Rick Perry and the Trans-Texas Corridor

Ok one more for the night. Pesky Truth, who is a retired business owner and veteran who lives in dallas, has a great write-up called “Seventeen (17) things that critics are saying about Rick Perry” and it seems to be a very objective take on the criticisms people are leveling at Rick Perry. Some are true, and some are not. You can jump over via the link above and read all 17 of them, but I plan on posting most of them here, one per night, to give you guys a chance to discuss them at length. Tonight’s topic is the Trans-Texas Corridor and here’s Pesky’s write-up:

The “Trans-Texas Corridor” (TTC) term identifies a plan, introduced by Governor Perry in 2001, that some saw as the beginning of a “North American Union” highway system. It was to extend from the Texas border with Mexico to the border with Oklahoma and would be a 4,000 mile system with routes crisscrossing Texas. The $175+ billion dollar project would have been the largest engineering project ever proposed for the state of Texas.

When details of the plan became public, critics became concerned that it would lead to a “NAFTA Superhighway” that would facilitate the United States, Canada and Mexico merging into a North American Union (a fringe conspiracy theory).

As envisioned, the TTC consisted of multi-use right-of-ways that would be up to 1,200 feet wide to accommodate six 80 mph vehicle lanes, 4 truck lanes, two tracks each for high-speed rail, commuter rail, and freight rail, a 200 ft. wide utility zone to accommodate underground water, natural gas, and petroleum pipelines, telecommunications cables and high-voltage electric transmission lines. A full-sized right of way would have required 146 sq. acres per mile.

While the concept of multi-use right-of-ways can be considered forward-thinking and progressive (in the proper use of the word), many were concerned that the proposed methods of land acquisition and financing could take advantage of landowners and the taxpaying public to the benefit of private entities.

In March of 2005, a Comprehensive Development Agreement (CDA) was signed with Cintra/Zachry, a partnership between Cintra (Cintra Concesiones deInfraestructuras de Transporte,S.A.), an international developer of transport infrastructure, and Zachry Construction Corp., one of the country’s largest construction companies. There were several other participants in the CDA, but these are the two most prominent.

Headquartered in Madrid, Spain, with subsidiaries on three continents, Cintra is one of the world’s largest private-sector developers of transport infrastructure. Zachry is a privately held company founded in 1924 and headquartered in San Antonio,Texas. The concerns that critics raised over the TTC were:

Cintra, a Spanish firm, was the largest financer. They would build, design and operate the highway (that included collecting toll revenue). While the Spanish firm would not own the system, they would benefit financially off of Texas’ infrastructure. All roads in Texas are owned by Texas and managed under Texas’ Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) authority.
Since most of the Trans-Texas Corridor roads would be toll roads, toll earnings would be used to pay investors (Cintra) and to maintain the roads. If any public money was used to pay for part of the TTC, it would constitute double taxation. Motorists would have contributed gasoline tax revenues towards building and maintaining Texas highways and still have to pay for tolls on the TTC.
It was estimated that 580,000 acres (906 square miles) would have been taken from private owners (mostly ranch and farm land) and either purchased by, or seized (via eminent domain) by the state for the Trans-Texas Corridor.
The possible misuse of eminent domain – confiscating private land for “public” use – was a major concern.

Perry’s defense was that as Texas continues to grow by about 1,200 people every day, the state’s infrastructure must be improved to accommodate the growth. The TTC was an attempt to create a state-of-the-art, coordinated system of thousands of miles of roadways, rail lines, and gas transportation systems without raising taxes by using a financing method called a “Public Private Partnership” (P3s). It is important to note that P3s are a procurement option, not a revenue source. Some current examples are: the Chicago Skyway, the South Bay Expressway in California, and the Capital Beltway high-occupancy toll lanes in DC. Here is more on P3s from the Federal Highway Administration.

The TTC is now a dead issue in Texas. It cannot be resurrected under any other name. In fact, the governor recently signed HB 1201, which removed all remaining references to the TTC from state statutes. Perry has not attempted to resurrect it or do an “end run” around the legislature and the people. Here is a local (Houston) story that sums up the public outcry over the TTC.

By law, toll roads in Texas can never be owned by anyone other than the state and are not being “leased away.” The public never relinquished ownership of any state roads.

The governor signed a law in 2005 that prevents a free road from being “converted” to a toll road. This is current law under the Transportation Code, Chapter 228.201 and he signed SB 18 on May 19, 2011, a bill which strengthened property owner’s rights when eminent domain is exercised by a government entity. Eminent domain “land grabs” were one of the big concerns that Texans had relating to the TTA.

Unlike the current administration in Washington, Rick Perry heard the people and backed off.


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