TEXAS TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION MEETING

Thursday, May 28, 1998

Dewitt Greer Building
Big Hearing Room
125 East 11th Street
Austin, Texas

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

DAVID M. LANEY, Chairman
ANNE S. WYNNE
ROBERT L. NICHOLS

DEPARTMENT STAFF:

CHARLES W. HEALD, Executive Director
MIKE BEHERENS
KIRBY W. PICKETT

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. LANEY: Good morning. I'd like to call the May 28, 1998, meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission to order.

Public notice of this meeting containing all items of the agenda was filed with the Secretary of State's Office at 1:51 p.m. on May 20, 1998.

Welcome. We are glad to have all of you here. For those of you who don't have seats, if you would like, there is seating on the other side of that back wall and I think probably a television monitor. But feel free to stand in the back. Don't feel obliged.

We have a very full agenda today with two delegation presentations and the normal business agenda, which is very full.

We're going to rearrange the order and sequencing of items slightly on the front end, just for those of you who are interested. Following the delegation presentations, we will move Item Number 5, the Fort Bend Parkway Association, next because it is a presentation as well, from which we will move into the Trunk System discussions and vote.

So we are going to change the order slightly. But after that it is -- oh, and right after that we will go into an executive session, which will probably go to -- for about 45 minutes. So once we get the early part of the agenda, there will be a break for about 45 minutes, perhaps a little shorter than that, but I think probably 45 minutes.

During the last month there have been highs and lows for the Commission and for transportation in Texas; and more so than usual, I think, in a lot of ways. With respect to one of the more somber and sobering kinds of changes during the last month -- and I want to take a minute on the front end to express our deepest sympathy to the family of Pete Davis for Pete's unexpected death on Sunday, May 17.

Pete had been with the Texas Turnpike Authority for a number of years and with us for the last seven or eight months as the head of our newest division, the Texas Turnpike Division, overseeing the initial activities of our toll division.

And in that eight months, a lot of us have gotten to know him very well. And we're shocked, stunned, and still reeling a little bit from his very untimely and unexpected death. It has shaken us all to a great extent. But I know our staff in the Turnpike Division is not going to miss a step. And I know Pete would want it that way. We have nothing but the greatest respect for Pete for all he did to launch our Turnpike Division. And it wouldn't be where it is now -- and it has come a long way, particularly on projects in this area of the state -- but it wouldn't be where it is now without Pete's dedicated efforts over the last eight months or so.

He was excited for the Turnpike Division and for TxDOT in the toll area. He had great ambitions for TxDOT, the Turnpike Division, and for the State of Texas. And I'm really just sorry for Pete that he didn't get to see a lot of his vision realized.

But again, my deepest sympathy on behalf of myself and the Commission and all of TxDOT to Pete and his family.

That was the lowest of the lows, needless to say. And we are on our way to trying to fill Pete's shoes on an interim basis and ultimately, on a permanent basis.

The other side of the coin, as most of you know, was an enormous relief and a tremendous accomplishment really by a number of folks who have been working on the part of the State and the Department of Transportation for three or four years very steadily, very actively. And ultimately, it culminated in what is now being called TEA 21, the newest of the federal acronyms. It's the new Federal Transportation Bill that was passed by the House and the Senate and is now headed to or awaiting the President's signature. And all indications are he will sign it.

It was an enormous effort on the part of quite a few people in this department. But in particular, I need to single out now and I will at a later meeting, as well, probably a little more formally, the efforts of David Soileau, who has on a number of occasions sort of abandoned his post down here to take up the post on behalf of transportation and particularly, Texas transportation in Washington.

David became the center of all information and analysis, really for most of the states involved in STEP 21, most of the donor states around the country. He is one of the two or three great experts in transportation on transportation analysis in connection with this bill and did an enormous job for Texas.

I cannot sing David's praises enough, nor can I overstate the role that either Coby Chase or Tonia Ramirez or Russell Harding also played during these last years. They all played very, very similar roles in accomplishing what we have just accomplished.

I doubt that David is -- I doubt that we've let David come back. But if either David or Tonia or Coby -- Coby is probably here somewhere.

MS. WYNNE: Just like to recognize them if they're here.

MR. LANEY: Would you stand up, please?

Now, this was a surprise attack on them. So -- MS. WYNNE: Okay.

MR. LANEY: -- I don't think they're ready. But they did a phenomenal job.

The critical piece, of course, from the legislative side was the effort by Phil Gramm. And Phil Gramm's office, I know relied very, very heavily on our legislative staff and in particular, on Coby Chase and David Soileau.

Without the efforts of Senator Gramm, we would not have been even close to where we ended up, which is about 90.5 cents on the dollar sent to Washington, without any additional funding for discretionary programs like the Border Infrastructure Discretionary Fund or the Trade Corridor Discretionary Fund. So enormous accomplishments.

We're still trying our best and very feverishly working to analyze the bill and the impact, but it looks like an additional average annual increase of about $700 million a year. That, interestingly enough, puts corresponding pressure on our requirements of meeting the state match requirements to get the federal funds.

And as most of you know who've been following our funding levels, our state match -- our state funding has eroded for a number of reasons. And over the next few years we're going to be struggling, I think, to make sure that we meet the state-match, to be able to retrieve from Washington all the available funding.

But again, we're very feverishly working through that. Right now, I think most of us are relieved and, to a great extent, ecstatic about the accomplishments of our staff in Washington.

So there has been a deep low and a great big high that we're all still riding on and trying to understand fully. It's been a very active month. And it looks like a giant step forward for Texas transportation interests.

I know also that during this last month, as usual between Commission meetings, Commissioner Nichols has been flying all over the state. He's otherwise becoming known as El Niño of the Transportation Department.

But most significantly, I think he spent a lot of the last part of the month in the southern part of the state, or the western and southern part of the state, from El Paso down through the Big Bend area.

You want to give us a little update on --

MR. NICHOLS: Well, I think what David's referring to -- well, El Niño's a hot air mass, by the way.

The -- when I was in the West Texas area, something of note that most people are not aware of is that there was a large brush fire in the Marfa-Fort Davis area. Those in the west know it. Those in the rest of the state are not very aware of it, but it was actually one of the largest brush fires in Texas history. Not the largest but it's certainly in the top five and pretty much overshadowed by the fires in Mexico and Guatemala from the news media standpoint.

But in the midst of all of that emergency management, in addition to the Department of Transportation moving equipment and supplies and people from various districts in to fight that fire, was the Texas Forest Service and the National Guard. And we've had crews out there for a number of weeks fighting those fires.

I was there. I was not that aware of the situation until I was in the area. And the Forest Service complimented the Department of Transportation over and over for the efforts and professionalism -- and I was just trying to pass this on -- for the work they did.

The big helicopters and stuff from the National Guard would be unable to shuttle water, since there are no ponds and rivers out there. So truck -- tanker truck loads of water had to be hauled in from town to many miles out in the logging roads and stuff in these hills by crews pretty much round the clock.

And one particular individual, our Jim Daily, who is in charge of emergency management, they complimented very highly. And I wanted to make sure he was recognized for the high level of professionalism that went into all that work.

That's really all I wanted to pass on.

MR. LANEY: Great. And our compliments to everybody in those districts who are involved in the fire fighting efforts. That's above and beyond the call. Appreciate it.

Anne, do you have any comments?

MS. WYNNE: Robert may be El Niño, but I've been at home with las niñas. So I don't have any highway comments. Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Well, we'll now proceed with the delegation presentations. And let me ask on the front end for the delegations to do your best to adhere to the 20-minute time limitation. Again, we have a very full schedule, and we need your help on that front.

EAST TEXAS GULF HIGHWAY ASSOCIATION

(Don Wall, Mayor D.W. Abernathy, Vatra Solomon (for Senator Bill Ratliff), State Representative Tommy Merritt.)

MR. LANEY: First delegation this morning is one that we know very well from a number of previous appearances before this Commission -- if I have it right, it may be 25 appearances before this Commission, but I may be off by a year --

MS. WYNNE: Or a decade.

MR. LANEY:  -- or a decade -- which is here to discuss the Green Carpet Route in East Texas. And I welcome all of you back. And I will call on Mr. Don Wall, President of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association to lead off the presentation.

Mr. Wall? Doesn't look like you were supposed to lead off the presentation.

MR. WALL: No. I'm going to ask Vatra to come up for Senator Ratliff.

MR. LANEY: Sorry, Vatra.

MS. SOLOMON: That's okay.

MR. LANEY: Glad to have you back.

MS. SOLOMON: Nice to see you.

Good morning. I'm Vatra Solomon. I work for State Senator Bill Ratliff. And I want to tell you that Senator Ratliff's been appointed Chairman of Senate Finance. I've grown to understand the term "state matching funds" a whole lot.

MR. LANEY: Good.

MS. WYNNE: Good.

MR. LANEY: Good.

MS. SOLOMON: I have a letter here this morning from Senator Ratliff that I'd like to read. It says, "Dear Chairman and Members, for the first time in my ten-year tenure in the Texas Senate I'm unable to be in attendance at the annual appearance of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association. Please allow my Executive Assistant, Vatra Solomon, to place this letter of support in the record.

"As has been the case for many years, I urge you to give your fullest consideration to the completion of the two gaps in the Green Carpet Route. I'm cognizant of the many demands for your available construction dollars and understand your need to set priorities. Hope you will seriously consider this worthy project. Yours very truly, Bill Ratliff."

Thank you all.

MR. LANEY: Thank you.

MR. WALL: Good morning, gentlemen and lady. I'm Don Wall, President of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association, from Paris, Texas.

And before I start my official presentation I just want to thank the Commission for all they've done for East Texas. The funding has come to Tom Ellis [phonetic] in the District 1 up there in our area that I'm familiar has been a godsend. And you've recognized our problems in our rural farm-to-markets. And that is being addressed, and we're most appreciative. We just can't tell you enough how much we appreciate that.

But our presentation today is the East Texas Gulf Highway Association Trunk Route, Green Carpet Memorial Route. And I'm going to turn these maps -- put them up on the board, so you can get what I'm talking about.

Starting at your far right, you can see that the route that we're talking about in East Texas. Then moving on to the center map, you can see the impact in Texas. Looking on over to the next one there, you can see how it shows nationwide, as you go from Winnipeg to the Valley.

We think that's very important to have an overall scope of it when we start talking about the magnitude that we lack completing that, what a small percentage it is, when we look at it on the grand scheme of things.

It is always a pleasure to come before the Commission to discuss this most important project to the people of Northeast Texas. We have been most fortunate to have both Chairman Laney and Commissioner Nichols to visit Paris in recent months; also, Executive Director Heald and Assistant Executive Director Mr. Pickett. We had the opportunity of visiting with them in Paris this last fall. The only one that we haven't been is Ms. Wynne. And she's been very occupied this last winter. But we'll -- the home light's lit for you.

We want you to know that you have a standing invitation to come back and visit us at any time. And I will do the cooking if you'll accept my invitation.

East Texas Gulf Highway Association is extremely pleased with the progress being made on U.S. 271 between Paris and Mt. Pleasant. As you know, the consulting firm, Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation is under contract to do the environmental study, right-of-way identification, and route study. We are most appreciative for this work being undertaken, as it would allow us to proceed with design, right-of-way acquisition, and eventual construction.

The Green Carpet Memorial Route is the longest standing incomplete highway project on record with Texas Department of Transportation. We have made continuous annual presentations and appearances before this Commission since 1973.

Just a very brief history of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association and our support of the Green Carpet Memorial Route: In March 1965, a group of concerned citizens representing the communities of Paris, Mt. Pleasant, Pittsburg, Gilmer, Gladewater, Kilgore, Henderson, Nacogdoches, and Lufkin organized the East Texas Gulf Highway Association.

The objective was, and still is, to have a network of safe, four-lane highways from the Texas-Oklahoma border, where it connects to the Indian Nation Turnpike to the Gulf Coast.

The counties included in the East Texas Gulf Highway Association are Angelina, Camp, Franklin, Gregg, Harris, Lamar, Liberty, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Polk, Red River, Rusk, San Jacinto, Titus, and Upshur. Many of the counties and cities are represented here today to show their support for this project, which I would like to ask them to stand at this time.

Thank you very much.

We have several elected officials in our presence. We won't -- due to time, we won't single them out. We had a lot of conflicts. We apologize for our smallish delegation in the last few years, but school's just out and vacation, it kind of -- a lot of things happening. We are not at our normal, annual appearance before you due to some conflict of schedule.

Our priorities are as follows. These priorities are basically the same as we have been requesting for the last several years:

Priority 1 is in the Paris district. We are requesting that U.S. 271, which is on the Texas Trunk System and the national highway system be upgraded from the current two-lane with narrow shoulders to a modern four-lane, divided facility -- or highway.

This stretch of highway runs from Loop 286 in Paris, south to the Titus-Franklin County line some 28 miles. Priority 2 is in the Atlanta district, and is a continuation of Priority 1 from the Franklin-Titus County line, south to FM 1734, where it joins existing four-lane highway in Mt. Pleasant.

When Dannenbaum finishes their study, we want to begin the right-of-way acquisition for the property we do not have presently and begin construction, piece by piece, from the loop in Paris until we have Paris-Mt. Pleasant connected by a four-lane, divided highway.

Even though our vehicle count continues to show significant increases, we know that this rural area cannot compete with the major metropolitan areas, as far as vehicle counts or accidents per vehicle mile. However, this highway is critical to the economic viability of Northeast Texas area.

The Green Carpet Memorial Route faces no serious environmental or social opposition and will provide maximum benefit at minimal cost. The Green Carpet Memorial Route is a viable alternative for trucks passing through Texas to serve Mexico and could divert much of the truck traffic currently passing through the tremendously congested Dallas Metro Area.

We greatly appreciate the work currently being done on Priority 3 in Tyler -- in the Tyler district. Even with the much needed two-lane improvements, this 6.9-mile stretch of State Highway 135 needs to be upgraded as soon as possible to a four-lane, divided highway from Interstate 20, north to Gladewater.

I have already mentioned how important the Green Carpet Memorial Route project is to the economic development of this area. But let me re-emphasize just how vital this highway is to these areas. Paris and Mt. Pleasant are already heavily industrialized communities, but they do not have commercial air service, limited rail service, and are literally entirely and singularly dependent upon highway access.

Our own Senator Ratliff -- Vatra just read a letter to you from him -- is possibly the most knowledgeable Texas legislator and knows about how paying these type projects and he continuously reminds us of the costs associated with building highways. We understand and appreciate that highway development comes with a price tag. And we are committed to doing everything we can to assist in this area.

East Texas Gulf Highway Association has pushed hard for a federal highway bill. And we have passed resolutions supporting the Byrd-Gramm Amendment. We wholeheartedly support the efforts of the Texas Good Roads Association. And we will continue to support highway development in whatever way and every way possible.

We sincerely appreciate your consideration of this request and we thank you. Do you have any questions for me at this time before I call on Mayor Abernathy? Or do you want to save your comments until after the Mayor speaks?

MR. LANEY: Why don't you go ahead and we'll save our comments.

MR. WALL: At this time I'd like to turn it over to Pittsburg Mayor Abernathy, who is the -- one of only -- we lost another one of our charter members just recently. So he's one of two left that started the association.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Thank you, Don.

Members of the Commission, staff of TxDOT, my name is D.H. Abernathy. I'm serving my 45th year as mayor of Pittsburg and I'm serving my 50th year as a city elected official. I've been a Road Hand since 1984 and been a Director of the Texas Good Roads Transportation Association 15 years. I was honored to have received the Russell Perry Award in 1996. I was president of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association for three years and have been vice president 12 years.

This is my 34th presentation before this Commission requesting completion of the Green Carpet Memorial Route. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to make this presentation. Each year, including 1965, representatives of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association have made presentations to the Texas Highway Commission and TxDOT requesting completion of the Green Carpet Memorial Route.

November 29, 1990, this route was made a part of the Texas Trunk System. The Indian Nation Turnpike was built in 1972 to '74. It is a fine, four-lane, divided turnpike with little traffic. It begins at the north end of 271, a few miles in Oklahoma and ends in Henrietta, Oklahoma, where the Will Rogers Turnpike begins and runs north through Tulsa to the south border of Missouri and on to Kansas City.

The Green Carpet Memorial Route, when extended north through Tulsa to Kansas City, it connects with I-29, goes through Joplin, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Fargo, South Dakota; Grand Forks, South Dakota; enters Canada at Winnipeg.

Please refer to the map shown here. When the route is extended north, it divides Canada in half. From the NAFTA standpoint, this is one of the most direct routes from Laredo to Canada.

The remaining 46-1/2 miles of Green Carpet Memorial Route needs to be completed. There are six-and-a-half miles between U.S. 271, west of Gladewater, and

I-20, each four lanes. Also, from Mt. Pleasant to Paris, a distance approximately 40 miles, needs to be converted to four lanes to complete the Green Carpet Memorial Route.

TxDOT owns the former Paris-to-Mt. Pleasant railroad right-of-way. There's a hundred feet wide and joins U.S. 271 south of Paris. When U.S. 271 has four lanes between Paris and Mt. Pleasant and four lanes of six-and-a-half miles on State 135, traffic on the Indian Nation Turnpike will increase, thereby bringing more traffic to the Green Carpet Memorial Route, which will result in economic growth for the cities to this route and improve safety.

An environmental and right-of-way study that I requested in 1995 between Paris and Mt. Pleasant was approved by this Commission in 1997 on a section of U.S. 271 between Mt. Pleasant and Paris -- would take 12 to 18 months to complete. The contract to do this study was signed in Paris November 13, 1997.

We sincerely appreciate this approval by the Commission. It is requested that the environmental right-of-way study being done on the section from Paris to Mt. Pleasant be prioritized to the section of U.S. 271 where the old Paris and Mt. Pleasant railroad right-of-way adjoins U.S. 271, so that four lanes could be constructed in this area, rather than wait until the study is completed.

A letter dated June 30, 1997, from the deputy executive director, suggested dividing the project from Paris to Mt. Pleasant into small sections to help facilitate construction. The above request will help do this.

Right-of-way surveys are being made on the six-and-a-half miles on State 135 that has a funding category/status of 4-F Priority 1. We certainly appreciate this action and trust that this work will soon result in getting the six-and-a-half miles completed.

I've been informed that a bridge is to be built across Trent Lake south of Bogota on U.S. 271 in 1999. The two bridges across Sulpher River have a Priority 2 rating. We'd appreciate this being changed to Priority 1.

Records show that 80 percent of the truck traffic to and from Mexico comes through Texas. From the NAFTA standpoint, several routes have been proposed. Corridors 18 and 20 from Indianapolis, Evansville, Memphis, Shreveport to Houston. This route would use part of the Green Carpet Route. Increased capacity of I-35. Another proposed route, Lubbock through Abilene to Del Rio. Each of these proposed routes cost billions of dollars and years to complete.

The map you see shows the route from Laredo to Winnipeg. The Green Carpet Memorial Route could be completed for approximately 130 million. Let's complete the Green Carpet Route.

If you have any questions, I'll be glad to respond.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Mayor.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Thank you, sir.

MR. LANEY: We appreciate your patience. You are a model for a lot of these legislators that appear over here.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Well, I just hope I'm here long enough to see the final draft on it. Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Mr. Wall, is that the completion of the presentation?

MR. WALL: That's our presentation.

MR. LANEY: Great.

Ms. Wynne, any questions?

MS. WYNNE: (No audible response.)

MR. LANEY: Mr. Nichols?

MR. NICHOLS: I didn't have a question.

MR. LANEY: Well, we do appreciate your patience. And we are little by little, making some progress on it. And we hope to continue to do that. We appreciate the presentation again. No doubt, look forward to seeing you next year.

We're going to move directly into our next delegation presentation. Let me make sure. Has anybody else signed up to speak? So those of you from the Green Carpet Route presentation, if you want to head on out, if you can do so fairly quickly, we're going to begin our second presentation just because of time constraints.

EL PASO METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION

(Judge Chuck Mattox, Mayor Carlos Ramirez, Senator Eliot Shapleigh, Senator Robert Duncan, State Representative Pat Haggerty, State Representative Joseph Pickett, State Representative Norma Chavez.)

MR. LANEY: Our second delegation this morning is from the other side of the state, West Texas. The El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization is here to discuss some projects of interest to that MPO.

And I will call on El Paso County Judge Chuck Mattox, who's leading the delegation. Welcome back, Judge Mattox. Glad to have you back.

JUDGE MATTOX: Good morning, Chairman Laney and members of the Transportation Commission. I am El Paso County Judge Chuck Mattox, and I also serve as chairman of the MPO and the Transportation Policy Board.

And with me here today I have some members from various small incorporated areas in El Paso County that I am just going to recognize them by name and where they're from. And then later on, we will get to some of the other people.

But we have Mayor Lee from Horizon City and Mayor Granco from Anthony, Texas, and Mayor Monreal from Vinton. By the way, he drove out here last year and drove again this year. And it's a long way, 600 miles, when you drive.

But we had Mayor Diaz from --

MR. LANEY: On good roads.

JUDGE MATTOX: -- San Elizario and Mayor Rodriguez from Socorro --

MR. LANEY: On good roads, though. Right?

JUDGE MATTOX: Sir?

MR. LANEY: On good roads, though. Right?

JUDGE MATTOX: Well, they're -- we need a little repair on them. But I think the Commissioner and Wes -- I don't know if they -- well, he was flying. He could see them when they were flying around. And we did fly them both over the city and show them what problems we do have facing us.

But Mayor Diaz from San Elizario and Mayor Rodriguez from Socorro and the mayor from Sandia Park, New Mexico, could not be here. They had other commitments.

And also, of course, we have our mayor from El Paso and some other distinguished representatives from El Paso. We have a couple of senators, some representatives, members of the Commissioner's Court, the members of the city council, several of them are here. We have members from our three chamber of commerces here and many key business leaders. And I'd like for all of them to stand right now, just so that you can see we did bring a lot of people from 600 miles away. And they all have worked hard.

We're here today to petition the Texas Transportation Commission to authorize the allocation of discretionary funds for three regionally important projects. Our request represents a major regional initiative which affects the communities of southeastern New Mexico, El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

The projects represented in our request will bring us closer to the ultimate goal of building out Loop 375, an important regional link in our area's international beltway. The need for this plan has been dictated largely by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has opened the door to global trade with our community. However, steady regional growth also mandates infrastructure improvements.

El Paso, which is currently the fourth largest city in Texas, is the 17th largest city in the nation. It is estimated that increasing growth will nudge El Paso into the 15th largest American city by the year 2000.

The strategic position of the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez Metroplex, the largest border crossing into the United States, makes it an ideal location for a major international rail crossing.

Our region is centrally situated between the Gulf and Pacific coasts to primary transportation routes serving the global economic transportation network. Clearly our community's transportation needs must be responsibly addressed if we are to keep pace with expected regional growth and international trade opportunities.

And the request before you today represents the joint efforts of a tremendous number of people who have spent countless hours to ensure that what is before you is precisely what will best serve our region.

At this time I am going to call on our mayor, Mayor Carlos Ramirez, to walk you through our request and consensus-building process step by step. We have a video on it, and I think that it will show you some of the problems we're facing, and you can come to realize that we are a growing community. We're over 700,000 in our county now and growing fast.

So at this time, I would like to introduce to you Mayor Carlos Ramirez.

MAYOR RAMIREZ: Good morning, Chairman Laney, Commissioner Wynne, Commissioner Nichols, Executive Director Wes Heald, Assistant Director Mike Behrens, Deputy Director Kirby Pickett.

You know, we're all honored to be here today to present our projects. I was here a year ago, and it was an interesting experience. You know, this is only my second year. I hope I can match the record of 34. I don't know if I can do that, but I'll try.

We really appreciate Commissioner Nichols coming to El Paso several times. We would like to invite Commissioner Laney. I know he's been there in El Paso before, and we want to invite him to come back again.

And, Commissioner Wynne, you know, any time you have a chance from las niñas, please have El Niño fly you over. He's got a pilot's license.

We wanted to present to you first of all, a videotape that will show you the consensus that these projects bring from our region to you. This video will graphically depict some of the area that we're looking at and will graphically show you the people who are supporting this.

So would you please run the video?

(Whereupon, a videotape was played.)

MAYOR RAMIREZ: As you see in the video, we have quite a bit of consensus in our area. I wanted to talk a little bit about the rivers of trade.

The presentation before highlighted a river of trade that goes through East Texas. That East Texas river of trade is bringing trade not just from the middle of the country, but the northeast border of the country.

We have the central river of trade, which is the Camino Real. To this Camino Real we have the trade corridor that goes from Mexico City through the central part of the country, up all the way to Canada.

These rivers of trade is helping Texas. These rivers of trade will make our future. You know, we have ports in Texas. We have, of course, the Port of Houston. I used to live in Port Arthur, Texas, several years ago. You have Corpus Christi. You certainly have Laredo, an inland port. And you certainly have El Paso as the second largest inland port.

Through these ports, Texas conducts its trade, its exports, its imports. Exports are up in our state. Just from '96 to '97, exports in Texas were over 25 percent just to Mexico. So we have to look at how we're going to help our state grow in economic development and facilitate exports, facilitate trade. And to that effect, we need to look at all of our resources and all of our ports.

El Paso's port can greatly enhance not just the region -- and we are here to present this as a region. It's a unified region -- but it will also help our partners in the Panhandle. And you're going to hear a presentation from our partners in the Panhandle later on about the importance of U.S. 54.

Our partners in Lubbock -- and you had U.S. 62/180 that goes in that area -- all of those trade corridors, trade areas, go through the El Paso area. And this enhances Texas.

We have over 320 maquiladoras situated in that area that employ over 200,000 people. In Fortune 500 companies, there's 70 of them in that area. If you look at foreign companies, we have over 20 Japanese, Taiwanese, and European companies located in the area.

When we talk about partnerships -- and Congressman Reyes has alluded to that -- that partnership includes our partners to the south in Mexico. And that's extremely important to our projects in Texas, because not only do we have to have the infrastructure located in Texas, there has to be a mirror infrastructure in Mexico. And you have that infrastructure going through the central corridor, the Camino Real corridor, from El Paso to Mexico City.

You have the highways. You have the railroads. And we certainly have the air support in El Paso to make all that happen. And we're moving toward the intermodal hub, which is going to tie all these areas together.

There's more than 11,000 jobs that are directly attributable to the maquiladoras; over 25,000 indirect jobs because of the maquiladoras.

El Paso's industrial real estate market has grown approximately 2 million square feet per year. That enhances the Texas economy. That expands the tax base of Texas. And we certainly want to see more of that, because we want to have that partnership with the State of Texas.

The international beltway -- this is something that is going to be very unique. This international beltway, by completing Loop 375 around El Paso, we're also looking at that loop that you see right there pointed, that's going to tie the lower Valley area, from the Socorro area, Fabens area, all the way to the Santa Teresa area and back into El Paso's west industrial area.

This unique concept is going to help distribute the flow, make it market driven, put the hubs where they should be, one in the Fabens-Clint area, one in the Juarez south area, and one in the Santa Teresa, New Mexico, area. By doing that we will help our exports in Texas reach to the west coast -- California, Oregon, Washington state -- reach to the north -- Colorado, Canada -- and reach to the south, to the industrial heartland of Mexico, where Zacatecas, Querétaro, Guadalajara, and Mexico City are. That is extremely important to our state.

I believe that the three projects that we're presenting to you today are going to help us with that link. You see in there the heavy line, which is the portions of Loop 375 that are already finished. You also see the dotted line, which is the areas where we need to complete the projects. And you see the dotted line on the west side, which includes the portion of Loop 375 that remains to be completed.

But the three projects today will take a giant step towards that completion. Project number one, which is the turnaround lane -- you have seen, Commissioner Nichols, the traffic that we have on East El Paso, and how greatly the east Montana area and the Hueco area is expanding. It's growing by leaps and bounds. And that traffic is going to the Lubbock area. It's going to the area in the Panhandle that needs to get the exports to Mexico.

That interchange right there will help us with the traffic that goes not only from Mexico through the Loop to the Montana area, but also it's going to help us with our military base, Fort Bliss, White Sands, Holloman Air Force Base. And let's not forget that that constitutes one of the biggest and best assets that the military has in this country, the only restricted air space for the testing of missiles that we have in this country; and also for the power projection platform that this country needs to have in case of rapid deployment of troops anywhere in this world. And you have seen recently the events on the other side of the world that highlight the need for this country to be ready with its missile system in case it's necessary.

This project is about $11.7 million.

The second project is the overpass at Loop 375 and Interstate 10. That project -- we've been to you -- I believe this is the second time we present it. But that project -- that west side is growing by leaps and bounds, as well. We have a lot of industrial parks, a lot of industrial growth, a lot of new manufacturing space. And El Paso's manufacturing base is one of the largest ones in the state. Almost 20 percent of our economic makeup is related to manufacturing. And part of it is in that side of the town.

We have to complete the link from Trans-Mountain Road to Highway 273 to the Santa Teresa port of entry and Artcraft. Artcraft is already part of the project. This interchange will help us complete that project. This interchange is -- it costs about $9 million.

I can also tell you that we are prepared to match $1 million of STP funds for these two projects.

Finally, the third project is the one that we are requesting a Priority 2 status. You have seen, when you have visited El Paso, that we have an excellent portion of Loop 375 that follows the river all the way to downtown. But once you get to downtown, it stops. It stops right there.

We have got to complete that link. That is a vital link for the traffic, to alleviate the congestion on I-10 and to help the truck traffic go around the city, through the international port of entry and over to its destination, whether it be the west coast, the central part of the country or the midwest.

That portion -- that connection will take us from downtown El Paso to the west portion of El Paso. The interchange will link Interstate 10, Doniphan Road, and New Mexico 273, a very important interchange, an extremely important interchange for the entire region.

The Priority 2 status will allow the district office of TxDOT, that is very ably directed by Eddie Sanchez and the staff in El Paso, to develop and conduct public input meetings to do the engineering work, to do the environmental work that's necessary, so that perhaps a year from today we can come back and request a Priority 1 status on that one. That is extremely, extremely important.

El Paso is growing. El Paso is moving forward. El Paso has today the political, the private sector willpower to be an effective partner with the rest of the state. Today we're coming to you with very well-established projects, with a very firm and committed support from the entire region for these projects. And we're here to also mention that we are working very closely with the district office.

And we are enhancing the MPO, the Metropolitan Planning Organization, to become a very effective leader in transportation, in regional transportation in that area and for the rest of our state.

At this time, I would like to introduce our state legislators who are here with us today. And they can personally convey their support, their message to you.

Let me first ask Senator Eliot Shapleigh to come before you.

SENATOR SHAPLEIGH: Thank you, Mayor.

Commissioner Laney, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Wynne, Director Heald, thank you for permitting us to make this presentation today.

Chairman Laney, I'd like to personally thank you for your leadership on STEP 21. These years for Texas and transportation are critical. As we're all finding out, Texas is NAFTA. Texas carries 75 percent of the nation's truck traffic and surface transportation to our new ports. These are the ports to prosperity for Texas' future. Exports to Mexico are up 75 percent since the beginning of NAFTA. Our competitiveness as a state depends on what we do at these border crossings.

I had the opportunity to go to Dallas recently with the NAFTA committee that is chaired by Chairman Truan. And the Chamber of Commerce of Dallas gave testimony and talked about NAFTA's effect in Dallas and had three things to say, but the one I want to focus on was one of their major complaints. And the major complaint in Dallas, with respect to NAFTA, was congestion at the Texas border.

It was making products in the Dallas area less competitive, in terms of other alternatives, through Germany or other competitors. And it was interesting to hear that congestion at the Texas border is causing businesses and manufacturers in Dallas County to suffer.

These Texas ports along the border -- El Paso, Laredo, Brownsville, McAllen -- are now critical to Texas' future and ability to compete. And I think what you see emerging in El Paso, in my view, having gone up and down the border the last six months, is the leading example of the seamless border concept; that is, how do we move commerce through these areas right along the frontier and have the issues of interdiction lessened and the issues of commerce increased. It's the major issue along the Texas-Mexico border.

What you're seeing there, in my view, is the leading example thus far of a seamless border, the way of getting commerce around these areas, around the congestion, through these ports, so that commerce can increase for Texas.

If you examine what El Paso is trying to do, the fourth largest city in Texas in 1998, in the fifth year of NAFTA, what we're simply trying to do is to finish our outer loop. We're trying to finish and get done our outer loop. And in the midst of the congestion of NAFTA and the affect that that's having on competitiveness for Texas, I submit to you that that's a significant priority for the State of Texas.

We appreciate the time that you have spent, Commissioner Nichols, going up and down the border and looking firsthand at what's going on, because in my view this issue of how we get Texas goods to market -- and our market is definitely Mexico -- is one of the major issues for Texas business and Texas profitability in the future.

And I want to thank you for your interest and thank you for permitting us to make this presentation. And I'd invite my other senator from El Paso, Senator Duncan, to join me in making this presentation.

Thank you.

JUDGE MATTOX: We have Senator Duncan that now has a few remarks to make. Thank you.

SENATOR DUNCAN: Just briefly -- and I want to reiterate what Eliot told you. I think that you see that El Paso is working very hard to come together to try to come with a comprehensive plan.

I know the Senate Economic Development Committee is also studying border issues and infrastructure issues and things that we need to be doing in this state to take advantage of a unique opportunity we have.

I think that the fact that El Paso was the fourth largest city in the state without a loop -- and it's the only city without a loop -- is very critical and important if we're looking at the significant increase in congestion. In that city alone, because of NAFTA, we see that we need to have the relief from congestion.

So I think the projects here are very well thought through. I think that they have placed their priorities where they need to be placed. And I think that they've been very conservative in the way that they've come about doing this, and so we request your consideration and approval of these.

One other thing, I overheard at dinner last night that the roads from El Paso to Austin are good, at least to a hundred. And I don't know about anything other than that. But I won't attribute to who that statement was made.

We appreciate your consideration of this.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Senator.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you.

I think we have Representative Haggerty here. Is he here? Yes. And Representative Pickett will be right behind him. Thank you.

MR. HAGGERTY: Members of the Commission, we're waiting for you to throw up your hands, and then we'll quit talking. That's all we're doing. We are flat -- yes, exactly.

We want to thank you for your hospitality. We want you to think about that map, though. When you're coming out I-10 you can't get off and go south anywhere. You can't get off and go north anywhere. It's a long way to the next highway. So this congestion that they're talking about is vitally important, and this loop will relieve a great deal of that problem.

We ask for your consideration.

MR. LANEY: Thank you.

JUDGE MATTOX: Representative Pickett.

MR. PICKETT: Good morning, Chairman, Commissioners -- and I haven't met my long lost uncle over here, yet, Kirby Pickett.

I haven't really denied the fact that we are or are not related, but I sure do appreciate all the fruit baskets and plants I've been receiving for my promotion in TxDOT. I'll share those with you when you come out to visit El Paso.

I'm here to give you just a little different point of view. I've been here several times. Again, we're all trying to compete with Mayor Abernathy, I guess, 34 trips. He's got 29 on me, but I've been out here before. And we've talked about family, and last night -- Commissioner Nichols -- we talked about family. and one of the projects takes it back to home for me.

My son and I, who's seven -- he's in first grade -- we were driving north on Loop 375. And we came to that intersection -- it's project number one, by the way -- and we came up to that intersection. And there's a big semi tractor-trailer next to us that gears down and makes that rumble noise and come to a stop.

And you've probably been at an intersection like it seems like everybody's stopped and nobody's going through it. And they're all just -- maybe they did this as a joke so everybody could look at each other for a while.

And he says, How come we can't just go through this. And I said, Well, it's kind of funny you should mention that because -- and I try to include my kids and my family in a lot of things that I do -- and I said, We're going to go before the Texas Department of Transportation to ask to build a bridge -- because that's what he understands -- you know, a bridge over this, so that the traffic going north does not have to stop here.

And he said, Well, I think that's a good thing; that would mean we could just keep on going. I said, Yes. And he said, Well, how much is that going to cost. And I said, Well, it's estimated that it's just under $12 million. And I, you know, emphasized million. And he's not sure at seven years old what $12 million is.

And then I also said -- and it hasn't been mentioned yet today -- we're also going to commit funding ourselves. We have voted on the MPO to commit a million dollars of 4-C funding to project number one and project number two, $2 million.

So I told him that we're going to -- from our community, from the money that we have allowed, that we can spend in our purview, I said, We're going to spend a million dollars. And he said, Well, can I help. And I said, Well, what do you mean, can you help. He says, Well, the more money you put up does it get a better chance that you get the project. And I said, Yes, it sure does.

Now, you have to remember he's seven years old. He gave me a $1.37 to bring to you all to add to the -- I've got it here, by the way.

Now, if you've got a seven-year-old or know a seven-year-old, you know, this is how the dollar came out, by the way. It was rolled up in his pocket. And I've got the 37 cents here. Now, I know that this is contingent upon approval, but I do have the $1.37 in good faith. So this truly is a public-private partnership.

And Representative Haggerty that was just up here is the voice of one of the most successful beauty pageant folks around. And what they do to bring attention to some of their functions is that they have them at 9:02 or 10:07 is when it starts so people remember that in their mind.

So I want you to remember on project number one the community of El Paso is bringing you one million one dollar and 37 cents to the project.

Having said that and bringing my children in on this, like I did before, I told the Commission one time we might name one of our children after them. And you didn't make the decision before she was born, Ms. Wynne.

MS. WYNNE: All right.

MR. PICKETT: But I'm going to make it even worse on you though. I'm going to make it even more tear-jerking. In about five more minutes my seven-year-old son will be performing in the talent show at his school today. And he almost asked for the $1.37 back when he found out I'd be missing the talent show. That's how important it is to me and the other people in the audience that have come out here.

Mayor Monreal that drove the 600 miles -- and he didn't tell you the whole story. Last year it was 800 miles, because he got off kilter a little bit and he had to backtrack. So I think he's got that down pat.

I do want to say the same thing that's been mimicked by the other people here today, as far as the support from TxDOT. Al Luedecke and Wes Heald are helping me on a project, as far as feasibility study on the Northeast Parkway.

Coby and Jefferson keep us very much in the loop with what's going on in TxDOT. They're our one-stop shop. We can call them and get the answers that we want.

And again, the mayor mentioned it, and I have to again, also, we think we have the best of your 25 district engineers in El Paso, Texas, in Eddie Sanchez. And I kid about it. We don't want you to transfer him anywhere, but if you want to give him a raise, that's okay. Maybe he'll stay.

With that, these projects are extremely important. There's other improvements going on at the same time. We are doing widening. We are doing inner -- we've got main lanes being built right now, an overpass on part of it. So this is an ongoing project. It's extremely important. It will keep that traffic flowing. And my son's willing to put up that $1.37.

Thank you.

JUDGE MATTOX: Chairman Laney, I know we may be running a minute over. But I don't want to discriminate. And I didn't realize that we have a young lady who is one of our representatives here, Norma Chavez. So I would like for her to say a few words, if she can, please.

MS. CHAVEZ: Good morning, Commissioner, Chairmen. I'm not a joke teller so I can't tell you a joke. But I will tell you that Representative Haggerty said that the Irish Chamber of Commerce was not represented in the video. But his family and a quorum is present, and they do concur and endorse all the projects.

As a member of Team El Paso and State Representative for District 76 here in east central El Paso, we come here to request support of the proposed projects.

A great number of El Pasoans -- county commissioners, elected officials, mayors, city councilmen -- have traveled more than 600 miles to present to you our prioritized list. And I'm just here to wholeheartedly support the request, the projects, and ask for your favorable support so that our city can move into the next millennium as the international hub, as the doorway to trade, and to help us with the great needs that we have on our infrastructure and NAFTA.

Thank you for your time.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you very much. And mayor and I are here at your all disposal. If you have any questions we would be very happy to answer them. We appreciate your listening to us. And we need your help.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Judge.

Thank you, Mayor, Senators, Representatives. We appreciate it. And all of the rest of you who've traveled the distance you have to be here. That's testimony to how important the projects are to you. And we appreciate the effort.

It's an enormous effort for anybody to pick up and leave anywhere in the state. But you all have much farther to travel than most. And we appreciate the effort.

As you know, the most recent visitor from the Commission has been Commissioner Nichols. Let me first turn to Commissioner Nichols, see if you have any comments or questions.

MR. NICHOLS: Oh, I had made -- I don't have any questions. But I'll make the comment that I made when I was in El Paso that you all have done an excellent job of putting all this together.

You've got -- you've shown the need. There obviously is a very important need, not only locally, but the implications for other areas. You've got a good plan. You've got your regional support and unity. You've got local matching, which helps leverage the funds. You've been consistently working your plan.

That's all very important. And you have, among your community, established your own priorities inside that plan, which I think's also very important. And so I think you all have just done an outstanding job at putting all this together. We realize there's an awful lot of work that goes into these things -- local meetings, hearings, things of that nature -- to establish that type of local support.

And I think we also all recognize that it is not an easy thing to have members of your community to leave their work and their jobs and come a long distance like today. And we appreciate it. Thank you.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Thank you.

Commissioner Wynne?

MS. WYNNE: Well, I join in support of what a good job you all have done of bringing this community together. I think Joe and I have been here about the same amount of time, and I have seen some real progress. And I think these projects are working their way through our system. And the ones that you all have gotten extra money for since I've been here, I know are making a difference.

I won't be here next year when you come back, but I would hope that we will not be involved in a lawsuit when you all come back this time next year. In the last four visits, every time you come we've heard that you all are going to go back and try to get the Court of Inquiry resolved. And unfortunately, it's yet to be resolved. So I hope that when you come back next year it will be resolved and we will no longer be involved in the courthouse and the only thing we will be doing is building projects together.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Anne.

First of all, let me say to Representative Pickett, that if you are related to Kirby, you're the only member of his family who claims the relationship. And so I'm sure he appreciates that, but it won't help you.

We -- and let me echo what Anne just said. But let me also take the -- and I know she agrees with this, as well -- we have come with El Paso in the last few years, a long way, from our end in much more carefully understanding your issues.

It's been at a time when we've seen the brunt of NAFTA taken across the border from your end of the border to the lower valley. And so we've all been learning a little bit together as you all have taken the wallop in terms of traffic and congestion and trade issues and so forth. And we've all seen emerging opportunities. And we all see the risk of not taking advantage of those opportunities if we don't act appropriately.

It is, I think, always surprising to see El Paso without a fully completed loop. That's an important piece, as Senator Shapleigh alluded to, to the state, as well as to your community. And I'm optimistic we'll be able to help you all move forward. As you know, we don't make those kinds of decisions on the spot. And I will be out in El Paso in relatively short order, be able to kick the tires, as well.

On the other hand, I, too, compliment you and even though you haven't been here like Mayor Abernathy, 34 times, I do appreciate your patience. And I very much look forward to taking some steps forward -- speaking on behalf of the Commission -- taking some steps forward with El Paso and working -- continuing to work as closely as we have in the last few years.

I think we've got a very strong relationship now with El Paso and the leadership in El Paso that speaks for transportation. And I think we're going places. El Paso is a critical key to trade in Texas. And it's a critical link from this country into Mexico and back, in terms of national interests, as well. So El Paso is very important that we address. And again, I'm optimistic. We'll see. Appreciate your presentation. Thank you.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you very much. We appreciate it, Chairman Laney and Commissioners. And we hope that you will come visit us. And we are a part of Texas and a big part of it. And although we are a long way off, have the pilot, El Niño, that can fly you out there, so we would be very happy to have you come visit us and see just what problems we are facing, so that you will even see more than you saw today. These were just the three top projects that we have. We have a lot more facing us.

MR. LANEY: Yes.

JUDGE MATTOX: Thank you very much for listening to us.

MR. RAMIREZ: Thank you for your consideration.

MR. LANEY: Thank you. We will move on to the next item. And those of you from El Paso again, thank you for coming.

MR. LANEY: We're going to move directly into the next agenda item, which is --

MS. WYNNE: Five?

MR. LANEY: -- the Fort Bend Parkway Association item. Thank you. In that regard, Al Luedecke.

Appreciate it, Al.

MR. LUEDECKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm Al Luedecke, Director of Transportation Planning and Programming Division. In accordance with the Texas Administrative Code, the Transportation Corporations founded with the Commission are requested to provide an annual report on the condition of the Association, the status of projects and activities undertaken during the year.

Mr. Bob Randolph with the Fort Bend Transportation Corporation or Parkway Association is here today to present his report.

MR. LANEY: Welcome, Mr. Randolph. Appreciate your making your schedule fit.

MR. RANDOLPH: Thank you. Robert Randolph. I'm an attorney with Vinson & Elkins. And we welcome the opportunity to make this presentation to the Commission. We wanted to do it before the Chairman subpoenaed us. And --

MR. LANEY: Hardly.

MR. RANDOLPH: -- and forced us to come. We had requested that the presentation --

Go ahead and hand those out. Here.

We had requested that the presentation be delayed for a few months so we would be in a position to present some more definitive information. And the reasons for the request was that there is an ongoing study at the present time by Wilbur Smith to determine whether or not the Fort Bend Parkway could be financed and completed as a county-owned toll road or possibly a toll road that is owned by Missouri City or one of the other local entities.

Wilbur Smith is in the process of doing a final feasibility study, a financing feasibility study, and when the results of that study are in we will have a much better idea from the standpoint of the opportunities for it to be financed and its feasibility.

Included in the package that was handed out was the preliminary study that was recently done and formed the basis for the Commissioner's Court funding the final feasibility study. And the revenue projections of the several scenarios that are shown there indicates that it probably will work.

My observation on the toll roads I've worked with is that the final feasibility study always looks better than the preliminary feasibility study when it is finally completed.

There was a second item that we wanted to wait on. And that was the enactment of BESTEA to find out what the implications would be on the Fort Bend Parkway, the Association, and also, State Highway 6.

One of the things that is required in order for Fort Bend Parkway to be done as a toll road was completion of improvements to State Highway 6 to the Brazoria County line -- from essentially Sugar Land to the Brazoria County line.

One of the 1,467 priority projects in BESTEA is the designation of funds for the widening and improvement of State Highway 6. I think there's a total of 24 million-plus dollars in BESTEA as one of the priority items.

And so that obviously hadn't been signed, but I'm making an assumption that it will be signed. And so that is -- and one of Congressman -- this is in Congressman Delay's district. And he was helpful in having that designated.

There are several different entities that are involved in the development of the Parkway, and the Fort Bend Parkway itself has a long history. It was first designated in the City of Houston Major Thoroughfare Plan, I think, in 1955. It was designated as the Bay City Freeway.

For lack of funding it was dropped after being in the Major Thoroughfare Plan for several years. But as the area developed, there was a corridor preserved for right-of-way, so when the subdivisions were developed, it was left. There was a corridor through the developed area that would be broad enough to build a freeway.

In 1985, the Fort Bend County Commissioner's Court resurrected it as the Bay City Freeway again. And there was presentation made to the Commission in 1986 to try to get the Commission to designate it as a freeway to run from essentially 610 in Houston to Bay City itself.

And the presentation was made. It was well received. The Commission requested the staff to do a feasibility study on it. And the results of the feasibility study was so good that the Department did not want to recommend it the entire distance.

It was back -- the Department recommended that it be designated to run from Beltway 8 in -- which essentially is at the county line, between Harris County and Fort Bend County -- to its intersection with the Grand Parkway, which is under consideration at the present time in the Fort Bend County area.

It was not -- there wasn't a recommendation made to continue it all the way to Bay City, nor to bring it into 610, because there would be too much traffic that would be brought onto 610, and the district did not think they could handle the traffic they had on 610 at the present time along the west edge of Houston because it is so heavily congested.

So there was -- it was designated -- there was a feasibility study, suggested that it be designated as a state highway. Following that, the local interests, after they had made another presentation, began trying to develop the funding on it.

And this basically is a -- and the additional handout that we have is a development of the history of the Fort Bend Parkway. And it's a history of frustration. It's a history of the finish line constantly being moved to be a little further away.

And when you have a public-private venture, where you have landowners, local interests, as well as the state participating, there's not a final finish line so that you can try to achieve that, then it becomes very, very difficult to complete that.

And frankly, that's one of the reasons why the local interests started looking at the development of this as a toll road, simply because of the problems associated with completing the environmental impact statement.

The history on this project, as I indicated, began in 1985. In 1988, there was the presentation and the suggestion was made that the county try to come up with local funding. And the concept at that particular point of the development of highways was if the local interests came in with the land, the design of the highway, and the environmental statements or assessments prepared, then you could move a highway up on the priority status and have it done at a cost per vehicle mile analysis that was used to determine whether a project would be authorized.

The presentation made by the local interests was that they would put together all the right-of-way, they would design the highway, and TxDOT would construct the service roads -- not the main lanes -- but the service roads from Beltway 8 to State Highway 6.

So following the 1988 presentation, Fort Bend County created a taxing district called the Fort Bend Parkway Road District, county-created road district. And there was authorized $4,500,000 worth of bonds to pay the cost of developing the environmental assessment, as well as to ultimately acquire the right-of-way.

There was issued about a million-and-a-half dollars' worth of money to pay for the preliminary work. Now, the Fort Bend County Road District is an entity that's governed by the Commissioner's Court of Fort Bend County. The Commissioner's Court sits as its governing body. They meet as the Commissioner's Court, then they meet as the governing body of the road district. They meet as the governing body of the drainage district.

So the funding is being done through Fort Bend County, through a taxing district that still continues to have debt outstanding. So when you see the Fort Bend Road District, that's how it is a player in this particular project.

In 1990, the delegation came back to the Commission for the entry of a formal minute order to develop the Fort Bend Parkway. And there was a minute order entered on February 27, 1990, that essentially granted the request of the local interests, designated it as State Highway 122, and indicated that the State would construct the service roads at a cost of about $22 million if the local interests did what they suggested they would do, acquire the right-of-way and do an environmental assessment.

And so the engineers that was engaged on the project, Rust & Company -- and we have the chairman of our board, Carl Stephens, of the Association with us, and we have Harry Simeonidis with us, with Rust & Company -- proceeded to prepare an environmental assessment.

Things changed when ISTEA was enacted, and there was a lot of zingers in ISTEA that was not present at the time that the delegation initially made its first presentation. It was in April of 1993, after the environmental assessment was completed, that the county was advised that we needed to have an environmental impact statement, as opposed to an environmental assessment.

So they started -- but the environmental assessment was so detailed that it essentially would have served as the environmental impact statement. And so that was what was done. And that was recast and remodified to be the environmental impact statement.

In July of 1993, there was an internal guidance memo that was distributed by the Federal Highway Regional Administration regarding another new requirement that had to be addressed. And it's the Congestion Management System or SOV justification analysis. And when this was presented initially, there was no requirement that you have an SOV justification.

Now, one of the problems that we had was there is carbon dioxide problems in Houston, there is nitrogen oxide problems in Houston. And in the modeling and in the justification, there was no technique or no procedures to follow in terms of going forward and developing a new highway. Different standard if you're redoing, but when you're creating new lanes for single-occupancy vehicles, you have additional requirements.

A scoping hearing was held by the Fort Bend Parkway Association, which was acting really on behalf of TxDOT. The scoping hearing went wonderfully. There was no opposition. And that's unusual from the standpoint of a highway project. But the scoping hearing was completed. Final comments were received. And there was no negative requirements whatsoever in the scoping hearing.

Another zinger that was in ISTEA was the requirement that there be a major investment study. And in April of 1994, the Fort Bend Parkway Association was advised that the environmental impact statement that had been prepared needed to be supplemented with a major investment analysis.

The meeting's held in June of 1994. Conclusion was that the major investment analysis could be moved in to the environmental impact statement. And so Rust presented and proceeded to prepare the major investment analysis along the guidelines that was suggested in the July 1994 meeting.

As you know, this costs a significant amount of money. So Rust had to go back to the Commissioner's Court to have additional funding, which they did do to continue the environmental analysis.

And there was a further requirement that the format of the environmental impact statement had to be modified to conform to the new standards that was used by the Grand Parkway Association in presenting its environmental impact statement for segment I-2.

That was reformulated, and then I think that the next thing was we had to do additional sound analysis and some additional alternative analysis. And so basically, Rust & Company has been proceeding to do this. Now, they have completed the environmental impact statement, and it has been submitted to District 12.

I'm not sure that it's going to be in satisfactory form. District 12 is not reviewing the environmental impact statement at the present time. It has been sitting there. It is going stale. And it will be going stale over the next few months as this proceeds on.

There were several reasons for District 12 not reviewing it, that we understand. First of all, it was in December of 1996 the local interests became frustrated with the fact that the finish line seemed to be moving further away, in terms of completing the environmental impact statement. They wanted to investigate to determine whether it could be done locally with no federal funds. And so Rust did a preliminary feasibility study to determine whether it could be done as a toll road. It looked good to them. The Commissioner's Court of Fort Bend County authorized the preliminary study, which we handed out, in terms of developing the highway as a toll road.

And while this investigation was going on, it was the decision of District 12 not to proceed with the analysis of the environmental impact statement, because if it's done as a toll road it wouldn't need to be approved at all because there would not be a requirement of an environmental impact statement.

So basically, that is where the project is at the present time. There is -- environmental impact statement has been completed. It may have to have some additional modifications. We don't know.

I haven't had a chance to go through BESTEA to see what's in it that might change the finish line further. But the analysis is ongoing. I think that we will see the feasibility study come back favorably. And it would be done locally through another entity that has been created to act on behalf of Fort Bend County, called the Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority, which itself is a transportation corporation that acts on behalf of the county, much the same way as the Fort Bend Parkway Association acts on behalf of the -- of TxDOT.

In terms of who would actually own and finance a toll road if this is feasible, there's several different entities that could legally do so. The Texas Turnpike Authority Department obviously could do so. The Fort Bend County could do so, because they have the same powers to do a toll road as Harris County does. The Fort Bend Parkway Road District could do it; it has toll road powers. The Fort Bend Parkway Association could do it; it has toll road powers. The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority could do it, because it has toll road powers. Or Missouri City could create its own Transportation Commission that could finance it, because this area is mostly in Fort Bend County.

And that is kind of a general overview on where we are at the present time.

Harry or Carl, do you all have any things you want to -- any remarks you want to make?

MR. STEPHENS: Thank you, Bob.

I've been serving on the Parkway Board, I guess, for the last five or six years. And obviously, as a citizen of Fort Bend County and involved in other aspects and endeavors, it -- as Bob has outlined here, it has become very frustrating because we never seem to be able to get to the finish line on this thing. And so -- and it's not anything personal. It's just fact, you know. And it keeps changing.

So we're hopeful that, as Bob has indicated, that this issue will get resolved and it becomes a toll road. And maybe it will be good for all of us. But we would ask you to -- obviously, don't give up on Highway 6 because we need that. And I know that some conversation with District 12 and Gary Trietsch, that that's being worked on. So that -- having said that, we thank you for your time, though.

MR. RANDOLPH: And our comments really weren't directed as criticism of District 12, because we have a very good working relationship with them. It's the constant changing federal guidelines and the requirements in terms of trying to complete it and not getting to the finish line.

Harry, did you have anything you wanted to add?

MR. SIMEONIDIS: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I wanted to mention that as part of this toll road feasibility study, we're looking at an interchange with Highway 6. And that particular interchange is going to be very costly, so I think we need to make that -- make you aware of that -- those costs. Perhaps we can come back at a later date and ask you to consider that.

MR. RANDOLPH: And I'm sure that once that feasibility study is completed, there will be a presentation or a request for a presentation back to the Commission, because obviously, it will have to connect with Beltway 8 and it will have to connect with State Highway 6 and cross State Highway 6.

And there's two studies. One is just the segment from the Beltway 8 to State Highway 6. And the second one is the extension, which would take it across the Brazos River and have another bridge that would tie into a farm-to-market road on the south side of the Brazos River.

I'm available for any questions, or Carl or Harry.

MR. LANEY: Bob, thanks for bringing us up to speed. And I'm sorry to have gotten you here a little prematurely. We were anxious to hear what was going on and what the state of affairs was. Could be worse; you could be the Green Carpet Route.

MR. RANDOLPH: That's true. No. I've only been working on this since 1985. So we've got a number of years to go.

MR. LANEY: Yes.

You have any questions, Anne?

MS. WYNNE: Well -- and I don't want to hold us up, but I'm -- everything starts off with the name Fort Bend and then it's got something that comes after that. We created the Fort Bend Transportation Corporation?

MR. RANDOLPH: You created the Fort Bend Parkway Association, which is a transportation corporation that -- and pursuant to the Transportation Corporation Act, it can conduct feasibility studies, alignment studies on behalf of the Department of Transportation.

MS. WYNNE: Okay. Is there an entity named the Fort Bend Transportation Corporation?

MR. RANDOLPH: No. There is an entity named the Fort Bend Parkway Association, which is the --

MS. WYNNE: Okay.

MR. RANDOLPH: -- a transportation corporation.

MS. WYNNE: So in this memo, when it refers to the Fort Bend Parkway Association and then refers to the Fort Bend Transportation Corporation, those are one and the same?

MR. RANDOLPH: The transportation -- there is a Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority. Okay? I -- it's conceivable that they use -- the engineers use the transportation corporation interchangeably with the --

MS. WYNNE: Okay. So the --

MR. RANDOLPH: -- association, yes.

MS. WYNNE: The entity that we created is the Fort Bend Parkway --

MR. RANDOLPH: Parkway Association.

MS. WYNNE: -- Association?

MR. RANDOLPH: That's correct.

MS. WYNNE: All right.

MR. RANDOLPH: It has a five-member board.

MS. WYNNE: And you're the chairman of that board. Is that correct, Mr. Stephens? All right.

And we just re-created that in 1997. Is that right?

MR. RANDOLPH: It was not re-created. The Commission rules essentially terminated all of the existing boards and required them to perform -- and provide additional information to the Commission.

MS. WYNNE: Right. And where does the Fort Bend Parkway Association get its money?

MR. RANDOLPH: The Fort Bend Parkway Association receives its money from Fort Bend County. Fort Bend County funds the association's costs. As a matter of fact, the Fort Bend Parkway Association has never had any money. The engagements of Rust & Company and Vinson & Elkins and the other consultants working on the project is with Fort Bend County.

The Fort Bend Parkway Association essentially oversees the efforts and makes recommendations to the county engineer, to the county attorney, and to the Commissioner's Court to pay the invoices of the consultants.

MS. WYNNE: Thank you. One of my concerns with these alter egos that we have created is our auditing ability of the money that they spend on our behalf. And so what I would like to see when we do these annual reports is, even though the money isn't ours, they are acting on our behalf with somebody else's money. And I think that it behooves us to do an audit of how that money is spent to make sure that that would be the way that we would spend the money if we were actually signing the checks.

And these -- and this is far beyond the scope of the discussion today. But I think that when we went through the last session of the Legislature, as far as trying to resolve who is going to build toll roads in this state, that one of the things that we -- I think, we're all of one mind about is that creating many, many entities to build only one toll facility is the way to get this more fragmented than it needs to be.

So I hope that as we're looking at the development of this -- and I share your frustration with changing federal guidelines, because these gentlemen live with it every day on all our projects -- I think that we need to be looking at the big picture as to who should be responsible for the building of this toll road.

So I'm all for trying to push this thing forward. I just want to make sure that we know how the money is being spent. And then if we ever have to answer questions about it, we can do that knowledgeably.

MR. RANDOLPH: But the association, the one that's been created by the Commission, has no money. It's never had any money. The money that is being spent is spent by Fort Bend County.

Now, Fort Bend County has audits. And they audit the Road District and the expenditures of funds separately from the other funds. It is a special fund in the county treasury. Fort Bend County audits have -- that have -- shows the funds that have been spent have been provided to the Commission or the Department.

MS. WYNNE: Right. And I just us want us to -- MR. RANDOLPH: Right. And in terms of the toll road itself and who actually does it, the -- I worked to create the Harris County Toll Road Authority and got the legislation to do it. It's been incredibly successful.

The mechanism used in financing that toll road is -- until recently was far superior to the Texas Turnpike Authority's powers, because they had only revenues from the project that could be used to underwrite the project. And it all had to be done on feasibility from day one.

In Harris County's situation they were able to underwrite and credit-enhance it with a tax, which they've never had to levy, but they got very, very low interest rates.

Now, in Fort Bend County's situation what is being proposed is very similar to what was done for Harris County and that particular toll road authority.

And the Texas Turnpike Authority -- I mean, obviously, you could just use purely local funds. But some of the activities as I've seen in TxDOT legislation provides for using a state infrastructure bank. And if you bring it back into the environmental impact statement requirement, where you are using federal funds on it and you are developing a new highway, new single-occupancy vehicle lanes in a metropolitan area that has this conformity-of-analysis problem, it's going to be a very, very slow process.

MS. WYNNE: I understand that.

MR. LANEY: Kirby, do you have any questions?

MR. PICKETT: (No audible response.)

MR. LANEY: Thank you very much, Bob.

MR. RANDOLPH: Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Appreciate your coming. Appreciate the presentation.

Al, do you have anything you want to add?

MR. LUEDECKE: No.

MR. LANEY: Okay. Wes, let me turn it over to you at this point. I think the next item that we're -- the next item that we're moving into is the Trunk System. Right? You want to do the staff presentation on it?

MR. HEALD: You want to go ahead and catch the minutes first?

MR. LANEY: Let's -- yes, we can do the minutes and do the resolution for Davis. And then let's go into the Trunk System.

MR. HEALD: Yes. The next item is approval of minutes of the April meeting. It was held in Odessa.

MR. LANEY: Anybody have any comments or changes to the minutes?

MR. NICHOLS: I move acceptance.

MS. WYNNE: I need to abstain since I wasn't there.

MR. LANEY: We have a motion. I second it. All in favor?

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. LANEY: Okay.

MR. HEALD: We have one more item we might work in here, your consideration to pass a resolution to extend sympathy to the relatives of Pete Davis. It's Agenda Item Number 3.

MR. LANEY: Let me read the resolution into the record, if I may.

"Whereas, Peter R. Davis II was suddenly taken from his family and friends while employed by the Texas Department of Transportation,

And whereas Mr. Davis had served the Texas Department of Transportation in a loyal and efficient manner and had earned the respect and friendship of his fellow employees,

And whereas it is the desire of the Texas Department of Transportation to honor his memory,

Now, therefore be it resolved that the Texas Transportation Commission does hereby extend sincerest sympathy to the family of Peter R. Davis II and that this resolution be sent to his family."

Can I have a motion.

MS. WYNNE: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. LANEY: Motion and a second. All in favor?

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. HEALD: Agenda Item Number 4, Texas Trunk System. And Al Luedecke will be the presenter.

MR. LUEDECKE: In 1990, the Texas Trunk System was approved. And it's development has been under way ever since. Projects were selected by a cost effective analysis that determined which projects were built first. System development addressed many of the necessary segments of the system, but there was no program for development of complete corridors.

It was determined that it would be better use of limited funds to begin to develop specific corridors. So with the encouragement of Commissioner Nichols, we began to investigate potential corridors and criteria to be used to evaluate the priority for development.

Forty-five corridors on the Trunk System were identified and many criteria were investigated. Eventually four criteria were proposed. They are traffic volumes on the two-lane sections of a corridor, the amount of the corridor that remained as two-lane facility or the gap, whether the corridor served as a bypass of metropolitan areas over one million population, and finally, whether the corridor had an end point on the border with Mexico and carried a minimum of 3,000 vehicles per day.

A public hearing was held on February 12, 1998, to get public input to the proposed criteria and resulting corridors. A total of 83 comments were received. Exhibit A in your books provides the comments from the hearing and the changes that we propose to be adopted here today.

After analysis of the comments and subsequent information, three basic changes were proposed. First, the points awarded for the bridge traffic to Mexico was adjusted to reflect the percentage of the traffic at the crossings, as opposed to a blanket 20 points for each project -- or each crossing.

Second, three routes were added: State Highway 6 from Waco to Houston, U.S. 59 from Laredo to Victoria, and U.S. 87 from Dumas to the New Mexico state line. One route was eliminated, State Highway 105. And the segment of U.S. 287 north of Dumas was eliminated in favor of the U.S. 87 connection to New Mexico.

The third change is that we recommend targeting about 10 percent of the Trunk funds to handle some of the critical projects that are not on these corridors.

The corridors we now propose are listed in your books as Exhibit B to the minute order.

It should be pointed out that since it will take the district some time to develop the projects on these corridors, we propose that all of the existing Priority 2 Trunk projects identified in the UTP be accelerated and let as quickly as possible. This elevated funding level combined with the preparation time allows us a good opportunity to fulfill our current commitments.

It should be noted that we have changed the name of the program to the Trunk System Phase One Corridors. Once this phase is under way, we plan to begin the development of the Phase Two Corridors so that they can begin just as the Phase One program is being completed. We expect this will be sometime in the next two years.

Finally, speaking for the staff, we wish to thank Mr. Nichols for his support in the development of this program. His numerous visits with the folks around the state have helped us pave the way to the program we have before you today.

And we recommend your approval of this program.

MR. LANEY: Thanks, Al.

MR. LUEDECKE: Sure.

MR. LANEY: We have a number of people signed up to speak in connection with this Trunk System initiative. The first is Senator Stephen Ogden.

Senator Ogden?

SENATOR OGDEN: Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, thank you. I would like to introduce some people that came from my district in relation to this issue. One is County Judge Al Jones from Brazos County, along with Mike Parks and Mike Harris from the Metropolitan Planning Organization. They're here in support of the addition of State Highway 6 to the Phase One Corridor program. Also like to introduce my father, Emil Ogden, who flew me over here. Thank you.

MS. WYNNE: To keep watch over you. Good.

SENATOR OGDEN: That's right.

MS. WYNNE: We're glad to see you.

SENATOR OGDEN: He gets to fly me to Victoria so we can talk about electric dereg as soon as I'm through here.

I think one of the best advices that a parent can give their child is, Finish what you start. And I think that Commissioner Nichols has tried to apply that advice to what's going on here in Texas, and I congratulate him for that effort.

I am here in support of what you're trying to do and what your agenda assumes you're going to vote on here later on.

I would like to point out, with respect to the Fifth Senatorial District, the projects that directly affect us. On that slide that we had earlier, the State Highway

31/IH-35 project from Tyler to Austin goes through Corsicana and Navarro County. That's been a major project up there. That is very good news for the people in that part of the district, my part of the district.

State Highway 21 and U.S. 290 from Bryan-College Station to Austin is good news for my constituents. And it's particularly good news that State Highway 6 from Waco to Houston is on the Phase One Corridor Program.

I can say that if you add up that total financial commitment, it represents a little bit over 20 percent of the total commitment that is being discussed today. So with that, we're pleased.

I would continue to -- Mr. Luedecke pointed out a change that I think is a good change in your proposal, where you're reserving 10 percent of the funds to address projects not on the Phase One Corridor's required immediate attention due to safety, roadway condition, and other vital factors.

I would also like to add the point that as we compete for funding under the Phase One priority, that safety continue to be elevated as one of the major considerations.

And one of the things that was discussed yesterday in my district -- and we have, through the leadership of myself and particularly Senator Sibley -- have asked local leaders like Judge Al Jones to reestablish the State Highway 6 Corridor Association.

And one of the things that we were briefed on by TxDOT engineers yesterday was dividing State Highway 6 from southern Brazos County into Grimes County. And it's already four lanes. And we were under -- we were told that, you know, our priorities to make the thing four lanes and then we'll go back and divide the four lanes that are not divided. But it is a major, major safety issue. There's too many accidents down there. There are too many deaths. And I want to make sure that that issue doesn't get lost in the cracks when we start going to four lanes through the Phase One work.

And then reserving 10 percent of the funds that are not Phase One corridors, if you read that very literally, I've got an eight-mile stretch that's four lanes. It's in the Phase One corridor and it's not going to get divided until 2005. And I think that's too long, based on the projections and the number of people that are being injured down there.

Significant issues remain. I represent 19 counties. Approximately half of my counties in the 5th Senatorial District are not particularly well served with this program. We have some major east-west issues, particularly in East Texas.

One of the ways that we're going to address that is on June 10, Commissioner Nichols is going to meet with leaders in the eastern part of my district to talk about their very legitimate concerns about their transportation needs that are not directly impacted by what's being proposed today.

Last thing I'd like to say is what I will do as a State Senator. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that I need to devote more of my effort to make sure that the funding is there to accelerate these projects. And I've seen your projections based on annual funding. Those things need to be done sooner in my judgment, and I think that ultimately it will be cheaper to the taxpayers if we figure out a way to do that.

One of my projects that I've talked to your executive director about -- I'm absolutely convinced of this -- is that there has got to be some ways to spread our transportation dollars farther. I think if we work at it and we really take a systematic view, there may be some significant cost savings that we can realize so that the taxes that taxpayers are spending and the money that the federal government is sending us results in more highway for about the same amount of money.

And we will work very hard to resolve very serious local issues so that TxDOT can get on with the business of building the highways. And probably the most significant local issue that's cropping up in this district with respect to these proposals and other proposals is right-of-way acquisition and how do rural counties, whose tax base is relatively low and are not particularly wealthy, pay for these things. We tried to address that in the last legislative session. I think we're probably going to have to go back and refine that in future sessions.

Overall, I want to thank you for your effort. I think it's appropriate that we try to finish what we start. I think you've done a great job of listening to us. And I look forward to translating a goal on a piece of paper to reality throughout Texas.

Thank you very much.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Senator Ogden.

Mr. Ogden, your son usually doesn't behave himself quite -- before us quite this way. I'm glad you're here. Please come back.

MR. OGDEN, SR.: His mother and I tried.

MR. LANEY: Finish what you started. Okay?

(Laughter.)

MR. LANEY: Senator Tom Haywood.

SENATOR HAYWOOD: Mr. Chairman Laney and members of the Commission. The last time I spoke on the corridor system I spoke about the importance of transportation, transportation -- how it is part of the infrastructure triad that also includes telecommunications and utilities.

I also spoke about how the corridor projects will keep towns alive and foster the orderly development of the state as a whole. Please note that I did speak about the state as a whole.

You've heard folks speak in opposition to the proposed corridors, and for good reason. It does not benefit the places where they live. But an even better reason to move forward with the proposed corridors is that it strikes a geographical balance, in my opinion, which benefits all Texans.

I appreciate the work by the Commission and the Department staff. Even though I might have asked you to allocate more to the remote areas of my district, some of which is dying because the infrastructure is simply not there, I'm pleased with the projects that you have identified. And I commend you on holistic transportation planning.

If we prioritize the U.S. 69, Tyler to Decatur; U.S. 277, Wichita Falls to Abilene; and the U.S. 287, Oklahoma to San Antonio corridors, under the Trunk System, these are but three corridors where improvements will benefit the whole state.

Even more importantly, we will not look back in 30 years and regret not making improvements in these corridors, because by then this grand plan will be too costly.

I strongly recommend the prioritization of U.S. 69, U.S. 277, and U.S. 287 corridors under the Trunk System. Thank you for your time. I would be pleased to take any questions --

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Senator Haywood.

SENATOR HAYWOOD:  -- which there might be.

MR. LANEY: Thank you. Appreciate your comments.

Any questions?

(No response.)

MR. LANEY: No questions. Thank you.

Representative John Hirschi?

REP. HIRSCHI: Very briefly, Commissioner and members, I just want to add my support to the Trunk System. I think it's great to fill in these gaps. And I particularly look forward to seeing the gap between I-44 in Wichita Falls and Abilene filled.

Thank you very much.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Representative Hirschi.

Representative Charles Finnell.

REP. FINNELL: Thank you and good morning, Commissioner Laney and members of the Commission. It's a great pleasure to be back in front of you and to see that there is such unanimity.

I represent most of the counties and most of the people between Wichita Falls and Abilene. And I can tell you that there is a lot of excitement and a lot of focus, a lot of real appreciation for your Department between Wichita Falls and Abilene, and these people are united. There is -- I know of no opposition to the four-lane.

And I do want to mention quickly that we have lost a lot of railroads in our part of the state. We've lost the Burlington from Wichita Falls to Abilene and we lost the Santa Fe from Sweetwater up to the Red River. So what you're making possible today is really going to take a lot of freight off the highways, which would otherwise be beaten to a pulp by the loss of those two railroads.

I can't help but leave the -- mention before I leave the podium how well this will fit in with the people from Vernon, Texas, who are very interested in having a corridor from the Red River down to Vernon and into Maybelle, Texas, which is -- ties in beautifully with this part.

And it will likewise take a tremendous amount of what was previously rail traffic off those roads. That is the one that you recall that Hershal Crow, the Chairman of the Oklahoma counterpart, had traveled here to testify in and one that we are still interested in.

So let me say thank you for your attention. And this is a great thing you're doing.

One thing that I've been asked to mention, it's something that goes without saying, that the rural legislators are few in number. The days of the rural domination of the Legislature is long since gone. But I think it's fitting to observe that it has been the rural legislators who have voted for the tax bills for gasoline to make things possible, too. And the rural legislators with the Texas Good Roads Association have a long history of shouldering their responsibility and making possible those hard votes that are needed to be taken in the Texas Legislature to provide resources with which we work today.

If there are no questions, I'll --

MR. LANEY: You have any questions?

(No response.)

MR. LANEY: Thank you --

REP. FINNELL: Thank you.

MR. LANEY: -- very much.

Senator Robert Duncan.

SENATOR DUNCAN: Mr. Chairman, Commission, staff members, thanks for the opportunity once again to appear before you. Earlier, several months ago I appeared before you and applauded your efforts at thinking outside the box and coming up with a plan that is very aggressive and, I think, very forward-looking into the future and one that is going to have quick action.

And I think we -- from the counties that I represent -- and I represent 26 counties -- and most of those counties are very positively affected by the plan and the priority Corridor System.

We support this very wholeheartedly. We feel like you have done an outstanding job of trying to balance the competing interests that are necessary for you to balance. We know that not every community, not every county, not every senatorial or state representative district can be positively -- directly positively affected by what you've done with this plan.

However, we do know that the plan is so well balanced, at least from our perspective, that we think that all communities in all counties in this state do benefit from the very comprehensive nature and the way this system operates as a system. So we wholeheartedly endorse that.

I do want to announce that Jerry Stephens and Todd McKee from the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce are here with me today, and they also send their strong support for the work that you've done and their appreciation.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Senator. Appreciate your comments.

Mayor Kathryn Yeager, welcome. From Wichita Falls.

MAYOR YEAGER: It's good to be back. I'll be brief. But, Chairman Laney, Commissioners Wynne and Nichols, Director Heald, I thank you again for this opportunity to speak. And obviously, everyone who has preceded me speaking to this issue is supporting the Priority Trunk Corridor System, as I am, and particularly, the U.S. 277-U.S. 83.

We have, as Representative Finnell and Senator Haywood have said, the support of all the cities and counties along this route, as well as those in Oklahoma who live on I-44 extending into Wichita Falls. We join those others today obviously speaking in strong support of this system. We agree with the concept, the criteria and the funding.

I would like to thank the Commission and the staff for the vision of this system, which offers advantages to all regions of the state. We totally support this system and affirm our commitment to join with others along these routes to promote its realization in a innovative solution to the transportation problems of this state.

We urge your adoption of the Texas Trunk System Priority Corridors, including the U.S. 277-U.S. 83. Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Mayor.

Al Rogers? I may have that name wrong. Mr. Rogers of the Dalhart area Chamber of Commerce.

MR. ROGERS: It's Dyke Rogers.

MR. LANEY: I'm sorry.

MR. ROGERS: Commissioner Laney and the Commissioners and staff, about in February I came before you whenever we came to testify for or against the proprietary system -- Trunk System.

And we took a little different approach and told you that we really favored what you were doing. And we thought that it was a very good program, although our ox was being gored and we were not in the system. We felt like the only thing wrong with the Trunk System is that our area was not included in it.

And I just want to compliment you. I -- we came down here. We just sent one delegate before. And I told you that if we didn't get some change I might not be able to go home. And I appreciate the fact that I did. But we brought ten people back down here with us. We wanted to come back about ten times as strong as we came before just to say thank you for including us in and for looking at the facts and seeing that wisdom prevailed in that.

Wanted to thank Commissioner Nichols particularly for taking the time to come to Dalhart and to listen to a presentation and to visit with us about our needs in that area; and the staff for taking the time to look at the facts and the studies to see that it really was the wise move.

I would like to introduce some people who came with us today, Dallam County Judge David Field; Hartley County Judge Ronnie Gordon; from the City of Texline, Jim Bowles; from the Moore County Chamber of Commerce, Bill Jones; from the City of Dalhart, Phil Davis and Greg Duggan; from the Dalhart Chamber of Commerce, John King, Bob Langhorne, and Bob Clay.

I'd also like to thank Mark Tomlinson for his effort in keeping us abreast of what's happening in our district and working very hard on your behalf and on our behalf.

That's really all that we wanted to say, is we just wanted to come and say thank you. We're very much in support of the system, and we think you've made a good decision in including U.S. 87 from Dumas to the state line in that proposal. Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Mr. Rogers. One of the people you introduced has signed up.

Mr. Langhorne, do you want to speak? Or is -- oh, great.

Bob Langhorne from the Dalhart Chamber of Commerce.

MR. LANGHORNE: Thank you, Commissioner Laney, Commissioners. Mr. Rogers says that's all we had to say, but I guess I may reiterate a bit. Thank you very much for the consideration that you've shown us, the staff and your people who have been most cooperative.

We were very pleased to welcome Commissioner Nichols to Dalhart. We had it snow for him while he was there so that we could perpetuate Dalhart's reputation as the coldest place in Texas. We do that intentionally, because if people actually found out how wonderful our climate is, we'd have so many people there we would have many more transportation problems than we have.

But thank you very much for the consideration. And we appreciate it. We're ready to start construction just as soon as you can get that in your agenda. Thank you very much.

MR. LANEY: Mr. Langhorne.

Todd McKee? Mr. McKee, you're from the Chamber of Commerce -- from where I know not.

MR. McKEE: From Lubbock.

MR. LANEY: Lubbock.

MR. McKEE: Yes, sir. I won't waste your time. I'll just wholeheartedly support what our Senator said just a few moments ago. We appreciate the work you've done there. We appreciate the visitation that we've gotten from you and hope that we can help in any way. Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Mr. McKee.

Fred Carl, from the Tyler area Chamber of Commerce.

MR. CARL: Good morning. I just want to echo the same sentiments that have been spoken so many times already this morning and to also bring up the same points that road building is a decades long job. And we've seen several examples of that already. We have a gentleman in our town that -- Oscar Servin [phonetic], who's worked on the Highway 31 projects for decades literally.

And this whole approach of finishing the projects so that those who have started them can hopefully see them and use them is a wonderful idea. And we totally endorse it from the Tyler area Chamber of Commerce and Smith County. We will see some benefits directly there, but also, the whole state will benefit from it. And we strongly endorse it.

Thank you.

MR. LANEY: Mr. Jack Stewart from McLennan County, Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.

MR. STEWART: Good morning, Chairman Laney and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be with you, an honor to be before you today.

I'm Jack Stewart. I'm president of the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce. And I've had a rare privilege to participate as a facilitator of a collaborative effort in our community, which we've called the McLennan County Transportation Summit.

At the encouragement and support of Senators Ogden and Sibley, Congressman Chet Edwards, Representative Dunnam and Averitt in our community, we brought together a cross-section of our community to take a look at issues that are important to us in the area of transportation.

If it's permissible to do so, I'd like to present you with a list of those who participated. So it will save time if I take the time to do that.

The purpose of this group was to come together and to identify priorities that served our community that would allow us to be a unified community perspective on what our transportation needs and issues were. We did that in conjunction with our MPO, with our city/county elected officials, with our neighboring communities, with the Chambers of Commerce, and had a very exciting time.

During that process we identified projects that we believed were priorities for us as a Summit to convey to you issues that we believed important to us that would help you make the tough decisions that you make in Austin.

I would be remiss if I was at the podium without expressing our appreciation for your participation in our community already. Transportation is a key to who we are and what we are. And this Commission and the Texas Department of Transportation have served us well and very graciously.

And we do indeed miss Kirby Pickett, who was our district engineer. And we're grateful for his past leadership and look forward to his involvement in this new position.

At the same time we are pleased to see that our priorities are in support of yours. We have identified three projects -- three areas of concern that are important to us. The enhancement of I-35, which is not specifically germane to the discussion, except where Highway 31 joins there at Waco and proceeds to south Austin. We are, as a part of the Highway 31 Coalition, believe that that involvement in this plan enhances that project.

We believe that Highway 6 and the reestablishment of the Highway 6 coalition, which you've heard about from Senator Ogden and represented here today by County Judge Al Jones, are important to this plan.

We commend the efforts of this Commission to establish a plan that will serve the safety and economic and quality of life issues of the citizens of Texas, as well as the many visitors that we have to the state. We thank you and commend you for your forethought in this process and pledge to you to do our part to be supportive of those decisions and to find ways to indicate our community support.

We look forward to an opportunity to have you visit our community to see the things that are important to us and to share with us.

We want to extend our appreciation, too, to acting district engineer Joe Nelson and his staff at the Waco district office for their input into our summit. We work with them very closely. Very pleased with the support that they give us and appreciate that cooperation and us finding information that's helpful to us.

Again, I'm grateful and honored to have the privilege to speak to you today and look forward to working with you further.

MR. LANEY: Thank you very much.

That is all the speakers we have signed up for this particular item, I think, unless anybody believes they've signed up and would like to speak.

Any comments or questions for Al?

(No response.)

MR. LANEY: Let me take a minute to say it takes an enormous amount of effort and focus and persistence and impatience and urgency and everything else you can throw into the bucket to do what Robert Nichols has done in taking a concept that had been loosely floating around and giving it shape and form and substance and bringing it to life in a relatively short order.

So, Commissioner Nichols, my hat is off to you. Nothing but accolades. This is a tremendous step forward for our whole Trunk System concept, as far as I'm concerned and probably the most cost-effective concentration of a transportation investment that we have seen in years. So my compliments to you. And you ought to be tired.

Anne, do you have any comments?

MS. WYNNE: Same here. I agree.

MR. NICHOLS: Thanks.

MR. LANEY: So are we in a position now, Al, to -- is this a -- do we have a motion? Do we take action at this point?

MR. LUEDECKE: Yes, sir. Minute order.

MR. LANEY: Okay. Minute order. That's the one. I make the motion we adopt the minute order. And it includes the addition of reserving the 10 percent holdback in effect for non-Phase One Corridor dollars. A motion.

Can I have a second?

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. LANEY: All in favor?

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. LANEY: Thanks.

MR. HEALD: Agenda Item 4(b) is your consideration of a minute order to authorize advancement of a bridge project at Trinity River to Priority 1 in Dallas County.

MR. LUEDECKE: The Dallas district currently has an off-system bridge project on Dowdy Ferry Road programmed in Priority 1 for replacement under the Bridge Replacement Program. This bridge spans the Trinity River east of Hutchins. An adjacent relief structure is programmed in Priority 2 for future replacement.

The district proposes that it would be more cost-effective and less disruptive to the public if both were replaced at the same time. We agree and have prepared a minute order for your consi