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Thursday, February 21, 2008
TxDOT likely to expand U.S. 59
It’s hard to judge how much to weigh this apparent bombshell, but a prominent TxDOT official said repeatedly Thursday that in the wake of public outcry, he believes the state transportation agency will build additional lanes on U.S 59 instead of the huge superhighway so reviled by rural East Texans.
Can we stop it? Absolutely it can be stopped. We have a long environmental process ahead of us, and if we come to a point that we don’t think for whatever reason that we cant build it, then it’s not built … We’ll see what happens with the rest of these public hearings that will be occurring over the next 3 or 4 weeks. I’d be very surprised if we hear any other comments other than “stay on 59 if you build it.” I would anticipate — me as one person at TxDOT — thats where my view is, that we need to look very closely at 59, add lanes to 59….
Is it still possible that it might make sense to have all (the utilities) in a single corridor? Yes. But it is it more likely that it’ll be separated and there will be pieces here and there? Yeah. I think clearly that’s the direction we’re heading. — Phillip Russell, assistant executive director of innovative project development for TxDOT
Now, to be clear, this is only one man’s view of the situation, and there’s a whole legally-mandated process to wade through yet. But at the very least, the remarks are proof that TxDOT has gotten the message that lots of folks are not happy about the TTC.
But how significant are these comments? First, Russell is pretty non-committal. He hasn’t promised anything, only that he suspects TxDOT will look extra-hard at alternatives to building a whole new corridor. TxDOT policy is to do that anyway. Next, cynics will suspect this is just a PR move to help make a bitter pill a bit easier to swallow.
Maybe the most interesting part of Russell’s comment is the idea of splitting off railroads from utilities from highways in different areas. I asked Russell after his talk if the maps for the study area or preferred corridor would change. He said no. Those plans will not come until the Tier Two documents sometime down the, uh, road.
If there is one take-away point from all this, it’s that some people at TxDOT are paying attention. Send in those comments.
