Truth Be Tolled

Moratorium? What moratorium?

Toll road team awarded Trans-Texas Corridor project

By Michael Lindenberger

From the June 27th Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – State officials awarded a contract Thursday to a private toll road team that has promised to put the remaining pieces in place for Gov. Rick Perry's expansive vision for the Trans-Texas Corridor, a network of superhighways stretching 1,140 miles.

The $5 million contract approved by the Texas Transportation Commission gives the team led by Texas construction powerhouse Zachry American Infrastructure and another firm, ACS of Spain, responsibility for planning billions of dollars' worth of new highways, rail lines and other projects. The team will have 18 months to add details to a plan that will begin with construction on 10 new toll roads – including eight in South Texas – by 2015.

Those roads could cost close to $3 billion, and seven of them will be clustered near U.S. Highway 77 in South Texas. Whoever builds those roads will use the toll revenues to pay for an additional $1 billion in improvements to Highway 77, making it the first interstate-quality highway in the Rio Grande Valley.

"The proposal includes innovative plans that would finally extend the interstate system into South Texas," said Transportation Commission Chairwoman Deirdre Delisi.

The Trans-Texas Corridor is the centerpiece of Mr. Perry's proposal to stretch highways, rail lines and utilities from top to bottom of the Lone Star State. The contract awarded Thursday involves half of that project. It's the 600 miles that will become Texas' portion of one of the largest federal highway programs in the country, the southern extension of Interstate 69. That interstate now runs from Canada to Indianapolis, but will eventually stretch to the Mexican border.

The other half of the corridor, a 540-mile north-south stretch running roughly parallel to Interstate 35, is already under development by Cintra, another large Spanish-based toll road operator. Cintra has already expanded its role beyond that of master planner and has moved ahead with plans to build the first private toll road near Austin, extending State Highway 130.

Under the terms of Cintra's initial $3.5 million planning contract, similar to the one awarded Thursday for the I-69 segment, the company was able to win TxDOT approval to build the Austin toll road without having to compete against other toll road developers. It is covering the entire cost of the road, and in return will collect escalating tolls there for 52 years.

Toll road critics, who have loudly denounced the Trans-Texas Corridor for years, reacted bitterly to the contract, which one group called a "monopolistic sweetheart deal."

"If this isn't a wake-up call to the Legislature that it's business as usual at TxDOT until they forcibly restrain them via state law, we don't know what is," said Terri Hall, founder of Texans United for Reform and Freedom. Her group opposes Mr. Perry's continued push to pay for Texas transportation needs through privatization and toll roads.

"This removes any requirement for competitive bidding, which on its face is an absolute failure of the state's fiduciary duty,"she said.

Lawmakers had attempted to slow down the state's rush to private toll roads during the 2007 session, though they've also refused to raise taxes to provide funds for the road-building that TxDOT is running out of money to pay for.

When they return in January, they're expected to weigh whether to rescind TxDOT's authority to enter into the private toll contracts at all. TxDOT officials said they hope to compromise with lawmakers.

Lawmakers urge removal of I-69 from TTC

From KLBJ Radio

A group of Houston-area representatives in Washington are urging the Texas Transportation Commission to remove I-69 from the state's plan for the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. 

Congressman Kevin Brady leads the group of nine lawmakers urging Deirdre Delisi, the chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, to leave what is now US 59, the future I-69, off the Corridor list of highways. 

Brady tells News Radio 590 KLBJ adding I-69 to the TTC plan was a mistake from the onset and hopes the Texas Transportation Commission, with its new leadership, will listen to the recommendations of his Congressional Delegation.

Mr. Thirty-Nine Percent's 'reality'

By R. G. Ratcliffe

From the San Antonio Express-News

AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry said he will seek re-election in 2010.

During a break in the Republican Governor's Association meeting in Grapevine Thursday, Perry said he would like to return as governor.

A reporter asked him if the 2010 Republican gubernatorial field would include himself as well as U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, according to The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in stories posted to their online editions Thursday.

"I don't know about them, but it will be Perry in 2010," Perry responded.

"I don't know about the other two. You need to ask them."

Hutchison has strongly indicated that she will run but has vacillated as to whether she actually is in the race.

Dewhurst also has indicated that he would like to run for the office.

Perry became governor in December 2000 when then-Gov. George W. Bush resigned to become president. Perry won election in 2002 and re-election in 2006.

In the second contest, he defeated three opponents to win with 39 percent of the vote.

Hutchison issued a statement Thursday that said, “I am encouraged by the growing number of Texans asking me to return home to run for Governor to provide leadership for our state. It is too early to make an announcement about the 2010 race. Right now I remain committed to serving the people of Texas in the United States Senate and helping our Republican candidates win crucial elections this fall.”

Perry spokesman Robert Black confirmed the governor’s statements, but said: “It's nothing he hasn't talked about before.”

Perry has spoken about the possibility of running for re-election in 2010 before, but this is the first time that he has flatly stated that he will run.

Texas Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said that "after five years of absolute and failed Republican rule" in Texas there was no reason to think Perry would do any better with voters in 2010 than he did in 2006.

"Today, Gov. Perry's announcement that he will seek reelection in 2010 signaled that he may want to serve as Governor for life, but in 2006, a 61 percent majority of Texans already said they want someone else, and he's done nothing to inspire Texans’ confidence since then,” Richie said.

TTC public comment deadline extended

By Matthew Stoff

From The Daily Sentinel

Following a request from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, The Texas Department of Transportation announced Monday a 30-day extension on the deadline to submit public comments about the controversial Trans Texas Corridor project.

Gabriela Garcia, TxDOT's public information officer, said by telephone that the public will have until April 18 to send the state agency comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

"We were wanting to make sure that the public had more opportunity to comment on the document, and we also had received a request from Senator Hutchison to do so," Garcia said.

Substantive comments on the document, which defines the possible routes for the proposed 10-lane highway, will be addressed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement. Release of that document may be delayed if there is a large number of additional comments, Garcia said.

So far the agency says it has received over 14,000 comments on the DEIS.

Eminent domain use on the rise

By Carlos Guerra

From the San Antonio Express-News

In the Rio Grande Valley, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sued dozens of individuals, local governments and agencies for refusing to grant it "access" to their land so it can take it for the border wall.

After refusing access to her 3-acre plot, Eloisa Tamez was sued. She countersued and a federal judge has ordered DHS to negotiate with her in good faith.

Hundreds of miles north, in one of the Hill Country's most pristine ranches, Martha, Mary and Bebe Fenstermaker are girding for their fifth legal battle since 1989 to keep their land.

The city, Bexar County and the San Antonio River Authority want it for a dam to control flooding downstream by flooding the sisters' modest home sites, and much of the rest of their ranch, a federally registered historic district dotted with 19th-century limestone structures.

Then, there are the thousands who have found all or parts of their farms and ranches under thick lines on Texas Department of Transportation maps. TxDOT wants their land for the Trans-Texas Corridor, which will take as many as 8,000 miles of land in 1,200-foot-wide swathes for privately operated utility easements, multi-lane toll roads and railroad tracks.

These are just a few of the reasons "eminent domain" is appearing more often in Texas news reports. And as we get more Texans — but not more land — expect to hear more about governments using eminent domain to fix earlier mistakes — and for less noble purposes.

Governments' seizure powers predate our nation. Based on the notion that the sovereign owns all its territory and landholders own only an interest in the land's use, Common Law empowered monarchs to take whatever they wanted.

When America's colonies gained independence, they assumed eminent domain powers by proclaiming themselves the new sovereigns. In 1791, the U.S. Constitution was amended and eminent domain was implicitly recognized — but also limited — in the Fifth Amendment, which states, "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."

By 1829, however, the U.S. Supreme Court redefined "public good" by allowing states to empower private railroads to seize land. By 1954, this relaxation led the high court to let the District of Columbia take properties that were not blighted along with others nearby that were and hand them all to private parties for profitable redevelopment.

And in 2005, the court allowed New London, Conn., to seize a totally unblighted neighborhood and sell it to a private developer for a project city fathers believe will bring the city greater tax revenues.

Other eminent domain issues that are emerging involve local jurisdictions that, increasingly, are using eminent domain to provide infrastructure improvements — such as new schools, wider roads and drainage projects — that have been made necessary by uncontrolled development and low impact fees.

While the courts have, on the one hand, given governments greater latitude to use eminent domain to help private developers, they have also held that at times, "just compensation" is also due when governments' actions diminish the value of land that has not been seized by, for example, making it less desirable or less accessible.

In 2007, the Texas Legislature addressed this very issue with HB 2006, which allowed landowners to sue for "diminished access" to their property, instead of having to show "material and substantial damages" before seeking compensation. It passed but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed it.

As growing populations make land-use restrictions more necessary, we are going to face more policy questions that will revolve around eminent domain.

It is clearly time for Congress and the Legislature to rewrite laws to assure that eminent domain powers truly serve the public good — and aren't just used to fatten private wallets.

TTC threatens Camp Allen

By Rod Sallee

From the Houston Chronicle

A Piney Woods retreat that has hosted national church conferences on controversial issues, celebrated the consecration of bishops and provided summer memories for thousands of teens now faces another kind of challenge.

The nearly two square miles of forest, hills, fields, lakes and buildings that make up Camp Allen Conference & Retreat Center, 15 miles southeast of Navasota, lie in a two-mile-wide strip listed in state documents as the preferred route for the planned Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor.

Proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, the corridor plan has drawn heated opposition at town hall meetings and public hearings throughout Southeast Texas.

Camp Allen officials have gathered more than 3,000 names on an Internet petition asking the Texas Department of Transportation not to harm the facility, beloved by many Houstonians.

Houston City Councilman Mike Sullivan was a 7th-grader in Spring Branch when his church youth group took a trip to Camp Allen.

"I had never been in the outdoors like that in my life," he said. "I can still remember taking communion there. It was my first chance to be in a place where I could think and learn about my church and kind of find myself spiritually."

Now, Sullivan said, he and his wife, Kim, and daughter, Paige, 15, drive to the camp several times a year just to spend the day or weekend.

"They have hotel rooms open to the public," he said, as well as groups visiting on various sorts of retreats. "You might see Buddhists, Muslims, Jewish groups, Catholics. They reach out to all religions."

For the past nine years, said Carol Riley of Lufkin, she has traveled with her husband, Mike, and daughters Alyson and Sarah to Camp Allen for the Christmas retreat "Holiday in the Pines."

"The serenity is indescribable and the thought of it being endangered is unimaginable," she said.

George Dehan, president of the camp, said others who have attended functions there include former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Houston Astros outfielder Lance Berkman, singer Pat Green and actress Renée Zellweger.

Although Camp Allen is owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, Dehan said fewer than half of the 42,000 visitors a year are Episcopalians. The rest, he said, come from various denominations, schools, colleges and nonprofit institutions. About 7,000 are children.

Dehan said he spoke up at a public hearing in Navasota on the corridor project, and another camp staff member spoke at one in Hempstead.

"We said we are not anti-toll road or anti-free trade," he said. "We just want to make sure this doesn't impact our camp."

Dehan said he wrote Perry and received "a polite response" that advised working through the public hearings process.

"And we've talked with some TxDOT commissioners," he said. "They always say, 'Oh, it probably is not going to impact you. We think common sense will prevail.' "

Although it does seem unlikely that roadbuilders would choose to bulldoze through a plot of land that Dehan estimates is worth $50 million to $100 million and has so many friends, he said there are reasons for concern.

Partly to ease landowners' worries that the corridor would cut their holdings apart, TxDOT has said it will try to build the corridor alongside existing roads if possible. But in the segment in question that probably would be FM 362, site of the camp's front gate and hotel.

Even if TxDOT chose to go through ranchland across the road, Dehan said, the strip designated as the "Recommended Preferred Corridor" may be too narrow to protect the camp from traffic noise.

"It would be a hugely negative effect because a lot of our programs are outdoor education," Dehan said.

TxDOT spokeswoman Gabriela Garcia noted the strip on the maps is much bigger than the actual corridor is likely to be.

Even with its full potential array of separate toll roads for trucks and cars, tracks for freight and passenger trains and land for power lines and pipelines, the corridor's maximum width would be 400 yards — about one-ninth as wide as the "recommended preferred" strip.

Garcia said it would be built in segments based on traffic demand and a segment in the Navasota area may not be needed for several years.

When the segment is deemed necessary, Garcia said, the initial construction could be nothing more than a four-lane toll road shared by cars and trucks.

TxDOT is expected to select a developer for the project later this month, and the first half of the environmental clearance process is expected to end early next year, Garcia said.

Then, if federal authorities give approval, the second part of the process — when the actual route will be chosen — would begin. That process probably will take another three to five years, Garcia said.

Although TxDOT hearings on the project are over, the public may submit comments for an Environmental Impact Statement through March 19. This may be done online at www.keeptexasmoving.com or by letter to I-69/TTC, P.O. Box 14428, Austin, TX 78761.

No country for new roads

(Photo: D. Fazackerley)

The Texas Department of Transportation recently admitted what many of us have known all along: La Entrada al Pacifico is indeed part of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The following article gives a taste of what's at stake for West Texas.

By Whitney Joiner

From Time Magazine

This far West Texas town is so isolated that while you can cross the Mexican border in less than an hour for lunch, the nearest shopping mall is 200 miles (about 320 km) away. Those who live around here take immense pride in the desolate landscape that served as the backdrop for the films with the most Academy Award nominations this year, Joel and Ethan Coen's murderous "No Country for Old Men" and Paul Thomas Anderson's epic, "There Will Be Blood." But instead of buzzing about their potential golden night at the Oscars, locals are more concerned these days with a very real unfolding drama that has the potential to devastate the views, the unpolluted air and the tranquil lifestyle they hold dear.

The potential villain in this story is La Entrada al Pacifico, a NAFTA trade route signed into law 11 years ago by then governor George W. Bush. It hasn't been built yet, but it may still become a reality, thanks to lobbying from the nearby city of Midland--which would become a distribution and warehousing huband the support of Midland's state representative, who happens to be speaker of the Texas House. If approved and constructed, the route would significantly increase the number of long-haul trucks bringing goods from Mexico through Marfa. In 2006, the average number of trucks crossing the U.S. border at Presidio and being driven the 60 miles (about 100 km) north to Marfa each day was 17. With La Entrada, that number would be anywhere from 300 to 800 trucks a day. To make room, a pair of two-lane roads will be widened to four-lane divided highways. Allison Scott, a 29-year Marfa resident, knows exactly what that will sound like. "Marfa is so peaceful," she says. "When I go out at 5 a.m. and look up at the stars, the silence is just so amazing ... La Entrada would definitely bring the silence to an end."

The idea behind La Entrada al Pacifico (Corridor to the Pacific) is to ease overconcentration of Asian trade in Southern California by diverting goods to a port in western Mexico and transporting them to Midland. Marfans see a plan that could fill Midland's pockets but potentially devastate Marfa's culture, lifestyle and economy, based in large part on tourism thanks to Marfa's proximity to Big Bend National Park and its reputation as an artists' haven (artists and galleries have been a fixture in town since celebrated sculptor Donald Judd relocated here from New York in the '70s).

Days after a March 2007 public meeting on the project, attended by nearly 400 West Texas residents--none of whom supported it--the fight against La Entrada began. Local businesses sold STOP LA ENTRADA T shirts; residents joined letter-writing campaigns and launched anti-Entrada blogs. Some Marfans have devised creative ways to fight the corridor. Gary Oliver, 60, a political cartoonist for the local newspaper, has composed a protest song on his accordion. "Move to Marfa for the peaceful life,/ So far away from the stress and strife," he sings. "Then you put your ear down on the highway floor,/ Hear the many trucks in the distance roar ... La Entrada, here come a lot of highway blues."

And Vicente Celis, 42, who moved here from Mexico in 2003, shows off the digital slide show he's developing, An Inconvenient Truth--style, to explain La Entrada to other residents. He makes reference to the documentary's swimming-frog example of global warming--the frog that doesn't realize it's boiling because the water temperature increases so slowly. "The same thing is going to happen to us," says Celis. "But [we] don't have to let people boil us."

Residents do have hope. The arrival of massive numbers of 18-wheelers depends on Mexico's infrastructure. So far, work on the trans-Mexican highway hasn't broken ground, and the port in western Mexico needs repair. The results of a government-funded study about how well the plan would work for West Texas will be released soon. But for the locals who see this land as a refuge--and, on occasion, a Hollywood backdrop--the decision to build or not to build isn't even a question.

Texans ponder where superhighway might take them

By Peter Canellos

From the Boston Globe

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence.

And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called NAFTA Superhighway.

Local residents came together last week for one in a series of public hearings on the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, a massive public works project that in this area would take the form of a superhighway from the Mexican border to the Arkansas border, with special trucking lanes and rail lines, along with communication and utility cables.

Texas officials say the superhighway is necessary to relieve chronic road congestion. Local opponents say it will cut through their ranches and destroy the area's ecology. And politicians like US Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, and national commentators like CNN's Lou Dobbs have condemned it as a betrayal of American interests - the very road by which American jobs will move out of the country.

"This is a major conduit for getting cheap imported goods into the heartland," insisted Hagan Parmley, a local property owner who is also part of Corridor Watch, an opposition group of residents who gathered in the Refugio community center late last month.

Parmley said Texas business interests support the highway because it would allow Asian-manufactured products to be shipped to deep-water ports in Mexico and then quickly brought into the United States. With reduced transportation costs, it would be even easier for businesses to move American manufacturing jobs to Asia or Mexico.

Parmley's newsletter, which he distributed to the 80 or so residents at the Refugio hearing, expressed excitement that Dobbs, whose television show is devoted to attacking global trade deals and illegal immigration, has taken up the cause of defeating the Trans-Texas Corridor.

But given all the portentious state-of-the-world rhetoric that has surrounded the project, the big surprise at the Refugio hearing was how comfortingly normal the objections seemed.

"I think it's overkill," said Wilson Toudouze, a San Antonio rancher whose mother lives in Refugio. "I think there's probably better alternatives than taking this enormous amount of private property and giving it to the state."

"This wasn't what we were sold in the original I-69 - all those pipelines and train lines," added Melvin Santiago, who came down from the Houston area to express his opposition. "People are a little worried."

Indeed, the state of Texas has had trouble settling on a precise route. In the northeastern part of the state, officials had to bypass Houston's sprawl. Down by the Rio Grande they had to avoid several giant ranches that have been preserved as heritage areas.

The people who gathered in Refugio were, by their own description, the inheritors of the Texas of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" - large men and women of late middle age, almost all wearing boots, some with cowboy hats, and many with waistlines proudly bulging out of their tight jeans.

One stood up and proclaimed that his family has been on the land longer than there's been a Texas, and that he figures he can take better care of it than the government can.

Preserving property rights was a far bigger concern than the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, which some concede has benefited Texas. Others mentioned the trade deal not as an evil in its own right but as evidence of the selfish motives of the business interests backing the highway.

One group was not heard from. Refugio County is almost half Hispanic, and recent immigrants make up the bulk of the workers in town. For them, the highway represents a different kind of threat - bypassing US 77, whose truckers give the town its only economic lift by stopping for food and fuel.

But the translator brought in to assist Spanish-speaking residents wasn't needed. Only the property owners had their say.

"Right now we get $70,000 per month in sales tax revenue that is generated by traffic through the town," explained Karen Watts, a selectwoman. "If we're bypassed, that number will drop tremendously. We're a community of people who are aging and we're a poor community. We have some large ranches but they don't help most people."

NAFTA may get the goat of national commentators, but to the people of Refugio, the superhighway battle is more about land and money - just like in the old days.

Word is out

Terri Hall of TexasTurf and Truth Be Tolled appeared on Lou Dobbs last night.

Due to overwhelming requests from citizens, CNN has agreed to include a question for the candidates about the Trans-Texas Corridor on Thursday night's Democratic debate.

Don't miss it.

“Is your road more important than the foodstuffs we put together for you?”

--Texas farmer Leon Little, addressing TxDOT at a TTC-69 town hall meeting, quoted by Ralph Blumenthal of the New York Times in his February 10 article, Proposal in Texas for a Public-Private Toll Road System Raises an Outcry

“The only person who loses is the citizen. We’re paying everyone’s profit.”

--Linda Stall of Corridor Watch and Truth Be Tolled, in the New York Times

Trans-Texas Corridor public meetings to begin again

Activists Terri Hall and Sal Costello, who both appear in Truth Be Tolled, add to this national news story on the TTC

By Michael Graczyk

From Business Week and Associated Press

The biggest construction project ever attempted in Texas comes under public debate beginning Tuesday in the first of a series of town hall meetings about a proposed 4,000-mile network of superhighway toll roads.

The Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, as it has become known, was initiated six years ago by Gov. Rick Perry. It has rankled opponents who characterize it as the largest government grab of private property in the state's history and an unneeded and improper expansion of toll roads.

Texas Department of Transportation officials and Perry have defended the project as necessary to address future traffic concerns in one of the nation's fastest-growing states. They also say the project is vital because of insufficient road revenues from the state gas tax and the federal government.

"This state has to look outside the box and the traditional ways we've been doing things the last 50 years," Perry spokesman Robert Black said.

The TTC would crisscross the state -- for the most part roughly paralleling existing interstate highways -- with up to quarter-mile-wide ribbons of separate highways for cars and trucks, rail lines, pipelines and utility lines. The cost of the project has been estimated at approaching $200 billion, and it could take as long as 50 years to complete.

In what the agency says is an unprecedented step, department officials were heading to Texarkana on Tuesday in northeast Texas for the first of 11 meetings over the next four weeks to answer questions about the project.

Backers of the TTC already have been accused of backroom political dealing, mounting a propaganda campaign and caving to foreign ownership.

"We really are getting ripped off," says Terri Hall, of San Antonio, who heads TURF -- Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. The group is suing the transportation agency, alleging its promotional campaign violates a ban on state officials using their authority for political purposes.

"Once people really understand all that's going on, and what's at stake, it really does have massive, massive implications," she said.

The first phase of the TTC, envisioned as part of a superhighway stretching from Oklahoma to Mexico, was planned by the Cintra Zachry consortium. It's composed of Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA of Spain, one of the world's largest developers of toll roads, and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio.

Its legal representative is the firm of Bracewell & Giuliani, the home firm of GOP presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who counts Perry among his supporters.

The Spain-based company would get to operate the roads and collect tolls. State officials insist the land and road would continue to be owned by the state like any Texas road. They also say they have an obligation to make the best deal possible for financing regardless of the address of the contractor.

Hall argues elected officials in the counties affected by the project have "sold out to the road lobby" and succumbed to courting.

And Sal Costello, whose Austin-based Texas Toll Party has been opposing the TTC, speculated transportation officials should expect a cool reception at the meetings, which he said he won't attend.

"These meetings will change nothing," he said.

Some 580,000 acres will be needed for the project, primarily in rural areas that will take "some of the best farmland in the state," says Texas Farm Bureau spokesman Gene Hall.

"The fact of the matter is, every highway in the state of Texas was once private property somewhere," Black said. He noted there was opposition in the 1950s to the vast Texas farm and ranch road system and the interstates of the 1960s.

"A thousand new people are coming to the state every day," he said. "Our population will double in roughly the next 40 years. Our current transportation infrastructure cannot meet that challenge."

Other meetings this week were planned in East Texas for Carthage and Lufkin, both areas in the path of the long-anticipated Interstate 69, one of the proposed legs of the TTC. It would run from the Mexico border in far South Texas, skirt the Houston area and into East Texas toward northwestern Louisiana.

Besides I-69, the Trans-Texas Corridor as proposed also would include new superhighways that parallel existing Interstates 35 and 37, major north-south routes through the center of the state, and I-10, the 800-mile main east-west artery from Orange to El Paso.

An environmental study for the I-69 project undergoes a separate scrutiny at public hearings starting next month. The series starting this week is designed to focus more on the overall TTC project.