Texas 391 Commission Alliance

Top leader says Trans-Texas Corridor is dead

Patrick Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2008

In a debate last night, Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick tried to put a gaping chasm between him and the governor's prized Trans-Texas Corridor and went on to say the project's dead, a television station reported.

"I want to clear this up. I did not vote for the Trans-Texas Corridor and you're welcome to look at the voting records," he said in a broadcast by KXAN in Austin.

Then Craddick, a Republican who was debating his Democratic opponent, Bill Dingus, in Midland, stuck a fork in the Trans-Texas Corridor and declared the ambitious plan done, according to KXAN.

"Everybody in Austin knows it's dead," he said. "Everybody across the state knows it's dead. It's just something to be talking about."

The broad network of toll lanes, rail lines and utility corridors was unveiled by Perry, also Republican, six years ago as the state's 21st Century map for new pathways. A strategy to fund it with private financing was hailed by free marketers nationwide and jeered by a spectrum of naysayers such as farmers and environmentalists.

View the KXAN broadcast: [HERE]

© 2008 The San Antonio Express-News: www.blogs.mysanantonio.com