NAFTA Superhighway: Progress on the Trans Texas Corridor Continues

Wednesday, April 09, 2008 by: Barbara L. Minton

An article carried by Reuters, March 10, 2008, datelined Madrid

reports that the Spanish company Cintra said it had closed financing

to build segments 5 and 6 of its SH-130 toll road between San Antonio

and Austin, Texas in the U.S. It plans to invest $1.36 billion in this

leg of the project.

In a statement to Spain's stock market, Cintra said $197 million of

the investment came from consortium partners and the rest from a bank

loan and debt from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The newly financed segment is part of the Trans Texas Corridor, a

4,000 mile plan of super toll ways. The Corridor plan calls for a

superhighway with 12 passenger vehicle lanes, 4 truck lanes, 2

passenger train tracks, 2 commuter train tracks, 2 freight train

tracks, underground lines for water, natural gas, petroleum,

telecommunication fiber optics, and overhead high-voltage electric

transmission lines and towers.

Plans also include gas stations, garages, restaurants, hotels, stores,

billboards, warehouses, freight interchanges, inter-modal transfer

areas, bus stations, passenger train stations, parking facilities,

dispatch control centers, maintenance facilities, pipeline pumping

stations, and toll booths.

The Trans Texas Corridor is the largest engineering project ever

undertaken in Texas, costing over $180 billion dollars.

A consortium led by the Cintra Concesiones Infraestruturas SA, known

as Cintra, announced the contract to build the Trans Texas Corridor in

December, 2004, and said it expected to develop 6 billion U.S. dollars

of motorway projects during the following five years as part of the

project.

In order to complete this project, the state of Texas will take 1/2

million acres, including some of the richest farm land in the state

called "Blacklands". The typical section of the highway will require

146 acres of right of way per mile. The total anticipated right of way

for the 4,000 miles of corridor is 584,000 acres.

The Trans Texas Corridor project authorizes a Commission to take

private land from its current owners to lease for commercial,

industrial or agricultural purposes. This is a massive transfer of

ownership from private to state owned, and puts the state in the

position of being in direct competition with private business.

It also takes business away from hundreds of Texas communities by

limiting traveler access and providing State contract concessions. It

also takes land off county and school district tax rolls, requiring

local taxpayers to absorb the difference.

Critics of the Corridor claim that it will change the face of Texas,

and compare it to a terrifying nightmare. According to Comptroller

Carole Keeton Strayhorn, "Texas should not be sold out to foreign

interests. Texas farms and ranches should be for Texas farmers and

ranchers. We should not let a European consortium take our Texas

birthright. Our leaders should not be asking us to give them our land

and then insist we should have to pay to drive across it."

The Trans Texas Corridor is seen as the first leg of the NAFTA

superhighway, first purposed in 2002. When completed, the NAFTA

superhighway will allow cargo from the Far East to enter the U.S.

through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas and proceed straight to

the new Smart Port complex in Kansas City. From there it will be

dispersed into the U.S. or continue northward into Canada, crossing

both borders with only electronic checkpoints.

The NAFTA superhighway is one feature of the North American Union,

which will effectively create a North American trading block by

erasing the borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada resulting in

free, unimpeded movement of people and goods across those borders. It

is also a political union that would integrate the governments of the

three countries, as well as an economic union with the intention of

equalizing the wages and standard of living of all but the ruling

elitists.

See: The North America Union - You Could Be Voting Your Rights Away,

(http://www.naturalnews.com/022707.html)

Other Sources in addition to Reuters article:

Cintra signs contract for Trans-Texas Corridor, investment of 1.3 bns

usd update, Forbes, June 30, 2006.

Trans Texas Corridor Catastrophe, Texas Toll Party website.

About the author

Barbara is a school psychologist, a published author in the area of

personal finance, a breast cancer survivor using "alternative"

treatments, a born existentialist, and a student of nature and all

things natural.