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Buzz Trans Texas Corridor is dead, TxDOT says 10:47 PM CST on Tuesday, January 6, 2009By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News mlindenberger@dallasnews.com AUSTIN – After six years of bold plans, big talk and fierce pushback, the Texas Department of Transportation announced Tuesday that the Trans-Texas Corridor is dead, burying with it Gov. Rick Perry's visionary but controversial idea to string the state together with some 4,000 miles of highways, toll roads and rail lines. "Make no mistake: The Trans-Texas Corridor as we have known it no longer exists," TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz said in a speech at an annual transportation conference. In its place will be a smaller, more deliberate plan that assesses individually each of the scores of projects once lumped together as part of the TTC. Also Online 09/29/03: Corridor plan on road to reality The impact on Dallas-area projects should be minimal, TxDOT officials said. Local leaders had hoped that private firms selected to build the Trans-Texas Corridor would have eventually taken on two large projects in North Texas, including the Loop 9 toll road in southern Dallas and, much later, a 240-mile outer loop that planners have long envisioned for North Texas. Neither of those projects has been awarded any state funding and will need to be built as toll roads, said Tim Nesbitt, Loop 9 project manager for TxDOT. But private firms have already expressed interest in Loop 9 and could well develop it as a standalone project even though the Trans-Texas Corridor is dead. "I guess you could say Loop 9 is a desirable project in the eyes of the Cintra Zachry team," Nesbitt said, referring to one of two consortia previously selected to develop the early stages of the TTC. The project is still under environmental review and probably couldn't begin until 2012 under any circumstances, he noted. But while the demise of the Trans-Texas Corridor won't stop road building in North Texas, its death serves as a milestone in the debate over the role that private toll roads, and tolls in general, should play in Texas – a debate that has raged since Perry unveiled his grand idea in 2002. The Trans-Texas Corridor had always seemed more of a concept than an actual road plan. But at its core, the plan called for $175 billion in spending over the next 50 years to run highways, rail lines and data lines from Oklahoma to Mexico, and from east to west in southern Texas. It was routinely billed as the biggest transportation project since President Dwight Eisenhower persuaded Congress to launch the interstate highway system in the 1950s. DMN File But beyond its huge scope, the most radical feature of the plan, and the part most cherished by Perry, was the proposal to let private companies foot huge portions of the bill. In return, they would earn the right to collect ever-increasing tolls from Texas drivers for decades to come. Lawmakers initially went along with the idea, and in 2003 approved sweeping changes to Texas law to get the project started. But the idea, especially the way it would be financed, never gathered broad support. And when TxDOT announced the TTC could take 1,200 feet of right-of-way through the length of Texas, rural landowners rebelled too, making the project one of the most controversial in modern Texas history. The issue dogged Perry throughout his 2006 re-election campaign and helped unite increasingly furious lawmakers, who in 2007 attempted to slow, but not kill, the project. TxDOT, by its own admission, at first turned a deaf ear to the criticism. But in the past 18 months, it has spent hundreds of hours at dozens of public hearings trying to appease its critics. The crowds remained almost universally hostile. The same lawmakers who were so angry in 2007 return to Austin next week for the 2009 session, and Tuesday's announcement by TxDOT chief Saenz showed that neither his agency nor the governor – whose staff was involved in the decision to kill the TTC – want to wage the same fight all over again. "The Legislature has been clear; they want transformation," Saenz said. "That handwriting is on the wall, in big bold letters." Perry sought to play down the significance of Saenz's announcement Tuesday. Talking to reporters from Iraq, where he was visiting soldiers, the governor said, "The fact of the matter is that we really don't care what name they attach to building infrastructure in the state of Texas. The key is that we have to go forward and build the infrastructure so that the state of Texas and our economy can continue to grow." He noted, for instance, that the most important part of the plan to him, its reliance on private capital to help finance toll roads, remains a key priority and an approach he expects will be continued. "We'll continue to use all the tools available to build the infrastructure," Perry said. "That's one of the reasons the Legislature agreed with us back through the previous legislative sessions that we needed to have more tools in our tool box, if you will, to build the needed infrastructure." Whether lawmakers will go along with those plans is unclear. Faced with billions of dollars in unmet annual transportation needs, the state may embrace private toll roads as a last resort, but many lawmakers remain upset over what they see as Perry's high-handedness in pushing the TTC. Sen. Robert Nichols, a former TxDOT commissioner, said lawmakers will be looking closely at Tuesday's change in plans. "If it is just a name change, and nothing more, I don't think that is going to do much to appease lawmakers," said Nichols, R-Jacksonville. Leaders of the grassroots groups that have opposed the project from its beginning celebrated the news. They said the announcement went well beyond a simple name change. David Stall, co-founder of the advocacy group Corridor Watch, said Tuesday the will of the people had prevailed. "It was a bad project pushed in the face of legislative and public opposition and now there is a price to pay," Stall said. "The result is a major victory. The overarching statewide Trans-Texas Corridor that was a reality is no longer." Staff writer Christy Hoppe in Austin contributed to this report. Email|Print|RSS||Yahoo! Buzz|Send a news tip Create A Screen Name Screen names can only consist of letters and numbers. Your screen name will appear to everyone. Leave Comment Conversation guidelines: We welcome your thoughts and information related to this article. When leaving comments please stay on topic and be respectful of others. You must be logged in to contribute. Log in | Register Now! You are logged in as screenname | Log Out You are logged in, but do not have a "screen" name. Update Your Profile Showing: Newest first Oldest first Comments (82) Posted by thunderstruck1 | 6 hours ago High Speed Rail been talking about it for decades. Like Elvis said little less conversation and a whole lot more action is what we need there. I-35 is in trouble and Governor Perry was right to propose an alternative route. The greed comes in when he wants to sell the rights of the road to outside countries and set tolls up and down it. That is what the people are against more cars on the roads means more gasoline taxes being taken in. Figure out what they are doing with the gasoline taxes then maybe we can find a free way to build an alternative road. Recommend this Comment 0Report Abuse Posted by yayasmom | 12 hours ago Lets see, in my opinion... A, D, G, F, C, B, E. Recommend this Comment 1Report Abuse Posted by DallasJayhawk | 12 hours ago I understand the need for more than just two lanes from Dallas to San Antonio and other cities but I'm trying to figure out which problem with this project I hate the most. Help me to decide and here's my list. A. A new road that parallels I-35 and bankrupts all the retail businesses and communities that have built up on I-35. B. The use of eminent domain to allow the government to seize/purchase private land at bargain prices. C. The failure to repair or expand I-35 to three lanes now or in the future. D. Replacing I-35 with a toll road that will forever suck money from private companies and citizens that live around it and are traveling through. E. A toll road in which the toll rate will not be controlled by the government and can and probably will be prohibitively expensive to use at some point in the future. F. Allowing a non-US company to build and then forever collect the revenue that will flow out of the US. G. Allowing a non-Texas company to build and then forever collect the revenue that will flow out of Texas. In my opinion, the only real solution that makes any sense is to expand and repair I-35. Any other solution is way too disruptive to the businesses and communities that have invested their lives into the infrastructure of I-35. I liked the DFW-San Antonio-Houston high speed train idea but I'm sure Southwest Airlines had something to say about that being shot down. Recommend this Comment 1Report Abuse Posted by Judi | 1 day ago It wouldn't surprise me if this is just a trick and one I think they've tried before. Things like that are why I switched to an being independent. No party should think they've got it made and as a result can do what they like. Hutchison will run next time, I guess, but she is no better and may be worse. Check out her history with the so called "Trans-Texas Corridor". Recommend this Comment 1Report Abuse Posted by Big Kev | 1 day ago No roads period. We have enough roads and highways to last us for the next 20 years. What we need to stop is the growth and expansion. The more people living here, the more resources we need like water, sewage, electricity, food and highways. No more toll roads. Stop the building of new roads. Leave the country, country. Recommend this Comment 0Report Abuse Posted by Road Hog | 1 day ago Folks, What is going on here, please check your facts. Do you all think roads are a god given right? The gas tax has not been adjusted for over 15 years, and now does not even cover the cost of maintenance. A good portion is being siphoned off for schools, police, etc. More miles are driven (in the US this number is in the billions) with better fuel efficiency, thus generating less revenue. Additionally the additional miles are causing wear and tear on the roads and bridges of our great state. Is it fair to increase the gas tax in rural parts of our state to pay for higher priced roads in the urban areas? Why not look at the toll as a user fee. In fact this is how the transportation infrastructure started in the US with the turnpikes, rail and bridges. The Fed’s did not start to fund transportation projects until the end of WWII as a jobs program for returning GI’s. Recommend this Comment 0Report Abuse Posted by Country Folks Survive | 1 day ago Finally, country can survive. My family just fought annexation so that the city can stretch out to the corridor. Wasted tax dollars for the lawsuit, but since I'm not city it wasn't my money. Guess what City of Rockwall. You loose. Recommend this Comment 0Report Abuse Posted by OrdinaryJoe | 1 day ago I, like everyone else do not trust TxDot or Gov. Perry. Considering the ton of money this has already cost, just who plans to give the citizens of Texas their money back. Possibly we could fix some of the existing roads. And while I'm at it, how come the State of Texas is having to build all the new roads for Cowboy's Jerry Jones new Super Stadium. Texas Stadium was in the right spot with plenty of ready access and tons of room for the stadium. You haven't seen anything yet, until you try to get all those fans into the new stadium. Better leave the week before. Recommend this Comment 1Report Abuse Posted by 6th Generation Texan | 1 day ago Hey, I am as Pro-Life as anybody on this discussion thread... But what the hell does the TTC have to do with abortion??? All of you people who can't stay on topic might think about just reading the posts, and waiting until the DMN publishes an article on your favorite topic, and THEN get busy with posting your opinions ON that TOPIC! No disrespect intended. Recommend this Comment 1Report Abuse Posted by Nona313 | 1 day ago Not moving forward with this unpopular project should free up some of the funding appropriated for this project to fix some of our bridges and overpasses that are in need of repair. 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