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Though Part Of TTC 69 Stalled, The Rest Steamrollers On To Connect With John Cornyn’s Mexican Superhighway

By Vince Leibowitz  on Jun 26, 2008 in Trans-Texas Corridor       [Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post  

Although part of the controversial TTC 69 route of the Trans-Texas Corridor has been (or will be) altered, it’s full steam(roller) ahead on the southern aspect of the superhighway:

The second half of the massive Trans Texas Corridor will take a large step toward reality today, when state transportation officials award a $5 million design contract to a team of private toll road operators. The operators will develop a master plan for the portion of the project that will run from Northeast Texas to Houston and then to Mexico – about 650 miles.

Presumably, this will connect with John Cornyn’s Mexican Superhighway, the south-of-the-border version of the TTC that Cornyn proposes building with American tax dollars.
More on the contract itself:

The contract will not directly authorize the winning consortium to build any part of the super highway. But it will give the winning bidder a position of power for winning the much larger construction contracts — almost certainly to be worth billions of dollars – for the toll roads that will make up the super highway. The design contract will give the winning team 12 to 18 months to flesh out a master development plan for the project, which is expected to largely follow the path of the proposed southern extension of Interstate 69.

The two teams competing for the contract are led by subsidiaries of Spanish firms that are among the world’s largest toll road operators.

One, called ZAI ACS TTC-69, is run by Texas construction company Zachry American Infrastructure Inc. and ACS Infrastructure Development Inc., perhaps the world’s largest toll road developer.

The second, Bluebonnet Infrastructure, is led by Cintra, the Spanish firm that is already developing the master plan for the other half of the Trans Texas Corridor. Cintra last year won the design contract for the segment of the corridor that will run north to south, roughly parallel to Interstate 35. It is also the firm that was initially slated to build State Highway 121 in North Texas.

Interesting.

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Comments

One Response to “Though Part Of TTC 69 Stalled, The Rest Steamrollers On To Connect With John Cornyn’s Mexican Superhighway”

  1. McBlogger: low-calorie but still full-flavor: Tolls and polls on July 12th, 2008 3:59 pm

    Kramer auto Pingback[...] has more about TXDOT’s continued efforts to privatize transportation infrastructure in the state, despite what the Legislature and Texans want. The best part? He managed to tie it in [...]

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