You are getting to what is really behind this... a colossal act of corruption that will take hundreds of square miles of prime farmland and turn it into concrete, will turn those highways over to a foreign corporation, and we will get to pay for the privilege. Look to who profits from this. Follow the money. And Perry will crow about how he did it all without having to raise taxes. What, pray tell, is the toll? A tax, disguised in a dumpster full of political verbiage. We need more highways? We need those we have repaired? We need to restore a highway system that was once the envy of most of the rest of the world? Raise taxes to pay for it. Spend the damn money. Don't sell our state to a European corporation, who is, no doubt, spending a pile of money lobbying to get this sweetheart deal. Joni Mitchell sang that, "They pave paradise... put up a parking lot." Perry wants to pave paradise and put up an enormous concrete profit-making boondoggle that future generations will look at and say, "What the **** were they thinking??" Keep D&D Civil!!
Certainly not. I'd either a) not build it becuase it's a collosal waste of money hevily dependent on taking people's private property under the guise of manifest destiny (reference the current SC battle - this is similar since this is benefiting a corporation). {rant} F**k corporate charity - the PEOPLE of the United States have given enough privelidge to them already. {/rant} or b) build it with state money and toll it back from those who use it. You still won't pay for it unless you use it. and then at least you're not giving away money to some financial entity with billions already in the bank.
Its a very poor idea with $$$$$ being the catalyst of the entire project. Its constructed by a $$$$ driven Govenor that even most conservatives dislike. It doesnt make any sense at all. Plan B please........
You can't fly to Dallas when you have 1000 pounds of music equipment with you. The biggest issue is where the roads go - as always. I heard about this a while back with one section of road slicing the Big Thicket in half and cutting down 200-year-old trees to make way for concrete. Nevermind the path they wanted to cut straight through Big Bend. I don't necessarily have a problem with the general idea, but the devil is always in the details.
The flying cars are less than 10 years away. They won't remove the need for a freeway system, but it will remove the need for giant freeway system. And toll roads. Imagine: Houston to Dallas in 45 minutes with no traffic, no driving, no airports, in your own, private vehicle. -- droxford
I don't know about Southwest... I don't think they would do this to you, but here's what Continental did to me recently: OK, so we weren't extremely early for this flight. We weren't bothering to be there that early, since it was intra-Texas and we weren't checking any bags. But we were a little later than we planned. I thought we could just jump on the plane. But, since it was less than 30 minutes prior to takeoff (like 25), the computer wouldn't let us print out our pass. We went to the ticket counter and they said we were too late and rebooked us. This is just because of their stupid regulations - not because we couldn't have gotten on the plane before the rest of them finished boarding. We very well physically could have. The line for security wasn't that long. I don't think Southwest would do something like that to you. But I could be wrong. It may be another of those post-9/11 rules. Anyway, that's why you have to leave early for the airport: just because it's in their rules to make you sit there and wait. I don't know how that makes our planes any safer. It's a pain for those of us who live an hour away from the airport in the first place... ... and finding out we were going to miss our flight the other day was not good. I tried to explain to them that Ferdinand might be late for his own father's funeral, and I had the flu. So if you saw anyone throwing a screaming and crying fit in the San Antonio airport the other day, that was me.
I have flown literally hundreds of thousands of miles on Continental. I've shown up to the airport maybe twice without already having printed my boarding pass at home/work. This would have saved you this pain, plus you would have gotten to choose whichever seat you wanted.
Mostly, I despise toll roads. Infrastructure should be paid for with taxes. Use of the roads should be free. As for the users paying for it, that's not a winner. (1) The projected users will be freight trucks, so the toll will be paid by corporations, who will work that cost into the costs of their products which the populace will eventually pay. May as well levy a tax as far as my wallet is concerned. (2) They want to run road, rail, water, electricity, gas and fiber optics through the system. But, construction will be funded by tolls on drivers? If we can't pony up tax money for essential improvements like infrastructure -- which promotes the well-being and wealth of the whole state, rich and poor alike -- what should we be spending our money on? Drug rehab? Wars on foreign soil? Public parks? As laudable as things we spend tax money on may be, it cannot be as important as maintaining our infrastructure -- if these roads are so important as that. That's like spending money on clothes and neglecting food. I don't often drive the stretch from Dallas to Austin. But, would it be unfair to say that congestion is only a problem near metropolitan areas? Can we not build some sort of system to skirt the cities without building new superhighways through the sparsely inhabited parts of the state?
Good tip. Also, it's amazing what a little extreme niceness/flirtation will get you with the women (or probably men, in your case, Isabel) behind the counter. They're so used to people being assholes to them that they get thrown off guard when you're nice to them and they go out their way to help. If all else fails, just ask them to print you an itinerary and use that to get past security. Then get your boarding pass at the gate and hop on the plane. When I travelled for work, I typically got there between 10-30 minutes before take-off. In three years of travel, 2 flights a week, probably about 48-50 weeks a year, I missed 3 flights. A lot of it was luck, I'm sure, but the kissing up to the women at the computers never hurt.
That is the way to do it... if you can. There are some special ticket packages/ deals that won't let you print out your boarding pass. I don't know why.
JV, that's exactly what they are doing east of Austin, and Perry wants to have it as part of his "plan."
THANK YOU!!! This whole plan reeks of corruption and is completely unessecary. Think about the local towns and businees across the state in the rural areas that DEPEND on highway traffic for survival that will suffer because the superhighway will bypass them (because they're will be no exit ramps). Think about the taxable land it'll gobble up, forcing higher taxes for everybody else. Think about the enviornment, the shrinking countryside that'll it tear up to lay down this massive network of concrete. Think about the sparsely populated areas of texas that don't need a superhighway (anywhere in west texas). And think about the current highway system that is need of repairs and due for expansion in itself. And think about the 30-40 dollar toll that'll be imposed for anyone who wants to use it.
Here's an artice from TIME that might be of interest: Dec. 6, 2004 To�see�the�future�of�transportation in Texas, you have to drive out to the prairie north of Austin, past the sprawling plants of Dell and Samsung, to the farthest suburbs, where wild grass and cornfields nuzzle up to McMansions with their perfect green lawns. There, giant earthmovers, their wheels taller than a Texan in his boots, are ripping up the gummy, black soil to lay a 49-mile stretch of concrete tollway. State Highway 130, at a cost of $1.5 billion, is the biggest highway project under way in the U.S. today. It is also the first test in concrete for the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC)--a radical rethinking of the nation's Eisenhower-era roadways. The brainchild of Texas' Republican Governor, Rick Perry, the TTC would, if built, completely transform the state's highways over the next 50 years, creating a 4,000-mile network of multimodal corridors for transporting goods and people by car, truck, rail and utility line. Each corridor would have six lanes for cars, four additional lanes for 18-wheel trucks, half a dozen rail lines and a utility zone for moving oil and water, gas and electricity, even broadband data. The corridors could measure up to a quarter of a mile across. The projected cost, at least $183 billion, is more than the original price tag for the entire U.S. interstate system. But Texas, going it alone, is seeking private companies to take on the mammoth job of constructing, financing, operating and maintaining the network. To pay for the roads, developers will rely on a familiar but long-neglected method of financing: tollbooths. Depending on whom you talk to, the Trans-Texas Corridor is either an innovative solution to the U.S.'s overcrowded highway system or a Texas-size boondoggle. Backers claim that such corridors are needed to divert road and rail traffic — NAFTA truckers driving up from Mexico, railcars of Chinese goods from Western ports, hazardous cargoes of all kinds — from congested urban areas. Buying land for the system now, decades before it's needed, would cut acquisition costs and might entice businesses to relocate inside the corridors. T. Boone Pickens could ship his West Texas water across the state in pipelines through the corridors; oil and gas could be shipped north from Mexico; even high-speed passenger rail lines could become reality. "The Trans-Texas Corridor is not just a road, not just asphalt," says Perry. "It's a vision." Opponents of the corridor range from environmentalists (the Sierra Club has called it "evil") to the Texas Republican Party, which has urged the legislature to repeal it. Texas, which is losing more land to sprawl than any other state, would need more than 9,000 sq. mi. of right-of-way for the corridors, affecting critical wetlands and pristine prairie lands. The Big Thicket National Preserve, considered "the biological crossroads of North America" for its mix of habitats, was put on the list of most-endangered parks by the National Parks Conservation Association this year, in part because of the threat from the Perry plan. Environmentalists have found an unlikely ally in traditionally conservative landowners worried about property rights. David Langford, an activist for the Texas Wildlife Association, is organizing farmers and ranchers whose land could be cut in half or condemned by the Trans-Texas Corridor. An early plan for central Texas showed a corridor passing near the homestead Langford's family settled in 1851. With the state's new "quick claim" ability — granted under TTC legislation — his family homestead could be gone in 90 days, he says, transferred to private investors operating the corridor. Though he would be compensated financially, he's still steamed. "I can't believe Rick Perry's grandfather would want his house and ranch taken and turned over to Paris Hilton's family to build a hotel on one of these roads," he says. Local politicians are mobilizing too. The TTC legislation, passed after eight hours of debate, in June 2003, drew little attention until Republican activist David Stall, a former city manager of Columbus, in East Texas, discovered a notice for hearings buried in the ads for gravel and road-material bids. He was "horrified" to discover that the corridor, as a limited-access turnpike, would steal business his town gets from travelers. Today public officials from six counties along the corridor route have joined his grass-roots group, CorridorWatch, to oppose the TTC. "There is no legislative oversight, no elected officials overseeing the contracts to build and operate these toll roads," Stall complains. But the worst ruckus broke out in Austin last summer, when commuters realized that the "innovative" financing authorized by the Trans-Texas legislation meant they would start paying tolls. Traditionally, highways have been financed by gasoline-tax revenues. But that money now barely covers road maintenance, much less new construction, and raising gas taxes is as politically unpalatable in Texas as it is everywhere else. The state, for the first time, can go into debt by issuing bonds for new roads. Although those bonds can be paid back by a number of possible revenue sources (such as steeper fines for drunken driving), Texas policy now is to look first at tolling for all new highway projects. What's more, the TTC legislation allows existing roads, not just new ones, to be converted to tollways. "They can take any highway anywhere, anytime, and put a tollbooth there," says Sal Costello, whose group, AustinTollParty, argues that putting tollbooths on roads already paid for with gas taxes amounts to "double taxation" of commuters. The political outcry is having an effect. After Austin approved eight new toll projects for roads and bridges, a recall campaign was launched against the Democratic mayor and two city councilmen. "It's been a true grass prairie fire," says Brewster McCracken, one of the city councilmen targeted. He's now against conversions. Congress in the 1950s expressly rejected tolls as a way of financing the nation's interstate highways. But the Bush Administration, faced with an aging freeway system and a lack of money for building and maintenance, is rethinking the idea. Mary E. Peters, head of the Federal Highway Administration, has called Perry's TTC plan a "bold concept." President Bush has threatened to veto any increase in the nation's 18.4� gasoline tax and has expressed support for tolls on interstate highways. Other states, such as California, Missouri and Minnesota, are closely watching the Texas toll experiment. Perry, a farm boy from West Texas who studied animal science at Texas A&M University, sees the Trans-Texas Corridor as a way to make his mark by tackling the state's growing congestion. Urban rush-hour drivers were stuck in traffic for an average of 46 hr. in 2002, nearly triple the time in 1982, according to a study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute. Increasingly, tolls are seen as a way to reduce traffic. "We simply can't afford to build our way out of traffic congestion, so we have to better manage it," says Michael Replogle, transportation director of Environmental Defense, a nonprofit group that advocates "time-of-day tolling": tolls that would take effect during rush hours to discourage driving at peak times. The Trans-Texas Corridor has won accolades from conservatives like Wendell Cox, transportation guru at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who hails it as "the first serious innovative thinking in transportation in a half-century." Texas economist Ray Perryman estimates that the TTC could generate $135 billion in annual personal income for Texans and nearly 2.2 million jobs. But not everyone accepts his projection of $13 billion a year in revenues from the corridors. Kara Kockelman at the University of Texas' Center for Transportation Research warns that NAFTA-generated trade could decline and unforeseen crises, like the terrorist attacks in 2001, could affect travel. The state has had to buy back its first private toll road — promoted by a former Democratic candidate for Governor, Tony Sanchez — for $20 million. None of that has stopped an array of private companies from trying to get a piece of the new Texas road-building boom. Sometime in December, the Texas Transportation Commission, a five-member board appointed by the Governor, will award a $24 billion contract to develop proposals for the TTC's first multimodal corridor — a 600-mile stretch from Mexico to Oklahoma needed for NAFTA trucking and rail. In the running are three consortiums, one headed by the California-based Fluor Corp., another that includes Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary and a third headed by the Spanish tollway operator Cintra. Fluor got into the game early. It submitted an unsolicited bid for work on the Trans-Texas Corridor in early 2002, before there was even an approved state plan. "Our work on SH 130 is considered the TTC's precursor," says Fluor vice president Steve Dobbs. The toll issue could come back to haunt the Governor, who is up for re-election in 2006. Perry's hefty donations from construction firms have been noted by public watchdogs. Since 1997, he has received more than $1 million from highway interests, according to reports filed with the Texas ethics commission. Two Republican rivals — Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and state comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn — have opposed the tolling of existing roads. Perry now says he, too, is against conversions, but notes that those decisions are up to local authorities. Meanwhile, in the town of Hutto, north of Austin, the construction on State Highway 130 is a sign of things to come. Farmers no longer gather at the cotton gin, but the town's first national chain, Home Depot, has moved in. Mayor Mike Ackerman drives by the construction site every day on his way to work and is sanguine about the changing face of his town. "Anything we can do to get traffic moving north and south, we need to do," he says. The question is whether the rest of Texas agrees with him.
i remember when they considered building the super-fast train between dallas and houston...one of the reasons they didn't do it because of farm land between here and there. oh, well.
so you guys are seriously buying into the flying car thing? droxford isn't joking?? yeah...we do soooo well with cars actually on the ground...let's give everyone the right to fly though the air willy-nilly. sounds brilliant. can't wait till my 16 year old starts driving his plane-car around.
