Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Spanish Corporation Cintra Plans to Take a Fifty Year Toll on Texas

Conquistador2

Are Texans already on the Highway to
Hell?

Imagine a gargantuan system of toll roads, a quarter of a mile wide, stretching across Texas. They swallow up over one half million acres--over 900 square miles-- of rural land via eminent domain. There would be ten lanes for traffic, plus rail lines, with pipelines and broadband thrown in.

The mammoth $184 billion project would be parallel to existing interstates, such as I-35, I-10 and I-45 . However, they would be at a distance of seven to nine miles from interstate freeways.

The long-promised freeway to the Rio Grande Valley would be a massive toll road parallel to State Highway 59.

There would be no off ramps to smaller communities. Cities, such as Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio would have to to build their own roads (also toll roads) to hook up to this porcine project.

While grabbing over half a million acres of private property, the Texas Department of Transportation would take billions in up-front cash, allowing politicians to quickly funnel money into their campaign donors' development schemes.

And, a Spanish corporation, already granted a 50-70 year sweetheart deal by the governor's appointees on the Texas Transportation Commission, would then begin jacking up tolls, with token oversight by the state. Revenue would also be generated by leasing the land, seized from farmers and ranchers, to multinational corporations.

Sounds exciting doesn’t it?

The "visionaries," in Austin who were handed this plan by special interest groups, say the Trans Texas Corridor, and many other toll roads (soon to be converted from existing highways), will be the answer to Texas' "future transportation problems."

Are they really visionaries, or are they just out of their porkin' minds?

They like to call it "privatization," but isn't it really "piratization?" Whatever you call it, few Texas voters knew about the Trans-Texas Corridor until recently. Few even believed such an audacious land grab was possible.

Unfortunately, it could happen--thanks to some stealthy legislation enacted several years ago, which granted sweeping powers to officials of the Texas Transportation Commission, and allowed them to push the project through in record time--before any one could figure out what hit them. Please refer to the now infamous Texas House Bill 3588.

At the time of this post, people are beginning to catch on and the bumbling "yes men" in the 79th Legislature are trying to cover their collective backsides.

It is now glaringly obvious that they have been little more than a rubber stamp for the lobbyists and lawyers who wrote this bill-and the big money interests they serve. Given their past deeds, we can expect more backroom deals, double speak, and misdirection.

So who decided we really needed this beast, and why didn't we know about it until the deal was almost done?

Feel free to click on my links to see why some Texans are beginning to call the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor the new "Route 666."

  • Learn more about Cintra's modus operandi by clicking HERE.
    • Learn more about Cintra's IPO (just before they were awarded the contract!) by clickingHERE.

    and HERE.
  • Learn more about government abuse of eminent domain by clicking HERE and HERE.


If you can't read the Spanish on
Cintra's web page, you can translate the text by clicking HERE.

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