Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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oxsan
The Texas Transportation Corridor

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growth and progress are rarely synonymous, in my book, but they're continually sold that way to a willing public.

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A reasonable presentation, Oxsan. One with which I largely agree.

The existing I-35 corridor could be widened with dedicated high speed, limited access truck only lanes for much less money, much less impact, and greater utility.

Look at the owners/board members of the Spanish construction company. Trace the links - you will find the decision makers in Texas and the US dept of transportation with their hands deep in those pockets if you look deeply enough, I can practically guarantee.

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One of my wife's favorite quotes is "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
Edward Abbey, I think.

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Edward Abbey, indeed. "Desert Solitaire"

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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Rio de los Brazos de Dios
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Who Does The Texas Transportation Corridor Benefit

I sat this morning and tried to determine who will benefit from the Proposed Texas Transportation Corridor. It is a pretty short list as I see it:

1. The owners of Mexican Industry and Agricultural production firms. Mexican Industry and agribusiness would have a faster and more sure delivery method for their product to the northeastern market centers. These firms are competing at least in part with California’s Imperial Valley food production and with production of beef in the mid-west. Both of those American sources of food would be penalized by provision of the TTC to Mexican business. Check next time you are in the supermarket the source of the vegetables that you buy. You will find, at least in this part of the country, that Mexico and Chile already supply a large share of the fresh fruit in our markets that used to come from California, Florida and the Texas Rio Grande Valley. It is not because the Mexican and Chilean fruit is better but rather because they were produced using peonage labor that reduced cost of the finished product below the price California could compete with. Payroll appendages alone would make the same labor much more expensive in the U. S..Producers of highly perishable food products in Mexico would have a way with high speed toll roads and segregated truck lanes to get their fresh fruits and meats and flowers and dairy products to the New York and Chicago markets in much less time than now possible over the Interstate highway system.

2.The owners and operators of the Spanish Company selected to build and operate the TTC for a period of sixty years in exchange for the tolls collected in that period. There is a saying in Spain that every Spanish businessman has three sets of books. One for the government tax collector, one for his partner and the real copy for himself. I am sure that this is a facetious statement circulated for its humor alone but I am also sure that Spanish business is more than a match for government negotiators and that the Spanish operating company if the program goes that route will make a handsome profit and will have a few billion pesetas to reward those American politicians and construction company executives who helped bring this Nirvana to Madrid..

3. It is true that some benefit will accrue from the additional jobs created by the building of the
Texas Transportation Corridor but I am not assured that these jobs will be American jobs. What percentage of the workers employed in production of the TTC will be citizens of the U.S.? In the second tier of labor at the steel fabrication companies along the route of the TTC where most of the bridge beams and girders will be built the percentage of workers in those shops is predominantly Mexican illegal immigrants now. No I don’t have any statistics to back up that statement but I have a lifetime of observation of the employment trends in Texas steel fabrication industry. It also would not surprise me to see bids for these beams to be thrown open to international bidding and end up being produced at companies like Altos Hornos de Mexico in Monclova Mexico. They could build them cheaper. This benefit is not a permanent one and would end abruptly with the completion of the TTC. I have not heard any proposed schedule for putting the TTC into operation but I think that it would take at least six years and maybe a bit longer if everything went well. I doubt that everything will go well.

That is the list of those that I see that will benefit. Let us ask if those benefits outweigh the carnage caused by uprooting thousands of people from their homes. Will those benefits outweigh the devastation of over one half million acres of scenic Texas countryside with serious consequences to a wildlife population already under serious pressure from the de-urbanization process now under way. What benefits make it desirable to uproot several thousand century old live oaks or quench the flow of even one spring feeding the Frio? Before we spend billions of dollars for something lets look hard at whether or not we really need it and who it benefits. I cannot see that the average Texas citizen will be helped one bit by this project and the fear lingers in my mind that the TTC will become our local version of Boston’s Big Dig which has cost that state dearly and become a center of graft and corruption. Those who favor the project will tell you that Texas will get this wonderful corridor across the state virtually for free because the Spanish company is going to pay for the project and recoup their expense from the tolls collected. Don’t you believe it. The persons dispossessed of their homes will not consider it free. The persons who are forced to live beside it for the rest of their lives will not consider it free. Those people who use the toll road and get to Laredo or Brownsville a bit sooner as a result will pay a toll so to them it will not be free and won’t we all feel a little bad to see all those millions of dollars floating across the Atlantic?

Can we do it? Of course we can. If there were a need we could build a bridge across the Atlantic to Nigeria—sorry I mentioned that. Someone will propose it next.

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oxsan


Don't kick until yer spurred.

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