WIth Governor Rick Perry firmly entrenched for the forseeable future, the Trans-Texas Corridor is considered to be a lock. This was a divisive issue in the 2006 gubenatorial campaign which had the effect of pushing some long-time Republican supporters into the Libertarian camp.
This is a case of eminent domain on a massive scale and could be a huge loss in our ever-eroding rights. What Perry orignally touted as a free trade, and Texas Transportation boon is looking more and more like a concession to the new politics of multi-national corporation$. Though Perry remains in office and the deals already in place with Cintra-Zachry are likely to go forward, the TTC is bound for a rocky road with protests from increasingly active, and increasingly populist rural Texans.
The transportation engineers with whom I have contact make no bones about the fact that a project of this size is needed to accomodate our transportation needs. I wonder though, if we've done enough "outside-the-box" thinking on this project. Besides the rural land grabs, another big concern with TTC in urban areas is where are you going to put a ten-lane highway? Enter the Tunnel Boring Machine. Perhaps even one like this; a similar one is being used to put a commercial transportation artery through the Swiss Alps. This worm-like tunnel factory drills, reinforces and builds a water-tight concrete wall as it passes below the surface, leaving all of that valuable surface space for personal property ownership.
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