Check the Tx Dot website for Public Hearings from July 10 to Aug 10.
Turn out to voice your opinion against this major private sector land grab to pave over a million acres of rural Texas.
NB: It will connect to Interstate and other major highways. However, by design it will not provide easy, if any, access to the communities it passes by. It will not spur commercial development along its frontage like our Interstate Highways. There will be no frontage. There will be no opportunity for the owners of property it abuts to develop new or expanded businesses with access to the Corridor. Moreover, it has provisions in the plan and the law to place all possible traveler services on the corridor itself.
"I am concerned about what this could do to the county."
Richard Cortese, Bell County Commissioner [more]
Every mile of Corridor will consume 146 acres of land. That's property that will become state owned land - removed from county and school district tax rolls everywhere it extends.
Communities with travel and tourism based economies will lose access to those travelers. If the Corridor is successful in attracting traffic away from existing highways communities will suffer significant economic loses.
"With a right-of-way approximately 1,200-feet-wide, the proposed corridor
could change the face of agriculture in Texas forever as it
swallows up thousands of production acres of farmland."
Juliet Briskin, Country World News (November 4, 2004) [link]
What Is The Trans Texas Corridor?
The Trans Texas Corridor is an all-Texas superhighway that is planned to include tollways for passenger vehicles and trucks, passenger bullet trains, commuters trains, high-speed freight trains, pipelines of all types, and electrical transmission towers. Plans also include gas stations, garages, restaurants, hotels, stores, billboards, warehouses, freight interchange, intermodal transfer areas, passenger train stations, bus stations, parking facilities, dispatch control centers, maintenance facilities, pipeline pumping stations, and of course, toll booths.
The Trans Texas Corridor is the largest engineering project ever proposed for Texas. The corridor will far exceed any public works project in the states history. This statewide network of corridors will stretch 4,000 miles and measure up to 1,200 feet wide.
Each segment of the corridor will contain:
Six 12-foot Passenger Vehicle Lanes (80mph); 112-feet in aggregate width with shoulders.
Four 13-foot Truck Lanes; 84-feet in aggregate width with shoulders.
Two Tracks for 200mph High-Speed Passenger Rail. (All depots are contained within the corridor.)
Two Tracks for 80mph Commuter Passenger Rail.
Two Tracks for 80mph Freight Rail.
A 200-foot Utility Zone for large underground water lines, natural gas and petroleum pipelines, telecommunication cables and overhead high-voltage electric transmission lines.
Operational Maintenance Zone.
Safety Zones sufficient to accommodate future roadway expansion.
http://www.corridorwatch.org/ttc/index.htm#
http://www.corridorwatch.org/ttc/cw-membership.htm