Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

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

9:06 a.m. Thursday, March 29, 2001

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

JOHN W. JOHNSON, Chair
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
DAVID M. LANEY

STAFF:

CHARLES W. HEALD, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
HELEN HAVELKA, Executive Assistant, Engineering Operations
 

PROCEEDINGS

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. It is 9:06 a.m. and I would like to call this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission to order. Welcome to our March 29 meeting. It is a pleasure to have you here today.

Please note for the record that public notice of this meeting, containing all items of the agenda, was filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at 11:02 a.m. on March 21, 2001.

Before we get started, I would like to ask my colleagues on the commission if they have any comments that they would like to make.

Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: First of all, I would like to thank all of you who have taken the trouble to take time out of your day to be here and come a long ways to talk about transportation issues. It's very meaningful to us and we know you went to great efforts to do that and we appreciate it.

I'd also like to say that I think this is the last meeting, again, that David Laney is going to be with us, I believe. And I know we've got some festivities tonight to recognize him but I'd also like to, in front of all of you, tell you how much I've really enjoyed working with him over the last four years, and the contribution that David has made to the state.

And lastly, I saw a group of some of my home town folks in the back. There they are, from my home town of Jacksonville. Recognize them. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Did they come to arrest you?

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: I hope not.

MR. LANEY: Is that the whole town?

MR. NICHOLS: We'll have to check the census.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: David?

MR. LANEY: Johnny, really nothing to add other than I'm the perennial bad penny. You can't get rid of me; I keep coming back. This is my last meeting, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it and wish you all the best of luck.

And for those of you in the audience who make this trek once in a while, it is very important you continue to do so. Your involvement, your input, your comments, your interests are all recognized and for the most part, I think, taken into account and often responded to. So please keep it up; it's very valuable for the state and for this department to hear from you. Thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: David, as usual, your words are well chosen. I'd like to echo what Robert has said. It seems like you're literally commissioner for a day this day, but your service to the state over the last six years has been exemplary and I think every person in every part of this state owes you a deep debt of gratitude. And I've enjoyed working with you the last two years immensely.

MR. LANEY: Thank you, Johnny.

MR. JOHNSON: Before we get started, I would like to remind anyone here wanting to address the commission to fill out a card at the registration table. To comment on an agenda item, please fill out a yellow card, and if it is not an agenda item, please fill out a blue card. And we will take your comments during the open comment period at the end of the meeting if it is not an agenda card.

Regardless of the color of the card, each speaker will be allowed three minutes, and since we have a lengthy meeting today with three delegations, we urge you to heed this advice.

MR. JOHNSON: We will begin this morning with item number 1, a public hearing regarding the acquisition of land along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and I'd like to call on Jim Randall, the deputy director of the Transportation Planning and Programming Division to present this item.

MR. RANDALL: Thank you, sir. Again, for the record, my name is Jim Randall. I'm the deputy director of the Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

Mr. Chairman, the public hearing today is for the express purpose of presenting and receiving information and testimony regarding the proposed acquisition of property for use as a dredge material storage site for materials dredged from the main channel of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

For the purpose of entering into the record, I want to introduce Exhibit A, a briefing book entitled "Placement Area 42, Acquisition Information Packet" dated March 29, 2001. And this exhibit is up there on the dais. I'll be referring to this document as the briefing book as I make my presentation.

The legal authority for this action was granted to the commission in Chapter 51 of the Texas Transportation Code, known as the Texas Coastal Waterway Act, referenced under Tab J in the briefing book.

The department is proposing the acquisition of approximately 215 acres in Galveston County. In the briefing book under Tab C is a description of the site and a site location map. For the record, a description of the site is as follows: Galveston County, 215 acres, more or less, out of the Port Bolivar Townsite in the Samuel Parr Survey, Abstract 162, and being out of that certain tract a parcel of land conveyed in the trustee's deed record under Film Code Number 014-48-2290 in the Office of the County Clerk. That concludes the description of the site that we are requesting consideration of today.

For the department to fulfill its responsibilities under Chapter 51 of the Texas Transportation Code, the commission needs to acquire, by either gift, purchase, or condemnation, property identified by the federal sponsor of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway -- and in this case the federal sponsor is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- as needed for the placement of dredged material from the main channel of the waterway as authorized by Congress. In addition, the department shall convey such property to the federal government by granting of perpetual easements and other right of way instruments as needed.

The Corps expressed their intent for the department to acquire this property in June 1998. In May 1999, the property owner, Boyt Realty Company, was notified of the department's interest in the site. Department and Corps representatives met with the property owner in June 1999. In a subsequent bankruptcy foreclosure, the property was sold in December of 1999 to Mr. John Dafonte.

The department, the Corps of Engineers, and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway Advisory Committee has done extensive research and field investigations of the area and have determined that the best location from an engineering, economic, and environmental perspective is the property described to you today. This correspondence is contained in Tabs B, D, E, and G of the briefing book.

The Corps' 1975 Environmental Impact Statement entitled "Maintenance Dredging of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway - Texas Section" cleared this property for use as a dredged material disposal site and has been in use for disposal of dredged materials from the waterway since 1954. In addition, the Corps' Preliminary Consistency Assessment completed in 1997 maintains that all current maintenance dredging placement areas along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway are consistent with the Texas Coastal Management Program.

The current property owners have expressed the desire that the commission not acquire the property. They have developed plans for the property and surrounding acreage. While we are sympathetic to their concerns, it is still the department's recommendation that the economic and environmental interests of the state may best be served by the acquisition of this property.

The department expressed this intent to Mr. Dafonte and others on July 17, 2000, in a personal meeting after being notified by the bankruptcy trustee of the new owner. Participants at this meeting included several people who represented themselves as property co-owners. These co-owners presented several alternatives to acquiring the property at the public meeting held on February 21, 2001, in Galveston. A summary of this public meeting is contained under Tab F of the briefing book.

The department and the Corps evaluated these alternatives but none satisfied the immediate needs for a disposal site along this area of the GIWW. The alternatives were more expensive and did not have the environmental clearance. In addition, the department received three letters prior to this hearing. One letter was from a public meeting attendee. Another letter was received from a Bolivar Peninsula realtor. Both letters expressed opposition to the acquisition of this property. The department and the Corps evaluated these letters and came to similar conclusions as to the ideas expressed at the public meeting.

A third letter was received from the Gulf Intracoastal Canal Association representing various ports, businesses, and waterway operators. The letter expressed support for maintenance dredging of the waterway and the necessity of securing dredged material placement areas.

In summation, it is the recommendation of the department to acquire this property. The department feels strongly that using an existing placement area minimizes the waste of publicly or privately owned natural resources. In addition, land which has already had dredged material placed on it does not create any new permanent or substantial adverse impacts on the environment, wildlife or fisheries.

This concludes my testimony, and before I open the floor to questions that you may have of staff or myself, I'd like to introduce representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District. First, Mr. Joe Hrametz, Civil Engineer, GIWW Project Manager; Mr. Rob Hauch, Biologist, Operation and Maintenance Division; and Mr. Rick Harrison, Chief, Real Estate Division.

So with that, I conclude my comments.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Jim.

Are there any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: I had a question. I don't know if you can answer the question or if someone from the Corps might could answer the question, but I believe when we were discussing this the other day the question of how far down the Intracoastal is this site utilized -- how far down is the next site? Or is this primarily for the ship channel?

MR. RANDALL: I'll try to address it first, Mr. Nichols. This material could not be pumped in the Houston Ship Channel or one of their disposal sites. This site is adjacent to the waterway and it receives about approximately 300,000 cubic yards of material along this reach. Now, the average pumping distance is approximately two miles.

MR. NICHOLS: Two miles?

MR. RANDALL: Yes, and once the Corps has to go beyond that pumping distance, then they have to put on a booster pump and additional pipe, and generally, rule of thumb, that doubles the cost of the dredging.

MR. NICHOLS: So the next disposal site is probably within four miles down the Intracoastal?

MR. HRAMETZ: Approximately two miles either way.

MR. RANDALL: Why don't we have Joe come on up here.

MR. HRAMETZ: My name is Joe Hrametz. I'm with the Corps of Engineers in Galveston; I'm the operations manager for the GIWW.

If you look behind you here, you see the current practice. That's placement area 42 and the dashed area to the right is placement area 41, and the one to the left is placement area 43. If you'll point to that area up to the left-hand top, yes. So you're looking at probably a mile each side of that current practice area, just past that widened area which is a barge mooring basin that we dredge, I'm saying, a mile each way of that area. And that material would go into placement area 42 as the current practice. That's what we've done historically.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay. So your next site would be a mile or two further on down.

MR. HRAMETZ: Yes, each way, so we're talking about a two-mile reach both directions.

MR. NICHOLS: That's the question I had. Thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: This site has been used before for dredging?

MR. HRAMETZ: That's correct. We've used this site since 1954.

MR. JOHNSON: And over that period of time, how many times has it been used as a site for the disposal of the dredged material?

MR. HRAMETZ: I can't tell you the number of times, but I did a little historical check over the last 20 years and we've placed approximately 750,000 cubic yards in that site in the past 20 years. And we dredge that site about every three years.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

Any other questions?

(No response.)

MR. JOHNSON: We have a gentleman, Dan Kohlhofer, I believe, who would like to speak on this issue.

Mr. Kohlhofer, welcome. I hope I got your name correct.

MR. KOHLHOFER: Yes, you did. Good morning, commissioners, and thank you for the opportunity to allow me to address you today.

I am one of the partners in this land and I'm not here today to obstruct progress. I know that the Intracoastal Waterway needs to be maintained; it's a vital link to the entire nation. I did submit alternatives. The most logical alternative is pumping the fill material over there just to the south of Highway 87 in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. You can see how close the highway is to the water. Yes. Isn't the highway the white line?

Okay. The most logical thing to do is to put a Geo tube along Alternative 1 and fill that area in to preserve the highway. It's really not that much further than where you're currently placing the material.

But it's evident to me that the staff has selected our tract of land. I think that there's a disservice being done to the taxpayers of Texas and especially to the taxpayers of Galveston County. You're taking one of the most valuable pieces of property left on the peninsula that can be developed and taking it off the tax rolls.

The site immediately to the south of the current practice area is the tract of land that we're going to be left with. For all practical purposes, it destroys the value of the tract of land, and I'm just asking, commissioners, that TxDOT be fair when they do acquire this property. And I would ask that perhaps you could amend the requested area by 800 feet on the east end of that area so that we could obtain our permit from the TNRCC for painting and blasting at the shipyard that's immediately to the east of the property.

Thank you very much for allowing me to address you today.

MR. JOHNSON: A question. You mentioned 800 feet. How wide is the property in total footage?

MR. KOHLHOFER: I think it's about -- the width of the property is approximately 6,000 feet, 6,500 feet, and the depth of it is, I think, about 2,000 feet all the way to Loop 108.

MR. JOHNSON: So 800 feet is roughly 10 or 15 percent of its width, if it's 6,000 feet.

MR. KOHLHOFER: That's correct, sir. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you for taking the time to discuss this matter today.

Are there any other people who would like to speak on this issue? Any one of the Corps members want to make a statement?

MR. HRAMETZ: Let me give you just a little brief history. Like I said before, we've used this area since 1954. We used it under a revokable easement granted by the Boyt family, and we estimate that the placement area has a useful life of 78 years more.

I'd like to briefly address three main reasons why the Corps needs our local sponsor, TxDOT, to obtain this area for us. The first one is economics. The placement area is located directly adjacent to our work site and the existing area already has levees in place, already has a spillway constructed, and would require no additional work except levee raising.

The alternative suggested by the current landowner would require new levees, a new spillway, Geo tubes, possibly, depending on which alternative we're talking about, and that's going to cost money. That would be a drastic increase for maintenance costs on the Intracoastal Waterway.

The Corps budget for the GIWW from Sabine Pass to Brownsville is approximately $20 million a year, and we see no increases to that budget in the coming years, so our budget remains constant and we've got to try to spend our money wisely.

The second reason here is, as Jim stated, it's already been environmentally cleared under the 1975 EIS, so there would be no further NEPA coordination required after the acquisition takes place. And the Corps is certainly not in favor of -- or we don't support environmental impacts caused by acquisition of these other sites. We've already disturbed the area in 1954; we've used it many, many times. To create a new area would just cause environmental impacts.

Lastly, the Corps feels that there's no other areas practical for this activity. We've evaluated these alternatives, and as you can see on the map, they're a great distance from our work area. That means increased costs. Also, these other alternatives may cause or pose environmental concerns if we start looking at a NEPA coordination.

Some of these areas have wetlands in them and if you look on this option right here, you can see some wetland area. Over in here we just selected, as far as cost alternatives here, to select an area near the highway, and that's a great distance from this work area which you see right here to about right here is where we would dredge and place the material in the 42.

This option that Mr. Kohlhofer described here, pumping the material next to Highway 87. That is a good fishing hole and I don't know what kind of resistance you'd meet trying to coordinate this area and fill in the bay bottom. You're going to impact habitat there, so you're going to have to try to come up with a beneficial use for the material and that's very costly when you start pumping Geo tubes and trying to make beneficial use out of the material.

MR. JOHNSON: Is Galveston County aware of what's going on here? And the reason I ask that, I know that on Bolivar they are looking at extending their use of Geo tubes as an erosion control method on part of the island. They have quite a bit of Geo tube installation already in and they're going to add to that, and I was just wondering if they are aware.

MR. HRAMETZ: Well, the county commissioner was at the public hearing we had in Galveston, so he's aware of what we're asking here.

But we just feel like the acquisition of this area is the most environmentally and economically feasible alternative, based on the distance these other sites are from the work area.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to make a statement from the Corps?

MR. BORCHARD: Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm the chief of the Real Estate Division; I think the letter has my name on it that requested TxDOT to acquire this property some years ago. I drafted the agreement between the United States and Texas that was sort of an historic agreement. This is the first state partnership along the entire Intracoastal Waterway and it's been a very productive one.

As Joe Hrametz indicated, our operations budget is not looking to expand for the next few years and we've got aging infrastructure all over. Our infrastructure isn't dams and locks like some of the other Corps of Engineers districts; it's disposal area levees. And we don't stand real high on the pecking order sometimes, when you're talking about three locking dams up in Pittsburgh and along the Mississippi River, for the share of that operations budget.

The Intracoastal is a vital part of the waterway. It looks like there's a lot of areas out there, but those areas to the north that are out into the bay, those were environmentally coordinated for the Houston Ship Channel construction and they will have a very finite life. Those are marsh creation sites; once the marsh is in the intertidal zone, we'll be having to lay off of those marsh sites, and periodically we'll get to re-nourish them but to construct those levees in the water requires new cut material; you can't do it with maintenance material.

So it's not feasible to create new areas out in the bay even if the environmental coordination were not a problem, which of course it is. And from that standpoint, the Corps is constantly being asked to extend the life of existing disposal areas.

And we've been working with TxDOT even on some ideas on recycling material and I think that that will be a wonderful opportunity, and the Alternative 1 is being looked at as a place to recycle dredged material to assist either Galveston County or the State of Texas in doing shore erosion along Highway 87 all the way from here back down to Gilchrist. But it wouldn't come out of this disposal area in Gilchrist, we would take it out of disposal areas that were much closer to the area.

I would ask that you approve the request. I think that it's something that's important to our maintenance program and the continuing partnership that exists between the United States and the State of Texas.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

MR. LANEY: Let me ask you a question while I've got you at the microphone. I understand the importance of it and the need for the disposal site. The points made earlier, one, two and three, first for economics, two is environmental, and three is some combination of economics and environmental -- a little bit redundant -- but with respect to the economics, we heard from the landowner, someone representing the landowner, that there is a cost impact, not only on the landowner but on the tax base, potentially. Has there been any approach to or interaction with some combination of the landowner and Galveston about picking up the additional costs that might be incurred in building levees, whatever else -- I don't know what the costs are. Has there been any kind of discussions like that to shift the cost off of your budget?

MR. HARRISON: At the meeting that we had with the bankruptcy trustee for the Boyts, Mr. Zaler and with the real estate broker that was going to sell the property before the current owners, there were numerous alternatives discussed, and we said that we would look at them but we would have to look to somebody to try to pick up the extra costs. Normally that someone is the non-federal sponsor; that impacts you all's budget.

MR. JOHNSON: We're very sensitive to that.

MR. LANEY: That's not necessarily the case, though, is it? Some third parties can come in.

MR. HARRISON: Right, they could come in. If third parties wanted to come in and help build levees and do all this, but bear in mind to reconfigure that, you also have to go through a whole new NEPA coordination under the National Environmental Policy.

MR. LANEY: That's the environmental issue.

MR. HARRISON: Yes, and those costs can be quite significant; it can even get into modeling, et cetera. And the owners, I think rightly so, realized at that time -- at least the Boyt trustee did -- that for the ownership to get involved in that level of cost for property that roughly -- with the value that this property had at that time, the fair market value, just was not really feasible.

Now, with respect to the impact on the owner, I think you're all aware that the condemnation process, if it does get to that, under our law that you have to follow requires fair market value appraisal; I'm sure your law requires it too. Good faith negotiations are required and it's my job to oversee the acquisition by all of the non-federal sponsors that we have to make sure that they do give the owner due process under our Fifth Amendment as well as under the state constitution.

Thank you very much. Any other questions?

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. RANDALL: I think that's all we have to offer.

MR. JOHNSON: All right. This public hearing is now closed. The commission will evaluate the department's plan and the public comments and will consider action at a later date. I thank each and every one of you for your participation this morning.

VARIOUS COUNTIES

Alice and Jim Wells County Transportation Committee

Robstown Area Development Commission

(Judge Richard Borchard, Rep. Ignacio Salinas Jr., Rep. Jaime Capelo, Rep. Judy Hawley, Rep. Richard Raymond, Rep. Gene Seaman, Judge Arnold Saenz, Dave Cich)

MR. JOHNSON: We have a full set of delegation presentations, so without further delay, let's get started. We will begin with the good people from Alice, Jim Wells County, and Robstown. And I'd like to call on Nueces County Judge Richard Borchard to lead the presentation. Welcome, sir.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Laney, thank you for your time and giving us this opportunity to appear before you. And I'm going to heed your comments about the amount of time that we're going to take here, so I'm going to be short and brief.

I'm going to recognize some people as far as people that are here from back home. I want to recognize Commissioner Oscar Ortiz. We have Judge Robert Gonzalez; Mr. Roy Gutierrez, manager of Robstown Utility Systems. We have also Mr. Ken Faughn, Robstown Area Development Commission.

Here again, we just want to thank you for the money and the effort that you have spent in our area. We want to thank you for Mr. Billy Parks that you have provided for South Texas. We want to, I guess, in essence, today try and get some relief for construction of relief routes. So at this time I want to recognize our state delegation that is here. We have some state representatives: Mr. Ignacio Salinas, Mr. Jaime Capelo, Representative Judy Hawley, and Mr. Gene Seaman.

Mr. Gene Seaman, I want to recognize him, and also Mr. Richard Raymond. Thank you.

I want to have our delegation please come forward and make some comments because they do have a busy schedule and they're hard-working individuals, and I'd like them to give their comments here.

First of all, I'd like to recognize Mr. Ignacio Salinas.

MR. SALINAS: Thank you, Judge.

Good morning, chairman, commissioners. I realize that you have lots of people here to testify so I'll try to keep my remarks brief.

First of all, I want to thank the commission for allowing the delegation from Jim Wells County and Nueces County to appear before you this morning to make their case for a special funding category to support the efficient and timely completion of studies and the initiation of construction of relief routes located in smaller rural communities along Phase 1 High Priority Corridors in the Texas Trunk System, especially those located at the Texas-Mexico border.

Additionally, I commend the commissioners' decision to complete the entire 11-corridor Phase 1 enhancement plan to the Texas Trunk System before establishing Phase 2. It makes sense but sometimes that eludes us, and I commend you for sticking to your plan.

Today's request is simply an enhancement to the commissioners' existing strategy. Gentlemen, it is vital to the economy of our state and to the economies of smaller rural communities located along high priority corridors, such as State Highway 44 and US Highway 59 corridor, linking the inland port of Laredo and the deep water port of Corpus Christi. I live along that corridor and I see the bottleneck that occurs in each of those small communities that needs to be reduced, if not eliminated, completely.

This proposed special funding category would enable the transportation department to work with small rural communities with populations under 50,000 along high priority corridors near the Texas-Mexico border, such as Alice, Texas; San Diego, Texas -- which is my home -- Freer and Robstown, to establish relief routes that would have a positive impact on the local economies and still provide a direct and efficient trade route between Laredo and the Port of Corpus Christi.

The plan offered today by the Jim Wells-Nueces County delegation is simply a proposal to facilitate additional cooperation between local communities and TxDOT to address areas of high vehicle congestion along high priority corridors, a previously stated goal of this commission.

I stand before you to lend my full support and to tell you that I commend you for the work you do and ask favorable consideration for the presentation you will be hearing this morning.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much, Representative. Appreciate your being here.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next one I would like to introduce here is the Honorable Jaime Capelo.

MR. CAPELO: Thank you, Judge.

Commissioners, it's always a pleasure to be before this esteemed body of our state, and I'll keep this brief. Representative Salinas clearly outlined the need, and I represent the part of the 44-59 corridor that includes Nueces County: Agua Dulce, Banquete, and Robstown, Texas. And Robstown, Texas, in particular, is one of these cities that we're talking about where the relief routes are necessary.

Later on this morning they're going to show you a presentation and you're going to see where 44 runs through Robstown, Texas, and you're going to see how congested that area is: eight traffic signals, very populated residential part of Robstown, Texas -- in fact, quite frankly, the most populated part of Robstown, Texas; two school zones. And you can see that it really is a part of the life and the thriving part of Robstown, Texas.

For us not to have a relief route around that part of Robstown will obviously have some detrimental facts. There's obviously a safety concern and especially as the volume on these routes increases, especially with the size of the trucks, with schoolchildren, with neighborhoods, with the number of traffic lights, there's going to be some problems.

We hope that this policy change that our delegation seeks makes sense on several different levels. Obviously, from the goals that this commission has set with regard to four-lane highways and the importance of the connections between ports, to places with military installations, deep port, tourist areas, we fit into all of those categories quite well. But in addition, there's a safety factor and there's an economic factor, all of which make very good policy sense, and we hope that you listen closely to this presentation.

And obviously, the delegation from the Nueces County area lends its 100 percent support, and we thank you for all the time and effort that you put into your job. I, for one, understand completely the sacrifice that goes into this, and we certainly do appreciate it. Thank you, commissioners.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Capelo.

The next representative I'd like to introduce, I call her my cousin, the Honorable Judy Hawley. Judy Hawley, I'd like to recognize you.

MS. HAWLEY: Good morning. How are you all today?

MR. JOHNSON: Great.

MS. HAWLEY: I really don't personally represent any of the communities that are here before you today, but as you know, we're doing a redistricting and you just can't be too careful.

(General laughter.)

MS. HAWLEY: Seriously, I think I've appeared before you as often for areas that are not in my district as I have for those which are because I am a firm believer in a regional approach to our highway issues, our transportation issues, and I also chair the Rural Caucus, as you know, and I'm vice chair of the Committee on Transportation. And I firmly believe that the political boundaries which guide so much of what we do don't really have a place when we're talking about transportation issues.

The corridor system, the high priority corridor system which you all have implemented has been a godsend to rural Texas. This connect-the-dots concept has just really invigorated and makes a lot of sense for rural Texas, and so for that I'm very grateful.

The community leaders here have identified some real safety and environmental issues revolving around their relief routes and they bring this to the table with tremendous data to back up their positions, and I urge you to give them every consideration and to look for ways, as you always do, to help them resolve these issues.

So again, thank you for letting me have the opportunity to appear before you. And we did get our bill out of committee. So thank you all very, very much.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Ms. Hawley.

Next I'd like to introduce a great friend of mine -- I've known him for years -- Mr. Richard Raymond. Mr. Richard Raymond does a great job for our area.

MR. RAYMOND: Thank you, Judge.

Commissioners, good to be with you, and I'm sorry David Laney is not here anymore -- or is he still here? What's his status?

MR. JOHNSON: He's gone across the street to be recognized.

MR. RAYMOND: He's a great friend and he's done so much for us in South Texas. We'll miss him but I look forward to Ric Williamson with whom I had the privilege and opportunity to serve.

I'm here as a state representative from Laredo -- I might move to Corpus Christi next and run over there.

(General laughter.)

MR. RAYMOND: I'm here in support of these requests because before I was a representative in Laredo, I was state representative that represented Duval and Jim Wells County, among others, and I grew up in Duval County. I know how important this route is, I know how important the requests that we're making here are, and I also know, representing the busiest inland port in the country in Laredo, that it is important we look at this as a region.

And what, five years ago, I suppose, maybe seven years ago, no one knew that we would be as busy as we are now in Laredo, and five years from now I suspect that there's so much opportunity for us in Corpus Christi and all that area and all the areas in between. And I think that you're going to see more links between Laredo and Corpus Christi and that commerce will move through there. Not to take anything away from anybody else, but I think you're just going to see an increase in commerce and that that port in Corpus Christi is going to be very important to the port in Laredo.

So I'm not the only one in Laredo. The community supports these efforts and we wanted to make sure that you understood there is broad-based support for the requests that are being made and I hope that you will view them favorably and that you will view this as part of the legacy that you will leave, because you will leave a legacy. Your service and the things that you do and the decisions you make will affect many parts of the state for many, many years. And South Texas, as you all know, is an area that is growing fast economically and in terms of our population and in terms of the opportunities.

So thank you for your consideration. We're going to go back to the legislature now. They're trying to finish up the Appropriations Committee. The South Texas delegation has an amendment to the appropriations bill and we're going to request that the salaries of the commissioners on the Transportation Commission be looked at very carefully and that we do everything that we can to make sure that we compensate you for the time that you put in here.

Thank you very much for your consideration on this very serious request and for your foresight.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Mr. Raymond, thank you very much, sir.

Another individual that works hard for our area, Mr. Chairman, is Representative Gene Seaman. I'm not going to blame him for being in the other party -- he's a Republican and I'm a Democrat -- but this individual does a great job for our area. Mr. Gene Seaman.

MR. SEAMAN: Thank you, Judge.

Commissioners, good morning. I want to thank you for the work you've done in the past: the Joe Fulton International Trade Corridor in Corpus Christi, very important to our master port and the tremendous trade that goes through there that all ties in with Laredo, the interchange and then the causeway that was approved a couple of years ago and Billy Parks did a tremendous job for us.

I want to commend all of that, but that all ties in economically. It ties in with our hurricane relief routes so we have a safety issue, and a tremendous economic impact on the Port of Laredo and the Port of Corpus Christi. It's extremely important, and I know you're going to hear great presentations. I just want to lend my support to the delegation. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Representative.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Gene.

The next person here that I'm going to recognize is my partner in this endeavor, the best county judge in the state of Texas, Mr. Arnold Saenz, county judge.

JUDGE SAENZ: Thank you. I'm going to look at your salary, too.

Good morning. For the record, I'm Arnold Saenz and I'm the county judge of Jim Wells County. Mr. Chairman, commissioners, I thank you for this opportunity to be here this morning, and I bring you greetings from South Texas where it's actually rained two days in a row now, and we're proud of that. We've really needed the rain.

I'm here this morning in favor of a special funding designation to support the development of relief routes around Phase 1 High Priority Corridors of the Texas Trunk System for rural communities under 50,000 in population. The development of transportation systems like the Texas Trunk System has been designed to help eliminate bottlenecks and allow the free flow of traffic and I think is essential for economic development in the region.

I know that we're up some time, but I want to introduce some of our Jim Wells County delegation here today. With me is Commissioner Wally Alanis; the mayor of Alice and the co-chair of our transportation committee, Mayor Fidel Rul; our Alice city manager, Mr. Peter Anaya; and our assistant city manager, Mr. Bill McCumber.

And I would also like to recognize the great staff that you have in our district, District Engineer Billy Parks, and our Area Engineer Chris Caron.

And I know that Commissioner Laney is not here but I want to put it on the record that I appreciate all his years of service that he's had for this commission, so we really appreciate that.

And now I'd like to introduce Mr. Dave Cich our Economic Development Council director that will do the presentation. Gentlemen, thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Judge.

MR. CICH: I'd like to thank the legislators who appeared on our behalf today, and I promised Representative Hawley that I'd be sure to mention rural as often as possible, so you'll hear it a few times. I'd also like to thank Judge Borchard and Judge Saenz; they've been great supporters of this initiative and we're pleased to be with you today.

I am representing today the Alice and Jim Wells County Transportation Committee and the Robstown Area Development Commission. The purpose of our presentation is to propose a special funding designation to support the development of relief routes along Phase 1 High Priority Corridors of the Texas Trunk System for rural communities under 50,000 in population.

To demonstrate the arguments for this proposal, we will present lessons from South Texas along US 59 and State Highway 44 from Laredo to Corpus Christi, including our plans for relief routes in Alice and Robstown.

First, we commend the commission for your 1998 action to designate the eleven Phase 1 high priority corridors totaling 831 miles, including the Laredo-Corpus Christi corridor, and your commitment to complete these corridors before a Phase 2 system is established.

Highways 59 and 44 serve as a primary international trade corridor connecting the inland Port of Laredo and the Port of Corpus Christi. This corridor was ranked fourth highest out of the eleven high priority corridors in 1998 based on the commission's selection criteria.

Our proposed policy enhancements are as follows: We encourage the TxDOT commission to consider creation of a special State of Texas transportation funding designation to support the completion of studies and construction of relief routes for cities with a population of less than 50,000 on these Phase 1 high priority corridors. This policy revision we are recommending would apply to all Phase 1 corridors in the state.

Currently, the trunk system does not provide funding for development of relief routes near rural communities that are already served by four-lane highway sections such as what we have on Highway 44 through Alice and Robstown.

To highlight the arguments for our proposal, we will present lessons from South Texas. Highway 44 is currently a four-lane divided highway from Corpus Christi to San Diego. Plans are under way by TxDOT's Laredo District to expand Highways 59 and 44 to a four-lane divided highway from Laredo to San Diego. Development of relief routes in Alice and Robstown will eliminate critical bottlenecks that currently hinder the free flow of freight traffic from port to port.

We'll now highlight conditions along the existing section in Alice. Two new hospitals opened in 1999 and have already expanded in 2000. The stars you see on the map indicate locations of ten schools, five located north and five located south of Highway 44, which creates a high volume of north-south school cross traffic. And the oil and gas industry is expanding due to the high natural gas prices and the projections look good. It's good for Alice, maybe not so good for my relatives in Minnesota.

And as you know, any of you who have been there, we have lots of traffic lights: 15 and growing. With apologies to TxDOT and Billy Parks and Chris Caron, we do have them showing red. They are not always red; they just seem that way when you're going through Alice behind an 18-wheeler.

(General laughter.)

MR. CICH: The schematic design and environmental study is nearly complete for Highway 44 relief route, as you see on this map.

Some of the other conditions: The highway crossings at the Tex-Mex railroad crossing; it shows the location of Coastal Bend College, Alice High School. And moving along to show our existing conditions in Alice -- as you can see, the Tex-Mex Railroad traffic is growing rapidly and it's expected to double by the year 2005. These trains also run through Robstown.

We recently learned that Kansas City Southern has announced a $60 million investment to upgrade the Tex-Mex rail line from Laredo to Corpus Christi, and you can see the aerial photo of the crossing near downtown Alice.

These snapshots illustrate typical traffic in Alice. It shows the aerial view of the Tex-Mex rail crossing with downtown in the background; it shows freight traffic moving east through Alice, traffic near our east side retail and fast food businesses, and traffic near the Business 281 overpass.

We now move to the conditions in Robstown. Note the circuitous route of Highway 44 through the residential areas, and as in Alice, Robstown has lots of traffic lights, and again, as in Alice, you'll note the schools -- there are seven schools and most of them are clustered along 44 on the west side of Robstown. And you note the Union Pacific rail and the Tex-Mex rail lines and their railroad crossings.

In 1993, TxDOT completed a preliminary feasibility study which showed two alternative relief routes, one on the south and one on the north.

To further demonstrate existing conditions in Robstown, please note the location of the Tex-Mex railroad crossings on Highway 44 near the US 77 overpass, just north of where Highway 44 turns toward Corpus Christi. And as I showed before, currently eight to ten Tex-Mex trains pass through Robstown and Alice each day, which is up from only two trains per day in 1994. And that number of trains is expected to double by the year 2005, up to 15 to 20 trains per day.

We'd like to highlight serious safety concerns in Robstown. These show the school and pedestrian crossings along 44 near the schools. The question I pose to you: Would you want your children to cross these dangerous intersections?

In summary, the need for policy revisions are: Both these road sections currently meet the technical definition of existing four-lane divided roadways; both are heavily congested and not well suited to be the primary carriers of heavy vehicles engaged in international trade which is the purpose and need of corridors such as Highway 44/59. Conflicts between truck, rail and local traffic raise safety issues in these communities; relief routes provide an alternate for hazardous cargo; the reduced congestion and idling will also cut air pollution.

Also, we see that these relief routes will greatly enhance this corridor as a major freight route, improve safety, reduce delays, and relieve pressure on I-35 and I-10 by providing the uninterrupted free flow from the Port of Laredo to the Port of Corpus Christi.

In conclusion, our recommended policy revisions are as follows: We are proposing an enhancement of an existing program; this special funding designation for relief routes for cities of less than 50,000 population will significantly improve the efficiency of the identified Phase 1 high priority corridors. This change will improve safety, reduce delays, and provide uninterrupted traffic flow. It will also promote corridor and community planning for TxDOT and the communities along the route.

And finally, I'd like to thank our legislators that appeared before you today. We have several letters of support from every legislator that has a portion of Highway 44 and 59.

And we'd also like to demonstrate and show our regional support we've received all along the route. Mr. Ken Faughn, my colleague with the Robstown Area Development Commission, is delivering copies of those letters to you for your review. And with that, I thank you for your time, and I will turn the presentation back to Judge Saenz and Judge Borchard to close our presentation. Thank you.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Just thanking you once again for your time and your effort, and thank you for your consideration on this matter.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, I did. I had a couple of questions and a couple of comments -- or maybe one question and some comments. First comment is I'd like to thank you for such an excellent presentation. You have presented, in a very clear and articulate manner, what the problem is, particularly in those locations, but you've also put together regional support for that, because it appears that everyone on each side of that recognizes the importance of free flow through those areas, and those are bottlenecks.

Another comment is when, approximately three years ago, two-and-a-half, three years ago, when we established the corridors, Phase 1 corridors that you referred to, as opposed to a scattered approach on developing the trunk system, as we had our public hearings and discussions, the consideration of those relief routes was discussed.

At the time, because we did such a quick change from scattered segments to the corridors and trying to turn that on immediately to stretch the funds that we did have, we went for the bigger stretches in between the communities to try to build those corridors and establish those corridors, but we recognized at that time that the relief route was going to be a problem that seriously needed to be addressed.

Now, in approximately 15 months, next summer -- not this summer but a year from now -- we're going to be having public hearings around the state again related to the establishment of Phase 2, what happens on the next round. And in that I'm in hopes -- and I think it would be excellent because we'll have some public hearings down in your area -- to try to give consideration for locking in in Phase 2 a percentage of the funding for relief routes. I'm hoping or -- we'll see what happens, but I would certainly recommend that you jump into those hearings when they do occur in your area because I think it touches right on exactly where you're talking.

JUDGE BORCHARD: I recognize that, Commissioner. I know you've been speaking to the urban counties -- I'm an officer with the Urban Counties -- Association of Urban Counties, and we're on record to support the funding mechanisms to assist and increase the funding of the commission.

You people have been in South Texas, Chairman Johnson and Commissioner Nichols, to address these issues and we do have a working relationship between the region, Laredo, Corpus Christi, the Valley, not only Highway 44 but also in the I-69 infrastructure.

But on here I know that there are some cities that sometimes feel that they don't want a relief route. They want the traffic to go through the middle of town, but here -- what we have here, we have two cities that have recognized the importance of the relief routes, that which you people here also recognize, and we appreciate that.

MR. NICHOLS: The last comment, or it might even be a question, has to do on the relief route itself. In the past, as the department built loops or bypasses or relief routes around communities, most of those were constructed as non-controlled access -- is what we'd call it -- and over a period of 20 years people put businesses and stores and driveways all along those routes. And then eventually they plug up, as did the central town part, and no longer function for through traffic again, and then 20 years from now or 30 years from now you're faced with the same thing.

I think one of the things we may be considering in the future, particularly on these important corridors, is that as these are -- this is just something we're considering -- as we give consideration to building those, putting those in as controlled access. You would have some frontage roads and you would have certainly development at those intersections in close proximity, but allowing the free access of driveways and development on those probably might be restricted.

Have you discussed that?

JUDGE BORCHARD: Yes, sir, we discussed that concept in Houston with the I-69 Alliance. That concept was developed and I think that is a good concept because you provide the frontage and all of a sudden it becomes full and then you have congestion, but the concept that was explained by TxDOT I think is a good concept and I think we endorse that. Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: Just a couple of observations. I'm delighted that Judge Saenz recognized Billy Parks, your very capable district engineer. He's given great meritorious service, not only to your district but also in Amarillo and every place he's been. Billy, we're glad that you're here to join us today.

Secondly, I cannot help but bring up the observation that this is a very intuitive, creative request, and it's one that bears a lot of attention because it's appropriate not only on the corridor that you refer to but in so many corridors that Phase 1 and the entire trunk system serve. But like so many of the challenges we face, they hinge on the funding aspect and we clearly try to stretch the amount of funds that we have.

Although it is a lot of money, it's a big state with almost 21 million people and 80,000 miles of center-lane miles, so we're trying to stretch a fair-sized amount of money a great way, and these are not inexpensive options that we would pursue along this initiative.

But it is one that is certainly, as you pointed out in an excellent presentation, that are much needed and need to be considered. So I appreciate the effort of everyone involved in the coalition who brought this information to us.

JUDGE BORCHARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. You have a good friend, my friend, county judge from Dallas County, Judge Jackson, is also trying to get additional funding for TxDOT to help us in this situation.

One last comment. I'd like to recognize David Cich; he's got some last comments here.

MR. CICH: Thank you, Richard.

Commissioner Nichols, in response to your question about the access issues, we've met with Billy Parks about the different proposals that are being looked at by TxDOT. We have a number of landowners that have already given preliminary commitments for the relief route in Alice; those were presented to the commission back in '96. The county also has a fund of over 500,000 towards that right of way.

Access is a critical issue and we talked to Billy already about finding a reasonable balance for the smooth flow of traffic and reasonable access, so we'll be working with Billy very closely and your staff, and we appreciate your comments on that. Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: As you're aware, decisions of this nature are not made on the spot, but we will take it under consideration and appreciate the time and effort and trouble that everyone has gone to to come to Austin today and bring this very important item up for consideration.

We will take a brief five-minute recess in order to let some people escape and some people to enter for the next delegation.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

VARIOUS COUNTIES

East Texas Gulf Highway Association

(Don Wall, Rep. Mark Homer, Vatra Solomon, Mayor D.H. Abernathy)

MR. JOHNSON: We will now reconvene our meeting. The second delegation is no stranger to the commission, having appeared more than 35 years. I believe that Don Wall, president of the East Texas Gulf Highway Association, will make the presentation. Don, welcome, on behalf of the commission. It's great to see you again and appreciate Mayor Abernathy's continued presence. He's a great source of inspiration to us, and of course, he bears gifts every now and then, and it's delicious.

MR. WALL: I heard he was over here delivering things yesterday, trying to bribe somebody. But anyway, we appreciate what he's done.

I thank you very much for letting us come before you again this year. It's always a pleasure and privilege to come down and renew our acquaintances and let you know how much we appreciate what you've done for us in the past year and recognize to you what your staff in the field and our engineers have done. And we appreciate them so because we have a lot of communications with them.

One thing, before we start our official presentation, I'm just ecstatic to see Chairman Johnson still wearing his Paris Eiffel Tower with a cowboy hat on it. One thing that I would like to comment on that is the person that created that hat is with us today. And the main reason he's here, he has real concern because there's been a bunch of delegations from Paris, France, and they can't get to Paris on our road system just so they can take pictures of that [inaudible] and I know you're going to help us alleviate that problem.

(General laughter.)

MR. WALL: Before I start my official presentation, I would like to call on our representative, Mark Homer, from the district, and he would like to address the commission.

MR. HOMER: Thank you, Mr. Wall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioner. I'll be quick because I'm already late for my duty across the street.

I just wanted to come before you on behalf of myself and Representative Ramsey to let you know of our undying support for this project. Our friends and constituents have been here many, many years; some of them -- Mayor Abernathy has been here longer than I've been alive. So if you get any points for coming, this should be an easy project to fund.

It is something that we feel is greatly needed in our area. We think that it would do a lot to help alleviate some of the traffic off of I-35 and bring some of that truck traffic our way. But I'm not going to get into the details. That's not my area, but just again, know of our undying support for it, and thank you, and I'm going to go to work. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. WALL: Thank you, Representative Homer.

Now, I'd like to call on Vatra Solomon from our own Senator Bill Ratliff, Lieutenant Governor's office. She's going to address you on his behalf because he is occupied and was unable to come over with us this morning. Vatra?

MS. SOLOMON: Good morning. Nice to see you both. The lieutenant governor is across the street as well and he sent me on his behalf. He has a letter he'd like me to read in the record.

"Dear Chairman and Members: Please accept my apologies that I'm unable to accompany the East Texas Gulf Highway Association in its appearance today. I appreciate you allowing my executive assistant, Vatra Solomon, to present my testimony.

"While I have assumed additional duties, you're aware I continue to serve as the senator from Senate District 1, and I, therefore, want to add my voice to that of the other legislators supporting the completion of the Green Carpet Route.

"I am fully cognizant of the many demands for your available construction dollars and understand your need to set priorities. I hope you will consider seriously this worthy project during your deliberations.

"Yours very truly, Bill Ratliff."

Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. WALL: Thank you, Ms. Solomon.

The Green Carpet Memorial Route is Texas' portion of the transportation corridor that begins in Monterrey, Mexico, and then continues northward through Texas and the heartland of the United States to Winnipeg, Canada. This corridor is a prime NAFTA route, and that is the reason why we have traveled here from East Texas to appear before you today.

We have many people that are present today that have traveled over 300 miles, and if they would bring the lights back up one second, I would like to recognize this group and ask everybody that's come to support this project and traveled a long way to please stand up.

Thank you very much.

We have many elected officials and commissioners with us, county judges. We won't take your time by introducing each one of them individually, but I can assure you we do have broad East Texas support.

Almost four decades ago, the East Texas Highway Association was formed to support development of the Green Carpet Memorial Route. Over time we have worked with similar organizations in other states and with our state transportation agencies. One of our major accomplishments outside of Texas was the completion of the Indian Nation Turnpike in Oklahoma. That four-lane divided facility, which is now 30 years old, connects US 271 to I-40.

Within the state of Texas we have worked with TxDOT and our elected officials to expand the majority of the route from the Rio Grande Valley through Houston to Kilgore. Unfortunately, two gaps still remain, between Kilgore and Gladewater and between Mount Pleasant and Paris, the only two gaps still left of this tremendous long project.

This is our 37th appearance before the commission; for 37 years in a row, we have been down to see you. As I noted previously, most of our appearances before you have been very rewarding; the vast majority of this route has been built and expanded in Texas. Unfortunately, about five years ago, we hit a roadblock. Our request during the past five years has been the same: Please help us to close the East Texas gap in the Green Carpet Memorial Route.

I recognize that we are asking you to spend over $100 million to accomplish this task and that this is a lot of money, especially to us in East Texas. But we base our request on the following issues: Safety, economic development, a level playing field, and the environment.

Let's look at safety. TxDOT traffic count maps indicate that traffic along this portion of the gaps in the route have increased 25 percent in the past two years. One-fifth of that total traffic is truck traffic. When you drive the route from Kilgore to Gladewater and from Mount Pleasant to Paris, as many East Texans do daily, this increase in traffic frequently becomes very alarming.

There are long segments of the route that do not have paved shoulders, and other long segments that only have minimal three-foot-wide paved shoulders. This is no refuge for drivers that experience an emergency such as a flat tire or some other problem. There's also no safe place for drivers to try to take evasive actions when they encounter an emergency situation.

Two examples of this second problem are two recent accidents that took the lives of Rebecca Gilbert and Dr. Adrien Gallon. Rebecca was a 16-year-old student at Prairieland High in Lamar County. She pulled out in front of an oncoming truck; she was broadsided and killed instantly. The driver of the truck told police that he just could not stop the truck he was driving in time to prevent the accident, but that had he have had time to take evasive action, he might have missed the accident if there was somewhere to go.

Dr. Gallon is another story, a totally different story. He died in a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler. Somebody, or both parties, crossed over the center line. It's hard to tell who did what following the aftermath of a 70-mile-an-hour head-on meeting between a passenger car and a truck. However, it is very probable that this tragedy could have been prevented had this gap in the Green Carpet Memorial Route been a four-lane divided highway.

Economic development. One of our contentions has always been that expansion of the Green Carpet Memorial Route would be cheaper and easier to accomplish when compared to the expansion of parallel corridors through metropolitan areas. And using the same logic of the rest of the Texas Trunk System, once the Green Carpet Memorial Route becomes a four-lane facility, a large volume of traffic would use this route to stay away from the congestion of our larger metropolitan areas.

This leads to economic development, potential for metropolitan areas along the parallel corridors, as well as development of the communities along the Green Carpet Memorial Route. Highway expansion construction delays will be lessened in metropolitan areas when through traffic is afforded the opportunity to travel a four-lane parallel route outside of their areas. Communities along the Green Carpet Memorial Route will grow and develop as development takes place along the expanded facilities.

A level playing field. Industries along the gap sections of the Green Carpet Memorial Route are significantly penalized by transportation costs because they do not have direct access to a four-lane divided facility that ties directly to the interstate system. Without four-lane highway access, our economic development efforts are thwarted and in many instances, we are even losing industry and jobs to areas that have this direct four-lane access.

In considering the environment, we've all read the newspaper stories about clean air and the possibility of additional areas of our state becoming nonattainment areas. Nobody wants to see that happen. Just a couple of years ago, rural East Texas fought off a TNRCC plan which would have included Northeast Texas in a Dallas-Fort Worth air quality nonattainment zone. The backbone of the TNRCC plan was to greatly expand the zone so that the average air quality measures for the Metroplex would not look as bad.

We fought this because we did not want our hands tied by the Metroplex when it came to further development of our part of Texas. However, we can help them out by expanding the Green Carpet Memorial Route. Industries will have the opportunity to come to cleaner rural areas along a four-lane highway and to leave behind the problems of urban congestion, clean air problems, and other adverse factors.

During the past five years we have appeared before you, we have tried to present prioritized sections of the gap route to help you in the decision making process. Last year we even broke this into nine segments for our presentation. At this time I would like to thank you for approving the Sulphur River bridges which we understand that contracts will be let next fall.

During the months since our last appearance, we have met with local elected officials, community leaders, and just everybody and all the people who live along and travel this roadway. The entire route has unique issues. We have the no-shoulders and minimal-shouldered areas, substandard vertical and horizontal alignment in areas, and increases in traffic all along the route. Therefore, everyone who we meet wants his or her section to be the first priority.

Therefore, this year our request is very simple: We're requesting that the entire segment of 271 between Paris and Mount Pleasant be moved to Priority 2 in the FY 2002 Unified Transportation Program. This would enable your engineers in the Atlanta and Paris districts to do two things: They can begin the right of way acquisition process for the future expansion of this route, and they will be able to develop construction plans as what TxDOT calls "shelf plans awaiting possible funding."

We have also been cognizant of the fact that TxDOT never receives enough funding for all these projects. Our own state senator and our lieutenant governor Bill Ratliff, who -- they just spoke to you today on supporting us -- constantly reminds us of the shortage of dollars that you experience year-in and year-out. And I would like to mention at this time that we have a resolution supporting you and funding of TxDOT so we can help alleviate the crisis that you do face.

You have helped us in the past and we are very grateful for all of your help in the past. We recognize that our current traffic volumes cannot compete with the tremendous numbers of the major metropolitan areas such as Dallas and Houston. However, we are experiencing tremendous demands on the gap portions of the Green Carpet Memorial Route and will appreciate any and all relief that you can give us. I thank you very much.

Before we go to the comment section or any questions that you may like to ask me, with your permission, I'll ask Mayor Abernathy to come and address the commission.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Thank you, Don.

Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Mr. Heald. It's a pleasure for me to appear before you today. This is my 37th presentation before the commission on this one subject. My name is D.H. Abernathy, mayor of Pittsburg. I will begin my 48th year April 4 as mayor. I've been a road hand since 1984 and received the Russell Perry Award in 1995 promoting highways. I have been a member and supporter of Texas Good Roads Association 14 years. I'm a supporter of TxDOT, and as I said, 37th year appearance on this project.

I endorse everything Mr. Wall has presented. The legislature needs to change the collection of fuel tax to the source which will give TxDOT $100 million more per year of which a fourth, or $25 million, would go to education. This has been done by 13 other states.

Today under the NAFTA agreement, and with Texas being the fastest growing state, there's more traffic on our highways than ever before. The East Texas Gulf Highway Association was organized in 1965 and its objective was to promote a four-lane highway from Houston to the Oklahoma line to connect with the Indian Nation Turnpike, go through Oklahoma to connect with four-lane I-35 at Kansas City and go to Winnipeg, Canada. This would be an alternate NAFTA route and relieve some pressure on I-35 in Texas.

Through the help of this commission, in past years the Green Carpet Memorial Route is complete with the exception of 6-1/2 miles on State 135 from US 271 to I-20 and about 46 miles between Mount Pleasant and Paris. In 1996, the assistant engineer director told the Paris District engineer to divide US 271 into segments from Paris to Mount Pleasant so it could eventually be completed.

In 2000, the entrance to Paris on 271 was to be changed, but has not been done. The U.S. government was to build a bridge across Sulphur River, and you've heard comments on that from Mr. Wall.

In the year 2000, about ten miles of US 271 was to be made four lanes from where TxDOT owns the 100-foot right of way of the old Paris to Mount Pleasant railroad. This was not done. Four years ago our Congressman Max Sandlin designated $1-1/2 million to improve this section of road. We have not seen any physical evidence of four-laning any section of this road.

Today we request the commission to approve funds to the Paris and Atlanta districts to get this section of 271 started to Mount Pleasant; also provide funds to the Tyler District to buy right of way to improve 135. I would present supporting House Bill 3106 to the following: Pittsburg City Council, Camp County Commissioners Court, Pittsburg Chamber of Texas, East Texas Gulf Highway Association that supported the five-cent tax increase in 1991, and East Texas Council of Governments, and others.

Last weekend our city manager drove to St. Louis and back and he said the worst road he had was from Paris to Mount Pleasant.

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.

MR. NICHOLS: I don't know that I have so much questions as I do comments. Mayor, it's good to see you again.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Thank you, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: And what you have done and the huge number of people who have come a long way today, and I'm sure most of them drove because it's hard to fly from that part of the state -- I'm somewhat familiar with that. And I appreciate very much the efforts you have made continuously to lay out the problem and the vision of the regional route that you've proposed. This morning I was looking in a book, Mr. Greer's biography, and saw a picture of you in there with Mr. Greer and I think a Model T.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: He was a very personal friend of mine.

MR. NICHOLS: Who the building is named after -- some of you are not familiar. We really do appreciate what you've done.

You made a comment related to the demonstration money from Max Sandlin, and I really guess I have a question to our staff. Is Al Luedecke here, anybody from TP&P? I hate to pop a surprise on them.

MR. NICHOLS: Mike could? Wes?

MR. HEALD: Mike had to go across the street; I don't think he's back yet.

MR. NICHOLS: I really had a question on that federal demonstration money. If Congressman Sandlin did have money flagged for that, it certainly should be used.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Yes, sir. I personally talked to him about it.

MR. NICHOLS: And I wanted to find out from our staff basically what did happen or what is planned. We don't have anybody from planning here?

MR. HEALD: I'm not able to answer that. I know it's in Priority 2; that's all I know.

MR. NICHOLS: Is anybody from the district office here? Are you in a position to answer that question?

SPEAKER IN AUDIENCE: Sorry, I didn't hear the question.

MR. NICHOLS: The mayor was referring to about a million and a half dollars in federal demonstration money for four-laning on that and that they had not seen anything. Are you aware of that appropriation?

(Inaudible from audience.)

MR. NICHOLS: Somebody grab a mike; we can't -- didn't mean to put you on the spot back there.

MR. EKSTROM: In TEA-21, $1.5 million was authorized for the section of 271 between Paris and Pattonville, a small community in Lamar County, about six miles. That section is in Priority 2; the rest of the route, the other 40 miles, is still sitting in long-range plan on US 271. We tried to develop this all at one time. What I've been told by -- I hate to speak for Mr. Luedecke.

MR. NICHOLS: He may not want you to either.

MR. LUEDECKE: I was upstairs and I happened to see it on TV and I came running back. You're concerned about the $1 million that was set aside by Max Sandlin?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, the mayor was referring to a million and a half.

MR. LUEDECKE: That money is still available in that category, but it's, of course, not near enough to build that one section. It's there for them when we get the money to proceed.

MR. NICHOLS: But part of it is in Priority 2?

MR. LUEDECKE: Yes, sir. Part of it is.

MR. NICHOLS: It can do something.

MR. LUEDECKE: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: So can we tell the mayor or the group which piece that is in Priority 2?

MR. LUEDECKE: I can't standing here right now, but we can sure get back with them very quickly where that is.

MR. NICHOLS: We'll make sure that we -- as I understand, when it's given Priority 2, then they're given the authority to begin right of way acquisition plans and things of that nature.

MR. LUEDECKE: Yes, sir. I wasn't up to speed on this particular --

MR. NICHOLS: So we'll get back to your group and let you know at least where that is.

MR. LUEDECKE: We can handle that with a response to the appearance.

MR. NICHOLS: Thank you.

MAYOR ABERNATHY: Thank the commission, Mr. Heald, for letting us appear here today, and we're pushing for that completion of that section. I don't know of any other project in Texas that has been on the books since 1965 that hasn't been completed, so we're pleading with you to help us get this done. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Mayor, we appreciate your being here also, and while you're pushing, we're pushing right along beside you and want you to know that. It's a matter of funding and priorities, and we wrestle with these decisions every year.

And believe me, the impressive delegation that you've brought with us and the hospitality that you've always shown we're very grateful for, but more importantly, we think these are very necessary links across Texas and we believe that we need to get them done. It's just a matter of finding the money to get them done.

MR. WALL: Commissioner and chairman, we appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. You've heard our request, and we really reiterate our request to put this total section in Priority 2 so we can work it all together and be able to utilize that small amount of funds, because it's going to help our district if it's all the way when they're working right in the middle of the project on the Sulphur River bridges or sections that they would need to work and facilitate the project.

If it's all in Priority 2, then they can designate the necessary points to work. Thank you very much for allowing us to appear before you today.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

We will take a short recess of five minutes in order to let our East Texas friends vacate.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

VARIOUS COUNTIES

Dallas-Fort Worth Partners in Mobility

(Rep. Fred Hill, Mayor Ron Kirk, Mayor Ken Barr, Judge Ron Harris, Judge Scott Armey, Judge Ron Harmon, Judge Tom Vandergriff, Judge Lee Jackson)

MR. JOHNSON: We will reconvene our meeting. Our final delegation is also making an annual trek to Austin from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Before we get into the formal presentation, I know there are probably some elected representatives here who need to get back across the street, and so I would like for them, perhaps, to be first on the agenda. I know Representative Hill is here, and if there are any others, I'd like for you to come forward. Representative Hill, thank you for coming.

MR. HILL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Heald. It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to be before you today. I've seen many of you before the transportation committee.

I want to tell you that it's a distinct honor for me to represent the people of North Texas. It's a unique community, and at a time when we are having such a tough time funding all of our highway projects, you have before you a group of people who are willing to work with you on a partnership basis, and I hope that you'll take that into consideration when you hear what they're interested in doing.

These people have worked together for many, many years; they are a unique group. It's a group of people that -- many times we have other transportation-interested organizations coming to the North Texas area just to try to figure out why they get along so well. And they're led by some outstanding individuals, and I just ask you to give them the utmost consideration and please take into consideration their willingness to work with you in a partnership basis. We know that we can't come here and just simply ask for dollars. We know that we have to bring something to the table, and this group is willing to do that.

So thank you very much for your attention this morning.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Are there any other representatives or senators here that would like to address the commission? There being none that I can see right now, I'd like to call on Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to lead the presentation.

Mr. Mayor, welcome.

I see on the lineup card that's been submitted that Mayor Barr is here, and I'd like to caution him -- he appeared before us in Irving and all kinds of bells and whistles and sirens went off when he was making his presentation.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR KIRK: Nothing but love here, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much; Commissioner Nichols, Mr. Heald, thank you for welcoming us again. I am Ron Kirk, the mayor of the City of Dallas, and here representing and leading a delegation of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area Partners in Mobility. This is a coalition of public and private sector leaders, as Representative Hill mentioned, and we appreciate him for being here. He was here for over an hour waiting, and for those in the audience, I hope you'll let him know how much we appreciated him being here with us.

I want to ask all the members of our delegation to stand at this time since we all won't be speaking, but we want you to know the numbers in which we are represented. We have over 180 mayors, city council members, county judges and commissioners, city managers, chamber of commerce presidents, board members, business and civic leaders from nearly every community in the North Central Texas region. I want to thank each of them for their participation here today and being a member of Partners in Mobility.

While making this trip to Austin represents a significant time commitment, each of their presence here today symbolizes an even greater effort by each of these delegates and their communities back home. I hope you recognize that this commitment from our region is indicative of the importance that North Texas places on mobility and investing in our surface transportation infrastructure.

This is our seventh year to come before you as a coalition, and we've appeared before you in order to provide an annual update on our mobility needs. Our coalition represents public and private sector interests from throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area: Nine counties, 111 cities, 18 chambers of commerce, a regional tollway authority, two transit agencies, two TxDOT districts, and a partridge in a pear tree -- and one metropolitan planning organization.

We strive and we seek to present a cohesive, consistent and strategic message, whether we're addressing you or whether we're across the street urging our friends in the legislature to increase levels of investment that our state makes in transportation. We very much appreciate the challenging task that you have in allocating the far too few resources to address the substantial mobility needs of our great state, and we thank you for your support of the transportation infrastructure requirements in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Over the last several years we've heard some complain that your allocation decisions have unfairly favored the Dallas-Fort Worth and the Houston districts, but as you can see from the graphic on the screen behind you, neither Dallas-Fort Worth nor Houston is receiving any more than our fair share allocation, and clearly, no one can deny the huge and growing roadway congestion levels in the states's two largest metropolitan areas.

The only answer to this dilemma is for all of us to work together statewide to increase the size of the funding pie rather than throwing stones at one another about how big the pieces of the pie should be.

Our focus should be, as is Dell Computers', that mobility drives economic opportunity which also drives quality of life. Loss of mobility disrupts business opportunity which, in turn, hinders individual opportunity for all of us. The more funds there are for all of us, the better opportunities there will be for everyone in the state of Texas.

Again, we thank you for the opportunity to be with you. It's my privilege at this time to call on my good friend, the mayor of Fort Worth, Ken Barr, who will present facts and describe our declining mobility and importance of our region to the state's economy. Mayor Barr.

MAYOR BARR: Thank you, Mayor Kirk. Good morning, members of the commission and Mr. Heald. I'm Kenneth Barr and I'm the mayor of the city of Fort Worth, and I'm just pleased to be allowed to come back after my last performance. I claim no responsibility for the fire alarm going off. It certainly made it a memorable occasion for me -- everyone left.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR BARR: As Mayor Kirk just mentioned, I want to briefly describe our region's growth, what is happening to the region's mobility, and what the Fort Worth-Dallas area means to the state's economy.

The recently-released U.S. census data is revealing a lot of information about the growth we experienced over the past decade. In addition to adding over 1.2 million people -- that's a nearly 30 percent increase in our population -- the data shows that if our region was a state, the Dallas-Fort Worth area would be the seventh fastest growing state in the union if you look at the years 1990 to 2000. Think of that: Our region would be the seventh fastest growing state.

And unless you're someone who drives the highways of our region on a regular basis, I doubt that you would realize the extent to which DFW mobility is declining. Between 1995 and 1999, the region experienced a dramatic increase in traffic congestion, and as this slide indicates and as is shown on page 4 of the executive summary brochure, the Dallas-Fort Worth area employment growth is exceeding population growth, our daily vehicle miles of travel is exceeding employment growth, and our congestion delay is exceeding travel growth.

Two alarming statistics that probably best illustrate the dramatic decline in mobility we're experiencing are that: One, between 1995 and 1999, congestion delay time increased by 37 percent, and by 1999 this level of traffic congestion translated into nearly $6 billion of lost productivity to motorists in our region. And that's $6 billion a year.

This dramatic increase in traffic congestion is also reflected in TTI's soon-to-be-released report, again confirming that our congestion levels climbed significantly between 1995 and 1999. In fact, we're now experiencing increases in traffic congestion similar to the increases that occurred in our region during the growth surge back in the 1980s. Amazingly, we are only talking about a four-year time frame in which we've experienced very dramatic changes.

Let me put our message in other words, in a little more dramatic terms maybe: The canary is in the coal mine and the canary is grasping for air. A continuation of this trend will soon take a serious toll on the region's economic viability and the quality of life.

So why should Texas, the whole state of Texas, care if DFW business declines? The reason is that the Fort Worth-Dallas area is the state's largest regional economy, representing fully one-third of the state's gross product in 2001. In fact, for more than a decade, DFW has been one of the top job producers of all regions nationally.

Looking at just the few economic indicators on the slide before you and on page 3 of your brochure, you can see that North Texas leads all Texas regions in every measure. More than four out of ten jobs created in 1999 were in the Fort Worth-Dallas area -- that's four out of ten new jobs were in the Fort Worth-Dallas area.

These jobs are critical to the economic health of Texas and we simply must protect the assets required to sustain this job production and the economic strength that goes with it. Clearly, efficient and reliable regional transportation systems is one of those assets.

The dramatic decline in mobility we're experiencing suggests that gridlock on the horizon if we don't increase the level of investment being made in our highway infrastructure. Failing to do so will negatively impact revenues to Texas and it will negatively impact the quality of life for all Texans.

I think that part of my job here today has been to paint a picture of doom and gloom, the doom and gloom part of our story, but there are positive new stories and messages that we want to share with you as well. One of those positive messages is that no area of the United States is building more transportation facilities than the Fort Worth-Dallas region.

Another positive message is that in no other area of Texas and no other area of the nation are towns and cities and counties working together on transportation issues better than we are in the Fort Worth-Dallas metropolitan area.

Now let me call on Collin County Judge Ron Harris to come forward and tell you about some of the positive steps that are being taken to maintain our region's mobility. Judge Harris.

JUDGE HARRIS: Thank you. I just had my friend Scott Armey encourage me to break a leg, so I'm not sure if I need to have my back to him.

(General laughter.)

JUDGE HARRIS: No, we are friends and work very closely on several projects in North Texas.

Thank you, Mayor Barr, and good morning, commissioners and Mr. Heald. I am Ron Harris, the county judge of Collin County, and I'd like to begin by telling you about some of our efforts to reduce demand on the highway system.

Our transit agencies are continuing to make improvements to attract new riders. DART ridership is up 3.8 percent over last year and the T's ridership is up 5 percent. The MPO in our region has launched a major initiative to support and encourage sustainable development including encouragement of transit-oriented land use, configurations that require less single occupancy vehicular travel than has been the case with prevailing development patterns.

The growth occurring in the Dallas-Fort Worth area obviously places high demands on our already overburdened mobility system, but with these actions by transit agencies and the MPO to help reduce the impact of demand, we think we can make some strides.

The North Texas Tollway Authority continues to be a bright star in our efforts to add mobility capacity in the region. The President George Bush Turnpike is a shining example of partnerships between TxDOT and the DFW region, bringing new mobility capacity online years sooner than would have been possible without the NTTA.

Seventeen miles of the Bush toll road are now in use and another eight miles will be opened in the coming ten months. The last two-mile segment of the turnpike opened was put in service a full four months ahead of schedule. Progress is also being made on the Southwest Parkway in Fort Worth which is a critical project to the southwestern portion of the region.

Your district engineers, Jay Nelson and Steve Simmons, have been extraordinarily cooperative in helping to move both of these projects forward.

As illustrated in the table, which is also shown on page 8 of your executive summary, North Texas has over $2 billion of additional toll facilities either pending or being planned by NTTA. As you know, we are working alongside TxDOT in trying to shepherd through the legislature the bill and joint resolution to enable the investment of state funds in toll roads which is an important leveraging tool of existing scarce transportation resources. Upon passage of this bill, we would like to see you revisit the issue of incentives for TxDOT districts to partner in toll funding.

You're all familiar with the bottleneck that exists at Interstate 30 and Interstate 35E, the mixmaster adjacent to downtown Dallas, which is notorious for being one of the most congested and most dangerous interchanges in the country. The Trinity Parkway is a planned reliever route for this bottleneck and is being developed as a tollway. It is nearing completion of the environmental process and is estimated to cost over $620 million. This will require substantial TxDOT participation to be successful.

We look forward to working with you on this important project as well as the other potential $2 billion of toll projects which can only be successful with local and TxDOT partnerships.

Let me now call on my good friend, county judge of Denton County, Scott Armey. Thank you.

JUDGE ARMEY: Thank you, Judge Harris.

Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Heald. I am Scott Armey, county judge of Denton County.

I want to first tell you that this is my first opportunity to be a presenter with Partners in Mobility and I appreciate the opportunity and the time that you spend listening to us. I have to admit I did learn one thing new already this morning, and I was always under the assumption that the D in DFW was for Denton.

Mayor, isn't that right?

(General laughter.)

JUDGE ARMEY: Continuing the theme of Judge Harris's remarks regarding positive initiatives being carried out in our region to reduce congestion and improve air quality, we'd also like to point out some of the constructive actions your two district offices are taking and commend them for their fine work.

They are seriously engaged in helping to clean the air. Two hundred twenty-five TxDOT employees in the Fort Worth District and 181 in the Dallas District participating in trip reduction efforts during the last ozone season. Eighty percent of the Dallas District vehicles use clean fuels; the two district offices work together to develop a management and operations website providing incident locations, lane closure reports, and access to TxDOT cameras on the freeway system. The website had 8 million visits from August through September of 2000.

The Fort Worth Mobility Assistance Patrol made nearly 40,000 assists to incidents and motorists in 2000, and the Dallas Mobility Assistance Patrol made 44,000 assists during the same period. Last summer the Fort Worth District opened TransVision, a state of the art traffic control and monitoring center serving the western portion of our region. The Dallas District will soon begin construction on a companion facility for the Dallas area.

Both districts are developing effective innovations to expedite project construction. The Dallas District developed maturity testing of concrete strengths that allows for early opening of pavement to traffic; the Fort Worth District uses a five-day calendar definition in its construction contracts that shifts weather risks to the contractor.

Both districts are producing a construction schedule prior to contract bidding that has the effect of minimizing project duration. Both are using road user costs as a basis for contract performance penalties and incentives. These are but few of the creative ways our region is addressing management and operation issues.

We commend Steve Simmons and Jay Nelson and their excellent employees for their outstanding work. You should be very proud of them.

We would like to make one significant addition to our list of TxDOT commendations and then offer one new suggestion. First, your use of advanced construction partial obligation funding of the Dallas High Five Interchange is going to accelerate completion of this extremely important project and save money.

We understand that this funding concept which is new to TxDOT is going to be used for other corridors and we want to commend you for this excellent initiative. It really helps and is very much appreciated.

Now for the new suggestion. One thing that we find particularly frustrating and which elongates the project development considerably is the sequential review of project development plans. We suggest the review process be restructured to expedite and to reduce or eliminate duplication of work. Streamlining project delivery is necessary.

If we can all be more efficient and effective and with greater accountability, we will save construction funds and reduce the inflationary effects of the rising cost overruns. Perhaps review responsibilities could be divided among the district, the division and FHWA, or possibly reviews could be processed simultaneously if everything really does need to be reviewed at all three levels. We appreciate a review of how projects are processed with emphasis on the need for project streamlining.

I'd like to ask Johnson County Commissioner Ron Harmon to come forward and continue our presentation.

MR. HARMON: Thank you, Scott.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Commissioner, Mr. Executive Director. I'm Ron Harmon, Johnson County commissioner and chairman of the Regional Transportation Council, our metropolitan planning organization.

I would like to first review with you some of our capacity needs that are currently in project development. Let's start with our unfunded project needs. These are projects in which the planning phase has been completed and are now waiting final design and environmental approval. These projects shown by the gold lines in this map and on page 7 in your brochure are in the refinement stage of development.

The estimated cost of these projects exceed $8 billion which is about 16 times the amount of annual funding available statewide in categories 3A and 12 at current funding levels. This is the reason why our coalition works so hard trying to raise the level of priority the Texas Legislature gives transportation funding.

We show you this list because the legislature needs to work with us in crafting a response to our citizens and businesses on how we're going to improve the quality of life throughout Texas. The magnitude of this gap is something that all of us must understand and work closely together to narrow.

The next group of projects I would like to review with you, also shown on this slide, are the Dallas-Fort Worth Districts backlogged projects. These are projects that are in Priority 2 of the UTP and can be ready for letting within the next four fiscal years if funding is made available. These 33 backlogged projects, also listed in your binders, total $963 million. We really need your help in moving as many of these projects as possible into the funding category.

These are urgent needs. We realize that you can't fund all of them in any one year and we are prepared to work with your staff to pick those that should be funded first. In fact, some of the projects are also included in our proposed Regional Transportation Council Texas Transportation Commission partnership program.

The Regional Transportation Council is again proposing to partner with the commission in the funding of several important projects. There are three components to our partnership program: First, we are buying down the cost of projects in the National Highway System Program; second, we are pooling funds in the Strategic Priority Program; and third, previously requested projects are being streamlined using regional funds to pay 100 percent of the cost of the projects.

The Regional Transportation Council, along with the North Texas Toll Road Authority and local governments, are committing nearly $150 million toward seven National Highway System projects, one-third of the total project cost. In addition, six projects are being proposed for consideration in the commission's Strategic Priority Program. Local participation in this program is $219 million or over 70 percent.

Also, the Regional Transportation Council is fully funding projects which are included in previous requests to the commission. In total, the partners in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are providing one-half of the funding needed for these important roadway and rail projects.

I'd like to ask my good friend Judge Vandergriff to continue our presentation.

JUDGE VANDERGRIFF: Thank you, Ron.

Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Heald. I am Tom Vandergriff; it is my privilege to be Tarrant County judge.

Ron just mentioned to you our concern with the huge gap between resources and needs, and it being the motivation of our efforts to encourage the legislature to raise the priority given transportation funding. I'd like to take just a minute to tell you of our legislative efforts this session.

Over the past two years we, the Partners in Mobility, have worked together, as well as with the Texas Transportation Funding Coalition and TEX-21, to broaden the base of support for transportation issues with legislators. Last year it appeared at times that transportation really wasn't on the radar screen of too many legislators.

That's not the case this session, primarily, I would think, for two reasons: Firstly, Governor Perry has made transportation one of the top priorities on his agenda, and secondly, a coalition known as TEX-21 has worked very hard in building an informed constituency for transportation. One of our North Texas cities, the city of Irving, deserves much credit for the huge investment it has made in underwriting the TEX-21 effort.

The Partners in Mobility legislative program is summarized for you on page 10 of your brochure and is highlighted in the graphic. In order to reinforce the interest legislators are showing in transportation this session, we have organized an effort to encourage constituents to send a postcard to representatives and senators.

We've also encouraged our counterparts in local governments, chambers of commerce, and transportation advocacy groups across the state to do the same. We've printed and distributed 50,000 of these postcards; hopefully, this effort will illustrate substantial grassroots support for raising the level of priority Texas places on transportation.

I'd now like to turn the podium over to my good friend Dallas County Judge Lee Jackson to conclude our presentation.

JUDGE JACKSON: Thank you, Tom, and good morning, commissioners and Mr. Heald. I am Lee Jackson, county judge of Dallas County and we appreciate you listening to our seventh annual presentation. We've tried to bring you some partnership ideas and not just be here with our hands out. We know the message is somewhat dry and factual.

We noted recently that Central Texas came and gave you a very entertaining presentation with song and dance and music videos, and we'll be watching carefully to see the results of that. If it's successful, I'd like to volunteer that next year Mayors Kirk and Barr will come and sing a duet and the county judges will bring a barbershop quartet.

(General laughter.)

JUDGE JACKSON: But for this year we've tried to stick to the facts and we think we have a pretty compelling message in our region. Our speakers made six key points which you followed carefully, and I do appreciate that and appreciate the attention you've given to it.

I would point out that only three of those points directly are asking you for funding. We asked for greater emphasis on management and operations, including strategies such as freeway bottleneck removal, construction zone and freeway incident traffic mitigation, and avoiding lane closures during peak travel periods of the day.

We asked you to put more attention to project streamlining, requiring more accountability in the entire process. This would include discussions with FHWA to consolidate and coordinate plan reviews, to expedite project development as well advance construction partial obligation funding for high priority corridors such as we've started with the example of the Dallas High Five Interchange. So those two are not donation questions; those are process improvement issues and we want to be your partner and we think we have some good pilot projects already under way.

We did ask you to provide incentives for toll funding. We've been mentioning this for a number of years. We still think that it's in the state's best interest and yours to hold out a clear message to any region in Texas, not just those of us who have toll authorities but in a region that wants to build a bridge and they're willing to start a toll, that the state ought to be offering a carrot to any area that's willing to tax itself or to ask its motorists to make a contribution, and make those incentives clear so that you attract more local investment.

We did ask that you move as many of our Dallas and Fort Worth district backlogged projects as possible into Priority 1 status because the need is there and we think they'll stack up very well. We've again brought a partnership program and we ask you to adopt and support this RTC Transportation Commission partnership program, including use of both your National Highway System and Commission Strategic Priority Funding programs.

And then lastly, we've tried to work actively, as aggressively as we know how, certainly more aggressively than we ever have before as a region, to support your efforts to encourage the Texas Legislature to provide more resources for transportation infrastructure investment.

It is an investment, not just in transportation, but in economic development and, as more and more people are realizing, quality of life. That's something that we have in common with you and the legislature and if we'll all pay attention to it, it is an investment in quality of life.

So thank you for your attention, and on behalf of all my colleagues, we're here to answer any questions you may have and we appreciate your consideration.

MR. JOHNSON: Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: I've got a long list here; I may not go through all of it. I'll start, first of all, for thanking you for inviting us to the reception last night; that was fun to visit a lot of the people.

And some of the comments that I'll be making I made last night, and that is that you have done, as a region, an absolutely amazing feat of cooperation on a regional basis, not only on the transportation projects themselves or the priorities but in working strategies to help us improve our process and trying at a state level to help come up with programs and legislation that not only benefit your area but the entire state.

My hat's off to you. We said last night that you have been a model for the state, and I really mean it. It's just absolutely fantastic what you have done.

Commissioner Harmon was talking about -- he mentioned a number and that number was 16 to 1. I think he was referring to the total projects in the state to the amount of money that we have to do that. And that ratio extends back to almost 20 years, that for the last 20 years or so we have been adding volume of traffic to the system in Texas at a rate 16 to 1 for what we have been adding capacity, and the backup and congestion and things of that nature that you're seeing are a result of that.

In trying to resolve some of that, the initiatives that you've had on the tolling -- and there's some bills for toll equity that are over making progress over at the legislature -- I think can have tremendous benefit because it includes regional -- state equity in the regional toll authorities.

I think we have discussed with some of your members the incentives that you have talked about. I know I have been in some conversations related to those and I think you'll find the commission very supportive of putting an actual incentive in there somewhere to convert projects, when reasonable, to tolling projects because it not only allows the state to leverage its funds more and accomplish more projects in a shorter period of time, but the long-term maintenance and operation costs of those are absorbed by the users of the system and it frees up the roads.

So on your list of suggestions, the very last list I saw there, I think the bottom thing on there was legislative support. State employees are prohibited from working on legislation; we can provide resource information and things of that -- well, but we can't put our districts, and rightfully so, our personnel, to working on that kind of issues. We can supply information to you, things of that nature, but the employees themselves should not and cannot and we do not allow them to do that. But many of these other ideas I think are just great.

I've been kind of rambling on so I'm going to turn it back over to the chairman. Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: What I'm going to say probably echoes a lot of what Robert said, but I think at the beginning I'm intrigued by this offer of a duet and barbershop quartet. I mean, that might be the ultimate carrot, if there is such a thing.

I mentioned last night I cannot tell you how impressive, one, this presentation, I expected it to be, but also your action. The Dallas-Fort Worth areas have joined together when it would be so easy to be competitors for funds and resources, but it's joined together in such a way that I've never seen a region that participates and cooperates on a mission the way you do, and as I mentioned last night, I think my words were you definitely have your act together, and that is very, very impressive.

And I view this as a partnership; there's an exchange of ideas and they're free flowing, and even the suggestions you made today on management and operations and project streamlining, those are observations from the users of the system and they're very important and they need to be followed up, and I can assure you that they will be.

I know your efforts on behalf of transportation, this commission and department, with the legislature, especially on the funding issues and also what I call the enablers, the things that will enable us to do our job more efficiently and better, are without peer in the state. Judge Jackson, I know you've been very innovative in some of the ideas that you've brought forward, and have followed -- as I call my friends who are idea guys, you've followed those wonderful ideas up with a lot of effort, and we appreciate that greatly.

I cannot over emphasize what a pleasure it is to have you here, what an excellent presentation this was, and we look forward to working with you to accomplish all the challenges that we face. And so thank you very much.

JUDGE JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate all of you, even the lame duck members of the commission.

(General laughter.)

MR. LANEY: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry I'm late. Am I so late that I can't vote against this?

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: David, you're never too late for that.

We will take a brief recess so our friends from the Partners in Mobility can get back to commerce and industry -- five-minute recess.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. JOHNSON: We will reconvene this meeting and begin with the approval of the minutes of our commission meeting in February. Do I have a motion to that effect?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. LANEY: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you very much.

Next on our agenda is a presentation by the TIBH and Mr. Ron Bartels.

MR. BARTELS: Good morning.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. I hope I got your last name right.

MR. BARTELS: That is correct. You did get it correct.

Chairman Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Laney, Executive Director Mr. Heald. My name is Ron Bartels; I'm the state marketing manager with TIBH Industries and we are the private nonprofit that administers the