Fort Bend Folks Don't Care for Trans-Texas Corridor Either

By Vicente Arenas / 11 News - KHOU.com

Friday, January 25, 2008

TxDOT is finding few supporters for the plan as they conduct a series of town hall meetings

If Texas Department of Transportation officials were looking to gain support for the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor Thursday night, Fort Bend County wasn't the place to be.

The folks who packed the Rosenberg Civic Center Thursday night were angry.

"This will wipe me out. How is this in my best interest?," East Bernard resident Dee Bond asked of state transportation officials.

"Why can't you work with what ya'll got? Instead of going off in a different direction," asked Houston resident Doug Bilbrey.

http://www.khou.com/images/0801/preferred_and_reasonablecorridors_w_sections_11x17_lr.pdf

http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/

http://www.texasturf.org/

Most of the 600 people who crowded Rosenberg's Civic Center Thursday are landowners who are afraid the proposed highway will swallow up their homes and prime farmland that's been in families for generations.

"If this is gaining so much opposition, do we want this road or do we not want this road?" said Wharton resident Dianne Coan.

The response to the state's plan was just as hostile in Fort Bend County Thursday as residents in Waller County were the night before.

"I don't know why they are blowing smoke and tell us what they want this road," El Campo resident David Coan complained.

The Trans-Texas Corridor, also known as I-69, would have lanes for 18-wheelers as well as space for trains and it would stretch from the border to near Houston and on to Arkansas.

It would eventually criss-cross the state. But no one at the meeting Thursday wanted it.

TxDOT says the highways are needed to help keep up with the state's booming population and make it easier to transport goods between the U.S., Mexico and South America.

TxDOT told the crowd the highway is still years from being built, but that was little comfort when it's your land in the crosshairs.