TxDOT Cuts Transportation Enhancement Program
Vince Leibowitz | Nov 30, 2006 | Comments 0
Following the maze of federal dollars that flow to Texas for highway funding is sometimes difficult. It’s even more difficult when the Federal Highway Administration reduces its appropriation to the state because that means cuts usually have to be made somewhere.
Following a FHA announcement that the state will have to forego more than $305 million in promised funds, TxDOT has announced it will end a program most people have probably never heard of: The Transportation Enhancement Program.
This has caused the Texas Historical Commission–beneficiary (directly or indirectly) of many of the Transportation Enhancement Program funds–to speak out against the cuts.
THC Executive Director Larry Oaks charges that the reason the program is being cut is because TxDOT officials have never liked the program in the first place.
TxDOT, of course, denies this.
Transportation Enhancement Fund dollars have funded good works in the past, including provisions for bicycle and pedestrian transportation facilities and even railroads and control or removal of billboards and acquisition of scenis easements.
![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Ping.fm]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-ping.png){kind=icon}
Filed Under: Texas Politics
