuse Recovery Act funds swiftly into the economy, states are required under ARRA to obligate 50 percent of their highway funds by June 29, 2009. Working in coordination with the U.S. Department of Transportation, all 55 U.S. states and territories successfully beat this deadline at least 10 days ahead of schedule with Texas allocating over 50% of its funds as of June 12.
Nationwide, to date, $19 billion has been obligated to fund over 5,300 approved for highway and other transportation projects nationwide. Of those, 1,900 projects are already underway. Already in Texas, the state has put to work $960.7 million in highway funds - or 61 percent - of the funds required under the Act.
As of today, Texas' largest ARRA-funded project is the $6.6 million repair of concrete pavement on I-45 from Keechi Creek to Bliss Creek in Leon County, an economically distressed area. This 7.29-mile-long project - fully funded by ARRA - will extend the service life of infrastructure on a route that is expected to carry increased traffic volume.
Austin: This is truly one of those bizarre stories that is just unsettling. Last month, an Austin cyclist was shot in the back with a pellet gun (from people in a blue Prius) while cycling on Southwest Parkway at 30 mph. What the hell?
In another instance of unprompted rage directed at cyclists, a driver in New York City's Central park who reminded of the speed limit he was breaking there by a cyclist, decided that a proper response was to ram into the biker. He then drove with him on the hood of his SUV for hundreds of feet. The driver is a writer for Fox News.
Rick Perry fell off his bike yesterday and broke his collarbone. It's unknown as to the extent that his good hair cushioned the blow.
Kuff alerted us to the Houston Chronicle article about the possibility of high-speed rail in Texas. After years of a lot of talk, we might be close to some action.
The idea of high-speed rail is being pushed again in a big way in Texas, and backers hope to have $12 billion to $18 billion high-speed trains running by 2020. This time, they say they have taken care to ensure the idea won’t fall flat the way a bullet-train push did some 15 years ago.
“In the past, high-speed rail was not completed in Texas primarily because it was a top-down model driven by lobbyists out of Austin,” former Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, chairman of the nonprofit Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corp., told lawmakers at a Wednesday transportation briefing.
This time, he said backers from the consortium — which includes elected leaders, cities, counties and two airlines among others — reached out to past opponents to try to solve their concerns. Among them: Southwest Airlines, which fought the last high-speed rail project as a potential competitor. Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz said the airline is neutral on this proposal.
The high-speed trains — with an average speed of 200 mph — would run to airports, allowing rail to work in conjunction with airlines by ferrying in passengers catching longer flights.
...
The rail would run along the so-called “Texas T-Bone” — from Dallas-Fort Worth through Austin to San Antonio, and branching off in Temple to Houston. More than 70 percent of Texans live in the area that would be served.
State Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) says he believes that high-speed rail is a "near-term reality" for Texas.
What do you think of the possibility of high-speed rail coming to Texas?
Historically the most heavily utilized bus stop in town, +/-3,000 people a day step on and off buses with the Capitol as a backdrop, but "NO MORE!" says Governor Perry, who resides across the street.
The ACLU-TX Central Texas Chapter opposes the elimination of the Capitol Transfer Center (the 11th St. and Congress Ave. bus stops), scheduled for August 24, 2008, since the stated reason for doing so, "safety," has yet to be substantiated as a legitimate concern.
CapMetro offered several alternatives to closure in response to Perry's stated concerns (which just recently developed?), but he and the Board offered no viable explanation as to why the alternative solutions wouldn't suffice.* So now Transfer Center activities will be rerouted to 10th and Congress, causing serious interruption in traffic as buses will bottleneck in the traffic lanes vs. the utilizing the shouldered, designated bus lanes on 11th.
*The decision to close these stops was made by Gov. Perry and the State Preservation Board (since by law they oversee all infrastructure surrounding the Capitol).
http://www.tspb.state.tx.us/sp...
Debbie Russell,
president, ACLU-TX Central TX Chapter
secretary, Better Austin Today
member, CoA Public Safety Task Force
"Violence by government, as in all other relations, is a confession of failure. "
(Another post for discussion as the Austin City Council races gear up. We will regularly mix in candidate posts on the front page if they engage our community like we've seen this last week. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
My vision of the future of Austin is one where there is more traffic on the sidewalks and less traffic on the streets. And on the streets, the traffic will comprise more bicycles and motorbikes and fewer cars and trucks. All of this will be tied together by rail and bus transit. In short, we will shape a transportation system based on shoeleather, bicycles, motorbikes, and public transit.
If the city is an organism, then it's transportation system is both the circulatory system and the skeleton.
Today we have an inefficient, costly, and unhealthy transit system. At many hours of the day, in many places, it grinds to a standstill as too many cars and trucks jam the streets and highways. Frustrated drivers sit idle, engines running, clocks ticking, with thoughts of jobs or families waiting for them. Around them a toxic cloud of exhaust forms, rolling across the surrounding cityscape and rising into the hazy sky. We can do better.
Focus transit on the human being
We can have an efficient, thrifty, and even pleasant transit system. The first step is to put the human being at the focus of transit. Walking is our natural and independent way to travel. And it's healthy.
People will walk if it's convenient, safe, and enjoyable. We must change our development patterns so that people can live, work, shop, and play all within a short walk. Where that is not possible, there must be convenient transit within a short walk. We must make walking safe and enjoyable by providing wide clear sidewalks (get the utility poles out!) and shade trees and a comfortable buffer against car traffic. Naturally, all this will be accessible to the disabled.
Bicycling is our most efficient form of wheeled travel. It's non-polluting and carbon-free. And it's good exercise. We can make Austin a genuine bicycle town by completing our network of bike lanes, building connecting bridges, and expanding bicycle parking facilities and requirements. In addition, we should speed up the maintenance of our streets to make them safer for bicyclists.
Roads and development go hand in hand, and Kirk Watson has placed himself at the helm of the most powerful organization in Central Texas, while he sits at all the other chairs at the same table.
Soon after Sen. Kirk Watson became Chair of CAMPO, an organization that directs billions of road dollars in Central Texas, records showWatson was put on the payroll of developers who profit from important transportation decisions.
Additional conflicts are now revealed for the first time.
Records show Sen. Kirk Watson, as partner of law firm Hughes & Luce, bills the City of Austin at a rate of $450 per hour for representation on land deals with developers.Over $420,000 has been paid to Watson's law firm, by the City of Austin in the last two years.
Watson is being paid an undisclosed amount of money as a lobbyist for developers, and billing taxpayers at $450 an hour to oppose developers, while being chair of CAMPO - an organization that controls the purse strings for developers roads. How can Watson fairly represent the people while having so many conflicts?
Watson is now pushing an unpopular plan to shift our freeways to toll ways using $910 million tax dollars. Developers see the double tax tolls as an eternal slush fund to pay for more roads to their cheap land.
The 2006 Austin Chamber of Commerce annual report, reveals that Sen. Kirk Watson individually, and his law firm both contributed money to the pro toll Chamber. (see page 23 - www.austinchamber.com/WhatsNew/2006OAAnnualReport.pdf)
TOLL ROAD LOBBYIST
VIOLATED STATE LAW AND
MUST PAY FINE, SAYS COMMISSION.
One of the Most Wanted Delinquent Lobbyists
in the State of Texas signs Commission Order.
AUSTIN - The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) has determined that toll road lobbyist Melinda Wheatley violated Texas law and must pay a $10,000 civil penalty. Wheatley failed to file dozens of financial reports describing her lobbyist activities over many years, according to TEC records. The order also states that Wheatley failed to pay the Office of the Attorney General for a default judgment for delinquent reports stretching back into the 90's.
For years, Wheatley has been listed as one of the most delinquent filers in the State of Texas on the TEC website.
Melinda Wheatley is also a known associate of State Rep. Mike Krusee, the chair of the House Transportation committee. Wheatley and Krusee began working on education issues together in the late 90s. In 2003, when Krusee shifted gears to transportation and became the Chair of the House Transportation Committee, Wheatley also made the shift and began to lobby on transportation issues.
TransCore, one of Wheatley's transportation clients, landed a multi million dollar contract in 2005 to produce 500,000 TxTAG's for TxDOT toll roads. According to the Comptroller report, "A Need for a Higher Standard", Wheatley also received NO BID contracts from the local tolling authority, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA).
Sal Costello, TexasTollParty.com founder, said, "It's a good day when the most wanted lobbyist in the state, who has been hiding her toll road lobbying activities, is found to have violated Texas law. But we need to be aware that there are still way too many toll road profiteers lurking in the shadows."
The TEC order was signed by Melinda Wheatley on September 10th, 2007.
In light of the terrible events with the Minneapolis bridge collapse, now might be a good time to point out a couple things regarding the status of Texas bridges. In Minnesota, the bridge that collapsed was rated "structurally deficient" by the US Department of Transportation. In Texas, 193 bridges are rated as "structurally deficient", according to a 2006 audit by the inspector general of the US Department of Transportation.
Among problems with Texas bridges listed in the audit were complaints that maximum weight limits were not posted, bridge ratings were improved without supporting data, bridges were not inspected frequently enough, and load rating calculations were not clear. From the report (which you can read in full here):
Texas provides an example of the limitations of FHWA's compliance reviews. Texas has 48,492 bridges on the 2003 Bridge Inventory, by far the largest number of all states, but has only one FHWA bridge engineer and one assistant engineer.
Texas has a slightly larger percentage of "structurally deficient" bridges that Minnesota: 4% to Minnesota's 3%. This isn't the full extent of information on bridges in Texas, and it's not to say that efforts aren't being made to allay the concerns. Now just seems like a good time to take a look at Texas and ask some questions about the condition of our own bridges.
UPDATE: Reading the report, it looks like the 193 bridges listed as structurally deficient here are National Highway System bridges, which would explain the discrepancy in the percentages listed above. I would assume all the other bridges in Texas are maintained by state and local (as opposed to federal) officials. Anyone have any insight here?
