The Trans Texas Corridor: A Bold Plan for Texas’ Future

The Trans Texas Corridor is a fiscally responsible and innovative transportation blueprint that will improve our state’s transportation needs, move the transport of hazardous materials out of urban population centers, reduce air pollution and significantly improve opportunities for economic development and job creation in Texas.  While your editorial of Feb. 9 touched on a few specifics of my proposal, I wanted to take time to give your readers a more thorough understanding of the benefits of the plan.

The Trans Texas Corridor will reduce traffic congestion in three ways.  First, the Corridor will include a fast, safe and reliable rail system that will allow Texans and Texas businesses to move from vehicle to rail if they chose to.  Second, segments of the Corridor will be located parallel to existing congested highways, giving Texans an alternative corridor between destinations.  The corridor also will provide cross-state traffic with an alternative route around urban centers.

Last year, state lawmakers – working in a cooperative, bipartisan spirit – overwhelmingly voted  to establish the tools that allow Texas to take such a bold approach.  And in last fall’s constitutional amendment election, 67 percent of voters approved the financing tools needed to create and pay for these corridors.  We now have the ability to attract billions of dollars of private investment in toll roads with a small commitment of state transportation funds, and the ability to contract with a company to build an entire corridor – not one small piece of road at a time as funds become available.

These new tools are even more important in these times of declining federal highway funds and tightening state resources, because they allow Texas to stretch limited tax dollars to get maximum benefit.

With this plan, the Trans Texas Corridor will be financed in large part with private investment – not through new or increased taxes.  If, however, the legislature decides that the Corridor is a priority it may place revenue in the Mobility Fund to accelerate the completion of the Corridor -- particularly in areas of the state where smaller traffic volumes make toll roads less viable

Railroads and utility companies also have natural incentives to participate in the Trans Texas Corridor.  Existing railroad track is fraught with safety problems, including the transport of hazardous materials through city centers and the existence of thousands of grade crossings where accidents are routinely risked.  The Trans Texas Corridor will remove the dangers of existing rail lines and the tremendous liability that accompanies those dangers.  And by moving the rail corridors outside our population centers – where trains often must slow to about 10 miles per hour – the Corridor will speed the movement of people and products while increasing the safety of our residents.

Utility companies endure a multitude of legal and procedural hurdles to run a new power or pipeline across private properties.  They also risk tremendous liability when their lines run through neighborhoods, by schools, and in downtown urban centers.  The Trans Texas Corridor will provide a pre-existing corridor outside of the cities for future utility expansions  easing the right-of-way process and greatly increasing the safety of our citizens.

The Texas Department of Transportation also projects that it will need to purchase the same amount of right-of-way over the next 75 years using the current piecemeal approach as will be required for the Trans Texas Corridor.  With the Trans Texas Corridor, however, land will be purchased one time, minimizing the disruption to landowners, businesses and drivers instead of buying one expensive piece of land at a time every time a road needs to be expanded. Because the Corridor will have limited access, it will not create sprawl or compete with nearby communities for businesses.

The Trans Texas Corridor will help with the state’s air quality problems in two ways.  First, it will route some traffic out of our large urban areas that already have air quality attainment problems.  Simply expanding our existing interstate system will merely increase pollution by adding even more vehicles to our already congested highways. Secondly, it will provide a low emission alternative – rail – for both passengers and freight.

I have also asked the Texas Department of Transportation and Texas Land Commissioner David Dewhurst to work together to propose environmental mitigation on a grand scale.  In exchange for any disruption that the corridors might cause, the state would set aside for preservation large tracts of land which include entire ecosystems.

Some might ask if this plan is too big. I believe nothing is too big for Texas when our economic security, our environment, and our quality of life are at stake.  The Trans Texas Corridor will improve economic security for Texas.  It will increase safety on our highways by relieving congestion and by taking hazardous transport vehicles out of our city centers. It will lead to a cleaner environment by expanding low-emissions alternatives - like rail - by lowering the concentration of emissions in our cities, and by significantly increasing pipeline safety.

The citizens of our state are ready for a new way to plan and build a transportation system.