Link to article here.

Fire Chiefs: Toll Road barriers put some at risk
Officials worry barrels will hamper rescue workers ability to reach crash victims
South Bend Tribune
August 25, 2006

GRANGER (AP) — Fire officials are questioning the safety of barriers recently placed along the Indiana Toll Road’s emergency turnarounds by the highway’s new private operator, warning that they could hamper their ability to reach crash victims.

Maintenance crews for the toll road’s private operator, ITR Concession Co., recently placed barriers of sand-filled barrels along the 157-mile roadway’s emergency turnarounds.

Matt Pierce, a spokesman for ITR Concession, said the barrels were placed along the turnarounds — located on the medians between eastbound and westbound lanes — to prevent unauthorized vehicles from using them and causing accidents.

But Liberty Township Fire Chief Bill Branham and other fire chiefs fear the barrels could threaten emergency responders’ ability to reach crash victims, because the responders will lose precious minutes moving the barrels out of the way.

“Time is of the essence if someone is in a traffic accident with a car on fire or something like that,” Branham said Wednesday.He and other fire chiefs said they were not told about the barrels ahead of time, and only discovered them during the past week.

ITR Concession is a subsidiary of an Australian-Spanish consortium, Macquarie-Cintra, that won the bidding for the roadway’s 75-year tolling rights with a $3.8 billion bid in January.

Branham said his department has had no direct contact with ITR Concession since it took over the toll road’s operation at the end of June.

And Portage Fire Chief Bill Lundy said he only heard about the barrels “through the grapevine.”

He has since inspected those in his territory and said he only got the full story by calling Indiana State Police.Pierce said the center barrels on the turnarounds are filled with only 100 pounds of sand and can be quickly moved by firefighters. But firefighters said it’s not that simple.

For example, Hammond Assistant Chief Pat Moore said large fire trucks on the toll road travel in pairs, with the rear truck slowing traffic so the lead truck has room to swing out and make the turn into the emergency turnaround.

With the barrels in place, both trucks would have to stop, firefighters would have to get out, move the barrels, and get back on.

“It just isn’t so simple or safe,” Moore said.

Pierce said firefighters from St. Joseph, LaGrange and Elkhart counties were briefed Wednesday on the situation and the new barriers at toll road headquarters in Granger.He said all of the barrels will be replaced by the end of September with flexible fiberglass poles with reflectors. Emergency responders will be instructed in how to drive over them.

The decision to place those poles was discussed at the Indiana Toll Road Oversight Board’s Aug. 9 meeting, Pierce said.

Three of board’s seven members are top aides to Gov. Mitch Daniels.

The Aug. 9 meeting was only publicized by a notice posted on the door at toll road headquarters two days before. State officials have promised to better publicize future meetings.

See the screen grab from his campaign web site that’s now been pulled down here (scroll down to “Improving Transportation”).

Perry’s Contradictions

First Perry claimed the TTC Hearings were to solicit alternatives (read the WOAI story here). Then Comptroller and Gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn delivers viable alternatives even vetted by TxDOT in 1999 and 2001. Then Perry dismisses the alternatives out of hand calling them bad science fiction. Out of one side of his mouth he says the point of the hearings was to solicit alternatives (versus gain public input on the project), and then out of the other side of his mouth through his Transportation Chair Ric Williamson says “the TTC is the ONLY feasible option.” So which is it? Apparently Williamson forgot to check his own department’s previous studies that Strayhorn is now presenting as alternatives to the TTC.

They also claim there are no signed contracts, but it’s public knowledge that there is a SECRET contract with Cintra-Zachry that the Attorney General has ordered opened (read about it here). TxDOT also claimed at the hearings that TTC construction has NOT begun, yet Perry’s own campaign web site said construction began in 2005 (now that text has been removed, see the link to it above). So again, which is it? These are more than contradictions, it seems to be a blatant attempt to mislead the public on just about every aspect of these toll corridors. Bottom line: For Perry, all roads lead to toll roads in the hands of foreign companies. He’s ignoring the public, viable alternatives, and he’s sold out to special highway interests to the detriment of all Texans.

Link to article here. This also appeared top of the fold on the front page in the Express-News today.

Again, Rick Perry just doesn’t get it. He thinks 14,000 angry Texans turning out to oppose his corridor are just a few ants on an anthill. He thinks the urban areas in Dallas and Houston are all he needs to win re-election, so he’s not concerned with representing ALL Texans and heeding the will of the rest of the state. That sort of thinking may help him sleep at night, but it’s not in the realm of reality.

Perry also dismisses out of hand Strayhorn’s alternative plan, calling it prohibitively expensive and impractical. What does he call his $186 billion corridor if not prohibitively expensive and impractical (making ranchers and school busses go miles out of the way just to get to the other side of this corridor)? Texans certainly recognize the need for relief on I-35, they can oppose the corridor and offer up alternatives, but for Perry, all roads lead to toll roads in the hands of foreign companies. He refuses to consider ANYTHING else, and his explanations are arrogant and ring hollow to an angry and fed-up electorate.
What this article says is that even in Dallas, the people reject the corridor because it’s a massive toll road with NO public vote and little public input (all negotiated in secret). Houston officials rejected Perry’s public highway privatization scheme and voted NO to selling off their tollway to foreign interests. Honestly, Perry has his head in the sand if he thinks Houstonians and Dallas residents are going to give him a free pass on this issue. The corridor and HB 3, a whole new tax on businesses’ gross receipts, will sink him in the urban areas as much as the corridor is sinking him in the rural areas. November 7, Texans are going to send him home!

TRANS-TEXAS CORRIDOR
Perry’s vision for rural highway could become a political pothole
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
Aug. 23, 2006

AUSTIN – One out of every eight votes in Rick Perry’s margin of victory in the 2002 race for governor came from the rural counties along the Interstate 35 path of Perry’s proposed Trans-Texas Corridor.

Now, as he seeks re-election, Perry’s long-range transportation vision may be turning into a political liability for the Republican chief executive.

More than 14,000 Texans — almost all opposed to the Trans-Texas Corridor — turned out at Texas Department of Transportation public hearings this summer to express their displeasure with the highway and the governor.

“I’d like to admit that I made one big mistake in my life. I voted for Rick Perry,” Rogers-area farmer Leonard Cobb testified at one hearing.

All four of Perry’s re-election challengers oppose the corridor. Democrat Chris Bell, independent Kinky Friedman and Libertarian James Werner all have spoken out against it. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, running as an independent, attended many of the hearings and called the project the “Trans-Texas Catastrophe” while promising to stop Perry’s “land-grabbing highway henchmen.”

One of Perry’s fellow Republicans on the statewide ballot — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison — also has criticized the project, saying it imposes too heavily on rural landowners.

The Republican Party of Texas in June passed a plank in its platform calling for the repeal of legislation authorizing the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Farm Bureau — a longtime Perry political supporter — wants the state to scrap the project.

The ‘blue line’
A dozen alternative routes for Trans-Texas Corridor 35 are under consideration. The toll road corridor would run parallel to Interstate 35 through rural areas from Oklahoma to Laredo, bypassing city congestion to become the new trade highway.Many of those at the hearings referred to the top alternative on the color map of the Trans-Texas Corridor as the “blue line,” a pathway of eminent domain that would take homes and farms and churches for a toll road that likely would be built by a consortium headed by a Spanish company.

Farmers contend the 600-mile long swath will cause the condemnation of about 136 square miles of land, could divide farms and force rural school buses to go miles out of the way to get from one side of the corridor to the other. Many local officials fear it will remove land from their local property tax base.

“This lipstick has already been put on this pig. Now the only way to stop this boondoggle is to send Rick Perry home in November,” Mark Wilson testified at a Waco hearing.

Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said the corridor concept is the only feasible means of easing congestion on state highways while guaranteeing future expansion when needed.

“For every 14,000 people who congregate and protest, there are 1.4 million in downtown Dallas and Fort Worth that recognize congestion on 35 is a problem and somebody’s got to do something about it,” Williamson said.

Dallas-Fort Worth area officials have been generally neutral on the corridor concept, but questioned the specific plan because its route bypassed the cities and would have done little to relieve local congestion. Perry last Friday ordered the corridor study to include an alternative route proposed by local officials.

Dallas County Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, a Republican, said he thinks people in the Metroplex would largely oppose the plan because it relies heavily on tolls and has included little public input.

“I dare say, if you took a vote in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it would be voted down,” he said.

Two on drawing board The Trans-Texas Corridor is actually a series of new transportation corridors proposed across Texas that would be financed and built by private contractors and likely paid for with tolls. The corridors would probably be about 1,200 feet wide, to accommodate separate lanes for truck traffic, passenger traffic, freight rail, commuter rail and utilities.So far only two projects are even remotely on the drawing board. TTC69, which would run from Mexico north past Houston, likely using either the Grand Parkway or Beltway 8 as part of its route, is in the preliminary planning stage.

TTC35, running parallel to Interstate 35, is further along. The state has contracted with a consortium led by the Spanish company Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte to develop a master plan for the corridor. That plan is what has been the subject of public hearings and angst this summer.

“Fourteen thousand people is a nice turnout, but the fact of the matter is we’re looking for input, any better ideas,” Perry said of the hearings.

“Those that came out are just against — you know, the agin’ers. It’s easy to turn out a bunch of people who are just agin a particular project,” the governor said.

Perry said the population growth in the state and traffic congestion demands additional highways and that toll roads are a good way to pay for it. He said most of his political opponents have offered no alternatives, chiding Strayhorn for supporting the expensive double-decking of I-35 without explaining how to pay for it.

“As the chief executive officer of the state, as a person who has laid out a vision … I think it makes sense for most communities. I think it makes sense to build toll roads.”

But the road for Perry’s election may not be that easy on this issue.

‘Got some explaining to do’
On Monday, Strayhorn outlined a plan to scrap the project and improve I-35 in the existing right of way with additional lanes and double decking in places. Perry has contended that double-decking would be prohibitively expensive, but Strayhorn said it would be more appealing to affected Texans.State Rep. Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, the mother-in-law of Perry’s chief of staff, Deirdre Delisi, appeared at a Temple public hearing to say the state should concentrate on improving traffic flow on I-35 before seriously considering alternative highways through the countryside.

Gene Hall, spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau, said the farm and ranch organization is supporting Perry because he has been good for agriculture on a wide variety of issues. But he said the Farm Bureau opposes the Trans-Texas Corridor concept not only along I-35 but statewide.

Hall said it is difficult to know whether rural areas will abandon Perry over the issue.

“He’s got some explaining to do as far as the corridor is concerned,” Hall said.

Greg Gerig, a corn farmer and a director of the Blackland Coalition opposed to the corridor, said there is a feeling state officials have been arrogant.

“Perry has in effect said, ‘We don’t care what people at the hearings said; we’re going to build it anyway,’ ” Gerig said.

Perry said he thinks he can persuade voters to look at his entire record.

“If it is just a single-issue person who doesn’t want toll roads, I’ll do everything I can to explain to him why it is good, thoughtful public policy for the entire state of Texas,” Perry said.

“But I hope the vast number of people who go to vote look at an economy that … is doing as well as it has in a decade or better. I’m proud of the record I’ve run on.”

For Immediate Release:
Monday, Aug. 21, 2006
(512) 469-9393

(Austin) – On the final day the Texas Department of Transportation accepted comment on the Trans Texas Corridor, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Independent Candidate for Governor, today told the agency her administration will expand IH-35 using existing rights of way, implement the ports to plains initiative, expand her successful use of telecommuting and appoint an inspector general to oversee the agency and a transportation ombudsman to talk to Texans.

“This agency is not listening to the people,” Strayhorn said. “At 56 hearings over 21 days, TxDOT ignored the overwhelming majority of people who testified against the Trans Texas Catastrophe. They even went so far as to tell Texans that they could not stop this boondoggle – even if they elected a new governor.

“Well, they are dead wrong. I will blast this corridor off the bureaucratic books and replace it with a common-sense plan to address our transportation needs.

“My plan is a better approach than the Governor’s secret agreement with a company based in Madrid, Spain, to seize more than half a million acres of private Texas property and build toll roads across the state,” she said. “The Governor said if someone has a better idea then lay out that plan. Today, I am outlining a better plan – one that puts Texans first, not special interests.”

Strayhorn’s plan includes protecting Texas farm and ranch land, improving coastal evacuations, increasing capacity of existing freeways and railways, encouraging family-friendly telecommuting, and appointing an independent inspector general over TxDOT as well as an ombudsman to listen to the people.

“Texas property belongs to Texans, not foreign companies,” Strayhorn said. “To meet our transportation needs we need freeways not toll ways, and we must use existing rights of way and increase efficiency of existing roadways and ports. We must not destroy our precious farm and ranch land.”

Strayhorn testified against the Trans Texas Corridor at 14 public hearings held by the TxDOT, at which she detailed revenue sources available to the state instead of tolls. The Governor refuses to back off his Trans Texas Corridor plan, despite widespread opposition from Texans at the hearings.

“I stood with Texans from the Rio Grande Valley to the Red River who oppose the Governor’s attempt to seize land and build toll roads across Texas,” Strayhorn said. “I listened to the people of Texas and the people of Texas are overwhelmingly opposed to this $184 billion boondoggle.

“Texans deserve to hear the truth,” she said. “And the truth is much of the work to help Texans get from here to there has already been done.”

Strayhorn submitted three reports to TxDOT – their own 1999 state analysis calling for the expansion of IH 35 using existing rights of way, the Ports to Plains study that will relieve existing congestion by improving transportation from South Texas through West Texas using existing roads, and her recommendation to expand telecommuting.

“Family friendly telecommuting is up to 15 percent in my agency,” Strayhorn said. “The employees love it, it keeps folks off the road, and it works,” she said.

Strayhorn will:

· Increase capacity on IH-35 using existing rights of way without tolls and prioritize the West Texas Ports-to-Plains highway system;
· Appoint an independent inspector general and an ombudsman at TxDOT;
· Increase the use of Texas ports from Orange to Brownsville and improve rail and road systems from the coast to the interior of Texas;
· Improve and increase efficiency of the state’s rail system along existing rights of way; and
· Use telecommuting and staggered work schedules to ease traffic congestion and decrease pollution.

“Texas once had and can again have a freeway system that is the envy of the nation,” Strayhorn said. “I am adamantly opposed to any toll roads in Texas.”

Strayhorn’s transportation plan is part of her Texas First Agenda, a series of initiatives and solutions that she will be releasing in the coming weeks.

Statement of Carole Keeton Strayhorn August 21, 2006

· This is the last day the Texas Department of Transportation is accepting comments on the Trans Texas Corridor and I am outlining my transportation plan and submitting three documents I hope they will consider as they review this ill-conceived project.

· The documents show how we can expand IH-35 using existing right of ways, implement the ports to plains initiative and expand my successful use of telecommuting.

· As part of my plan, I am also announcing today that I will appoint an inspector general to oversee the agency and a transportation ombudsman to talk to Texans.

· This agency and the Austin establishment are not listening to the people. At 56 hearings over 21 days, TxDOT ignored the overwhelming majority of people who testified against the Trans Texas Catastrophe. They even went so far as to tell Texans that they could not stop this boondoggle – even if they elected a new governor.

· Well, they are dead wrong. I will blast this corridor off the bureaucratic books and replace it with a common-sense plan to address our transportation needs.

· My plan is a better approach than the Governor’s secret agreement with a company based in Madrid, Spain, to seize more than half a million acres of private Texas property and build toll roads across Texas. The Governor said if someone has a better idea then lay out that plan.

· I went to the hearings and I listened to the people and today I am outlining a better plan – one that puts Texans first, not special interests.

· My plan includes protecting Texas farm and ranch land, improving coastal evacuations, increasing capacity of existing freeways and railways, encouraging family-friendly telecommuting, and appointing an independent inspector general over TxDOT as well as an ombudsman to listen to the people.

· Texas property belongs to Texans, not foreign companies. To meet our transportation needs we need freeways not toll ways, and we must use existing rights of way and increase efficiency of existing roadways and ports. We must not destroy our precious farm and ranch land.

· I testified against the Trans Texas Corridor at 14 public hearings held by TxDOT, where I detailed revenue sources available to the state instead of tolls.

Four points — 4 billion dollars in Texas Mobility Bonds
An additional 3 billion dollars in revenue bonds
Increased federal dollars
And increased tax collection at the state level

· The Governor refuses to back off his Trans Texas Corridor plan, despite widespread opposition from Texans at the hearings.
· I stood with Texans from the Rio Grande Valley to the Red River who oppose the Governor’s attempt to seize land and build toll roads across Texas. I listened to the people of Texas and the people of Texas are overwhelmingly opposed to this $184 billion boondoggle.

· Texans deserve to hear the truth. And the truth is much of the work to help Texans get from here to there has already been done.

· Two of the reports I am sharing with the people of Texas and that I am sending to TxDOT are their own — a 1999 state analysis calling for the expansion of IH 35 using existing right of ways, let me make very clear, using existing right of ways without tolls, and the Ports to Plains study that will relieve existing congestion by improving transportation from South Texas through West Texas using existing roads, and without tolls, and my own recommendation to expand telecommuting.

· Family friendly telecommuting is up to 15 percent in my agency. The employees love it, it keeps folks off the road, and it works.

· My plan — I will:

1. Increase capacity on IH-35 using existing right of ways without tolls and prioritize the West Texas Ports-to-Plains highway system;
2. Appoint an independent inspector general and an ombudsman at TxDOT;
3. Increase the use of Texas ports from Orange to Brownsville and improve rail and road systems from the coast to the interior of Texas;
4. Improve and increase efficiency of the state’s rail system along existing right of ways; and
5. Use telecommuting and staggered work schedules to ease traffic congestion and decrease pollution.
Texas once had and can again have a freeway system that is the envy of the nation. I will make that happen.
6. I am adamantly opposed to any toll roads in Texas.

Link to article here.

Note: We do not believe we need to punish commuters by having them pay a “pain tax” just to drive to work. There are other more affordable, less invasive ways to solve congestion. See the “Non-toll Alternatives” page on our web site and this analysis of congestion tolling and how it’s unnecessary.

Also, note that Strayhorn’s former support for toll roads was specific to NEW toll roads, not Perry’s version of tolling existing highways and handing them over to foreign companies. Read more here.

Alternatives offered for Trans-Texas Corridor
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
08/21/2006

Gov. Rick Perry has challenged critics of his Trans-Texas Corridor to come up with a better plan, and on Monday, two alternatives were put forth.

Independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn said she would avoid any tolls in her effort to solve growing traffic congestion, and Environmental Defense officials said tolls could be used on existing roads to control traffic.

The proposals were submitted to state officials Monday, the last day for public comments on an environmental report to narrow a study area for the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment, a leg that would parallel Interstate 35 from Mexico to Dallas.

Perry envisions a 4,000-mile network of supercorridors with toll lanes, railways and utility lines crisscrossing the state in coming decades. Private companies would put up much of the financing in return for collecting user fees for up to 50 years.

At 56 public hearings in July and August, 13,851 people showed up, and most of the 1,103 speakers blasted Perry’s plan.

Strayhorn, who just five years ago talked about how tolls could speed up road projects and bring more economic benefits, spoke at 14 of the hearings and promised to wipe out Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor.

Strayhorn said Monday that she would forgo tolls and add lanes to I-35, which could mean double-decking in some places; step up plans for a port-to-plains highway through West Texas; increase use of Texas seaports; and improve other existing roads and rail corridors. She also said she would encourage telecommuting and staggered work schedules.

“Texas once had and can again have a freeway system that is the envy of the nation,” Strayhorn said. Perry’s campaign called her plan “bad science fiction” and listed reasons such as I-35 already being widened where it can be and how double-decking the freeway would cost $10 billion and take decades.

“Carole Strayhorn’s latest plan to solve Texas’ future transportation needs is so unrealistic she might as well have proposed using the transporter system from the Starship Enterprise,” spokesman Robert Black said.

Also, although Strayhorn said the state has billions of extra transportation dollars with Texas Mobility Fund bonds and revenue bonds and could boost collections of federal and state dollars, Black said $4 billion in mobility funds and $3 billion in revenue bonds are already earmarked.

Environmental Defense officials say building new highway lanes should be the last resort.

The group said the Trans-Texas Corridor would just promote sprawl, traffic growth and dependence on foreign oil and that it would harm air, water, farms, wildlife, human health and rural communities.

The group said a better strategy is to focus first on existing transportation networks, such as using tolls and signal-light timing to manage traffic flows, and on improving public transit. Such moves, together with clustering new homes and businesses into walkable centers, could reduce growing traffic.

“We think those things ought to happen first,” said Mary Sanger, an Environmental Defense researcher in Austin. “We don’t think they really addressed alternative ways of addressing congestion, traffic, mobility.”

Texas Department of Transportation officials declined to respond to Environmental Defense’s ideas, saying thousands of comments received for the corridor segment that will run beside I-35 will be analyzed in a report due next year.