Trans Texas Corridor

It's sore point in Texas. The Highway Fund was squandered, so the governor figures we should pay for the priviledge of driving on the roads we paid for with taxes.

It's one of the reasons he failed to get close to a majority of votes in the last election. Unfortunately, the opposition divided the votes among three candidates, so Gov. Froot Loop is back in office.

My goodness, I wish George Bush was still governor of Texas. On so many levels, I wish he was still governor of Texas.

 

It is part of the new North American Union road system which will connect Mexico with Canada, Bush's first step to joining the one world govt.

 

As one who can be called a 'road fan', at the least, is there an extant road where this is supposedly being proposed, to the extent that that is the only way to get somewhere? (To my knowledge, the only place in the US one cannot reach without paying some sort of toll is Staten Island, NYC, NY.)

And are there not hundreds of thousands of miles of roadways in Texas (not to mention other states), that are in no way proposed to have any tolls on them? Just drive those. That'll fix those who want to profit from building 'toll roads'. Don't put any money in their pockets!

And one won't have to worry about getting in such a hurry, either, since the traffic will move at a much more leisurely pace.

'Course, I was always in a hurry, so I happily paid the tolls for the shortened time involved, but that was just me.

Ed

 

The problem is multi-faceted.

But, the biggest problems are:

1. A misunderstanding of the Texas road system;
2. A belief that all of the northerners coming to Texas should drive for free;
3. A belief by the northerners coming to Texas that Texas tax dollars should go north of the Red;
4. A mistaken belief that the gasoline taxes actually pay to build roads in Texas;
5. And a total misunderstanding of just how much more road Texas needs for the millions of illegal immigrants coming south . . . errrrrr .... ooops, I meant 'legal' immigrants.

Texas is presently 5 - 10 years behind in their major new road building projects. The biggest problem with that, is that the flow of northerners south and trade going north is increasing instead of leveling off.

Presently, Austin freeway traffic is among the worse in the country. And I think the projections show the 5 fastest growing large metropolitans in Texas doubling in the next 15 years. Being a church planter, demographics is something that I study, and in the DFW 'market,' the predictions for doubling growth are beaten every time.

I believe that those wanting to pay more for commuting should be able to pay tolls.

But, I believe that the toll roads are government property belonging to the citizens and not to foreign corporations.

 

On my last trip to Houston, coming from and going to the airport on a road called the "Sam Houston Tollway" cost me $4.00 each way, and I sat in bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour to go about 16 miles. Austin is worse?

Your fault. You keep electing Republican governors who sell out to insurance companies, foreign corporations and oil companies and since you don't have a state income tax, you raise property values and private property taxes while slashing the corporate taxes. As a result, you have no money to build decent highways or keep Mexicans from flocking across the border.

Should'a kept Ann in there for a while longer, and this wouldn't be a problem.

 

Correct.

We keep electing officials that are business friendly and the businesses keep coming and bring people with them. Creates traffic. Austin has stayed behind the curve and can't seem to catch up.

That, of course , is in addition to the normal influx of illegals, but that's the Fed's fault.

 

Nothing wrong with new highways being paid for by the people using them as long as there is a collection system that doesn't back up the traffic.

Since I retired I have driven all over the USofA and drivers are much more civilized on the toll roads, I suspect because bad drivers can't hide but must exit through a toll plaza.

 

San Antonio is getting pretty bad as well in some areas, but still not as bad as Austin, Dallas FW, and Houston. I sure do hope it never gets that bad here but I am sure it will since our population keeps increasing...

 

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: Evidently, you've never driven on a tollway in Houston. Right lane is for cops with their lights on who are parked and little old ladies driving 30mph. Middle lanes are for big rigs who drive anywhere between 10mph and 240mph. Left lane is for rocket-propelled jet cars.

Don't even get me started on entrances and exits, especially if they're near a toll plaza. EZ tag lanes are fun too. Did you know it was possible to cross 6 lanes in bumper to bumper traffic doing 90mph within a distance of 15 feet? Come on down and see the show.

 

BTW, I'm of the opinion that this is just a giant land grab, that it is a giant waste of money, and that it is not needed. This has all come about because of NAFTA.

For one of the many groups opposing TTC, go to www.corridorwatch.org

FYI, Perry received less than 40% of the vote in the last election. For a sitting, Republican Governor in Texas?!?...that is absolutely horrific. Any of the 3 other viable candidates running could have won, but they split the anti-Perry vote.

Incidentally, I think you'll find most people are opposed to the TTC. From an older poll that I've seen, support dwindles from almost 70% in favor to about 45% in favor, once some of the details of the plan are made known. Still, there is probably even a smaller level of support now. That poll was about 2 years old.

I wish some polling firm would do a poll now to see just how low support currently is for the Perry Pike.

For the record, yes, my home is in the path of a "study area", part of the bypass around northwest Houston.

I'll guarantee you that no one of any importance, Mr. Governor, will have any portion of this money trap put through their property.

 

What I thought was interesting about the tollway in Houston was that there were eight to ten lanes for collecting various types of payment--coins, tokens, EZ tags, maybe even a place for depositing extra children, but you see no signs telling you which lane is which until you get right up to the toll plaza. I guess the assumption is that no one from out of town will ever drive on the tollway. Once you get in the wrong lane, you can't get out of the line and you're doomed to face a surly, bitter employee who gripes at you for making a mistake. It sure was tempting, in my rental car, to just drive on through those high speed EZ tag lanes instead of waiting in a ten minute line every five miles to throw change in a basket. I wonder how many rental car companies around Houston wind up paying fines for cars that do that all the time.

I get off the plane, go get a rental car, get out on a tollway that has me rolling down my window, robbing me of my spare change every 5 miles, and then, after $4.00 and going through another toll plaza, I have to cough up another $1 to get off. The term "highway robbery" came to mind. I don't think a trans-Texas toll road will make Texas popular with tourists.

 

What's worse is that it is making the state government much less popular for Texans. If the state Republican leadership is trying to secure us in spite of the national Republican backlash, they're doing a horrible job.

Every statewide elected office is currently held by a Republican. If Perry continues to push this, and the legislature does nothing to stop it, I predict that the next state elections will see Republicans fare about as well at home as they did nationally in 2006.

It's impossible to live in Texas and not know someone who is affected by the TTC right-of-way. I have so many family members who are in the path of this monster between Waco and Dallas. Not to mention, the cemeteries, yes, plural, where my grandfather, ggrandfather and ggrandmother, and gggrandparents are buried in these areas.

I just can't understand why any sane, "working for the people" politician would want to build a whole new tollway system across our state in lieu of rebuidling/repairing/expanding existing freeways.

 

Brother James,

I can hear your pain, and I sympathize somewhat. And I don't want to move anyone's cemetaries.

So what is your solution? Triple deck I-35 and Hwy 59?

When I moved from Texas to California, I was stunned at how many people there were. Then I moved back, and now there will be more people here than there. What are we to do? Send the immigrants back to New York and California?

 

Mass transit comes to mind. I don't have any trouble getting around Washington, D.C. without a car and it doesn't cost me a fortune.

Actually, I discovered that there is a rail line in Houston, that runs from the pro-football stadium through the medical center and into downtown. But I think that's the only line in the whole city. With the exception of the worry about getting off the train in a really bad neighborhood, you can get around D.C. faster on the Metro than you can in a car. And Atlanta is another place where the train lines work really well.

What's the problem with cities in Texas doing the same?

 

Our gasoline tax dollars were were used to subsidize projects like the 'big dig', D.C.'s metro & Atlanta's metro . . . .



We need to start squeaking if we are gonna get some grease! Er, I mean some of our gas tax money.

 

Your last suggestion is a good start. Follow that by sending back the million plus illegals that we have living here and then throwing away NAFTA. This monster will be taing 1,200 feet of right-of-way just in its width. A tollway/rail/utility system that is a quarter-mile wide!!! That is lunacy!

What Perry ought to focus on is fixing the existing freeway/rail system to accomodate more traffic. Widen existing freeways using existing right-of-way. The new tollways will not even cover the same ground used by the existing freeways. What is to happen to those freeways? We'll have all of these different "ways" running parallel to the same place and gobbling up more land.

One the website I provided, it shows a county by county break down and gives the number of acres per county to be potentially swallowed by these behemoth.

There's got to be a better way to spend $200 BILLION rather than using it to dig up graves, mow through generations-owned family ranch/farmland, and casting tens of thousands of people out of their homes.

 

We have the METRORail which is the light rail system that began in 2004. It has the highest accident rate in the country, at 1 every 6 days, according to Wikipedia, and it only operates on 7.5 miles of track!

It was built on city streets and the "lane" used by the rail is also used as a regular turn lane for cars in most places. The layout is idiotic.

They are planning several extensions over the next decade, including commuter lines to the suburbs (one where I live).

With the layout of the city, being over 600 sq. miles, most people just have to drive their cars. Compare that area with the total areas of L.A. at 498 sq. mi., and NYC at 469 sq. mi., much of which is water.

Personally, I don't have a big problem with rail, but the rail that we have is not working. And, running from downtown to the Med Center is not exactly alleviating traffic. No one commutes in either direction. No one lives downtown to commute from there. How is a 7 mile track supposed to relieve congestion, especially since they completely destroyed taffic flow downtown by making a pond/fountain in the middle of a block of Main Street where the Rail goes through?

I think the idiot politicians of Houston have invaded Austin, thus causing the state politicians' I.Q. levels to drop and enabling them to promote the TTC. That's purely conjecture on my part though.