TxDOT Seeks Trans-Texas Corridor Input
By Allen Essex, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas
Oct. 10–AUSTIN — Future travel across the Lone Star State in a car, or even in a bullet train or monorail, are all being considered as part of the planning for Interstate Highway 69 and the Trans-Texas Corridor.
Texas Department of Transportation officials briefed news media Tuesday on the upcoming environmental study and public hearings for the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, a route for travel and freight hauling by truck or rail being developed to handle Texas’ population boom.
The development of the Trans-Texas Corridor will not affect plans to designate both U.S. Highway 77 and U.S. Highway 281 as legs for I-69, connecting the Rio Grande Valley with Interstate 37 near Corpus Christi, TxDOT officials said.
The push for the extension of I-69 to connect the Texas/Mexico border with the Midwest began in 1994, said Gaby Garcia, TxDOT spokeswoman.
I-69 has existed for about 30 years from Indianapolis up through Michigan to the Canadian border.
The purpose of establishing the Trans-Texas Corridor is to provide enough land in the future along the route for whatever types of transportation that will be needed, whether it is conventional highways, separate passenger car or truck routes, conventional railroad or high-speed rail, monorail or whatever is appropriate in any portion of Texas along the route, said Doug Booher, environmental manager for TxDOT’s Turnpike Authority Division.
Much of the proposed route for I-69 includes the U.S. Highway 59 route, but a tentative route that bypasses Houston to the west is included on the tentative Trans-Texas Corridor map, Garcia said. That was included in national planning for the I-69 route, she said.
The Trans-Texas Corridor and I-69 projects were merged in 2002 and an environmental study began in 2004, Garcia said.
Through public hearings and input by mail and e-mail, TxDOT has narrowed areas for the route from a path 20 to 60 miles wide down to a route of a half-mile to 4 miles wide, Garcia said.
“We are now in the process of reviewing all those comments that we have gotten from the public,” she said. “The public comment period is still open. We continue to get comments in via the Web site and via the mail on what the public would like to see and on what their comments would be, environmental-wise, on this project.”
The purpose of the comment period is to further narrow down the study area for a possible route for TTC/I-69, Garcia said.
Funding for the TTC and I-69 project will likely come from a toll road operation, but if federal funds become available, there could be some sort of mixture of the two funding sources, said Randall Dillard of TxDOT. The federal highway trust fund has been dwindling, he said.
The need for high-volume transportation routes is urgent since 1,000 people a day are moving into Texas, Dillard said.
Mario Jorge, Pharr District engineer, said possible participation by private companies in the TTC/I-69 project is still being considered, especially in the route south of Refugio.
It isn’t possible to predict traffic flows farther than 20 years into the future, but 15,000 to 17,000 cars a day are now using U.S. 77 and U.S. 281 in South Texas, Jorge said.
About 2 or 3 percent growth per year is expected in the next 20 years, he said.
More local public hearings will be announced in the next year in the area along the proposed route, Garcia said.
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