12.15.06

Where Will The TTC Go Through Williamson County? Read This

Posted in Road Issues, Williamson County at 11:36 am by wcnews

Below the fold, is a LTE from Susan Garry (reprinted here with her permission) to the Taylor Daily Press regarding their post election coverage and the comments they published form Rep. Mike Krusee. You can see my thoughts on the issue here (Karen Felthauser commented on the post). It’s important to note that one of the reason Rep. Krusee has lost so much support is not only because of this stance on this issue, but also because of the indifference he shows to this constituents opinions and the condescending manner in which he treats them and their opinions, as well just flat out dismissing their views. It’s like he’s saying, “Uncle Mike knows best, don’t worry yourself about it”. As if he’s the only one that knows what’s going on. I encourage you to read Susan Garry’s letter below, she knows quite a bit.

Your election coverage included the following statement from our state representative Mike Krusee. Krusee, the Republican incumbent who was reelected with barely 50 percent of the vote (50.45 percent to Karen Felthauser’s 44.21 percent), stated:

“There are still people frightened about the Trans-Texas Corridor because of a lot of misinformation floating around out there. In the coming months people will come to understand SH 130 will be Williamson County’s Trans-Texas Corridor.”

I would be very interested to hear Rep. Krusee’s explanation of his statement. The “misinformation” that is causing us stupid constituents to be “frightened” is the published information from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Federal Highway Administration, and Cintra, the Spanish corporation that is planning the Corridor. Perhaps all these official sources would be interested to know that their thousands of pages of documents and maps are being referred to as “misinformation.”

I would like to refer readers to some of these documents to see for themselves what is information and what is “misinformation.”

I realize that SH 130 is the likely route for automobiles through Williamson County. However, the corridor is so much more than a highway for cars. The description of the corridor in the TxDOT material that was approved by the Federal Highway Administration and that was handed out at this past summer’s corridor public hearings includes separate lanes for truck traffic, six rail lines and a zone for pipelines and utilities. The total width is 1,200 feet, about one-fourth mile.

This material is online at TxDOT’s corridor Web site, keeptexasmoving.com. Click on “download handout” in the fourth item listed.

The SH 130 right-of-way will not hold all of these corridor elements. All of these additional elements will have to go somewhere else.

You can see the corridor layout and drawings of the roadway and rail components in “Crossroads of the Americas: Trans Texas Corridor Plan,” (pdf) Report Summary, page 19, also on keeptexasmoving.com, in the “News & Library” section.

The most recent material showing the corridor coming through Williamson County with all the elements of roadways, six rail lines and utility zone is the Corridor Master Development Plan from Cintra. You can see this plan on keeptexasmoving.com by clicking on New Master Development Plan.

You can see the map of the routes criss-crossing Eastern Williamson County by clicking on Chapter 2: Universe of Facilities (pdf) and going to page 11, Map 7.

You can see the aerial maps of this huge corridor cutting through our area by scrolling down to the Appendices to Volumes 3 and 4-Appendix 11: Schematics (Click here, at the bottom of the master plan). Click on the black dots to see aerial views of Cintra’s Corridor plan.

Look at the group of black dots to the east of Austin. Click on the top right dot of this group, which is the route just to the west of Taylor crossing Highway 79. This is the series of aerial maps showing the corridor going just to the west of Taylor and Coupland.

Click on the black dot to the north of this first dot. This is the dot between Temple and Austin, the right-hand dot. This shows the Temple to Taylor section. Click on the last item, Schematic 8, to see the rail and utility zones going from north to south just to the east of Taylor.

If these wide corridors go just west and/or just east of Taylor, they will have very limited local access and will not have access roads like the interstate. Thus, Taylor will be cut off from this traffic, without new business development, while all this land is taken out of the local tax base by condemnation.

The aerial views carry the disclaimer, “Conceptual map used for cost estimating purposes. This is not the route of the Trans-Texas Corridor.” However, Cintra must have had some idea where it wanted to put the corridor, and they decided to show it where they have rather than some other place for some reason.

Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, has said, “If you aggressively invite the private sector to be your partner, you can’t tell them where to build the road.” And even if this is not the exact corridor route through Williamson County, it does show that Cintra is planning to build all the elements of roads, rail lines and utility zone.

There is not room along SH 130 for truck lanes, six rail lines, power lines, pipelines and other utilities.

I sincerely would like to know why Rep. Krusee has said what he has about the entire corridor in Williamson County being SH 130 and that all the material that is coming from TxDOT, the Federal Highway Administration and Cintra is “misinformation.” I would love for that to be true, but I have a sneaking suspicion that these agencies and a corporation that intends to make a big profit would not be spending millions on planning all the corridor elements – truck lanes, six rail lines and utility zone – if they didn’t intend to build them.

Sincerely,

Susan Garry

Coupland

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