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The Texas Transportation Corridor
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The Texas Transportation Corridor
Conventional wisdom holds that the elderly, especially the very elderly, are reactionary in their contemplation of new developments and projects and opposed to them because they are not like the memories of their youth which they cherish. Perhaps this is so but with respect to the proposed Texas Transportation Corridor I cannot believe that it is just sentimental hogwash. Might there not be a bit of reason and considered judgment involved in my opposition to the proposed Texas Transportation Corridor?
The current thinking envisions a multi-lane toll road from south to north, from Mexico to Oklahoma across Texas which will provide for increased speed limits (perhaps the elimination of speed limits) and the segregation of commercial truck traffic and automobile passenger traffic. It is further proposed that this be a toll road and current thinking is that a Spanish Company be awarded a contract to build the TTC and in payment therefore that this Spanish company be allowed to collect and keep the tolls for a period of sixty years in order to recoup their expense and make a profit I once made my living negotiating with Spanish companies on construction contracts, and I would be willing to bet that if this agreement comes to pass that there will be many safeguards in the way of tax rebates, right to re-negotiate term of contract if revenue estimates were not met, favorable laws to be passed by the Texas Legislature, etc ad infinitum.
When I go to the Big Bend National Park or drive down to Austin to see my daughter do you think that I take Interstate I30 west or I35 south to these destinations. Never! Not even when I am in a hurry. In the spirit of William Least Heat Moon I drive the blue highways through the Cross Timbers and Edwards Plateau country if going south or through the rolling plains and West Texas semi-desert if heading west. Life is too short to limit the scenery to the ads on the back of eighteen-wheelers or to wonder if the Porsche coming up behind you really knows you are there. I travel through Texas for the scenery. I like to see the wild turkeys, the raptors sitting on fence posts, and if it is the right time of day the many deer and antelope that this state has as a treasure. I like to drive through the small towns that still have architecture dating back to the 19th century and courthouses that look like gothic castles. Don’t look for sights like that along the Interstate highways or along the proposed TTC either.
State and local taxes in my state have skyrocketed in the last four years as a result of un-funded Federal mandates and the necessity of health care for a throng of illegal immigrants as well as increased police and court costs related to this immigration. If we now take over 2 million acres of Texas land out of the tax base the remaining land will per force be more heavily taxed.
Let’s take a look at the "benefits" that will be provided by the building and operation of the TTC:
1. It will require the purchase or condemnation under provisions of eminent domain of more than 2 million acres of mostly rural Texas farm and ranch land. There is a factor involved here that I am almost sure that the planners of the TTC do not take into consideration. There will be a cultural shift for thousands of people involved. One of the greatest assets of my little farm is that it is peaceful and quiet and restful and removed from the strident call of the city and its throngs. People out here wave at you when they meet you on the country road, and they do so whether they know you or not. In one grass fire several years ago my neighbors prevented my house from being consumed (I was away at the time) and took care of my livestock until I got back. The Lazy Bend of the Brazos is a sleepy, friendly, bucolic area, and that is just what I wanted after forty years of nerve-jangling, elbow-rubbing, commercial negotiation. Those who are displaced by the TTC or forced to live alongside it will lose most of the benefits that they moved to the country to gain. Then too my next door neighbor=s great grandparents moved into the Bend in 1851 and fought the Comanche here. Think how they must feel after that history. The right of eminent domain does not take those cultural benefits of the property into consideration. And even if it did there is no way you could compensate my neighbor, or even me, for moving us off this land.
2. It will destroy wildlife habitat and migration patterns wholesale. That area south of San Antonio toward Laredo is prime deer, javelina and turkey and quail and dove country. All along the proposed route of the TTC there will be deadly harm done to the habitat of wildlife, no matter how careful the constructors are. The TTC will cross the Rio Grande (three times), the Nueces, the Frio, the Leona, the San Antonio, The Colorado, the Guadalupe, the Brazos and the Trinity and the Red Rivers as a minimum, probably more depending on final route. The wildlife habitat and historic site destruction that will be caused by the massive right of way envisioned for the TTC will be almost indeterminate.
3. Quarrying of concrete aggregate and road base and the manufacturing of asphalt for paving will cause further heavy stress on the environment in an area already tearing up many pristine wildlife habitats. It will take acres of gravel pits and quarries to build a mile of roadway and all of the bridges and service roads. I have often said that I keep house like this was a gravel pit but I hate to see the State of Texas or the Federal Government embark upon any program that will increase the number of eyesores which this amount of gravel, sand and limestone will call for. Asphalt manufacture is already a contributor to air pollution in the state, and this will increase that problem.
4. The hauling of aggregate, asphalt and road construction materials is notoriously dangerous and a contributor to many accidents as well as undue wear and tear on the existing transportation infrastructure. Transportation death rates and repair costs of existing roadways and bridges will experience an increase when this program is in process.
5. There will be major delays in traffic for years due to interference of TTC construction at intersection points with the existing interstate and state highway system. Many farm-to-market roads and county roads will be closed off altogether because of the expense of permitting safe intersection by overpasses or underpasses to the TTC.
6. The smuggling of illegal contraband and illegal immigrants from Mexico will be assisted and aided by this project. Under the guise of “Americans don’t want these jobs” thousands of immigrants will actually be recruited to work on this major construction project, and they won’t go home.
7. Current planning envisions the letting of a contract to a Spanish company to build and operate the toll road. This in effect is bolstering the technology base and managerial acumen of the Spanish company and creating a sure competitor for US companies in future international business. It is ironic that the U.S. assures the success of its overseas competitors. After World War II there was a “Japanese Marshall Plan” in which we rebuilt Japanese industry to some extent. When I was seeking a source for very large waveguide for the Very Large Array antenna farm in Socorro New Mexico I found that equipment to manufacture 28 miles of this large precision waveguide were available in only one place C Japan. And we gave it to them under the “Japanese Marshall Plan”. Why do we want to make a Spanish company the number one road building company in the world?
8. It is almost a surety that the Texas Legislature will be asked to pass a law to the effect that all commercial truck traffic on the current I35 be forced to use the TTC and thus pay the resultant toll. Another case where the government messes in private business and determines their profit and loss by regulation or law. This action will almost surely result in increased freight rates because the trucking companies are already burdened with very heavy fuel costs and license fees and taxes. The truckers will have to be forced to use the toll road and I can envision several deceptive practices they may adopt to avoid doing so. And if a north south toll road built by a Spanish company is a good deal what about an east-west Texarkana to El Paso TTC for the convenience of the two coasts? Surely we can find a Japanese or Chinese company to build and operate that.
9. Our judicial system is now stretched to its very limit by vacant judgeships and frivolous tort suits. How can it support hundreds if not thousands of eminent domain suits and appeals? I would also expect some of the more active environmental organizations to file a number of suits even though I notice that
proponents of the TTC have already issued an environmental study showing that no harm will be done.
10. The program will create jobs and boost local economy. It is true that it will take a lot of jobs to build this toll road both on the road construction itself and on the supporting industries such as bridge beams and girders, sign fabrication, asphalt fabrication and aggregate quarrying and hauling I think this is a viable advantage that the proponents of the program have. There is no denying that the project will increase jobs and that some of them such as heavy machine earth moving equipment operators will be top notch jobs. I don=t believe that the temporary increase in jobs during the construction phase will be worth the nine negative factors which precede it.
Theoretically the TTC will make it faster to get from the northern Texas terminus of the toll road to Brownsville, Laredo and Del Rio more quickly than use of I-35 or other existing roads. I haven’t seen an estimate of how much quicker but the question that comes to me is, "Who cares?" The people who will be hurt by this project are the thousands of people displaced to acquire the right-of-way and the many more thousands of people forced to live by the side of a bustling, honking, dusty, unsightly TTC. And of those people who will be hurt how many of them will go to Laredo three times in their lifetime or give a hoot that it took them an extra hour or less to get there. Must we become like another California with government regulation concerning every possible act and taxes on every conceivable thing to pay for it? There are many things that money could be better spent for. It hurts me to see it spent even if I am wrong about the items above. We just don't need it. And since it is a government project it will most likely exceed estimate in its cost by a factor of three C just look at the minor project in Boston. And all we are really providing is three more routes for the drug smugglers, the immigrant "coyotes", and al Qaeda to come join us.
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