With the exception of one letter whose author seems to misunderstand the lawsuit to stop 281, the Letters to the Editor in the Express-News today hit all the major points! The message is getting out there, thanks to all of YOU!
As to Peggy’s concerns…TxDOT has not complied with existing law and they have FAILED to do the proper environmental impact statement required for this project. TxDOT and YOUR elected officials have IGNORED the public outcry about this project and have left the voters no choice but to bring this into court to force them to follow the law and offer alternatives to this toll road scheme they’re ramming through without a VOTE! Those improvements we so desperately need on US 281 have been delayed by TxDOT (not concerned citizens and we have TxDOT’s plans to prove it) for two years already to turn it into a massive, excessively large 16 lane toll corridor. The ONLY reason for turning this 12 lane project into a 16 lane project is to make it a toll road. They’re adding 4 extra lanes and building a bottleneck at 281/1604 just to get us to pay toll taxes. They’re paving these 4 extra lanes over our sole source of water which is highly vulnerable to vehicle emissions because of the lack of natural filtration with a karstic aquifer.There are serious, legitimate concerns about the impact of this project. The lawsuit forces them to put forth and consider alternatives to this toll project.
TxDOT’s ORIGINAL plan was set to begin work in 2004 and would be near completion already. Your safety concerns would already be addressed if TxDOT had stuck with their less expensive, less invasive ORIGINAL plan for 281, but now they want to empty our pockets with totally uneccessary toll taxes for generations. BOTH of TxDOT’s plans are FULLY PAID FOR with YOUR GAS TAX money. It’s indefensible as to why they’d toll an exitsing highway and a highway where even the improvements are paid for as well. We should NOT have to pay a lifetime of toll taxes on a highway that’s already PAID FOR. Because they refuse to do the fiscally and environmentally responsible thing according to the law, they will now answer to a judge.
Great letters Mike, Dave, Jeff, and Santiago! Tollers, including Judge Wolff, need to be escorted from office next year!
Read the Letters to the Editor here.