APR27TRN - Texas Department of Transportation€¦ · Web viewMS. HAWLEY: And Houston and Victoria. And I think what you have captured so well is that your mission is what's good

TEXAS TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION

COMMISSION MEETING

Thursday, April 27, 2006Brownsville Special Events Center

1 Event Center Boulevard Brownsville, Texas 78526

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

Ric Williamson, ChairmanJohn W. Johnson

Hope AndradeTed Houghton, Jr.

STAFF:

Michael W. Behrens, P.E., Executive DirectorSteve Simmons, Deputy Executive DirectorRichard Monroe, General CounselRoger Polson, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director

ON THE RECORD REPORTING(512) 450-0342

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I N D E X

AGENDA ITEM PAGE

CONVENE MEETING 7

Receive comments from area public officials, 19community and civil leaders, and private citizens.Report by the Pharr District.

1. Approval of Minutes of the March 30, 2006 18regular meeting of the Texas TransportationCommission

2. Report 80Status report on the development of anInterstate-quality facility from I-37 to theRio Grande Valley

3. Discussion Itemsa. Commission recommendations to the Texas

Legislature regarding potential statutorychanges that would improve the operationof the department

b. Preparations for upcoming Legislative Appropriations Request

4. Strategic Plan Adoption of proposed structure and approachfor the departments Strategic Plan (MO)

5. Promulgation of Administrative RulesUnder Title 43, Texas Administrative Code, and the Administrative Procedure Act,Government Code, Chapter 2001:Final Adoptiona. Chapter 18 - Motor Carriers (MO) 162

Amendments to '18.2, Definitions (GeneralProvisions), '18.13, Application for MotorCarrier Registration, '18.14, Expirationand Renewal of Commercial Motor VehicleRegistration, '18.16, InsuranceRequirements, '18.17, Single StateRegistration System, and Repeal of '18.18,Temporary Registration of InternationalMotor Carriers, (Motor CarrierRegistration), Amendments to '18.51,Household Goods Agents, '18.58, MovingServices Contract - Options for CarrierLimitation of Liability, and ''18.63-18.65,(Consumer Protection), and '18.82,Definitions, ''18.87-18.93, and '18.96,


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Disposal of Certain Vehicles (VehicleStorage Facility) and Withdrawal of'18.32, Motor Carrier Records (Recordsand Inspections)

b. Chapter 21 - Right of Way (MO) 174New '21.23, State Participation in Toll-Related Relocations (Utility Adjustment,Relocation, or Removal)

6. Transportation Planning and Programming 176Hays and Travis Counties - Tender a proposal toHays County and the City of Buda to construct a new location facility on the state highway system from I-35 (at Main Street) to SH 45, realign FM 2001, and construct interchanges at I-35/FM 2001 and I-35/Main Street (MO)

7. Toll Road Projectsa. Cameron County - Consider preliminary 181

approval of a request for financing from the Cameron County Regional MobilityAuthority to pay certain costs for thepreliminary engineering, financial planning and preliminary development of the West Loop project from US 77/83 to Palm Boulevard in the city of Brownsville; and for environmental studies, design, legal services and preliminary development of the second causeway project (MO)

b. Denton and Collin Counties - Designate 201tolled mainlanes on SH 121 from 0.23 mileseast of Business SH 121 to the Dallas NorthTollway in Collin County as a toll projecton the state highway system, and as acontrolled-access facility for the purposeof development, maintenance and operation(MO)

c. Travis and Williamson Counties - Accept 205the General Engineering Consultant quarterly progress report for the CentralTexas Turnpike System as of February 28,2006 (MO)

8. FinanceVarious Counties - Accept the Quarterly 206Investment Report as of February 28, 2006 as required by the Public Funds Investment Act (MO)


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9. Pass-Through TollsAuthority to Negotiate AgreementHidalgo County - Authorize the executive 207director to negotiate a pass-through tollagreement with Hidalgo County Road DistrictNo. 5 or with Hidalgo County for improvementsto various highway projects in the county (MO)

10. Right of WayDenton County - Authorize the negotiation of 214options to purchase for advance acquisition of right of way for I-35E (MO)

11. Contracts a. Award or Reject Highway Improvement

Contracts(1) Maintenance 215

(see attached itemized list) (MO)

(2) Highway and Building Construction 217(see attached itemized list) (MO)

b. Contract ClaimVarious Counties - Project CSR 924-00-34 - 220Approve a claim settlement with Kothmann,LTD, for additional compensation (MO)

12. Building Constructiona. Maverick County - Eagle Pass Maintenance 222

Facility - Authorization for the department to issue a Request for Qualifications and Proposals, then select, rank, and negotiate a Development and Exchange Agreement withthe top-ranked design-build firm for the acquisition of land and the design and construction of a building or otherfacility in exchange for existing property (MO)

b. Starr County - Rio Grande City 223Maintenance Facility - Authorization for the department to issue a Request for Qualifications and Proposals, then select, rank, and negotiate a Development and Exchange Agreement with the top-ranked design-build firm for the acquisition of land and the design and construction of abuilding or other facility in exchange for existing property (MO)


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13. Routine Minute Ordersa. Donations to the Department 225

(1) Falls County - Consider a donationfrom Wal-Mart Stores, Texas, L.P.contributing funds and propertytoward development of a continuous frontage road section along SH 6 inMarlin (MO)

(2) Houston District - Consider a donationfrom Oak Ridge Associated Universitiesfor travel expenses related to a department employee giving presentationsat the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Department of Energy Emergency Management Issues Special InterestGroup to be held in Las Vegas, Nevadafrom May 1-4, 2006 (MO)

b. Eminent Domain Proceedings 225Various Counties - noncontrolled andcontrolled access highways (see attacheditemized list) (MO)

c. Load Zones and Postings 225Various Counties - Revise load restrictions on the State highway system:(1) Roadways (MO)

(2) Bridges (MO)

d. Right of Way Dispositions and Donations 225(1) Bexar County - I-37 between Dawson

and Nolan Streets - Consider thelease of right of way (MO)

(2) McMullen County - SH 72 at SH 16 in Tilden - Consider the sale of surplusright of way (MO)

(3) Tarrant County - SH 360 south of SH 183 in Fort Worth (surplus) and Business SH 114L at Dallas Road inGrapevine (new) - Consider the exchangeof right of way (MO)

(4) Travis County - I-35 at East 51st Streetin Austin - Consider the exchange ofright of way (MO) DEFERRED

(5) Yoakum County - SH 214 at Rogers Avenuein Denver City - Consider the sale ofsurplus right of way easement (MO)

e. Speed ZonesVarious Counties - Establish or alter 225regulatory and construction speed zones

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on various sections of highways in thestate (MO)

14. Executive Session (none held) 226

OPEN COMMENT PERIOD 227

ADJOURN 231

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P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning.

AUDIENCE: Good morning.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's a great morning to be a

Texan. It is 9:20 a.m., and I would like to call the

April 2006 meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission

to order.

Before we begin today's meeting, we

traditionally ask everyone in the audience to join with us

in taking a moment to reach into your pocket, purse or

sidesaddle, pull out your pager, your cell phone, your

PDA, your DewBerry, whatever you carry, and please, if you

would, put it on the silent or vibrate mode so that none

of our guests will be interrupted unexpectedly. We'll all

do it with you. Thank you.

I want to tell you it's a great pleasure for

the commission to be at the tip of Texas this morning.

Brownsville is a great Texas city, as are all of the

communities scattered up and down the Lower Rio Grande

Valley.

It's our practice to begin each of our

commission meetings by permitting each commissioner to

address the audience on a personal basis, so with your

indulgence, we will begin to the far right with Mr.

Houghton and go to Ms. Andrade and Mr. Johnson, and then


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I'll close the remarks. Ted?

MR. HOUGHTON: Good morning, everyone, and I

echo the chairman's remarks on being down at the tip of

Texas here. It's been a lot of fun; I've been down here

quite a bit lately. And I look forward to the actions

today, the anticipated actions today to launch this

community into a new arena of transportation.

And again, thank you for all the hospitality

that you've afforded us.

MS. ANDRADE: Good morning. It's just

absolutely wonderful to wake up in South Texas this

morning. It's a great morning, it's a great day. I'm

looking forward to the business that we're about to take

on and to keep transportation moving forward here in South

Texas.

But also what's wonderful is to see so many of

our friends from other communities come together to

support what we're trying to do. And I see kids back

here, I see our future leaders back here, so I'm so glad

that they've been brought here to see how business is done

for transportation in the state of Texas.

Thank you all again, it's been a great trip.

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. I would like to

echo the comments of Commissioners Houghton and Andrade.

It occurs to me that many years ago whenever


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the state highway engineer or the chairman of the

commission decided to move some of these meetings outside

of Austin, he or she had an idea on his or her mind that

perhaps they ought to move these meetings to where there

was a more friendly, receptive audience than some of the

ones that we get in Austin when we meet. I think you're

probably a home run for what he or she had in mind.

But there's some other things that have been

accomplished by that. One, we get to see the various

parts of the state, and as Hope said, it's great to see a

lot of the youth here, who are the future leaders of these

communities of the state, take interest in what goes on.

And by conducting these meetings out in the field, if you

will, you can learn what goes on, the deliberations of

transportation decisions which affect not only the local

communities but the state as a whole.

Secondly, we get to interface with you, the

people who have great interest in the decisions that we

make. Rather than doing it in an office environment, we

can visit with you one on one, and that's a great help to

us.

And thirdly, and as important, we can share

time with the people who really do the work, and that's

our local district people. And last night was no

exception. We had a wonderful barbecue and we got to


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visit with them. There was a film basically describing

what goes on in the district, and a lot goes on in this

district: $700 million plus under construction right now,

the population is growing. We visited the port yesterday,

an economic engine of untold proportion which brings goods

and economic opportunity and jobs to this area, and it's

all part and parcel to why we go out and have these

meetings where we do.

And so I want to thank you for your attendance

today and thank you for all you do for this great state.

It's been a pleasure and the hospitality in South Texas

just is without par.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Ted and Hope and

John, and I would associate myself with the remarks of my

fellow commissioners. Thank you, Mario, for a great

presentation, great trip yesterday around the area. We

thoroughly enjoyed the evening last night.

It is our practice to take the commission

meetings on the road three or four times a year, depending

upon the legislative session. As John said, it gives us

the opportunity to see with our own eyes and hear with our

own ears about the successes and the failures that occur

in the transportation world in the diverse parts of the

state.

It also kind of prepares us for what we want to


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say to the legislature every other year about how the laws

need to change, and we're starting something this year

that will also permit us to do that perhaps in a more

organized manner. In June of this year -- I think it's

June 8. Is that right, Coby?

MR. CHASE: June 8 and 9.

MR. WILLIAMSON: June 8 and 9, we will host the

first Statewide Texas Transportation Forum in Austin,

Texas. We're doing that in partnership with the Texas

Good Roads Association, the oldest continuously active

organization focused on transportation in the state of

Texas. And that will be held in Austin and there will be

state, national and international transportation

engineers, financiers and managers and operators of

electronic devices, along with state and federal

officials, talking transportation to the state.

I invite each and every one of you to take the

time to come to Austin and attend that forum. We're

running this as a bit of a test to see how much interest

there is in it. If we believe it's valuable enough to the

citizens of the state, we're then going to look at doing

it on maybe a quarterly basis around the state to give

everyone the opportunity to sit down and visit and

exchange ideas and learn from each other.

I think there's a card, a registration card out


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in the lobby. Is that correct, Coby?

MR. CHASE: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Out in the lobby, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

So I invite you to attend that if you can make

the time.

This is a history-making event today, the first

time in the history of our commission -- which dates back

to 1917 -- that we have met in Brownsville. Now, we've

been in the Rio Grande Valley, we've been in the Lower Rio

Grande Valley, but this is the first time we've actually

been in Brownsville. The last time we were in the Valley

was in July of 1997; the commission met in Weslaco.

We're very happy that we've been so pleasantly

received, and please note for the record that the public

notice of this meeting, containing all the items on the

agenda, was filed with the Office of Secretary of State at

10:20 a.m. on April 13, 2006.

Now, normally we get to this point and we talk

about some homework, we hold our cards up -- and I'm going

to do that real fast for a reason -- we hold our cards up

and we say if you're going to talk about an agenda item,

you need to fill out the yellow card before you approach

the dais, please; if you're going to talk in the general

comment section towards the end of the meeting, we ask


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that you fill out a blue card, please. And in any event,

try to restrict your remarks to about three minutes so

that everybody will have the opportunity to speak.

And we do other housekeeping matters and then

we go right into the presentation, but we're going to

break ranks a little bit today because I don't know about

John and Hope and Ted, but this is the first time I've

been to a commission meeting where elementary age children

were actually in the meeting. We've had some high school

kids, I think, that are interested in the engineering

world come in from time to time, but we've never had young

children.

And sitting here listening to all of our

opening remarks and watching the crowd of adults in

attendance from highway contractors to engineers to

transportation planners to TxDOT employees to bankers to

transportation planners on the left, it occurs to me that

while we all operate in our own self-interest -- and

that's okay, that's what America is about, the ability to

operate in your own self-interest -- we operate in our own

self-interest because we have a common interest, and that

is the common interest of a transportation system that

will prevent congestion, keep the roads safe, make sure

the air is not too dirty, make sure that we drive safely,

and make sure that we don't have potholes, and we do that


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for those kids that are lined up against that back wall.

We don't really do it for ourselves because we

know that in our lifetime most of this stuff is not going

to be accomplished. We've got a plan and we think the

plan is going to work and we think along about 2030 this

is going to be just a marvelous transportation world here

in the state of Texas, but for most of us, the true value

will be realized by these young people who are with us

today.

So I know you're not ready for this, Teacher,

but my mom was a teacher and I learned that she was

prepared for anything, so why don't you bring those kids

up here and let's let them introduce themselves, and

they'll remember that this day they had the opportunity to

tell us who they were and what was on their minds.

MS. SANAL: Good morning. My name is Norma

Sanal and I'm the director for Brownsville Urban System,

and they're here with Mr. Mark Maddy who is a member of

PTAC, and I'll let Mr. Mark Maddy go ahead and present

himself.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Very good.

MR. MADDY: Thank you. I am Mark Maddy and I

am a member of the PTAC and I am very proud to have the

student council members of Morningside Elementary School

here with us today, and I'll let them introduce


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themselves, starting with our president.

The Morningside Elementary School Student

Council members introduced themselves as follows:

I am Michael Torres, and I'm the president of

the Student Council Morningside Elementary.

Hi. I am Isaac Castillo from Morningside

Elementary. I'm vice president of the Student Council.

I'm Alexis Martinez and I'm the secretary of

Morningside Elementary Student Council.

I'm Leslie Gutierrez and I am the treasurer of

Morningside Elementary.

Hello. My name is Arturo Mendioloa and I'm

historian for the Morningside Student Council.

Hi. My name is Alondra Diaz and I'm the at-

large member of Morningside Elementary.

Hi. I'm Armando Ramirez, at large of

Morningside Elementary.

Hi. My name is Cynthia Mendiola and I'm the

at-large for fourth grade.

My name is Rigoberto Bocardo and I'm fourth

grade at-large for Student Council.

Hi. I'm Kimberly Pena, I'm a representative

for Morningside Elementary Student Council.

Hi. I'm Adrian Gonzalez, I'm a representative

for Morningside Student council.


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Hi. My name is Valeria Garcia and I'm a class

representative.

Hi. I'm Jackie Gutierrez and I'm a

representative for Morningside Student Council.

Hi. My name is Jesett Arredondo and I'm a

class representative.

Hi. My name is Jeronimo Herrera and I'm class

representative for Morningside Elementary.

Hi. My name is Janette Balli and I'm classroom

representative.

I'm Mario Benavides and I'm a representative.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Mr. President, you get to

ask us one question, so what one question would you ask us

as representing the youth of Brownsville, Texas? Just

whatever comes in your mind is okay. Do you want to

caucus with everybody else and get everybody else's

opinion.

Okay, everybody come up. Let's do this right.

You discuss about what you want to ask us.

MR. HOUGHTON: This girl has something to ask

us. What do you want to ask us?

MR. WILLIAMSON: You meet right there at the

microphone and we're going to wait and you decide what you

want to ask us.

MICHAEL TORRES: Does all the United States


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have this transportation?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Like this?

MICHAEL TORRES: Yes, all of the United States.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That was a very good question.

I think what the president was asking maybe was is there a

commission like this for the entire country and then does

each state have one like this.

The answer is there's not a commission like

this for the entire country, there is a federal highway

administrator who is more like Mario on a national level,

he's an appointee but he's a professional engineer that

has certain qualifications, and he or she supervises the

50 states, and yes, every state has a commission like

this, there are 50 of us.

Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. MADDY: I would also like to introduce my

co-sponsor for the student council at Morningside, Ms.

Mary Nieto.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And if you will stay here,

we've decided that we want a picture with you, so we're

going to take just a second and get a picture.

(Pause for photos.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We thank each of you for

indulging us on that. Everyone on the dais has raised


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children, and we frequently say from this position that

we're one people and this is one state, and kids is what

it's all about because one day they'll be running things,

and the better we leave it for them, the better off we're

going to be. And we thank you.

I have some documents in need to read from

various elected officials, but I think it's more

appropriate to let the meeting start, Mike. Let's see, I

think I would like to get the minutes approved, and I

think that's what I'll do.

Members, we have the minutes from the March

meeting before us. Do I have a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: Move approval.

MS. ANDRADE: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

Now, Mike, I think we'll move into the program

and we'll go back to the agenda in a little bit.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's our custom when we go out of town on these

out-of-town meetings where we hear from our local district


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and from local transportation leaders that are in the area

and in the community, so to start with, I want to ask our

Pharr District Engineer Mario Jorge to begin the

presentation, and also introduce our local guests that are

with us today. Mario?

MR. JORGE: Thank you, Mr. Behrens,

commissioners. It's a pleasure to have you here in the

district. We thoroughly enjoyed last night, the meeting

with our employees.

Before I start my presentation, I would like to

have a couple of individuals that are key partners in our

transportation system here in the Valley that are

essentially hosting this event or this meeting for us.

I'd like to introduce the mayor of Brownsville,

Mr. Eddie Trevino, who is going to officially welcome the

commission, and I'll introduce our Cameron County judge,

Gilberto Hinojosa, who will also do the same. Mayor?

MAYOR TREVINO: Thank you, Mario.

Mr. Chairman, commissioners. I need to deviate

from my prepared comments because, first of all, we're

honored by your presence and the fact that we're having

the opportunity to host this meeting, but your actions at

the beginning of this meeting give me a lot of pride,

first of all, in being a Texan, and in knowing that

clearly these ideals which you've exemplified by allowing


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and paying attention to some of the most important

treasures in my community, clearly we must be on the right

road to doing something good in Texas, and I commend you

for allowing the importance of the children to take

priority in this meeting.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MAYOR TREVINO: Obviously we're honored to have

you here. On behalf of the partnership established by the

City of Brownsville and TxDOT, we welcome you to

Brownsville.

Mr. Mario Jorge, our district engineer, and his

staff, I use the term visionaries for the fact that they

are always ready, prepared and looking ahead. At our

monthly MPO meetings, TxDOT staff communicates with us

about our future needs and our mutual challenges. They

work cooperatively with the city, Cameron County, the

Brownsville Navigation District, to identify and address

solutions. The Rio Grande Valley is well served by the

efforts of these topnotch professionals at the Pharr

District.

I have some brief observations about our

transportation plans which I think we all need to realize

include Mexico's infrastructure along with their highway

plans. The population of Brownsville and Matamoros, our

sister city on the Mexican side, total almost a million


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people. When you factor in the entire Valley, you're

talking of over 4 million people between both sides of the

border. Those are populations that are extremely

beneficial to the region and obviously create unusual

challenges.

By forming these partnerships, we try to reduce these

challenges and focus on realizing the benefits by working

together.

For example, the wear and tear of overweight

Mexican trucks on our state highways has been mitigated by

the fees imposed by the Port of Brownsville for those

vehicles. Those fees have been used to repair our

highways on the overweight truck corridor.

There are, of course, immense economic benefits

to be gained from our international trade and partnership

with Mexico, along with the Pacific Rim and the Asian

nations. Mr. Bernard List, our port director, will

address some of these points later today.

In addition, Brownsville and the Rio Grande

Valley connects, via new highways in Mexico, to the

Pacific and Asia. The land bridge which you will hear

about is an example of a way to cut transfer costs for

containers, allowing businesses and trades to expand into

South Texas, something that is necessary.

You're going to hear from my good friend, Judge


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Gilberto Hinojosa, and others who will comment on the city

and county plans regarding our West Rail Relocation

project which is an international project regarding the

relocation of the rails from both Brownsville and

Matamoros, allowing for better economic development and

less congestion, better environmental issues, and

obviously the most important issue I think that's going to

be addressed today, the vision of the Cameron County RMA.

We're pleased and honored to be a partner with them.

We're entering a time and period of immense

potential, but as I like to tell the citizens of

Brownsville, especially the children, while potential is

nice, progress is even better. With your help I am

confident that we will be able to meet these challenges

and build the needed trade corridors and our

transportation infrastructure.

Good luck in today's work and in the rest of

your efforts on behalf of the state of Texas. God bless

you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mayor.

(Applause.)

MR. JORGE: Thank you, Mayor. And now I'll

introduce the county judge for Cameron County, Mr.

Gilberto Hinojosa.

JUDGE HINOJOSA: I'm Gilberto Hinojosa and I'm


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the Cameron County judge, and I want to welcome you to

South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. I want to welcome

you because what you have been talking about, what you

talked about this morning, Mr. Chairman, and what this

commission has done, I believe, in the last few years is

present the regional approach to our transportation issues

across the state of Texas, and in being here today, I

think you recognize how important South Texas is to that

regional approach.

What I want to first say before I go into my

presentation, besides welcoming you and welcome to South

Texas on behalf of the Cameron County Commissioners Court

and the people of Cameron County, and I want to recognize

most of my county commissioners court is here. Edna

Tamayo, Precinct 4 commissioner, David Garza, Precinct 3

commissioner, and I know John Wood is back there, Precinct

2; the Precinct 1 commissioner is under the weather today

as well. They're here along with me and all these leaders

from the Rio Grande Valley because they recognize the

importance of transportation in South Texas.

But I also want to say that your staff down

here, Mario Jorge and all the people in the Pharr District

office and in the San Benito office that you have, have

got to be the best in the state. If there's anybody

better, I'm going to travel over there and see them,


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because there's nobody that gives better service to their

local community than these people who work in

transportation in the Rio Grande Valley.

Sure, we get up in the morning and it takes us

a little bit longer to get to work or to get to the mall

or to drop off our kids to school because of all the

construction that's going on out there, but that's a sign

of the progress in the Rio Grande Valley and the hard work

and commitment of resources that you see by your staff,

and I want to congratulate you for that and the rest of

the people at TxDOT all across the state of Texas.

The Rio Grande Valley has got a lot of things

going for it, as you know. We have an expanding economy,

fast-growing population -- we're going at a rate of about

30 percent every ten years -- and a unique geographical

location. Eddie was talking about there's about a million

people between here and Matamoros and Brownsville, but if

you take the entire Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico,

we're about 3 million people.

We have here in Cameron County something that

no other community in the United States has: we have

three seaports, we have two commercial airports and a

county airport as well, we have the Gulf Intracoastal

Waterway, we have highways, rail, and all of these in

close proximity to Mexico.


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There's a lot of challenges that we have for

the future, however, that we are in the process of

undertaking today on a regional approach in cooperation

with your offices. First I want to talk just briefly or

give you a quick overview of our countywide railroad

relocation project.

Now, Cameron County probably has the most

advanced railroad relocation project, if not in the United

States, in the state of Texas. We are in the final stages

of our West Rail Relocation project here in Brownsville

where we're going to move all rail lines about six miles

to the west, build a new international bridge for the

rail, and eliminate at-grade crossings that would have

cost the state of Texas somewhere upward of $60 million.

It's going to eliminate at-grade crossings that

are dangerous to the public in a variety of ways. Not

only collisions are going to be avoided but the problems

that are caused by emergency vehicles not able to cross is

going to be eliminated and the congestion that we have.

You've got to remember that these rail lines

were built when there was only a couple thousand people in

Brownsville and in Matamoros, and today, as Eddie said, we

have a million. We need rail but not in the middle of

town.

We also are in the process of doing the same


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thing for the northern part of the county, and working on

a plan to relocate rail from San Benito and Harlingen.

The Port of Brownsville has done a lot.

They've relocated the rail lines to an area near Olmito,

and that, combined with the efforts of the county, the

city and all the partners, including TxDOT, I think will

create a rail relocation project that will be a model for

the United States and will make a big difference in terms

of safety and cost savings for the state of Texas and the

local community. It will eliminate about 80 at-grade

crossings throughout Cameron County.

We also have one of the first regional mobility

authorities. Some of the things that we talked about

setting up a toll system across the county to meet

infrastructure needs where there isn't sufficient

resources. Today, again, TxDOT is working very closely

with us.

The Cameron County Regional Mobility

Authority -- which you're going to hear from our chairman

in just a minute, Mr. David Allex -- has been meeting

almost every other week. It's an active and strong board.

They are right now working on a project of building a

second causeway to South Padre Island. As you know, the

number one segment of the Cameron County economy is

tourism, and that is located primarily in South Padre


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Island.

We're also looking at a west loop, through the

regional mobility authority, around the city of

Brownsville, another road that may be financed through

tolls.

The last thing I want to just bring up very

quickly is this issue of an interstate highway through the

Rio Grande Valley. You know, and we've talked about many

times, the fact that the Rio Grande Valley is the only

community of this size in the nation that does not have

access to an interstate highway. We believe that it's not

just important for the Rio Grande Valley that we have

access to an interstate highway, but it's important for

the state of Texas and across the rest of the United

States that we be linked to the rest of the United States

by an interstate highway.

We believe that there's enormous potential for

the extension of I-37 into the Rio Grande Valley to build

upon existing infrastructure. You will receive a

resolution presented by David Garza, Commissioner Garza,

to talk about how we're united on a regional approach to

have this interstate corridor into the Rio Grande Valley.

Again, this is something that's good for us and it's good

for the people of the state of Texas and the rest of the

United States.


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We have four international bridges just in

Cameron County, three of them that are owned by Cameron

County; three seaports; two commercial airports; we have

an inland waterway; ocean freight. We have everything

that's set up to be able to connect up to an interstate

system that will benefit the rest of the state of Texas if

we are able to accomplish this. And again, the regional

mobility authority is looking at this project along with

TxDOT in order to be able to move this along and get it

done at least in our children's lifetime, if not our

lifetime.

Again, our state will be made stronger if

Cameron County is stronger economically. Cameron County

will only become stronger economically if we have the

transportation infrastructure necessary to develop the

economy which we all agree has an enormous potential. We

want to continue to work with you, work with your staff,

work with the district office to ensure that we can

accomplish this goal, and your presence here I think is an

example of your commitment towards this goal.

So thank you for being here again, and we look

forward to working with you in the future.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Judge.

(Applause.)

MR. JORGE: Thank you, Judge. And we've have a


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tremendous partnership with Cameron County for many years

in right of way acquisition, project development, unlike

any other, so we've been very successful in getting

projects completed because of their partnership with us.

Being in Cameron County, I would like to just

have the mayor from our second largest city here in

Cameron County, Mayor Rick Rodriguez from Harlingen,

welcome the commission also. Mayor?

MAYOR RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mario. Good

morning. My name is Rick Rodriguez and I am the mayor of

Harlingen, Texas. It is my distinct pleasure and

privilege to represent the city of Harlingen. I want to

extend a warm welcome to all of you and a special thanks

for your presence and support here.

We are pleased to have a strong relationship

with the Pharr District, especially Mario Jorge, Arnold

Cortez, and of course our RMA chairman, David Allex.

We're also committed to building infrastructure that will

carry us into the future, and extending and building an

interstate that is crucial for our future, therefore, I'm

here to voice our support for extending I-37 via US 77.

We're also willing to not only support you

vocally and morally, but we're also here to extend our

financial support to this project. We're willing to

commit $250,000 a year for ten years, or $2.5 million.


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I know this commission is visionary and

therefore shares our vision because building an interstate

is crucial to the growth and development of our community.

We are working on several projects, many of which include

moving our railroads out of our town, extending our port

and our airport. We believe that building and extending

an interstate to the Valley is not only needed but

necessary. Please know that we are here to support and

work with you in preparing our region for future growth

and development.

Thank you again for being here and thank you

again for all the support that you give us.


(Applause.)

MR. JORGE: We'll go ahead and start our

presentation. My presentation will be shared with some of

our partners, and again, it's an effort to relay

information about our district, some of the goings-on and

some of the challenges that we face. Some of the

information may be information that you have seen,

commissioners, but I think it will be very informational

for the audience, some of the items that we're going to

cover.

This is a map of our district. We cover the

southernmost eight counties in Texas. We have offices


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throughout our district, and you see there the blue

square, that is our Pharr District office located at 83

and 281 expressway; we have three area offices.

One is in Pharr, located there in pink. That

office handles all the projects in Hidalgo County and some

of the major projects in Starr County, and they currently

have over $350 million under construction.

We have an area office in San Benito here in

Cameron County, and they handle all of the

Cameron/Willacy/Kenedy responsibilities, and they are

right now handling $405 million under construction.

And then we have our office in Hebronville, the

hometown of Mr. Amadeo Saenz, and that office is

responsible for Jim Hogg, Zapata, Starr and Brooks

counties, essentially handles all the rural sections in

our district and handles all of our preventive maintenance

throughout the district.

Of course, you see the several maintenance

offices that we have throughout the district and they

handle the maintenance responsibilities for each of their

respective areas.

The population of our district -- and this is

on the U.S. side based on the 2000 census -- is over a

million people. When you combine the population of the

north of Matamoros, like the judge mentioned, the


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population of the general area is over 3 million people.

We cover 2300 centerline miles, 111 of which

are freeway centerline miles, and lane miles 5700 and

growing with a lot of the work that's going on on the

freeway. Daily vehicle miles traveled is an important

number that indicates the activity that we have in our

district, and that is the seventh largest volume in the

state of Texas, so it's very significant to note that.

Now, our ability to function and address the

transportation needs of our community is largely tied to

the operating budget that we currently operate with. Our

design budget includes mainly in-house design work and

project management, and on an annual basis it's $6-1/2

million.

Our maintenance budget includes both in-house

work as well as contracted work, and as you well know,

this part of our work has become more and more costly.

Our district highways are more urbanized in nature and

with the added capacity that we have experienced, the

demands to keep an acceptable level of maintenance has

been difficult to meet. Rehab and preventive maintenance

are prioritized unless funding is available for added

capacity.

Our construction volume currently, as we

discussed, is over $700 million -- actually, with the last


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month's letting is pushed to $780 million which is a

record high for our district.

Our design consultant budget on an annual basis

runs somewhere around $16 million. We're currently doing

as much as 75 percent of our work contracted due to the

demand that the construction oversight has given us. We

manage over 30 active contracts, 17 different firms are

doing work with us. In addition to that, we have Texas

Transportation Institute from Texas A&M that does a lot of

research for us through an interagency agreement.

Our right of way budget, you see there, is $18

million. Our right of way staff has been extremely

aggressive pursuing acquisition, they've been very

successful, but besides our in-house staff, we also have

currently four acquisition consultants working for us and

actively acquiring right of way.

And of course, our public transportation

budget, you'll hear later on in the presentation from

Norma Zamora how we're putting those funds to use in our

regional transportation system.

This shows the progression of our letting

volumes in the Pharr District over the last 15 years. As

you can see, there has been a steady increase. The NAFTA

program which was instituted by the commission and came

into effect in the mid to late '90s, and the chart


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indicates the rapid increase in letting around that time.

And the challenge that we all face and will

continue to face for the next few years is to maintain

that growth in letting over the next few years by

utilizing a lot of the innovative financial tools that are

available to us, and again, by introducing and working

closely with partners such as the RMA and MPOs in order to

bring even more options to the table. And you're going to

hear a little bit more about those initiatives later.

This slide as put together by our planning

staff in conjunction with our MPOs and it indicates a

population projection comparison between the Rio Grande

Valley and the other major urban areas in the state. And

again, this population projection is based on the growth

rates that were experienced in the previous decade. The

Valley has one of the highest growth rates in the nation.

And as you can see down here, this is the Rio

Grande Valley population as of the 2000 census, you can

see Austin and San Antonio above it. Of course, Houston

and Dallas are much higher. As you project the growth

rate over the next 30 years, you can see where we're going

to wind up being very close to Austin and San Antonio,

assuming the growth rates are maintained.

This represents tremendous transportation

challenges for our region, but as you heard throughout the


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presentation, we are definitely working in partnership to

address them.

Our district has the largest number of

international crossings in the state. The existing

international crossings provide significant challenges in

the number of vehicles and trucks that cross daily. The

daily freight and vehicle crossings congest our arterials

and add to the safety concerns that we already have.

A recent provision in the SAFETEA-LU highway

bill created the Coordinated Border Infrastructure Program

which will help us address some of those needs for

mobility and capacity at or connecting to our existing

international crossings. And we'll be working with our

MPOs and bridge owners, port directors and GSA to identify

those projects.

We've also been working with several entities

on proposed crossings which you see there in red. The

Anzalduas Bridge which is proposed in Hidalgo County south

of Mission, we're working with the local development board

in a pass-through financing project to connect the

Anzalduas Bridge to the US 83 expressway. Of course, the

Donna Bridge is also in the process of being worked on,

and we have some projects identified to connect them.

The West Rail Bridge -- which you'll hear a

little bit more about later -- is a project that is being


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pursued by Cameron County and the RMA. And of course, the

Port of Brownsville Bridge that you saw yesterday, the

location of the proposed bridge that the port is working

on.

The next several slides are going to show you

some of the international bridges which have the largest

volume of truck crossings. Now, this is not one of them.

(General laughter.)

MR. JORGE: But I thought I would start with a

picture of our ferry in Los Ebanos in Hidalgo County. As

far as I know, this is the only hand-pulled ferry that is

still operational that I'm aware of, and you can see how

it functions. They cannot operate, obviously, 365 days

because it depends on the flow of the river. But I've

taken it and it's interesting. And when you get there,

you actually get out of the car and you help out.

Let's talk about trucks now. This is the

Veterans International Bridge in Brownsville. This bridge

currently carries an average of 16,000 northbound trucks

per month and 170,000 northbound passenger vehicles per

month. There is a temporary border state inspection

facility operated by DPS at this location, and we have a

permanent one planned in the next couple of years. It

also happens to be a point of destination for the

overweight corridor from the Port of Brownsville, as you


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saw yesterday on the tour, with the steel slag bridge also

has a connection from US 77/83 which has been constructed

to interstate standards.

This is the B&M Bridge which is a combination

rail/vehicular bridge operating in downtown Brownsville.

It currently carries an average of 200,000 northbound

passenger vehicles per month. Of course, the West Rail

Relocation project will construct a new rail bridge west

of the city and allow this bridge to be used exclusively

for vehicular traffic. And it also happens to be the

termini for the West Loop project which is one of the

projects being proposed by the RMA and you will hear about

that later in the program.

The Free Trade Bridge in Los Indios south of

Harlingen is another Cameron County bridge which currently

handles freight. An average of 4,200 northbound trucks

and 62,000 passenger vehicles per month utilize the

facility, and we also have a temporary inspection facility

there.

The Pharr-Reynosa Bridge, located directly

south of Pharr along 281 in Hidalgo County, carries an

average of 40,000 northbound trucks and 160,000 northbound

passenger vehicles per month. We also have a border

station facility and a permanent is planned. It also has

a fast lane operating for northbound freight.


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We have several projects being worked on by

TxDOT, Hidalgo County and the newly RMA once they take

shape which will provide improved mobility and

connectivity to the bridge, and I'll discuss some of these

later.

You all have seen this before. This is an

aerial shot of a typical temporary inspection facility

operated by the Department of Public Safety, and we have

one at three locations. It's a five-acre site at those

facilities that will be replaced with permanent ones.

The Port of Brownsville has been a great

partner with us over many years in developing several

transportation projects. I will cover those, but I would

first like to introduce our port director who is going to

provide the commission an overview of operations and

proposed improvement projects at the port, and then I'll

review the cooperation that has taken place on many

projects and what is planned for the future.

So at this time, I'll introduce our port

director.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mario, if you would permit me.

MR. JORGE: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have several letters that

during your presentation I need to read into the record

and I'd like to do them at break points so as to not


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overwhelm us all.

As most of you know, the legislature is meeting

in special session to consider changes to the tax system

and the public education finance system. Your senator and

all of your House members had to miss the commission

meeting here because of legislative requirements and not

because they don't wish to be with us. All of them

expressed support at various levels for what will

transpire today.

From Senator Lucio -- who is a great

transportation senator, I might add -- I'll read it into

the record.

"As you're aware from our frequent

conversations -- this letter is addressed to me

personally -- and from the tours you've taken in the area,

there are many important infrastructure improvements

needed in the Rio Grande Valley and in Cameron County in

general. Development of these projects will greatly

increase mobility, enhance safety, and bring a better

quality of life to the citizens I represent.

"One organization that focuses on a regional

approach is the newly created Cameron County Regional

Mobility Authority. While created only a year and a half

ago, they have focused on a plan that will have immediate

infrastructure impact in the area. With hurricane season


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coming, I'm particularly interested and supportive of

their efforts to build a second causeway.

"As you know, I cannot attend the commission

meeting today but I know the commission will have a

fruitful and informative visit to my Senate district and I

look forward to discussing these issues with you in the

future. In my absence, I extend my full support to the

effort of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority

and respectfully request that you consider supporting the

agenda items on the calendar. Thank you for your

consideration. Do not hesitate to call me. Senator Eddie

Lucio."

Eddie Lucio is a true transportation senator.

Please go ahead, Mario.

MR. JORGE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

At this point I'd like to introduce a great

partner of our transportation system in the Valley, and

that is the Port of Brownsville port director, Mr. Bernard

List. Mr. List and I have something in common: he just

moved in from Miami and I lived in Miami for about a

couple of years a while back and I still have a lot of

family in Miami, so we have something in common. Mr.

List?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Welcome. We're glad you're in

Texas.


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MR. LIST: Thank you, sir. Good morning. My

name is Bernard List, and yes, I do come from Florida, I

was assistant director at the Port of Miami. And thank

you again, commissioners, for hosting this meeting in our

area because that's very important to us.

I also went to Oklahoma State University, so

don't hold those two things against me, please.

(General laughter.)

MR. LIST: We had the honor of hosting the

commissioners yesterday at the port and we gave a

presentation, we went through a tour of the port, and we

were able to showcase some of the highlights of what is

happening at our dynamic port.

I want to take a moment to address an item that

Commissioner Johnson asked me on the way because I

expressed that we had just had a record year of 5,185,000

tons of cargo through the port, and he said, Are those

metric or short tons? I said, Those are metric tons which

are larger than short tons. And then he said, Well, how

much is a metric ton? And those numbers are a little

rusty, and I got the 2,200 correct but I missed a little,

so I went back and checked and the correct answer is

2,204.6 pounds is a metric ton. And then he asked me also

about a long ton and that's the British ton, and that is

2,240 pounds. So now we got it all straight.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: That's not 2,240 stones?

(General laughter.)

MR. LIST: So anyway, you know, 5 million tons

of cargo is significant. It would mean about 6 million

short tons in U.S. and American tons. So in terms of

ports worldwide in this nation and within Texas, that's

significant. We were talking about how our port is 42

feet deep and that's very significant depth for any port.

Back to the business at hand, we certainly want

to take a moment to acknowledge the good relationship that

we have with all the good folks at TxDOT. Amadeo Saenz,

of course, is very interactive with us, and I heard also

yesterday that he was hired by our own Nino Gutierrez at

TxDOT before he retired. Thank you, Nino, good job. And

also Mario Jorge and Arnold Cortez are significant in many

of the things we're doing here.

For example, the relocation of State Highway 48

not only is a major artery into the port but it decongests

all the mobility down to South Padre Island, the tourism

that the judge mentioned earlier today.

Also the railroad relocation project which is a

major home run, and that accomplished again through the

direction of Nino Gutierrez, eliminates 79 of 87 railroad

crossings and that's of major significance to our activity

here.


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In addition to that, our overweight activity,

and as we explained yesterday, our steel slag accounts for

about 2.4 million, metric tons of our cargo, and a lot of

that moves over the roads and needs to have that access to

be able to carry 125,000 pounds each to make it

economically feasible for those trucks to survive.

And finally, for State Highway 48, the port

donated 30 acres for turnabouts and conservation easement

which is just another example of how we've worked very

closely together.

I'll go through this very quickly, we have a

tight schedule today. We are the westernmost terminus of

the Inland Waterway System but also we're the southernmost

terminus -- and I think that's significant -- in our

location. Right against another country we have deep

water and we have a lot of acreage and a lot of benefits

to offer.

Here you can see our growth, significant. We

had a record year in '70 and this is our 70th year, over 5

million metric tons. And our overweight permit traffic is

growing, 44,200 in 2005, so we're growing.

Our BRG rail traffic is significant. We worked

hand in hand with our own railroad to accommodate the

steel that needs to go over to Monterrey, Monclova, all

the other areas in northern Mexico where that is


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processed, and as we discussed yesterday, a lot of it

comes back into the United States through the NAFTA

umbrella to go to consumers here in the states and other

places beyond.

Very important to us is our new project, Dock

16 which will be a duplication of Dock 15. It is a

deepwater facility that will allow to duplicate the

ability to bring in heavy steel ships, container ships,

and other deep draft vessels, and it avoids the congestion

at one terminal so we can get simultaneously two large

ships for the terminal, you can handle both of them, not

impact them with demurrage charges which could run up to

$60,000 per stay which would drive the business away to

another port.

And there is our proposed international truck

corridor which, again, as we move on and the cargo grows,

the steel continues to grow, this will avoid transporting

over the roadways and directly into Mexico and out of

Mexico.

We're also, in the Dock 15/Dock 16 area with

our brand new Gottwald Crane, capable of doing 25 moves an

hour for containers. We don't have containers at this

moment, we just have a company that's established a

container facility, a bonded facility that will already in

the next week or so be able to house oceangoing


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containers. Hapag Lloyd has already made a commitment to

drop and pick their containers here at the Port of

Brownsville, and this is our first step towards

containerization.

We're looking at short-sea shipping which would

be like a feeder service between us and Houston to start

out. We know that the Far East cargo, a lot of it coming

all-water from the Far East through the Panama Canal zone

will come straight into our area for consumption into the

Valley.

It is every day more costly bringing it down

via truck and congesting highways and so on, and if we can

get this on the water with the higher fuel prices and

everything, we believe and our numbers show that it would

be a significant savings to the consumers, H.E.B., Wal-

Mart, Home Depot, all those folks in the Valley and across

the river as well. So we're working very diligently on

making this happen, and our crane -- which is in the above

picture -- has the capability of handling container ships.

On that, I'll take a moment to talk about our

land bridge ambitions, and that would be, for example,

from Lazaro Cardenas bring more line haul container

activity into the Port of Brownsville over the rail, what

you call piggyback or double-stack container cars to bring

them into the Port of Brownsville to further ship them


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from Brownsville to other destinations on the water, on

the rail truck, or short-sea shipping again into the Port

of Houston. So we're going to be working also with TxDOT

and some other folks on making this a reality in the near

future.

We have a proposed deepening project going to

55 feet seven miles in. That would even make us a more

outstanding and attractive facility for larger vessels,

larger companies to look at us as a real player. We're

also looking at maybe coming in 45-46 feet all the way

into our turning basin -- which is here at the end -- but

at 42 feet we could actually bring in a container ship

with 4,000 TUs, 5,000 TUs, so this is evidence that we are

prepared to take on the container business.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hang on a second, Bernard.

MR. LIST: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Can you go back?

MR. LIST: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the last part of that

sentence, oil and gas offshore platforms, so you envision

that they could be constructed and towed out. Is that why

you make a reference to that?

MR. LIST: That part there, yes, sir. One of

our tenants is AmpHel and they have like 2,200 full-time

employees repairing and fabricating parts or fabricating


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rigs, and that's another part of our deepening

justification and widening justification because a lot of

those units are very wide and when they come in and come

out and turn, it becomes a real challenge. So we

certainly want to move forward with that. Right now we're

doing our deepening and widening study with the Corps in

Galveston and that will take some time, but have to go

through all those steps and all the environmental

challenges to be able to get to the point where we'll

start that deepening and widening.

They can do pretty much everything but they're

larger units and with the storms -- in the past the storms

coming up, there is a bigger market out there that they're

not capturing that they could capture if they had a

deeper, wider entrance here.


MR. LIST: You're welcome.

And this is what I touched on before, the

proposed rail canal project and it would be what you call

a land bridge from one side of Mexico all the way over.

It's what they call a dry canal versus the Panama Canal.

And in some countries they talk a lot about just a highway

generally from one port to another port, and then beyond

on the water or on the land as well.

And that is my presentation today. Thank you.


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If you have any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Whose railroad car is that

looking at us?

MR. LIST: The railroad engines belong to the

district which is the Brownsville Navigation District, and

the BRG is a creation, like a subsidiary of the BND, they

have their own board. We work hand in hand. The assets

belong to the district, and basically it's ten engines

that it's the power to move the cars. The cars come over

a lot from Mexico, what used to be TSM, and now it's

Kansas City Southern de Mexico, so the cars are supplied

by them. They come through UP to us but our engines are

the ones that do all the work over in the Port of

Brownsville and move the cars over the bridge into Mexico

and back.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have questions

of this gentleman?

MS. ANDRADE: Thank you.

MR. LIST: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for that

presentation. And Mario, while you're walking up, my very

good friend, longtime friend, Rene Oliveira dropped by a

letter personally.

"I write with warmest regards thanking you for

selecting Brownsville for your commission meeting. We're


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grateful for your interest and thoughtfulness.

"As you have seen from your time in Cameron

County, there are important transportation improvements

that will enhance international commerce and improve

mobility and safety in our communities.

"I'm proud of the work done by our Cameron

County Regional Mobility Authority which was formed over a

year ago, three members comprise. The members are

experienced, visionary persons who have begun an

aggressive strategic plan focused on financing projects

for the quickest manner possible.

"I regret not being able to attend today due to

the special legislative session. I offer my support to

the mobility authority and ask for favorable consideration

on the agenda item. Thank you for being in Brownsville.

Please do not hesitate to call."

Please continue, Mario.


I wanted to show you a slide and identify some

of the projects that the port has been a key ally with us

and some of the future projects planned that will improve

the connectivity to and from the port and really to the

city of Brownsville and Cameron County.

What you see here is a railroad relocation

project. Here's the Port of Brownsville, here's 77/83.


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This railroad relocation project which Mr. List alluded to

has already been completed after many years of hard work

by the port and county and the State of Texas and the

federal government. That is already in place.

The project that is currently under

construction to complete the expansion of State Highway

48 -- which also Mr. List mentioned -- that goes all the

way to Port Isabel is a critical link for us, and I will

tell you that without the port being an ally, we probably

would not have been able to succeed on that project. It

took many years of difficult negotiations on various

issues, but I will say that the port did a couple of

things that really helped our cause.

One was they dedicated a 1,000-foot wide

conservation easement that helped us mitigate some

endangered species issues. We constructed a bridge that

will handle those endangered species but without the port

dedicating 1,000 foot of their own land as a conservation

easement, that project would not have been a success.

The second issue that they assisted us

tremendously in is digging a pilot channel from the ship

channel across 48 which facilitated the flooding of Bayou

Grande which has been creating a very serious dust problem

and which has created health problems in some of these

areas, and also addressed some very difficult habitat


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concerns that Fish and Wildlife had for many years. This

effort has been applauded by many, many environmental

agencies, groups and local communities, so it was a great

effort on their part.

We're building a bridge also to cross that

channel into the Bayou Grande to maintain that flow, so

that was a huge accomplishment. That helped us with the

wetland mitigation that we needed for the project. So

those two things were extremely important for us.

The other project I want to mention to you is

FM 511 which FM 511 is designated on the ISTEA legislation

as a segment or leg of I-69. We're in the process of

developing this project. We are purchasing right of way,

as we speak, sufficient right of way to allow us to

construct a future controlled access facility, although in

the meantime we'll have a four-lane divided highway. It's

going to provide a loop on the east side of Brownsville,

connection directly into the port. It will have room for

future dedicated truck lanes when the time comes and when

we can identify funding mechanisms with the RMA.

And that project, the port is dedicating a

significant amount of right of way to the department, to

the state, so we're very thankful for working with them on

that.

We also have a project that we're working with


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the City of Brownsville and Cameron County which is to

create and east loop connection from the Veterans

International Bridge, a new location and then around on

511 to connect back to the entry point near the port. And

again, as you can see, this creates a mobility corridor on

the east side of Brownsville that will facilitate freight

traffic and vehicular traffic to and from the port, as

well as for the general area on the east side of

Brownsville. A very important project, mobility project

that we're working with them on, and the RMA is going to

be a big part of this.

We also have, as you know, an Intracoastal

Waterway that we are part of. It's within the boundaries

of our district. The causeway bridge spans this

particular waterway and connects Port Isabel to South

Padre Island has had significant work done. One of the

projects that was installed within one year of the

collapse due to the barge accident in 2001 is a collapse

detection project that is a system that activates gates,

flashers and overhead message boards in case of a span

collapse. It's a very technologically advanced system

based on fiber optics and it's one that we're very proud

to have installed.

Using the Pier Protection Program that the

commission approved for causeway bridges in the state, we


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installed several concrete dolphins designed to withstand

the impact from forward-loaded barges and those have been

installed in front of the piers extending approximately

500 feet from each side of the Intracoastal on all four

corners. Makes us sleep well at night.

We followed the research recommendations on a

process to provide extended life to the concrete footings

and columns in the very aggressive marine environment, so

we've installed a cathodic protection system on the entire

bridge and we're really confident that this will delay the

start of corrosion and prolong the life of the bridge as

long as we can.

And of course, in conjunction with the RMA, we

will continue to develop and work on the project to

construct a second causeway to South Padre Island. There

are many environmental and financial issues that need to

be considered in the evaluation of the preferred corridor,

but it is, nevertheless, an important project and it is on

the agenda for the RMA, so I'll let them cover that later.

Our major corridors, just a quick rundown.

Everything you see here in black is expansions that have

been completed over the past few years. This is roughly

about 30 miles of work already completed to six-lane

expansion. Everything in red is currently under

construction which is about 70 miles. It's the source of


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a lot of aggravation for motorists but they do see the

progress that's being made. And the green is proposed

projects that we'll have in the next couple of years.

We work with three MPOs in our district -- I

think we're the only district that has three MPOs. First

of all, Hidalgo County MPO which is a TMA with over

200,000 in population; the director is Mr. Andrew Canon.

Harlingen-San Benito MPO is an urban MPO; Mr. Juan Sanchez

is our director. And Brownsville MPO, also another urban

MPO, which Mark Lund is the director. You can see how

they are very close together and we'll see what happens

with the next census whether we can have a Valley-wide

MPO.

At this time I'm going to ask Andrew Canon, as

the spokesman for the three MPOs, to give a quick

presentation on some of the important items that the MPOs

are looking at.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And while you're walking up,

Representative Escobar sent us a letter thanking us for

having our monthly meeting in Brownsville, and endorsing

the projects that will improve mobility, enhance safety

and bring a better quality of life to the organization.

He specifically endorses the focused countywide and

regional transportation vision of the Cameron County

Regional Mobility Authority. He fully supports it and


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encourages us to move forward on the agenda item, and we

appreciate him taking the time to send the letter.

MR. CANON: Thank you, commissioners.

This morning I'd like to introduce myself. My

name is Andrew Canon. I have the honor and privilege of

being the director of the Hidalgo County MPO. I'd also

like to introduce my planning partners. I have Juan

Sanchez with me here today from the Harlingen-San Benito

MPO, as well as Alfonso Vallejo, representing the

Brownsville MPO today.

The Lower Rio Grande Valley is home to some of

the greatest cross-border growth within the state.

Reynosa is the only border city that has an increase in

maquiladoras and employees in 2005. The amount of

maquiladoras have increased significantly here along the

Texas border in the Lower Rio Grande Valley region.

Reynosa exported a dollar value increase by almost 151

percent in the last five years. In comparison, Juarez had

an increase of 39 percent. Our growth is quite

spectacular that we're undertaking here in the Valley that

you'll hear about and that you've heard more about this

morning.

Cameron and Hidalgo counties have a total of

eight existing bridges along our border with proposed four

additional bridges: two within Hidalgo County, the Donna


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Bridge and Anzalduas Bridge; and two within Cameron

County, the Port of Brownsville Bridge and the West Rail

Bridge.

These bridges are necessary to support the

growth that the region is undergoing. For example,

Matamoros, Mexico has a population of approximately

700,000 citizens living directly across the border from

Brownsville. Reynosa has an estimated population of 1.2

million people, and the Hidalgo County urbanized area

boundary alone is worth noting that it was the only

urbanized area to double in size between the 1990 and the

2000 census populations in the state of Texas.

Hidalgo County UAB encompasses 800,000 people.

Hidalgo County, Brownsville, and Harlingen-San Benito all

have a forecasted population rate of 4 percent. This,

compounded by the fact that Mexico has an estimated growth

rate of 12 percent, makes us one of the fastest growing

areas in the state, if not the fastest growing.

Along the way to address this is that the

Hidalgo County MPO recently has undertaken the initiative

and is about to sign a memorandum of understanding with

the City of Reynosa and with the City of Rio Bravo -- they

serve as ex officio members of my policy board -- and we

hope to be able to do this and to have this memorandum of

understanding in place so that we may coordinate our


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efforts better across the border on what our planning

needs and our congestion needs over the next 25 years may

be.

The great growth within the Lower Rio Grande

Valley brings with it other aspects as well, such as the

amount of traffic moving north and south across our

bridges for commercial and personal purposes. The Pharr

Bridge is the only bridge in the Lower Rio Grande Valley

that has experienced a dramatic increase in truck traffic.

There has been approximately a 27 percent increase in

northbound truck traffic within the past five years on the

Pharr Bridge alone. Another example is that from

Brownsville to Zapata in 2005 there were 958,793

northbound truck crossings alone, accompanied by

23,500,000 passenger vehicle and buses coming northbound

across our bridges. As you can see, the amount of

congestion that we have is growing insurmountable compared

to our population growth.

As a part of our increased truck and freight

traffic along the border, the amount of commodities

crossing logically have increased significantly as well.

The steel trade has increased significantly after the

bridge at Los Tomates opened operations to the Port of

Brownsville. From 1997 to 2004, the imported steel has

increased from 1.2 to 2.2 metric tons, or an increase of


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81.5 percent. Steel arrives to our area from such

countries as Brazil, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, Korea,

Mexico, and of course, the U.S.

Along with this, rail traffic to and from

Mexico has not slowed either. Brownsville and Hidalgo

both have seen dramatic growth in the amount of dollars

for imported goods shipped into and out of Mexico in the

last five years. Brownsville has seen a 31 percent

increase in rail traffic within the last five years.

I'll move on to the mobility plan. As the

chairman clearly stated to us yesterday afternoon and this

morning, local areas have now been provided the

opportunity to identify our potential needs and address

the mobility concerns that we have over the next 25 years.

Along with identifying these potential needs, we've also

been given the opportunity to address how the local areas

could address financing or future mobility needs in our

projects. Thus, the Texas Metropolitan Mobility Plan has

been developed.

The Hidalgo County MPO, as one of eight larger

MPOs in the state, has been undertaking and working on the

TMMP over the past several years. The Hidalgo County MPO

has identified a $787 million shortfall for Hidalgo County

alone over the next 25 years. To address this shortfall,

Hidalgo County, working with citizens groups, board


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members, staff, TxDOT and other entities have been coming

up with local initiatives to address our financial needs

over the next 25 years.

These two slides present two initiatives that

were undertaken and presented to my board recently, one

being a possible additional toll at bridges to capture

those vehicles that are coming across and using our

roadways on a daily basis, and the other being a local

sales tax initiative. This is just two of five

initiatives that we have at the moment that we're working

on to address our needs over the next 25 years.

Along with that, on October 31, 2000, Chairman

Williamson met with the 17 non-TMAs in Austin to kick off

a similar initiative to the TMMP. This initiative

entitled the Texas Urbanized Mobility Plan, or TUMP.

Mario and Jorge and myself co-chair this panel and we've

been working diligently with the 17 smaller non-TMO MPOs

around the state to also address their needs over the next

25 years, as well as identifying any initiatives they may

have to address these needs.

I will say that we've made a great deal of

progress and that we're on time to meet our June deadline

that we have for our draft to the commission for review

and our September final submission of our document.

I'll speak briefly on some of the initiatives


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undertaken by the Hidalgo County MPO, one of these being

our congestion management system which is quite

instrumental in what we do in preparation of identifying

our needs over the next 25 years.

The Hidalgo County MPO has the data collection

of over 500 lane miles within Hidalgo County. We have a

consultant that drives out these 500 lane miles for us on

a yearly basis, information is captured in two-second

intervals via GPS accompanied by a video. It's become

quite a useful tool in public involvement. It allows us

to be able to click on several of the links, any of these

identified red lines that we have on this map, and we can

show the public what it is that was seen at the time that

the system was driven out.

That's important for us because we don't want

to identify areas that have construction taking place at

this time as an area that has serious congestion problems

because the congestion may be due to the construction

that's undertaken, therefore, we know that the problem is

actually being addressed.

We also moved on to a CMS Tier 2 approach --

and it was an analysis of four corridors, those corridors

listed there: FM 88 in Weslaco, 907 in Alamo, 495 in

Mission and 10th Street which is one of the busiest

arterials that runs through the middle of McAllen -- to do


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a real-world analysis of how we could address the

congestion concerns of these communities.

I will say that the City of Weslaco has moved

forward with one of our initiatives identified and they

are now looking at the possibility of installing raised

medians along FM 88 as a part of their access management

initiative to help relieve some of the congestion problems

that they're suffering there in that city as it grows

quite quickly.

And I'd also like to say that for the first

time we have a regional model coming down to our area from

TP&P up in Austin. Along with our three independent

models that we use and to forecast out our needs over the

250-year horizon that we have to, this is going to be an

incredible tool for us to use since we know that we are on

a regional basis and that the traffic does not stop or

begin at our boundaries or at our county line.

I would also like to say that this regional

approach gives more emphasis to the need for the formation

of a possible one regional MPO to be the voice of the

region as a whole instead of three independent MPOs.

Also, in Hidalgo County, one of the initiatives

we've undertaken and partnered with Cameron County and the

MPOs here is we work with all of the EMS providers within

Hidalgo County and we are soon to release an RFP for a


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non-destination, non-radioactive HAZ route study. Along

with the I-69 possibilities that we have here, any

interstate corridors, we realized that this was something

that we needed to look at with the increased truck traffic

that we have from Mexico to assure the safety to the

population and to the citizens of Hidalgo County and

Cameron County as well.

Harlingen and San Benito, it's worth noting,

already has such a hazardous route in place within their

city limits, so we're hoping to work in conjunction with

this.

That's all I have for you today. Any

questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you find that the mobility

plan we've asked you to develop is revealing anything you

didn't already know?

MR. CANON: Yes, sir. I think what the

mobility plan has done is actually shined a light on what

we weren't looking at before. We knew the dollars that we

had over the next 25 years, we knew what was probable to

be able to be built out, we knew where we thought we were

going, but the mobility plan has done for us is shine a

light on that shortfall that we really didn't give that

much emphasis to. We sort of looked at the side of what

we knew we were going to be building, we never sat down


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and took into consideration, in conjunction with our

population growth, how much of a gap we would have that

would continue to grow over that 25 years, and thus, leave

us in a bigger hole if we don't address it now.

So I think it's been an incredible tool for us

to use and I think it's a significantly valued tool for

the 17 non-TMA MPOs as well.


Any other questions?

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes. You glossed over -- or I

didn't pick up on it real quick -- the three independent

MPOs acting as one.

MR. CANON: Yes, sir.

MR. HOUGHTON: Is there any movement to merge

all the MPOs?

MR. CANON: I know that there was a movement a

couple of years back on this initiative, and I guess what

I should say to be politically correct, this is sort of a

personal initiative that I have. I think that we as a

region need to resonate our voice as one up to Austin as

well as up to Washington, D.C., I think any time that we

resonate independently and separately as three separate

entities instead of one whole. Also, as a whole being

equivalent to the size of Austin, would give more impact

to what we have to say possibly. I think it's important.


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Half of my staff -- I have a staff of nine --

half of my staff actually live in Cameron County or drive

from further away into Hidalgo County. We know that our

traffic congestion and the concerns that we have for the

movement of people and goods do not stop at our urbanized

boundaries or at the county line. It seems to me somewhat

silly, if you will, for me to undertake initiatives for

Hidalgo County and then have them stop at the county line

when I know that my planning partners are undertaking

duplicate initiatives within Cameron County. Instead of

doing it three times, I think we could do it once as a

whole and have a greater impact and better benefit to the

citizens of Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

MR. HOUGHTON: Thanks for answering that. I

didn't mean to put you on the spot.

MR. CANON: It's no problem at all.

MR. HOUGHTON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's a difficult thing, and

it's a thing that's best spoken of, I think, from the

state level and not in a demanding way but in a this-is-

what-we-think way, and over time the county judge will

decide if he agrees or not, and over time the mayor will

decide if he agrees or not.

MR. CANON: Absolutely.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean, some things we think


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we ought to say to the local and regional leaders this is

what you should do, some things we say this is what we

think you should do.

MR. CANON: Yes, sir. And I have a policy

board tonight and I know that that will come up again at

my board meeting, as well as the Cameron County policy

board meetings that are held here. My board is very

concerned about congestion and the movement of people and

goods throughout the county and throughout the Lower Rio

Grande Valley, as well as we realize that our borders

don't stop at the river. These communities that are south

of the river are just as impacted and important to us as

they would be if it was any community on the north side of

the river.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much. Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: I'd just like to say one thing.

I just need to congratulate you on recognizing the need to

work together. I mean, it's just fantastic that you're

all able to do that. So congratulations and thank you for

doing that. It makes our job a lot easier too.

MR. CANON: I appreciate that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I didn't get to serve with Mr.

Escobar but I did get to serve with Mr. Solis -- in fact,

we sat right next to each other. He also sent a letter.

"I'm writing to express my appreciation for


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your being in Brownsville today. As you have seen from

the tours you've taken, we have many improvements in this

area that are necessary, and our organization known as the

Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority is very

important. I fully endorse their program and endorse the

item on the agenda.

"Call me if I can answer any questions."

Jim is a nice guy. Go ahead.


I think Mr. Canon responded very eloquently on

that question. It's a difficult issue to be addressed and

it's one that we've already been discussing with several

of our local leaders, and you're right, Mr. Chairman,

that's something that I think as a region we'll have to

make that decision.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But we would never want a

county judge or a mayor or a city council person or a

commissioner to think that we were telling them what -- we

will never tell you about that kind of stuff what you

should do, you've got to make that decision yourself. We

just happen to believe that local execution and planning

is better.

It's been effective in North Texas for a number

of years, although we're admittedly going through a little

bit of a rough patch right now over a toll road. But


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generally speaking, it's permitted North Texas to speak

with one voice, and frankly, I think that had a lot to do

with our decision to allocate money and not projects which

I think has been a tremendous help to everybody.

But to the extent that the judge and the

commissioners court and the leaders of the community can

figure out how to speak regionally and plan regionally, we

think that's a good idea.

Where else are we going, Mario?

MR. JORGE: The next speaker I'd like to

introduce is Ms. Norma Zamora. She's our director of the

Brownsville Urban System, and she's going to talk about

the regional transit service plan that I know Commissioner

Andrade has been very forward in asking us throughout the

state to implement a regional plan, and Ms. Zamora will

speak to that. So Norma?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Welcome.

MS. ZAMORA: Good morning. Again, my name is

Norma Zamora. I'm the director of the City of

Brownsville's transit department, the Brownsville Urban

System. It is my pleasure to again welcome each of the

commission members and all of the TxDOT employees from

Austin, Pharr and other parts of the state of Texas to

Brownsville.

It is my pleasure to talk to you today about


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public transportation and I want to take this opportunity

to thank each commission member for all that you do to

support public transportation in South Texas. I also want

to extend a special thanks to Commissioner Andrade for

heading the statewide effort to procure the requirements

of House Bill 3588.

My presentation will provide an overview of our

federal- and state-funded transit systems, and more

importantly, to provide you with a status report on the

progress of our region's response to House Bill 3588 as it

relates to public transportation.

For the purposes of the regional transportation

planning effort, the Statewide Study Group opted to define

the service area boundaries as the COG boundaries which in

our area consists of Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy

counties. Although the 2005 population estimate in the

three-county region is over a million, a substantial

portion of the users of our public transportation systems,

especially in the urban systems, are from Mexico. For

example, in Brownsville approximately 40 percent of the

passengers that board at the downtown terminal walk across

from Mexico to shop, work, visit medical facilities, go to

school, and for recreation.

According to the Sustainable Civic Initiative,

Matamoros, Mexico, across the bridge from Brownsville, has


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an estimated population of 150,000. The city of Reynosa,

Mexico, across the border from McAllen, has an estimated

population of 750,000. As there are several communities

between Brownsville and McAllen, there are also several

small communities between Matamoros and Reynosa. These

cities are immediately adjacent to the planning region and

have a tremendous impact on the transit systems that

operate in our three-county region. This effectively

increases the daily population to our region, however,

they are not counted in the state or federal funding

formulas.

We support any effort that may be taken by this

commission to distribute transit funding to border areas

to help mitigate for the added burden placed on

communities along the Texas-Mexico border.

The management structure for the regional

transit service plan includes the Pharr District Transit

Advisory Panel, who will provide direction and oversight

throughout the planning process. The local COG was

selected to be the lead agency. The management and

oversight of our regional planning process reflect the

leadership role by the lead agency in close counsel with

the members of the Transit Advisory Panel. The COG will

serve as the lead agency and will provide leadership,

management and administrative support for the overall


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processes. We will also have a subcommittee responsible

for overseeing the outreach efforts and a technical

subcommittee which will be overseeing the work done by the

consultant.

The cost of the regional plan is $165,261.

TxDOT's participation is $100,000, Hidalgo County MPO is

$60,000, and Brownsville Urban System is paying the

difference. The COG is also providing 40 percent in in-

kind services.

All of the federal- and state-funded public and

private transportation providers are participating in the

regional planning process. They include four 5307 small

urban transit systems which include Brownsville Urban

System, Harlingen Express, Rio Metro, and McAllen Express.

Combined they provided over 2 million trips in fiscal year

2005.

We also have two Section 5311 rural transit

providers, Rio Transit and The Wave. They together

provided over 220,000 trips.

There are four Section 5310 elderly and

disabled transit providers, Amigos Rio Grande State

Center, the City of Port Isabel, and the Southwest Key

Program which provided a combined total of 58,240 trips.

We have one Section 5311(f) inner-city bus

provider, Valley Transit Company in Harlingen, a


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subsidiary of Greyhound Bus Line and the medical

transportation program, a client-based public

transportation service provided by LeFleur, who

transported 537,244 passengers in 2005.

In fiscal year 2005, our transit operators

provided over 2.3 million passenger trips in our region,

and at this time I would like to acknowledge all the

transportation providers and ask them to stand that are in

the audience with us.



MS. ZAMORA: Thank you.

And as you can tell from the map, the location

of each transit system is going to help us close any

service gaps identified in the planning process. Of

course, there are other client-based providers in our

regions, such as the Texas Workforce Commission, the State

Department of Health, the Department of Aging and Disabled

Services, the Department of Mental Health and Mental

Retardation, and others who are also taking part in our

regional transportation planning process.

As for the status of the regional coordination

planning efforts, the Lower Rio Grande Development Council

was selected as the lead agency in September of 2005. We

will continue to use the Transit Advisory Panel, which has


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been in existence since 2001, to monitor and oversee the

planning process. Representatives of the Transit Advisory

Panel include the three MPOs, the public transit

providers, the health and human service agencies,

Workforce, MHMR, the disabled, the medical transportation

providers, and the private bus carriers.

The stakeholders in this group continue to

expand. Aside from the participation of our Transit

Advisory Panel members, we also have the benefit of

guidance on this planning process by having the Pharr

District PTC as a member of Commissioner Andrade's

Statewide Study Group.

In October 2005, the City of Brownsville and

Brownsville Urban System hosted a regional transit summit

to promote the region's effort to develop regional transit

coordination and identified barriers and constraints which

hinder coordination. In November of 2005, the TxDOT

district office enlisted Texas Transit Institute and the

services of Ms. Linda Sharrington to assist in the

development of the RFP and set up the management structure

for our regional plan. She has been an invaluable asset

to the progress of our plan.

In January of this year, we released a request

for proposals. In February and March we received and

evaluated the proposal that was submitted, we interviewed


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the consultant and negotiated the contract. And I'm happy

to report that the contract was awarded to KFH Group,

Inc., and we had our kickoff meeting yesterday in the

Pharr District office. This project is scheduled to be

completed in December of 2006.

Thank you for your attention, and this

concludes my presentation.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions, members?

MS. ANDRADE: Norma, I just want to thank you

for what you're doing in developing this plan, and also

thank your partners, Health and Human Services, your local

COG, the Workforce Commission and the many providers, and

I urge you to keep working together. So thank you so

much.

MS. ZAMORA: Thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. JORGE: Thank you, Norma. And I'm going to

wrap up with some slides.

As you know, we have two RMAs in our district,

one that's been in operation now for over a year, and one

that's newly formed which is Hidalgo County. I want to

just mention both chairmen. I think they're here and

they're going to be speaking later in the program.

Mr. David Allex is the chairman for Cameron

County RMA. David, please stand. Thank you.


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And Dennis Burleson is the chairman for the

Hidalgo County RMA. Dennis, if you'll also stand. Thank

you, sir.

Both of these individuals were appointed by

Governor Perry to lead the respective RMAs, and it's been

a pleasure working with both of them, and I look forward

to many, many successful projects in this region.

What I wanted to show here is again some of the

major RMA projects that we're going to be looking at in

the future, and I think Andrew Canon mentioned a shortfall

from the Texas Mobility Plan and the Texas Urban Mobility

Plan.

One of the shortfalls, as you see here, is this

Hidalgo County Loop. This is a little over 100-mile loop

that as we stand today we have no means to fund over the

next 25 years. And as a transportation engineer here in

the Valley, if I'm sitting here 25 years from now and we

haven't moved on this loop, I think we'll really be

shortchanging the future of this region. So this is an

extremely important endeavor that needs to take place, and

the RMA, I think, will be the vehicle that will get us

there.

We are doing some work also a portion of this

loop, an extension of Military Highway as a parallel road

to 83 and 77 to hit Brownsville, and extension of


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arterials, expressway type arterials on the north end to

loop around Harlingen. Those are very important key

elements. We're doing a lot of work on some of these,

preliminary work, and I wanted to show that.

We have a relief route which is probably going

to be the first RMA project in Hidalgo County, planned as

a toll road, tolled relief route around the city of La

Joya and Penitas. And that project, we're finalizing the

environmental documents and we've had about three or four

public meetings that have gone very well. That project is

going to be first in line, I believe.

We're going to be looking at the southwest

segment of the Hidalgo County Loop, doing some preliminary

engineering and environmental documents in a very short

time so that we can start facilitating that project.

Again, financially funding these projects is going to be

an effort that's going to take, I think, the RMA, us and a

lot of the local entities.

The expansion of Military Highway from the

Pharr International Bridge all the way into Brownsville is

one that we're currently undertaking in terms of the

environmental and preliminary engineering. We've had two

public meetings that went very well, and we should be

conducting another one this summer and finalizing the

environmental documents this year.


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The southeast segment of the loop is a segment

that Hidalgo County will be performing the preliminary

engineering on, with our oversight, also in the next few

months, and that's another major leg of the loop.

We're also looking at this connection from 281

to 77 on the north side of Hidalgo and Cameron County as

an expressway facility with allotment for future dedicated

truck lanes. Again, a lot of these will provide

connectivity to any interstate corridor coming to the

Valley.

The City of Harlingen is assisting us, with

Cameron County RMA, in looking at the extension of that

same corridor east and then south to hit FM 509 which

leads directly into the Los Indios Bridge, and so that's

an effort that they're undertaking, in conjunction with

the rail relocation project that they're doing, again in

looking at preliminary engineering and environmental

documents.

In the Brownsville area, a couple of projects

that I want to mention here that the RMA is going to be

performing, and we'll hear more about these later. The

West Rail which is essentially tied into the rail

relocation is already done and goes west and then south to

the new international bridge on the west side of

Brownsville; FM 511 which I mentioned earlier as a future


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controlled access facility into the port and east side of

Brownsville; the East Loop which I also mentioned earlier

as a relief route to the east side of Brownsville; and the

West Loop which is also on the agenda today which involves

the obtainment of the abandoned railroad right of way once

the West Rail project is in place and development of a

toll road corridor from 77/83 into the B&M Bridge.

This slide here just shows a picture of our

potential interstate corridors. Everything you see there

is already completed. It is roughly over 111 miles of

highways that are to interstate standards. Everything

that is in blue is still pending, and the last numbers I

have in terms of mileage are about 60 miles on 281, about

50 miles on 77 that are still missing.

We do have a project in Falfurrias on the UTP

that is funded for the next three years, and one in

Raymondville for this year.

This slide right here shows the major

connectors on the northern Mexico side and these are the

major toll roads and major highways that lead directly to

the Valley, and you can see how this provides very good

connectivity to the major cities in Mexico and some of the

ports on the Pacific Ocean, as mentioned earlier.

MR. JOHNSON: Mario?



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MR. JOHNSON: On the previous slide, help me

with the differentiation in the colors. What are they

significant of, the yellow, blue, red and green?

MR. JORGE: Commissioner, they're just

identified as different corridors. I don't think they

have any specific meaning other than just different

corridors. This is the existing toll road from Monterrey

to Reynosa; this green here is a connection that's been

recently from Ciudad Victoria south to San Luis Potosi.

So I don't know that they necessarily have any meaning

other than they just identify different corridors.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.


I think this slide you have seen before, but

it's important to show because it identifies economic

activity within the I-69 corridor, and you can see the

shaded area in Mexico how 79 percent of the economic

activity takes place within this shaded area which is in

direct line of the corridor. About 80 percent of the

economic activity happens within the shaded area of the

United States which again has good connectivity with I-69,

and a similar percentage in Canada as the corridor arrives

in the eastern part. So these are very significant

numbers, and again, those are nothing new that you haven't

seen.


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That really pretty much concludes my

presentation. I want to thank the commission once again

for being here in Brownsville and the Pharr District, and

hopefully this presentation was informational to you. I

think the theme of this presentation which we tried to put

out today is the same theme which we conduct our everyday

business, and that is to enhance our transportation system

through partnership.

We have many financial challenges facing us. I

think the tools that have been provided to us by the

legislature and the governor, and those that we can come

up with and develop locally, I think will assist us in

meeting some of those challenges.

Once again, I thank you for your attention, and

any questions you have, I'd be glad to answer.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions of Mario?

MR. HOUGHTON: I just thank you, Mario, for

your tremendous hospitality, you and the members of the

TxDOT family here in South Texas -- excuse me -- the Rio

Grande Valley.

MR. JORGE: We're glad to have you, and even

though my staff probably will kill me, we'd have you back

any time you want. It's been a lot of work but it's been

very enjoyable.

(General laughter.)


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MR. JOHNSON: It's been a very comprehensive

and enlightening presentation. We're grateful for that.

We've had one card submitted, Charlie Leal, who

is district aide for Senator Lucio. Did you want to say

anything? The chairman has read into the record Senator

Lucio's letter. Mr. Leal?

MR. LEAL: I think that's fine, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: All right. Thank you for being

here, and we miss the senator but we were grateful to be

able to share some time with him yesterday.

Well, I was going to say that the chair was not

present, and in view of that, I was uncertain as to what

he wanted to do, go to the next item on the agenda or

recess, but I'm going to yield back.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. I think it will be

appropriate, Mike, at this time to ask Mr. Saenz to give

us an overview of potentially extending -- well, how we're

going to build an interstate highway in the Lower Rio

Grande Valley and the implications for potentially I-37.

MR. SAENZ: Thank you. Good morning,

commissioners, Mr. Behrens. For the record, Amadeo Saenz,

assistant executive director for Engineering Operations.

The item is a report to give you a status as to

where we're at as we look at developing an interstate-

quality facility from 37 south to the Rio Grande Valley.


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Of course, this request came in a letter from Governor

Perry to the Transportation Commission, and of course,

we've started working on it, and there are basically two

concurrent methods or ways that we think we can get this

project developed.

The first thing that we're looking at, of

course, we have been working and developing the TTC-69

Corridor, and to that end, we have been working on the

environmental assessment, we're working on an

environmental streamlined project and using a two-tier

approach, and of course, Tier 1 of the environmental

project we hope to complete by late 2007, at which time

then we can have individual project studies done on the

projects for the corridor in the Tier 2.

We expect to have full environmental clearance

for the whole corridor TTC-69 by 2010, but that might be a

little bit optimistic. You know, as we move on, these are

major challenges.

Concurrently with the tiered approach, and also

at the request of Governor Perry, we have moved forward

and put in place a request for qualifications to bring

onboard a strategic partner very similar to what we have

on the 35-TTC with the Cintra-Zachry team. This strategic

partner is going to be the group that will help us

identify the funding sources and identify the projects


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that can be developed and in what form, shape, schedule

priority, and look for ways to use the tools that we have

available to us to develop these projects.

That procurement is out. We had a kind of

kickoff meeting with the potential developers earlier this

week, and we hope that in the next couple of months we

will have a developer partner onboard to help us put

together a project list, a master plan for the TTC, as

well as a financial plan on how these projects can be

developed.

We think that we can have a developer onboard

and have a master plan in place and financial plan in

place by late 2007, and the project would be developed

very similar to what we're doing on 35-TTC, two concurrent

processes going on.

The second option that we want to look at is

the possibility of just taking and looking at the idea of

just doing what the letter said, take one of the existing

corridors and develop it to an interstate-quality

facility, connecting 37 down to the Rio Grande Valley.

This would allow us to comply with the federal

requirements that for a highway to be considered

interstate, it has to: one, meet the interstate quality

standards, and two, it needs to connect to an existing

interstate.


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Of course, under that option we really have two

corridors that connect to 37 that come down to the Rio

Grande Valley, one being US 77 and one being US 281. So

under that process, what we're looking at is, of course,

we will do separate environmental studies for each of the

corridors or do one feasibility study to determine which

one would be the one to move forward with, or a

combination of both. And then from that we would

determine mechanisms to come up with funding, and that's

always going to be the question.

We could then, if we move forward on the

southern leg of the 37 connection -- that's what I'll call

it for today -- the 37 connection, as the TTC-69 project

continues to evolve and the developer partner identifies

financial mechanisms and funding plans, we could then

basically meld both projects.

So what we looked at so far is I've asked the

districts to put together estimates of what the

development of these projects would cost. For example,

our construction estimate for US 77 from 37 just north of

Robstown down to Brownsville, to make it an interstate-

quality facility would cost us about $640 million in

today's dollars. Of course, environmental clearance has

been done to some extent, but it could be done either way.

On 281 the project is a little bit longer and


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our estimate is somewhere about $840- to $850 million to

be able to upgrade US 281 to an interstate-quality

facility and connect it from around the Three

Rivers/George West area down US 281 to the Pharr area.

So now we've started and we're also looking at

some potential funding options. How would we find some

funds to be able to construct it? Well, one thing we can

look at under legislation that we have is build truck

lanes or separate truck lanes, and of course, if a

corridor is designated as part of the Trans-Texas

Corridor, we have the opportunity to not only build these

truck lanes but these truck lanes can carry heavier loads

and also allow trucks to be configured in doubles and

triples as well as to go faster.

Then we could build those, and as you build

those, basically the money that you would generate from

building those projects, after you pay for that initial

construction, could then be used to upgrade the existing

facility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hold on a second, Amadeo.

Let's assume that became one of the financing options that

would permit us to do the improvements to get to the

interstate standard. I take it, because the rest of our

transportation grid is not yet prepared to accept

overweights or doubles and triples, that we would in


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effect be marketing a Brownsville to Corpus Christi, or

maybe to think globally, a Monterrey to Brownsville to

Corpus Christi industrial corridor that would be uniquely

suited.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Because someplace in the

Corpus Christi area the trucks would have to shift loads

or shift trailers or get to a container.

MR. SAENZ: That's exactly right, and that's

one of the things that we were looking is wherever you end

the overweight corridor, you've got to have some kind of

an intermodal facility that you can either shift to

alternate modes or basically break down the load so that

then the load goes, or you stop at a potential destination

where these loads want to go.

By considering only the 77 or the one down to

the Rio Grande Valley, you do create this one unique

corridor. I think through competition you would probably

get additional corridors that could be funded the same

way, say from the Laredo area to Corpus Christi could be a

potential additional corridor. Being them all being part

of the transportation system, this could become financial

tools or funding sources to be able to develop more

projects of this type throughout the state.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And sort of leap-frogging


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ahead, because the tendency is always to think about well,

if you do this is it detrimental to the Port of

Brownsville, if you do that is it detrimental to the Port

of Corpus Christi, if you do the other is it detrimental

to the Port of Laredo. We are aware of changes soon to

occur in the Panama Canal and our whole basis for the

economic opportunity component of our Strategic Plan, with

regard to this area, is our firm belief that the ports on

the West Coast will collapse under their own weight in the

next few years, and the question is going to be who will

take advantage of that commerce. Will it be the Republic

of Mexico, and if so, will it be a land bridge; will it be

the Republic of Panama, and if so, will it be a deeper

canal?

But in any event, when those ports collapse,

with certainty it doesn't matter how fast the Port of

Brownsville and the Port of Corpus Christi and the Port of

Houston and the Port of Victoria grow, there will still be

more business than everybody can handle.

MR. SAENZ: That's correct. I think what was

announced by the Panama Canal and the expansions will

basically only provide additional flexibility and

opportunity for cargo that was coming into the West Coast

and now to have basically more options: you can come and

use the Mexican ports and have this land crossing or this


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land connection, or they come across at the Panama Canal

and then come into the United States on the East Coast.

And the ports that we have on the Gulf Coast in

Brownsville and Corpus and Houston, Beaumont-Port Arthur

are going to be very important as now they will be

receivers of cargo that would come in. And the trade

corridors, in essence, change from east to west to more

north to south.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it will be important for

us, as we deliberate and find solutions to bring the

interstate to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, to emphasize to

our partners in Corpus Christi and Houston, particularly,

there will be plenty of business for all of us, there will

be no business for any of us if we don't plan together and

act together.

MR. SAENZ: We need to move forward and plan to

try to get ahead of the game, you might say.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Please continue.

MR. SAENZ: Another alternative is, of course,

by designating the connection down to the Rio Grande

Valley as the Trans-Texas Corridor is we have the

opportunity to use the utility elements of Trans-Texas

Corridor as a potential funding source to be able to, one,

provide the service of bringing additional utilities down.

And one time there's been talk about a desalinization


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plant that was being built in Corpus, this desalinization

plant could then provide water down to the Rio Grande

Valley. There could be a need to provide electric

services, major transmission lines down to the Rio Grande

Valley as fast as it's growing. So having a utility

corridor and bringing in partners will allow us to

hopefully float some additional money that we can use to

also build and expand on the highway transportation

elements of that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So in theory, if we could find

a water district that wanted to pay us for the right to

lay water line, if we could find a utility company that

would be willing to pay a toll that would use lines we

would erect, we would use that cash plus the contribution

of the partners from Harlingen and Brownsville and the

whole area, plus state and federal funds, and maybe

collectively that will be enough to finance the project.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. And I guess we heard

this morning -- that was going to be my next -- the next

possible funding source we heard from our partners in

Harlingen, and I think the district has been working

closely also with Cameron County and we'll be working with

other partners on the corridor to see what we can do to

bring in some additional money that we can leverage.

And of course, the whole key on a particular


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corridor if you don't have enough money, the private

developer can only bring so much, we've got to somehow

bring in some additional funding sources in the form of

toll equity so we can make the project a reality. And

that's really what it's going to take, it's going to take

a combination of a lot of funding sources and strategies

to be able to take this facility and bring it down,

upgrade it to interstate quality, put in the truck toll

lanes, use the utilities, and with those monies then we

can basically have it in place.

And of course, we also have the other tools

that we have available to us through pass-through

financing. Of course, there is for locals some assistance

through the State Infrastructure Bank. If they don't have

the money, they could come back and borrow part of that

money to utilize for some of the cost of this project.

And of course, looking at the Mobility Fund, there may be

some additional funding through the Mobility Fund that we

can do.

My plan is to keep working on these strategies,

identify potential funding sources, and piece together a

financial plan of how we can expand and build this type of

facility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, one of the things that

we constantly run into across the state on these big


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corridors is the absence of intimate knowledge about how

the environmental process works, and invariably when we,

for example, advanced the Corridor 35 project, we were all

surprised by the number of local officials who weren't

intimately familiar with the environmental process.

For the sake of the audience that's here today,

let me take you through a series of questions and answers.

With regard to Interstate 69 or TTC-69, there's a lot of

pressure to select either 77 or 281. Is it likely, based

on the way the system works, that those two existing

footprints would be more favorably received by the federal

government than an alternative footprint? I'm not asking

you to comment on what will happen, I'm asking you to

comment on is it likely.

MR. SAENZ: It is likely. You try to minimize

the impact so if you're trying to expand on something that

already exists and you're taking much less than having a

build a brand new one, most definitely it's easier to go

along an existing corridor or parallel to an existing

corridor or adjacent to it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's the interstate model.

Now, when you're speaking of building the Trans-Texas

Corridor model, a whole new multimodal concept, is the

same true or is it likely that it will be someplace else?

MR. SAENZ: It will pretty much be the same


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thing. You will look at how much capacity you have

available on the existing system that you have, and if you

have capacity available to you. For example, I'll talk

about the draft EIS that was just posted for the 35-TTC,

and if you look at south of San Antonio that the route

goes to Laredo and it follows or it looks at expanding the

existing 35 footprint because we have a lot of capacity

built into that.

So even under the Trans-Texas Corridor, you do

have the possibility of if you have capacity that you take

advantage of that capacity first before you go out there

and build a brand new one.

Now, there are some circumstances that are out

there with respect to environmental and historical

requirements, and you have to look at all options, and

that's why we have to be able to look at every option

available and then, in essence, following the guideline

and the regulation, we will go out there and evaluate each

one, determine what are the pluses and minuses, the

benefits and the drawbacks, and then come back with the

best solution.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's not a matter of this

commission or your staff deciding we want to build this

road right here, it's a matter of us complying with

federal law and answering a series of questions and the


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answers to those questions determine where the route goes.

MR. SAENZ: That's correct.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's entirely possible that

the route for TTC-69 would be pushed off to the west, is

it not?

MR. SAENZ: It could be, but I think the law

now has been changed and there's some flexibility that

allows us to look at impacts along existing corridors, and

they deal with the environment on the historical side and

also on the other side of environmental that allows us to

be able to go out there and if you have to take some, say,

historical property, as long as that impact is minimal --

or they call it minimis -- and we get the consents of all

the property owners and the National Parks Service, we can

take historical property instead of having to move out

there and impact a lot.

As you move away from these corridors, a lot of

properties in South Texas are historical in nature

themselves. They may have not been designated, but South

Texas has been here for many, many years and the ranching

communities out there in South Texas have been here for

many generations, so they in themselves are also

historical. So you're also having to balance that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And then one final question.

In the old, or in the up until the last few years model,


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would we ever have enough money, federal money to build

Interstate 69?

MR. SAENZ: No. Based on the money that we get

from state gasoline tax and the federal reimbursement and

our needs, we don't have enough money -- we did not have

enough money to build I-69 and that's why we have not been

able to build it. We've been working on I-69 for at least

15 years.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So there was never enough

money even when Congress was designating potential routes.

MR. SAENZ: When Congress was designating

potential routes, there may have been but they chose not

to, and as time went by and costs increased, in essence

they've said that the interstate system has pretty much

been identified and put in place and they no longer have a

funding source to build the interstate, the actual

interstate construction.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything else on your

presentation?

MR. SAENZ: Just looking at this, as an

example, we will continue to work, our Transportation

Planning and Programming Division is doing some studies to

determine amounts of revenue that we think we can generate

from the truck toll lanes. And we'll be working with all

our partners to see how we can put together, as I said, a


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financial plan to move this project forward.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, dialogue with Amadeo?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: They're letting you off easy.

MR. SAENZ: Mario tired them out.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Richard Garcia, mayor of

Edinburg.

MAYOR GARCIA: I may be a bit out of order

here, but I'm here in support of someone else that was

going to speak, I believe, Mr. Dennis Burleson with the

Rio Grande Valley Mobility Task Force, but I'll be glad to

go forward.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We go in the order in which

this guy put the cards in, so we're going to blame him.

MAYOR GARCIA: Well, first of all, by way of

identification, my name is Richard Garcia, and I have the

good fortune to serve as mayor of the City of Edinburg,

and in that capacity I had served previously for two years

as chair of the Texas Border Infrastructure Coalition

which is a coalition of cities and county judges and

economic development corporations from El Paso to

Brownsville, and I also had the opportunity to serve as

the county judge for the County of Hidalgo, and honored to

serve on the judicial bench for the State of Texas for 16


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years.

I want to thank the commission again this

morning. I want to thank, certainly, Cameron County and

Brownsville for their hospitality today. And while I'm

here, I want to thank TxDOT for all the great projects in

and around our city, our county and this region.

As I've heard you speak about today, certainly

we realize that our world is shrinking, that the border

and trade barriers are blurring, and as a result of our

geographical location, we have become one of the fastest

growing regions in this country, and certainly the

greatest ingredient to that growth is transportation and

that's why we very much realize the importance of what

we're doing here today.

I am here today to represent the cities of

Hidalgo County in support of a resolution that has been

prepared by the Rio Grande Valley Mobility Task Force,

basically supporting the position that's already been

talked about here with the south of I-37 and the I-69

project that include five total relief routes, as stated

in the resolution which is Resolution Number 2006. And if

it hasn't been forward to you, it's entitled Resolution

Supporting the Extension of Controlled Access Highways to

the Rio Grande Valley, and if it hasn't been forwarded, it

certainly will be forwarded to you.


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In addition, I have with me resolutions from

Brooks County signed by the judge and their commission,

Jim Wells County and the City of Premont which are all

located along the 281 corridor, all in support of the

resolution as prepared by the Rio Grande Valley Mobility

Task Force and which includes the corridors of 77 and 281.

And I realize that brevity is virtuous, so I

will yield the podium at this time. Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I apologize for catching you

off guard, I may have gotten the cards out of order

myself, but you were eloquent, you reacted quickly.

MAYOR GARCIA: Well, I appreciate that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: No doubt all your years of

training on the bench.

MAYOR GARCIA: Well, that was helpful.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we do thank you for your

testimony and your offer of support.

Let me take a second to consult with my

executive director. How do you want to approach this,

Mike? Do you want to have David and Dennis come up and

present this first?

MAYOR GARCIA: I have the resolution. If you

wish, I can read the pertinent part regarding the five

routes that we're making reference to.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think, Bill, are you here,


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Bill Summers?

MR. SUMMERS: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We almost always turn to Bill

when we're confused, so I think we're going to turn to

you, Bill, and let you come up and guide this part.

MR. SUMMERS: Okay. David Garza is next, and

then the co-chairman of the regional mobility authority,

Dennis Burleson, and then I will finish.

MAYOR GARCIA: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mayor. We

appreciate it.

David? A person familiar to us.

MR. GARZA: We have a packet that we have for

each one of you and for the record. We welcome you this

morning again, for the umpteenth time, to this area.

(General laughter.)

MR. GARZA: I am David A. Garza, Cameron County

commissioner of Precinct 3, and I stand before you not as

Cameron County commissioner of precinct 3 but a voice for

a number of governmental entities, cities and other

chamber of commerce organizations that stretch from Nueces

County to the Lower Rio Grande Valley. And I would hope

that Commissioner Houghton would walk in before I got to

the meat of it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: He's putting his fairy wings


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on.

MR. GARZA: A couple of housekeeping items.

Next time when we welcome you at the airport, we will have

lunch for you. We thought the state flight included lunch

but I guess it didn't.

Commissioner Johnson, you knew where to stop to

have your lunch before you joined the group, so I know who

the smartest guy up there is.

MR. JOHNSON: You know too much.

(General laughter.)

MR. GARZA: And Chairman Williamson, you know,

it's always a pleasure to see you in our area, and we

appreciate you being here.

We are very excited to have you here to discuss

the transportation issues that affect all of Texas and all

of us Texans, but most importantly, the area that we

represent here in South Texas. You have seen on your trip

down here, you have seen on your flight in and on your

tours, and will continue to see hopefully the rest of the

day today, that the decisions that you make in Austin in a

very big way affect us very directly. Even if it's being

delayed to get to the reception or get to the hotel, we

know that the construction that's occurring is setting us

up for the infrastructure we need for the future of this

region to become as viable as we would like it to be.


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Last December, Governor Perry, in a speech

before the I-69 Alliance in Houston, instructed this

commission to immediately begin developing proposals to

build an interstate, and I was glad to hear Amadeo's

presentation in regard to what has occurred on that.

Separate truck lanes, commercial lanes, different funding

mechanisms to make this happen, all are very important.

The folks in this corridor took the comments

that we heard very seriously, there's been numerous

meetings that have occurred with many stakeholders in the

corridor to explore what we could do as an area. Many of

the current projects that are being worked on or

developed, as you saw by Mario's presentation, will

provide that seamless corridor and will provide that

seamless transportation goods route so that we can take

goods not only up into the state of Texas but to other

parts of the United States.

This corridor would start at the west end at

Rio Grande City and on the east end in Brownsville and

then go up to US Highway 77 and connect I-37 in Corpus.

And you've seen a lot of power point presentations, but I

would like to indulge you in one more today and it will be

short, but it will be different, not to take away from

Mario's presentation or any of the other folks before me.

But with us today are many representatives of


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counties, cities, economic development corporations,

chambers of commerce, metropolitan planning organizations,

and port authorities that stretch from Corpus Christi to

Brownsville which is the front door and where trade and

commerce begins, as far as we're concerned, and my power

point presentation this morning will be to ask the folks

that are here in support of the resolutions I'm presenting

you to please stand up. Gentlemen, ladies.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You made your point with

power. Thank you very much.

MR. GARZA: Thank you very much. Mario, that's

our power point presentation.

(General laughter.)

MR. JORGE: Shorter than mine.

MR. GARZA: A little bit.

I think Governor Perry stated in that speech

that this platform -- which is you gentlemen up there --

know the importance of reliable transportation systems and

what that could do to bring unprecedented trade

opportunities, economic development, and most importantly,

job creation to this area. That is why we have become

united in our efforts to categorically state our support

for the extension of I-37 via US 77 down to the Lower Rio

Grande Valley.

We understand your commitment to ensuring that


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we have adequate interstate connections, and we will

present you -- and I did just a few minutes ago -- with

signed resolutions and/or letters of support from every

entity supporting this endeavor. You may open the

envelope. You will find replicated resolutions from the

cities of Brownsville, Corpus, Harlingen, Kingsville, Los

Fresnos, Port Isabel, Rancho Viejo, Rio Hondo, Robstown,

and San Benito in that packet.

Also included in there are resolutions from the

counties of Kleberg, Willacy and Cameron and Nueces; also,

the Port of Brownsville, the Port of Corpus Christi, the

Port of Harlingen; also, Cameron County Regional Mobility

Authority, the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning

Organization, the Brownsville Economic Development

Council, the Development Corporation of Harlingen, the

South Padre Economic Development Corporation -- and we

promise, Commissioner Houghton, that we'll take you to eat

over there the next time you're down -- San Benito

Economic Development Corporation, Brownsville Chamber of

Commerce, Harlingen Area Chamber of Commerce, Harlingen-

San Benito Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Letters of support and a resolution from

Congressman Solomon Ortiz, our local U.S. Congressman;

letters of support in the packet from Senator Eddie Lucio,

State Representative Abel Herrera, State Representative


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Juan Escobar, State Representative Rene Oliveira, and

State Representative Jim Solis.

Also are some letters of intent for financial

support from some of the people that have already

committed money to develop these projects as TxDOT sees

fit that we need to invest those dollars to most quickly

bring this project into our Lower Rio Grande Valley area.

As an example, Cameron County has committed

$250,000 a year over the next ten years, per year, for

this; Harlingen the same; and other pledges have already

been discussed with many of the major stakeholders in this

area. We've gotten verbal commitments of funding to be

approved that could go to construction of the project or

construction of ancillary projects to make this interstate

become a reality quickly.

You have been there to visit but there's many

things happening to this area. We want the continued

growth that an interstate would bring. We've heard the

comments made by yourself, Chairman, and Commissioner

Houghton on the likelihood of what will happen to this

area with the Panama Canal expansion, and we want to be

ready not only in Brownsville but to have the corridor

ready to get goods up anywhere into the midwestern United

States, we want to be part of I-69.

Shippers, haulers and logistics supervisors are


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looking for the swiftest, safest, most cost-effective and

most reliable routes to get their product to market. We

believe that we have that opportunity to make this happen

right here starting in Brownsville.

We know that they want to continue to move

these products to the less congested areas. We have the

international crossings, you've heard about the seaports,

you've heard about the airports, the only hindrance is an

interstate. The deepwater ports are in place, existing

rail is in place, the Intracoastal Waterway and others.

I think Senator Lucio best said it yesterday

when he mentioned to us that we are a part of Texas, Texas

is one big body, all we need is an artery to float our

area so we can invigorate ourselves and blossom, and we

look forward to doing that with your help and with us

helping you.

As TxDOT and many other transportation agencies

across the United States and many other partners that have

partnered with the Federal Highway Commission over their

last 50 years of existence have celebrated this year which

is their 50th anniversary, we would like to be part of

that celebration. We would like to be part of the

interstate system.

We want to thank you for your time and effort

in listening to us, and we hope that your stay here has


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been a good one, a pleasant one, and we hope that you'll

be back soon.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You're too kind, David.

You're always a kind host.

Members?

MR. HOUGHTON: I don't know where to begin,

you've laid out a buffet for me to pick from. I've got

James Bass in the back. Where's the mayor of Harlingen?

He's in the back of the room. Bass, they've pledged each

$250,000 a year. Do you have a collection box for these

people to put something in as they leave?

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: I'm truly grateful for the show

of support, I really am. David, my first contacts down

here were you and Commissioner Wood, and the dedication

you have to this part of the world is admirable. I

commend you. Every community has its champions. As

Johnny so eloquently talked about at the short course, if

you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the

boat, and you are starting to do that.

With that said, one of the things that you've

all figured out that you can't win this thing divided,

you've got to come together. Hidalgo County, the RMAs and

the MPOs are going to have to eventually come together to

work to make all this happen.


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And that leads me to my second point. There

can no longer be any sacred cows. Those international

bridges have got to be a part of the solution to these

issues on a regional basis. The Port of Brownsville has

got to be a solution as to you've got to look outside your

fences to transportation systems that enhance your ports.

And I commend this region. You've come a long

way in a very, very short time, probably faster than most

regions in the state. And David, you're one of the

reasons why. Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hope, John, anything?

MR. JOHNSON: Anything that I would say would

echo what Commissioner Houghton said. I appreciate what

you've said and the manner you've said, and as he alluded

to or referred to, it's amazing to see the momentum that

you have gathered on these very critical issues, not only

to the communities around here but to the entire state,

how quickly you've gathered that momentum, and we want to

partner with you. I think that's the message that we're

extending to all corners of this state.

MR. WILLIAMSON: David, we really appreciate

it. In the few years we've come to know each other,

you're a pretty steady hand, and we appreciate that. More

than anything else, in fact, we appreciate a steady hand,

somebody who will stay the course, stay the course, stay


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the course.

MR. GARZA: Thank you. And I must remind you

I'm a voice for a lot of folks sitting in this audience,

their public servant.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We appreciate it, David.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Dennis. And then Bill,

you'll be next. Correct?

MR. BURLESON: Mr. Chairman and commissioners,

thank you very much for being here in the Rio Grande

Valley. We very much appreciate it.

There has been a lot of changes over the last

few years. NAFTA often gets a lot of that credit for the

increase in activity and some of the increase in

population here, but I will tell you NAFTA wouldn't have

been able to possibly do what it's done for the Valley

without the investment that the Highway Commission has

made in South Texas transportation infrastructure over the

last six or seven years. So you know, you deserve a good

chunk of the credit that NAFTA very often gets.

Harkening back to the MPO presentation, this

area is one of the fastest growing areas of the country,

and thankfully to the economic activity that I just

referred to, unemployment is down, prosperity is up in

northern Mexico. I think we're starting to see locally


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and also up 281 and up 77 what that prosperity along the

border is starting to bring, and part of that challenge is

that it brings more traffic.

I wear the hat today of a co-chair, along with

David Allex, of the Rio Grande Valley Mobility Task Force

which is a planning organization that includes

representatives of all the MPOs, all the cities, all the

counties and the RMAs in the four-county area. And when

we looked at the charge by Governor Perry and by the 77

Coalition's additional response to that, we figured out we

would come today to you with a bargain. You can spend a

lot less money and people can use it sooner and we might

even suggest a funding source for that bargain.

77 and 281, two junction points at I-37 and at

69, have five signaled intersections. Two of those are on

77, three of those are on 281. I've been told, and I'm

recently new to the transportation theme here in South

Texas, but I've been told that for about $250 million, you

can cure those signaled intersections along 77 and 281 and

give the citizens of South Texas and the truck traffic

that the prosperity that I've referred to brings immediate

improvement to their concerns, and making the center lanes

of both 281 and 77 basically interstate-quality at that

point.

And those investments in those overpasses won't


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be wasted as the interstate shield, whether it be 37 or

69, is applied to either one or both of those highways.

And we realize that it is your choice on environmental

concerns and financial feasibility concerns about where

that route will be, and all of South Texas will support

whatever that route choice you make, and we look forward

to that determination and your investment.

But as an initial first step, if you basically

make the center lanes of 77 and 281 interstate type

structures, all the way to George West on the 281 side and

Robstown and the 37 connection on the 77 side, that's

something you can do immediately.

Hopefully you'll have even more successful

negotiations with a potential I-69 concessionaire. And I

keep hearing different terms for that partner, but I'll

try to get this right eventually.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I mean, it is a little

confusing. The developer is the person or the company we

ask to help us coordinate the transaction. They may or

may not be also the concessionaire, it may be that they're

just the developer and they end up not making the best

proposal for the concession and it ends up being a

different party that gets the concession if we have a

concession. So we're the ones that are causing the

confusion, not you.


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MR. BURLESON: Okay. If your negotiations are

successful with that development partner, and you receive

the potential of a large payment to be able to invest into

the transportation net of the state of Texas, we would

hope that you would look kindly on what the resolution

asks for, that you enter into a minute order to out of

that payment be willing to fund those overpasses that get

rid of those signaled intersections.

Not only is that a benefit to our

transportation concerns, but it also actually helps feed

economically the tolled sections of TTC-69 because the

trucks that move along the center lanes, until they get

the designated truck lanes, as long as they don't have to

come to signal lights, I'm not sure the trucks really care

a bunch whether it's got an "I" in its name or not. You

know, we care here because there are good opportunities

and there's visibility and there's commercial concerns

that the interstate designation will bring to us.

But that's the resolution I speak to today as

co-chair of the Mobility Task Force, and I'll be happy to

answer any questions.

Before I do, though, I will give you an update

on Hidalgo County's RMA. McAllen has appointed their

member and we're on the county commissioners court for May

2 and if the county commissioners court will give our


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board five more members, we hopefully can have all the

right petitions and the letter of inception that needs to

come to your next meeting. So I look forward to that

hopefully by next week.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's great.

Members, questions of Dennis?

MS. ANDRADE: Dennis, welcome to the

transportation world and thank you so much for being

willing to serve as chair of the RMA, and good luck.

MR. BURLESON: Thanks, and looking for help.

MR. JOHNSON: Dennis, one observation. You

referred to what I interpret to be a concession fee, and

while the TTC-35 corridor there is a concession fee that

is involved, there's certainly no assurance that on the

TTC-69 that there will be. They're very much different in

terms of the economic impact and population, and I mean,

who knows. We cannot set a template for what these

negotiations are going to look like because they're in the

future, we can only use what has gone on in TTC-35 as

experience for future discussions. And so we can't

allocate money that we don't have and we're not assured of

ever getting.

But I think your point is well taken there. It

does make an abundance of sense to deal with where there

are bottlenecks, and stop lights create bottlenecks on


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heavily traveled thoroughfares.

MR. BURLESON: I think if somehow the

concession fee or the financial arrangement isn't enough,

we'll just have to work harder to find alternate solutions

to find that $250 million.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, and that's what

partnerships create, they create the willingness of both

sides to try to find solutions, neither committing 100

percent but everybody committing up to their resource

limits.

MR. BURLESON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything else, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Thank you, Dennis. We

appreciate it.

MR. BURLESON: Thank you for allowing me to be

here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Bill?

MR. SUMMERS: Mr. Chairman, thank you for this

opportunity.

I have some prepared words, as today I'm

representing the Alliance for I-69, I'm vice-chairman, you

know, we represent 34 counties. But before I go on,

there's two mayors that I don't know if they've been

introduced. Mayor Norberto Salinas from Mission, Texas.


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Mayor Salinas, glad you're here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good to see you again.

MR. SUMMERS: And Rick Morales from the City of

Donna, he was here a while ago. And Mayor Garret from

Corpus Christi.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hello, Mayor. How are you?

MR. SUMMERS: He drove all the way through the

King Ranch just to see you.

(General laughter.)

MR. SUMMERS: My name is Bill Summers and I'm

president and CEO of the Rio Grande Valley Partnership,

also serve as vice-chairman of Alliance for I-69. It is a

great pleasure to have served in that capacity for the

last 13 years.

I know you're all familiar with the alliance.

The organization is a coalition of public and private

interests in 34 counties from South Texas to Houston to

East Texas, formed to pursue the development of a new

interstate-grade corridor linking the industrial heartland

of Mexico, U.S. and Canada.

We've kept the alliance strong and whole over

13 years with your help, due in large part to the fact

that our coalition has always focused on the big picture.

Our goal has always been to see the corridor built in a

manner that is efficient, cost-effective, and makes the


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most sense for the movement of people, good and commerce.

The alliance has always supported the original

Corridor 18 and Corridor 20 study areas -- in other words,

US 59/77 and US 281. The alliance has purposely not taken

positions on specific corridor alignments, which way the

route might zig or zag. This is a TxDOT project and

specific alignment decisions are TxDOT's job.

Therefore, today I speak for the alliance in

supporting the resolution -- David, you did an outstanding

job, fantastic -- that has just been presented to you.

The alliance too supports the development of TTC-69 on US

281 and US 77, -- or it might be called 37 East, West. We

don't care what it's called, we just want a highway you

can get on and keep on going.

I'm pleased that the Rio Grande Valley

leadership speaks with one voice on this issue. The

alliance is strongly on record in support of the

resolution, in support of the Transportation Commission

and TxDOT as you undertake this monumental and critical

infrastructure development. What's good for the Valley is

good for Texas, and vice versa.

But I do want to tell you at this time,

speaking as president of the Rio Grande Valley

Partnership, it is a great day in my life that the whole

Valley finally agrees to let TxDOT make the decision to


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where our interstate is going to be. I know all of our

Valley is going to have an interstate maybe at the same

time, and it's going to continue to build, but if it

wasn't for you -- and Mike, you and Amadeo have done an

outstanding job, and you commissioners, we appreciate it

so much. And if all of you were as good looking as Hope,

I would give you a hug, but right now I'll just say thank

you and we're glad you're there.

Do you have any questions or answers or

comments?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I don't think anyone

doubts that this wouldn't have happened without your

intensity, Bill.

(General laughter.)

MR. SUMMERS: Well, all these people. Former

Mayor Bill Card is here, and he was there. Dennis

Burleson was one of the lucky ones that hired me 19 years

ago for the partnership, and he was there at the same

time. And David Allex, he's bald-headed now because he

worked with me so long.

(General laughter.)

MR. SUMMERS: But we're so glad that you are

here and this is really a happy day of my life. I

appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, anything of Bill?


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MS. ANDRADE: Bill, I just have to say thank

you. Every time that I come, the reception is just great.

But you know, we plan these meetings usually a year ahead

and the timing is perfect that we planned this meeting

here in April and all these wonderful things are happening

at this time also. So I think you play a big part in

getting everybody together, and I thank you for that, and

I think that the Valley is lucky to have your leadership

here.

MR. SUMMERS: I want to say the Good Lord did

the planning, he got you down here for this.

MS. ANDRADE: I believe in that. Thank you.

MR. SUMMERS: Appreciate it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We do recognize, Bill, that

you've worked long and hard on this. And it's true. I

mean, I understood what David was saying about

representing lots of people, and you should always want to

give credit to the team that you work with, but the

reality is you've been very vocal and very constant, as

David has been constant, and that means something.

MR. SUMMERS: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So you can give the credit to

the others also but take a little bit of pride in what you

do. It's a great day in the Valley, I think.

MR. SUMMERS: Thank you, sir.


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(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Judy Hawley, former

legislative member and former colleague.

MS. HAWLEY: I just want to add that we're here

from the Corpus Christi area to support what's going on in

the Valley. Bill, you've been a friend for a long time;

David, it's nice to meet you.

Exciting things, we're glad to be part of this

region, and we're here just to lend our support and our

vote of confidence with what's going on. We've got the

chamber of commerce with Ralph Coker here is represented;

we have, obviously, the City of Corpus Christi with the

mayor and his deputy city manager; I'm representing the

Port of Corpus Christi; and we come united to support our

colleagues in the Valley.

So again, a great day. Thank you for being

here and thank you for supporting what we're working on

down here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Judy, you've been involved in

this a long time. Is it not the case that we have to kind

of think of sort of the upside down triangle of the tip?

We're always going to be competitors, but in ways this

kind of goes hand in hand because if it's good for the

deepwater port plans of Corpus Christi, it's ultimately

going to be good for the deepwater port plans of


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Brownsville.

MS. HAWLEY: And Houston and Victoria. And I

think what you have captured so well is that your mission

is what's good for Texas. It's interesting, I received a

call from a reporter or someone yesterday saying describe

the commission in one word. And I just share this story

with you because it's so timely, and to think of one word

to describe all of you and how you're viewing your current

mission, and I came with three -- I used to be a school

teacher so I came up with three, the three Rs -- but the

first one was you're resourceful.

And the resourceful part is real critical to

where we are now in Texas. You've all referenced that in

many, many speeches about the shortage of dollars, but you

also are resourceful in looking at the opportunities, and

the opportunities are not broken down into what's good for

one part of the state, it's what's good for all of the

state. And what happens as we're talking about the Gulf

of Mexico and the opportunities here, they impact Lubbock,

they impact El Paso, they impact Amarillo, they impact

economic opportunity for all of us.

The second R was that you are resolute, and you

have to be because you look at the nay-sayers always are

more vocal than the people that think something is going

to be done. You look at what's happened here in the Rio


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Grande Valley, in all my 32 years of public life, I never

envisioned that we would see this kind of cooperation and

collaboration here in the Valley, and this is a historic

day. Bill should take great pride in his role in that in

making that happen.

And the third one is -- I forgot what the third

one was -- resolute, resourceful, and responsive.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hardheaded.

MS. HAWLEY: You're responsive because you are

here, you are responsive. That doesn't begin with an R so

I couldn't use that one. But you are responsive because

the communities have to drive what's going on. This is

not the TxDOT of old where it was driven from the top. It

has to bubble up and you're allowing those kinds of things

to happen.

Trans-Texas Corridor as you envisioned it five

years -- I don't even know how long we've been on this.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Five years.

MS. HAWLEY: Five years -- we didn't have the

China-India piece playing, we didn't have the L.A.-Long

Beach piece playing, we didn't have two hurricanes that

changed the need for redundancy in deepwater ports in the

Gulf of Mexico, and we didn't have the Panama Canal

announcement that we had just yesterday that opens up the

Gulf of Mexico for these post Pana-Mex ships that


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tremendously changes the dynamics.

So yes, your triangle analogy is good. What we

have is an opportunity for huge economic growth within

Texas that's going to impact every Texan and we can't miss

that opportunity because the entire Gulf Coast is looking

at how can they best leverage to attract that kind of

industry.

So your attention to freight corridors, your

attention to economic development, your attention to

moving that part of the economy is what's neat about this

Transportation Commission, and that's where our

opportunities for being in the 21st Century are really,

really upon us. That infrastructure is critical, thanks

for looking at multimodal and thanks for spurring us on,

and the Bill Summers and the David Garzas to be there.

So Corpus Christi, we're just here to support

what's going on today and we thank you for letting us have

a part in it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Judy.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Mayor Garrett, you came up

from Corpus Christi.

MAYOR GARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

commissioners. You know, I drove down from Corpus Christi

this morning early to put into the record our resolution


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supporting the extension of 37 into the Rio Grande Valley.

But I think Judy touched on it, I've been in the

government for 42 years now, in city government, and I've

had the opportunity to serve on many task forces and

commissions, but I've never in all my career witnessed

what's happening here in this project with all the

communities, the region coming together, working together

hand in glove, with the commitment to make it happen.

You know, I've never had an opportunity and I

can't even remember in the history of Corpus Christi where

a county commissioner from Cameron County come into the

council chambers in Corpus Christi and walk away with 100

percent support from all council members. I don't know

how you did it, David, but I'm working on it.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR GARRETT: But that's the kind of

commitment that we have. I know that working with all the

cities from the Valley all the way up through Kingsville

and Kleberg County, San Pat County, we know that together

we can make it happen, and we appreciate your commitment

to it.

And Hope, I appreciate what you did coming down

to Corpus Christi and listening to us about another

project because we want a new harbor bridge. Thank you

very much.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, thank you for being

here, Mayor. We appreciate you taking the time to be

here.

Mike, I think we can let Amadeo close and we

need to move on with our regular business, but we'll be

coming to some things these people want us to do in just a

few minutes.

Okay, Amadeo, any final remarks about what we

need to do? You know what you're going to hear from me.

MR. SAENZ: Pretty sure. But we are looking

also at some interim solutions, very similar to what was

provided in that one resolution, about identifying those

bottlenecks that exist on the corridor and try to find

mechanisms, and at the same time, the things that we've

been doing, the things that Mario and his staff and Craig

and his staff have been doing, any project that we develop

on 77 and 281 are being developed to interstate standards

so that we don't lose anything. If either one of the

corridors becomes the interstate, they're there.

So some of these interim solutions that were

presented about relief routes around communities, those

can be looked at and I think can be developed as almost

individual projects, independent projects and have them

ready, and as we can collect funding, using maybe some of

the local funding and some of the tools, we can get those


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in place as we kind of tie in and then commingle them or

make them part of the bigger solution as we get the

developer onboard and come up with the ultimate solution

for this corridor.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have anything

that you want to impart to Amadeo while we have him in

front of us in this report phase?

For the audience, this is one of the few times

that the commission gets to talk about what we want to do

without having to take a vote, we get to communicate

legally about where we'd like to see something happen, so

we often take this chance to do so.

Anything, Ted, John, Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Well, I took my

instruction from Mr. Perry very seriously, so what I want

to incent you to do is not permit ourselves or our

partners to -- you know, God gave us two things, time and

grace, and we need to take advantage of that time.


MR. WILLIAMSON: And in light of the Panama

Canal thing, we need to move very, very fast. We don't

want companies that might otherwise invest in this road to

help Brownsville and Corpus Christi and Harlingen and

Laredo and eventually Houston go to Biloxi, Mississippi.


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We haven't got anything against Biloxi, but we'd just as

soon them come to Texas. So if they see activity on our

part, that means they'll be interested in Texas.

MR. SAENZ: We're moving forward with the

corridor at all levels and we will continue working on

getting this thing developed and try to get a program in

place as quickly as possible.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We certainly want to open up

Interstate 37 or Interstate 69 to the tip of Texas before

David loses any more hair.

MR. JOHNSON: I'm beginning to take offense at

these references. You know, there's a school of thought

that that's a distinguishing characteristic and not a

negative one.

(General laughter.)


MR. SAENZ: We will work on it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Let's proceed with 3, Mike.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to agenda item number 3

which is discussion items. They deal with recommendations

to the commission and discussion about our legislative

agenda for the coming session in January. Item (a) will

be covered by Coby Chase, item (b) will be covered by

James Bass, and he'll also be talking about our

Legislative Appropriations package that we're putting


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together. Coby?

MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, before Coby starts,

I hate to interrupt, but today is my wife's 39th birthday,

and I've got to excuse myself. It has been a very

enlightening meeting and previous day, and I know there's

a lot of important stuff on the agenda that I'm going to

miss and I regret that. But two weeks from now is also,

miraculously, her 39th birthday, and the day following

that is, as Lawrence Olson said, the most important day,

Mother's Day, so this is a very delicate period for me in

the year's cycle and I don't want to get it off to a bad

start, so I've got to excuse myself.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Will you be doing that

quickly? Are you saying we need to take some votes before

you leave?

MR. JOHNSON: If you need my vote to secure

passage, you must.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think we're in pretty good

shape. I never know how people are going to vote, but I

think we're in pretty good shape.

MR. JOHNSON: I think you are too. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, thank you, John. We

understand completely.

Mr. Chase?

MR. CHASE: Good afternoon. For the record, my


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name is Coby Chase and I'm the director of TxDOT's

Government and Business Enterprises Division. At your

direction, I'm appearing before you each month throughout

the year to discuss the formulation of your legislative

agenda.

For the benefit of those in the audience, let

me restate that the Texas Transportation Commission is

authorized by law to make recommendations to the Texas

Legislature on statutory changes that will improve the

operation of the department -- if there is anyone left in

the audience behind me who is listening at this point.

A little bit of history is, Chairman

Williamson, every month I appear before the commission to

discuss kind of an ongoing effort to envelop a legislative

agenda for the commission, as law allows, so when the

legislature reconvenes in its regular session in 2007, our

recommendations will be on the table.

One thing I would like to say, just from a

small political history standpoint being here in the

Brownsville area, is having worked for the department in

this and a similar capacity for 12 years, at least on the

legislative side, that Senator Lucio -- you know, success

has a lot of fathers, that's true, but sometimes you're

almost an unintentional part of the success -- he and

Senator Ogden, I believe in '99, really started the


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dialogue about debt, and while that effort was not

successful -- and then Lieutenant Governor Perry were all

engaged in that, and while it was successful in the

Senate, it didn't get out of the House, but it did start

the dialogue and we've built on that. And Senator Lucio,

quite frankly, was in the middle of that.

Another one is Representative Oliveira, who, as

I've said, maybe incorrectly, but I kind of generally

characterize as one of the last things we can do to the

gas tax to make it more efficient was move the point of

collection, and he was the original House sponsor of that,

working with Commissioner Nichols and now almost Senator

Nichols on that.

And so this region in Texas certainly has a

political history, at least in the legislature, of

stepping up to the plate and helping out, and that's very

appreciated.

While we're here, and since many things haven't

changed since the last time we talked, and I'm not going

to try to go over too many of those, but I would like to

talk about rail in particular. And again, having been

around these issues for a number of years, and talking to

our district engineer yesterday on our tour, I was

reminded Congressman Ortiz, since I started at the

department in '94, had been working tirelessly on a rail


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relocation funding on the federal level, a little piece

here, a little piece there. And as aggravating as it was

to collect all that money, how difficult it was, it was

equally aggravating back here in Texas, to him and to us,

our inability to spend it quickly, or how to get it to the

problem quickly and match it with other funds and things

like that.

And Mario and I talked about that at length

yesterday and the rail package we're proposing, the stars

have lined up for roadways and toll roads and things of

that nature and politically and I think they're lining up

now for rail. And Congressman Ortiz was very helpful to

us in the beginning, but I think what it is we want to

solve what I would call the working problems in the sense

that it shouldn't be that hard of an issue just to put

rail down. And I think this community in particular can

appreciate everything that he went through and the

community went through just to make that happen.

Let me talk a little bit about the Texas Rail

Relocation and Improvement Fund. Creation of the Texas

Rail Relocation and Improvement Fund was approved by

voters last year. This session we'll need to assist the

legislature in identifying a funding source. As I

mentioned in past meetings, the department hired a

consulting firm to provide a list of possible revenue


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sources. We received that draft list earlier this week

and we're evaluating it now, but among some of the items

we're evaluating are a proposal to extend the diesel fuel

tax to railroads and sending the proceeds to the fund.

I'm not saying these are good or bad ideas, I'm just

saying they're under review.

MR. WILLIAMSON: They're just things we can

think about.

MR. CHASE: Yes, sir.

A proposal to impose a licensing fee on those

transporting hazardous materials in Texas with the

proceeds going either to the Rail Relocation or the

Mobility Fund, depending on the mode of transport.

Another proposal would impose a fee on containers that are

brought it or de-ramped at Texas intermodal terminals.

Again, the proceeds will be deposited to the Rail

Relocation Fund or the Mobility Fund. And then there are

several more proposals, some better than others, that

we're still evaluating and we'll bring before you at the

next commission meeting, if you so desire.

Another rail-related proposal would authorize

the commission to make low interest loans to railroads

from the Rail Relocation Fund to rehab or improve capacity

on existing lines. Railroad cleanup, as we call it,

lastly with respect to rail, the commission may want to


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look for opportunities to clarify and make technical

revisions to TxDOT's rail powers. This would involve

recodifying the rail statutes, repealing some old and

obsolete ones, allow TxDOT to use money from the Texas

Enterprise Fund on rail projects without waiting for

specific line item appropriations, give the department

explicit authority to study and plan state and other

entities' rail projects, and we could, and I would say

should seek authorization to use CDA concession fees and

surplus revenue on rail relocation projects.

We've also discussed the statutory cap imposed

on the length of concession terms. They're capped at 50-

year terms unless there's a mechanism to buy out the

developer in which case the cap is extended to 70 years.

This may pose a particular problem in our ability to

execute a CDA for rail. The cost of rail infrastructure

is such that longer terms may be needed to justify the

investment. We're still looking into that.

The chairman had asked me a while back, in the

context of the governor's announcement about bringing an

interstate-quality facility or facilities to the Lower Rio

Grande Valley, was there anything in state law in

particular that would either need to be taken out of the

way or enhanced, whatever the case may be, and also on the

federal level.


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We're investigating both more deeply. On the

federal level we'll do that, of course, with the I-69

Alliance, who has always been our steadfast partner. I'm

trying to change the name to the Trans-Texas Corridor 69

Alliance; I think we'll get there one of these days. But

we work closely with Gabe Rashel, Bill Summers and that

crowd who've always brought a productive hand to what we

do in D.C. on those matters.

But on the state level, it is a little more

abstract, it isn't so much a straightforward change this

and X will occur in the Valley, but there are things that

would make it easier to deliver a large project of this

caliber, and you've heard me talk about them before, and

I'm going to talk about them again here for just a minute.

The commission may want to look for

opportunities to make the right of way acquisition process

as efficient as possible so that the project can be

developed quickly. These items also will ensure that --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Stop. You just gave me a

thought. Add to our list for consideration, and then we

can knock it off if the commissioners don't like it -- our

ability to swap land we own for right of way we need or

for land we need.

MR. CHASE: Swap land we own for.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Right now, if I understand it,


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if we decide we want to exchange something -- or maybe I'm

wrong about this -- Mr. Monroe will pop up if I am which

we're glad to see you, Mr. Monroe.

MR. MONROE: Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If, for example, one of these

ranchers in this part of the world had been watching us

all day and he was inspired or she was inspired to help us

and she raced in and said, Tell you what, you've got this

little triangle at the Heart of Texas Highway in Austin

that's perfect for a restaurant and I want to help move I-

37 along and I'm willing to give you a thousand feet of my

right away right now for that piece of property, would we

be able to do that?

MR. MONROE: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we don't need to change the

law.

MR. MONROE: We have the power to swap land for

land for highway purposes.

MR. CHASE: I'll take that off the list.

Back to right of way, right of entry

specifically with right of way, virtually every type of

entity with the power of eminent domain has express

statutory authority to enter the property to conduct

preliminary surveying to determine right of way parcels.

Except for toll roads, TxDOT does not have this authority.


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Without property description of the proposed

right of way parcel, we're delayed in preparing our right

of way maps and parcel plats. Additionally, property

owners are advised by counsel to refuse entry to the

appraiser who is attempting to assess the compensation to

which the property owner is entitled. Typically is done

through for some perceived tax advantage in the

condemnation proceeding.

Our goal is to offer property owners as

accurate an appraisal as possible. If we are prevented

from doing that, we are really not serving anyone's

interests other than the condemnation lawyer who is paid

on the spread between what we offered and what is

ultimately granted.

TxDOT does not have access to real property

sales information that would enable us to make the most

accurate appraisal. There is no legal requirement in

Texas requiring the purchasers of property to disclose the

amount of sales. To correct the situation, you could

recommend that property sales be disclosed and the

information made available to parties in a condemnation

proceeding and to tax assessment districts. That might

raise some eyebrows but it would be something that would

help us ensure we make more accurate offers up front.

A piece of legislation that left the House last


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session but went nowhere in the Senate was county planning

authority. I should also mention again that the

legislation would establish a mechanism for TxDOT and

counties to work together to ensure that homes and

businesses are not developed in future right of way for

transportation projects. We've discussed that many times

before but I think that would be important for a very,

very large project.

We're entering a new phase in our history that

we haven't been in in many, many years where we have to

rethink how we do these things since the interstate

system. This is the new interstate system, it's bigger

and it requires more land and a broader way of thinking,

and so we need to kind of clear out the law books on some

of these and reposition ourselves so we can actually do

these in a timely manner.

Also, in terms of delivering a new interstate

facility, utility reimbursements. We've discussed this at

length. Under certain conditions, utilities have a

statutory right to be in state right of way at no charge

because utilities had to be relocated to accommodate a

highway improvement. The current law limits reimbursement

to a utility for those who possess a compensable property

interest or something you have to pay them for.

However, if the highway is being approved as


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part of the national system interstate and defense

highways, taxpayers must pick up the tab for moving the

utilities whether they have a property interest or not,

whether or not they were allowed there free or whether

they were there in the first place. Federal law allows

this, however, we could free up more federal money for

construction if state law is altered to ensure that

relocations on interstate highways are treated the same as

any other highway. On a project the scale of TTC-69, that

could be a lot of money, quite a bit of money.

And we have also talked about concurrent

jurisdiction. The commission's proposal was introduced by

Senator Robert Duncan and Representative Sylvester Turner

last session that would have allowed both district courts

and county courts of law to process condemnation cases. I

know this might sound kind of arcane to some people in the

audience, but these are very important real-world issues

for the department when it comes to acquiring right of way

and building large roads. They're not glamorous issues

like bringing in billions of dollars from wherever, but

these are kind of day-to-day work issues that help us

actually deliver projects.

There has been a development on this matter I

did want to share with you. During Mike Behrens's

testimony last week on eminent domain before the Senate


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State Affairs Committee, Chairman Duncan strongly

encouraged the department to pursue that matter once

again. He's willing to take that up once again, and it's

tough, it's a tough issue.

As you know, there has been some discussion

about cities and counties leasing their international

bridges. The Chicago Skyway experience demonstrates that

he lease of public facilities can provide vigorous

economic benefits when the proceeds are committed

strategically and in a fiscally responsible manner.

To achieve this, we would need to seek

legislative changes that specifically authorize counties

to lease their bridges to the state. Cities already have

this authority. We'll further examine this proposal and

identify the significant benefits that such an arrangement

could have on a region's transportation system. This is a

very important kind of new development, or there's growing

interest in this type of program, and I think we need to

be prepared to embrace it and see that it works.

And if I may just mention a little bit,

Commissioner Houghton, at the Texas Transportation Forum,

is hosting a breakout session on this very topic and has

invited international experts on it to address it, so it

will be a very good learning experience from that

standpoint.


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There are a couple of items you asked me to

look into last month on this topic of billboards. A lot

of municipalities restrict billboard ordinances precluding

our ability to relocate an existing billboard. You asked

if enhancement money, federal enhancement money can be

used under federal guidelines for purchasing billboards.

The answer is yes, absolutely.

Safety initiatives. Commissioner Johnson asked

if we are examining any proposals designed to improve

safety on our highways. In addition to the sobriety

checkpoints -- that if former Senator Sibley is still

here, he was the leader on that and he can tell you how

difficult that is because he certainly was a very ardent

supporter of that legislation when he was in the Senate --

some other things we are looking at is the US DOT

recommends booster seats for children until they are eight

years old or four feet, nine inches tall.

And you have to listen to this next sentence.

Everybody here thinks about my daughter, she's 37 inches

tall and she's three years old; we have grandkids that are

about that size too, I think -- not I, some of our

commissioners do. In Texas, safety seats are required for

children up to five years old or three feet tall. We may

want to encourage legislation that meets the US DOT

recommendations. When you think about it, that's a much


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safer standard than we have here in Texas, and they are

indeed our precious cargo.

Another proposal would authorize the department

to set variable speed limits based on current conditions

such as inclement weather, traffic crashes and work zones,

and in the event the attorney general finds the use of

automated enforcement technology unlawful, you may want to

consider legislation that authorizes automated enforcement

for highway intersections, railroad crossings, and HOV

lanes.

Wrapping up, there have been some interim

hearings, as you may know, we've all participated in.

Here's a summary of what we've done last month.

House Transportation. House Transportation

conducted a hearing on April 18 to continue its

consideration of the aviation and rail needs of the state.

Amadeo Saenz outlined the proposal by Cintra-Zachry to

build a rail line as part of the TTC-35 project.

The Senate Transportation and Homeland Security

Committee held a hearing on April 18 to consider several

of their interim charges: naming of state highways, TxDOT

programs designed to increase safety, the state's

overweight truck fees, and TxDOT's ability to build,

maintain and relocate rail facilities.

The committee also held a hearing on April 25


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to review its Homeland Security related interim charges.

At the close of the hearing -- and we testified regarding

our activities, particularly hurricane activities -- at

the close of that hearing it was requested by one senator

that the next hearing of the committee should focus on

comprehensive development agreements, so we might be

talking about that soon.

And then finally, the Senate Committee on

Transportation Financing met April 19 to review financing

options for all modes of transportation. Chairman

Williamson and Mr. Behrens offered our testimony which was

very good and very instructive for a number of members.

That concludes my remarks for this month. Any

questions or any input?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Additions, deletions,

suggestions, areas of interest we wish them to explore the

next month?

MR. HOUGHTON: Coby, I saw the list of the -- I

think there were 46 to 48 different opportunities on the

rail relocation, some a little out there, but one of the

things that was in there is we need to bring the trucking

industry in to talk about the future for truckers in this

state as far as what they pay, whether they're captured at

the bridges or coming into the state or around the state.

I think that was one of the recommendations.


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I sure don't see any one of those

recommendations standing alone to fund a rail relocation

adequately enough to make a lot of sense. I think it's

going to have to be a combination of many different

things.

MR. CHASE: I think you're right, the math

isn't there.

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes. When you start working the

math, you're talking about many, many different

opportunities.

MR. CHASE: Absolutely.


Coby, I don't have any additions or deletions

that you didn't touch upon. Thank you very much.

MR. CHASE: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm hoping our partners in the

Lower Rio Grande Valley will start thinking about things

that you mentioned that we need changed. We'll need some

help.

MR. BEHRENS: Go ahead, James, and talk about

our Legislative Appropriations Request and how we're

coming on that.

MR. BASS: Good afternoon. For the record, I'm

James Bass, chief financial officer at TxDOT. This is one

in an ongoing series of updates to the commission on our


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progress in developing the department's Legislative

Appropriations Request, or LAR. The LAR is the official

document that the department submits to the legislature

once a biennium for the regular session and requests the

funding and resources the department needs in order to

carry out our functions.

If you remember last month, we looked at 2008

and 2009 and we began with revenue estimates to the State

Highway Fund and then began peeling off different layers,

first peeling off a layer that goes to other state

agencies. The state gas tax and vehicle registration that

go into the State Highway Fund do not all go to TxDOT, so

we first looked at that first layer going to other

agencies. We then looked at what it takes to maintain the

existing system, what it takes to plan for the future

development of the system, and what we were left with at

the end was through our traditional sources what would be

available for mobility or expansion of the system.

I told you last month that we were continuing

to refine the revenue estimates, and what has happened in

that last month, of course, is the legislature has come

into a special called session and the comptroller has

updated their biennial revenue which covers just 2006 and

2007. I'm sure most of us have heard that the surplus for

General Revenue has grown and there's a positive outlook


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on the general Revenue Fund.

However, what has not been noted to any great

extent is the updated revenue forecast for the State

Highway Fund, and for 2006 and 2007, the forecast is

actually roughly $300 million less than it was previously.

If we then take 2006 and 2007 as a baseline and apply some

growth patterns to that for 2008 and 2009, we're looking

at roughly another -- if you continue the comptroller's

projections which theirs stop at 2007, but if you were to

continue that trend, you would have about another $200

million less over the biennium than what I spoke to you

about last month.

We hold a slightly different viewpoint than the

Comptroller's Office does on some of the growth rates and

those patterns, but the long and short of it is, over the

next 3-1/2 years there is going to be $450- to $500

million less going into the State Highway Fund than we

thought just a couple of months ago.

Now, we still have an 80,000 mile system that

needs to be maintained out there. The needs and the age

of that system have not changed; the amount of money that

it's going to take to maintain that system is going to

stay the same. Likely the amount of money going to other

state agencies to fund their operations is going to stay

the same or possibly increase, if history is any


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indication. So what that ultimately means is for

mobility, for expansion of the system over the next 3-1/2

years, we're going to have $450- to $500 million from our

traditional funding sources.

MR. HOUGHTON: What's the mitigating

circumstances behind her projection?

MR. BASS: The primary change of that $300

million in '06-07, about $225 million of that is from the

state gas tax, showing a continued growth from where

collections currently are but the growth rate is much

lower than it had been previously forecast.

And so over the past few months, Mr. Chase and

others, we've talked about unreliability and uncertainty

associated with federal funding, we experience that as

well even with our state funding and state financing

through the traditional sources that we receive.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So the higher gasoline is, the

higher price it is, the less the public people are going

to buy in relation to the past.

MR. BASS: Correct. We haven't seen a dramatic

downturn, and it's difficult to isolate one factor on the

collections of gas tax, because at the same time the

prices are going up, the population of the state is

increasing, more goods flowing through the state, more

vehicle miles being traveled, and so overall on an annual


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basis the collections are increasing, but not at a rate

that had been previously forecasted. So it's still

growing but just not as fast as some had hoped or

projected previously.

MS. ANDRADE: James, I have a question. Are

those numbers from our office or their office?

MR. BASS: They are from the Comptroller's

Office, and we have a slightly more optimistic view in

2008 and 2009. We are forecasting rather than a $200

million reduction from what we saw just a couple of months

ago, we're more forecasting just a reduction of $120- to

$140 million over that two-year period.

MS. ANDRADE: Those are the numbers we think?

MR. BASS: Yes. And the difference really

deals with the projected growth rate and what we expect to

get in the current year, so there are some differences.


MR. BASS: As I said, ultimately that leads us

to less money for mobility, giving us a stronger reliance

to look to some of the new financial tools that the

legislature has provided us, the Texas Mobility Fund and

the ability to issue bonds backed by the State Highway

Fund. However, both of those are limited resources, and

so this just means that those tools will be depleted a

little bit faster than what we had thought, and almost


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certainly by the end of 2009, both of those resources at

their current nature and format would be exhausted for the

near term.

Another item in the Legislative Appropriations

Request, TxDOT has an opportunity to suggest revisions or

deletions to riders in the Appropriations Act. Now,

riders to the Appropriations Act is the ability for the

legislature to send additional direction or limitation to

agencies on how the appropriations can be spent. And what

happens a lot of times is once a rider gets put into the

bill pattern, it stays in for a long time, even that

perhaps a rider at one point was put in as a test that's

deemed to be a good idea and ends up being codified and

fully put in the statute, yet it still remains in the

Appropriations Bill, and the number continues to grow.

Some may say no harm, no foul, you have to do

it anyway, however, at some point it becomes another

barrier to our constituents, the public, senators and

representatives understanding what it is that the

department does and how we carry out our work, because

when you pick up our section of the Appropriations Bill,

you not only see the dollars going to TxDOT but you see a

list of 50-some riders that provide additional direction

or exceptions to other agencies.

We made a lot of progress last session. The


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initial numbers may not sound like it but for 2004 and

2005, TxDOT had 58 riders, and in 2006 and 2007 we have 53

riders, but of those 53, ten of those riders are what I

would call one-time riders, if you will, contingency

appropriation riders that if a particular bill passes the

legislature, additional money that may be collected would

be appropriated to TxDOT to carry out that program.

Another example of a one-time rider deals

with -- there's probably six or seven of them dealing with

special transportation enhancement projects in that if the

funds are available that they be directed towards the

Battleship Texas or county courthouses. Those ten would

not be a continuing rider, one would not expect them to

be, so in effect, we were able to reduce about a dozen of

those riders. There's probably another dozen or so that

we feel are unnecessary because they're also covered in

statute and we will certainly make an attempt once again

to reduce those to limit again the confusion and that

barrier to the understanding of our budget.

In addition, there are times where we actually

want an additional rider that will help streamline the

operations or the efficiency of the department. Some of

them we made an attempt at last session; my presumption is

that we would do that again. The first one deals with the

FTEs or full-time equivalents, the number of employees


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that TxDOT can have, and rather than limiting that to a

hard cap number, the rider we attempted two years ago was

to limit the percentage of our budget that could go to

salaries and wages rather than dictating the number of

employees.

In addition to that, dealing with the capital

budget, rather than limiting the amount we can spend for

highway equipment or to repair TxDOT facilities, that

we're doing and projecting sometimes three years in

advance, don't limit that to a hard dollar number but

provide us flexibility as a percentage of our overall

budget, or at a minimum, allow us the same flexibility

offered to every other state agency that allows them to

take money from their operating budget and transfer it

into their capital budget if situation dictates. We're

the only agency I'm aware of that does not have that

particular flexibility.

Another rider we would probably look at deals

with the Colonia Road Bond Program where TxDOT manages a

program of the Governor's Office to provide paved roads to

border colonias. There was a rider last time that limited

the amount that we could expend. I believe at least two

years ago the department's position was the voters of the

state passed a constitutional amendment for this program,

and as those projects come on line, we should be allowed


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to move forward with that project.

Another example of one that we would ask that's

not currently in there, as we've moved forward and are

very aware of the nature of construction and how

disruptive that can be -- in a number of the metro areas

we're doing nighttime construction, weekend construction,

trying to keep as many lanes open as possible during the

rush hour, and if there are any lane closures necessary,

do those late at night or on the weekend, placing

additional demands upon TxDOT staff. We would like the

ability to supplement their pay for the employees who are

required to work overnight or extended hours on the

weekend.

And we're checking with all the divisions and

offices in Austin asking them to review the riders right

now and see if they have any ideas of some that can be

deleted or be enhanced or any ideas that they can suggest

be added to that, and here in the next month or so we'll

be providing that to your offices as well to see if you

have any ideas or thoughts as to how we might better

operate or streamline the operations of the department

through either a deletion of a rider or an addition of

one.

The last item I have today, I believe blends in

with the next agenda item coming up which is the structure


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of the Strategic Plan and how the Legislative

Appropriations Request will blend in or tie into that

Strategic Plan so the department is truly speaking with

one voice to all of our audiences, both internal and

external.

And the Legislative Budget Board in their

instructions has allowed a de-linking, if you will, that

the Strategic Plan and the LAR do not have to be exact

word for word and in exact alignment, however, the Finance

Division is working with the Government and Business

Enterprises Division to integrate that as much as

possible.

To be honest with you, it is difficult at some

points because of the broad goals that we have of reduce

congestion, improve air quality, economic development,

most of the things we do on a daily basis touch most if

not all of those goals, and so it may be difficult to

break those up into the various pieces that will do a

better job of tying those all together so people can see

how construction activity that we do or maintenance

activity direct us toward those broad, overreaching goals

of the department. Rather than as they read now, one of

our goals is transportation planning, well transportation

planning is not really a goal, it's an activity to get us

to a higher goal.


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And so we're going to try and make that tie

stronger and more direct between the appropriations

request, the Appropriations Act, and the department's

Strategic Plan.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We should work very hard on

doing that.

MR. BASS: And those are the three items that I

had this month. I'm open to any comments or questions

that you may have.

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, that's pretty profound

when you talk about the reduction or the forecast on the

gas tax as to how it impacts projects down the road -- not

down the road but now, right now, since we have to live

with those estimates and our forecast is a little bit

different from their forecast, but I guess they rule in

that situation.

MR. BASS: Where we get to the appropriations

and the legislature convenes, it's the comptroller's

estimate that dictates.

MR. HOUGHTON: That's right. Have we seen what

kind of impact it's going to have on projects, potential

impacts?

MR. BASS: Not yet, but ultimately it would be

$450 million or $500 million less in the next 3-1/2 years.

MR. HOUGHTON: In that biennium. Right?


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MR. BASS: Correct, and that's for the

remainder of '06, '07, 2008 and '09 for that $450- to

$500 million.

MR. HOUGHTON: Right. That dovetails the next

question, Coby. Are we going to take a position, Mr.

Chair, on the -- I don't want to call it an index of the

gas tax that certain folks around the state would like to

see, but an increase in the gas tax that may be

dedicated -- if you can dedicate it, I don't know if you

can -- you could raise the cap on the State Highway, you'd

have to leverage those dollars. So in other words, if you

had a 10-cent increase in the state gas tax, I understand

that's $100 million.

MR. BASS: It's $100 million per pennies; if

you did a 10-cent, it would be about a billion dollars to

the State Highway Fund.

MR. HOUGHTON: How far could you leverage out a

billion dollars on a 20-year bond?

MR. BASS: A 20-year debt would be about $12-

1/2 billion in proceeds.

MR. HOUGHTON: In proceeds. So that would be

something to look at and that would be like a Garvey.

People talk about Garveys, but our Garveys, we call them

Garvey-plus. Something that I may be interested in

pursuing but I'm not sure the legislature has any appetite


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for any tax increase, especially of gas approaching $3 a

gallon. But it seems to be if you want to continually

kick start and you look at the compression or the

reduction of the projections by the Comptroller's Office,

slicing off $450 million worth of projects, and with the

$86 billion we keep talking about, there's got to be some,

I would just say, intestinal fortitude to look at how

we're going to fund these projects.

That's my thoughts.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think Ted gave you an

instruction and asked a question, and I think the

instruction from any commissioner is to look into it, but

I think the question sent to me was where are we on the

indexing of gas tax. Historically, the commission has

been unafraid of recommending to the legislature toll

policy, we've been reluctant to recommend tax policy,

although we've spoken, we think frankly, about what kind

of tax policy it takes to pay for this stuff if you want

to pay for it with taxes.

So I don't know that it would be a bad thing to

explore the idea of using a special gasoline tax Garvey-

bond type driver to jumpstart things like Interstate 37 or

a railroad relocation in Houston or a railroad relocation

in Dallas-Fort Worth, that wouldn't be, I think,

inappropriate. We just have to make it clear to our


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friends across the street that we're not telling them what

taxes to set. That's the only thing we need to steer

clear of.

MR. HOUGHTON: And I'm not necessarily

interested in index but a specific number that would be

dedicated to leveraging. Because when you throw -- I

don't say a billion dollars is not anything to think

about, it's real money, but it doesn't go very far in the

scheme of things, it really doesn't, it doesn't get you

where you need to go. It sounds good.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You know, James, we might

ought to give some thought to going ahead and notifying

our partners about that drop in the gas tax collections.

MR. HOUGHTON: I sure would. I think that may

drive support.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You know, if I'm David down

here in the Valley trying to put together my RMA or if I'm

trying to put together my I-37 thing, I think I would want

to know pretty quickly that the global view of the state's

transportation fund is the comptroller thinks the cash

flow available to power all of our plans over the next

four years is going to drop by $600 million, we think

that's the most pessimistic view and that an optimistic

view might be $400 million, so it's going to be somewhere

in between the two and we should all begin to adjust our


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long-range plans accordingly. I think that's not a bad

idea.

MR. HOUGHTON: We may need a few guidelines.

MR. WILLIAMSON: One of the things we try to

promote is no surprises. People need to know where we're

headed, what we're doing and why, not just from a

legislative perspective but from a financial perspective

as well, so maybe we need to do that.

MR. HOUGHTON: Basically, if you listen to

Senator Ogden, this is right along his line of thinking of

bonding up authority to fast-start these projects, and

well, the way you do it is to have a dedicated source of

revenue to do it.

MR. BASS: And hopefully a new source of

revenue so you can work to shrink the $86 billion gap

because, as you well know, if you bond off an existing

revenue stream, you're accelerating your project which is

very good but you haven't shrunk that gap.

MR. HOUGHTON: No, you have not shrunk the gap.

And this is a way to shrink 86 minus 12 billion so you

have a new source of revenue immediately. Now, you can't

bond it all at once.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Anything further?

MR. BASS: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, James.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Michael?

MR. BEHRENS: We'll now go to agenda item

number 4 which will be a discussion and recommendation on

what our proposed structure and approach should be on our

Strategic Plan that we touched on a few minutes ago.

Coby?

MR. CHASE: Thank you, Mr. Behrens. Again for

the record, my name is Coby Chase, director of the

Government and Business Enterprises Division.

First of all, let me say when James and his

people told us about the $400 million change in state

revenue, so to speak, what's kind of sad is we just kind

of shrugged our shoulders and that's just becoming

knowledge, or it's just common news anymore.

Unfortunately, I think it's almost reached a state of

being predictable.

It's also kind of interesting in the context of

at least some people have said publicly that we have

enough money in the bank to build all the projects that we

need, and then we find that we're $400 million short.

Kind of interesting.

What I'm here to talk about is the Government

and Business Enterprises Division, our research section,

is in charge of the agency's Strategic Plan, and we spend

a good portion of each commission meeting talking about


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the Strategic Plan, and it was brought to my attention --

and this is going to serve two purposes, three actually --

it was brought to my attention by our general counsel's

office that we talk about five goals and then we talk

about four fundamental strategies, and we say them as they

are agency-commission policy, even though we do say them,

every person up on the dais there has said it and repeated

it over and over again, the commission would probably need

to vote to make sure those are the broad goals and the

strategies of the agency.

That solves one problem. That helps us do

things like publish this, so we can say this is what the

commission has said. But I think equally and importantly,

it will provide the structure formally by which we will

build the agency's preferred Strategic Plan on and deliver

it to you soon. Instead of giving you an entire Strategic

Plan that's been written and tweaked and massaged and say

here, we hope you adopt this, we at least would have

adopted the outline for it before we get to that point.

And it would be our four goals: reduce

congestion, enhance safety, expand economic opportunity,

improve air quality, and increase the value of our

transportation assets. We've said that over and over

again. It almost seems kind of silly to ask for a vote on

this because we've said it so much, but we do need to do


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that.

And in support of these goals, we'd like to

muddle in there these four fundamental strategies: use

all financial options to build transportation projects,

empower local and regional leaders to solve local and

regional transportation problems, increase competitive

pressure to drive down the cost of transportation

projects, and demand consumer-driven decisions that

respond to traditional market forces.

There is a minute order before the commission

asking that you adopt these, and once that's finished,

there's an ancillary issue about discussing the gas tax

and what the rate would need to be meet our $86 billion.

I'm not requesting a vote on that but just guidance and

general understanding of how the agency will talk about

the gas tax when asked. We can get to that after we wrap

up the discussion on the Strategic Plan goals and

strategies. And I'll take any questions if you might have

them.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard Coby's

explanation of the minute order. Do you have discussion?

Do I have a motion?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.




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All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying

aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

MR. CHASE: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now what was it about the gas

tax?

MR. CHASE: About the gas tax, what is

interesting and having been in this occupation for quite a

long time, we are called upon many, many times to ask what

the gas should be or what the gas tax could be or if the

gas tax is raised what would happen. The agency has very

clearly established there's an $86 billion target, and

that the assumption upon which -- you don't have to vote

on it, just tell me that's fine and we can change it later

if we need to -- but I have five assumptions that we base

why the gas tax should be $1.40, and Chairman Williamson

testified to that with the Texas Study Commission on

Transportation Finance. I'd like to just get a

recognition from the commission that that is how we should

portray how far you'd have to raise the gas tax to reach

that $86 billion goal.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I think that the $86


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billion is our best estimate of the gap between the cost

inflated for the CPI over the next 24 years of all of the

transportation projects of which we are aware or which we

can project that would be necessary to reduce congestion,

improve air quality, provide economic opportunity,

preserve our asset value, or make things safer.

When taking the forecast amount of revenue from

all of our sources -- that being the gasoline tax, the

motor vehicle registration fee, federal reimbursements,

and all other manners of revenue that flow into our

hands -- and then deducting disbursements that were

constitutionally or statutorily or regulatorily can

project will occur, $86 billion -- and netting that back

for cash -- is the magic number.

So when we talk to our transportation partners

when we see Gary Bushell and we see Mr. Burleson and Mr.

Allex in the RMA world and we say we've got to do enough

money to do not much of our projects, we're $86 billion

short by 2030, that's what we mean. And we understand

that $86 billion can go up and go down with inflation,

with technological innovation, with changing housing

patterns, with changing population patterns, we understand

that.

And we understand that ten years from now the

legislature might look back and say, Hell, you didn't need


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$86 billion, you only needed $40 billion. Well, you're

right, and we didn't realize that gasoline was going to go

to $9 a gallon and people would start living in the city

again and we didn't need so many highways, we couldn't

project that in 2006.

But if you ask us -- which they did -- to

project today what does it take by 2030 to build our way

out of the problems we've set up for ourselves and the

population increases that are coming, our answer is $86

billion generally is the gap.

And then when asked what it takes to do the

gasoline tax to pay for all that, it's just a simple

calculation. I think, as Steve Simmons said last night,

it might be $1.32 next year, depending on how the economy

changes. It could be $1.21 depending on how many projects

drop off the list as the price of gasoline goes up. It

could be $1.90 depending upon how the federal government

redefines the Clean Air Program. But I'm comfortable with

a buck forty and I'm comfortable with $86 billion.

Mike have you got anybody on your staff that

wants to elaborate?

MR. BEHRENS: I might let Amadeo comment. I

know he was involved in some of those calculations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think what you're asking

for, Coby, is: Commission, clearly this is what we hang


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our hats on.

MR. CHASE: Right, and then the assumptions

that we used in your testimony to calculate that number,

knowing that they change from time and again. But from a

little bit of a selfish standpoint, we publish things and

put it in front of the public and say it's a dollar amount

and so forth and so on, and we kind of keep using the same

assumptions unless something really -- you don't vote on

it because all of a sudden we lock in all of our --

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, Richard Monroe would

probably come out of his chair if we started voting on the

gas tax rate.

MR. CHASE: Right, and he would have a full

recovery and strangle me.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, do we feel comfortable

sitting on these numbers?

MR. SAENZ: I feel comfortable.

MR. CHASE: Unless there are any questions,

that's all the direction I need.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You got it from the

Hebronville Hero himself.

MR. CHASE: Apparently so.

MR. HOUGHTON: One thing I think, Coby and

James, we do need -- and the chairman mentioned it -- was


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of that $450 million that we're lopping off, the pro rata

to each district -- we've got to make it personal to

them -- when they see $450-, they say, Huh, doesn't sound

like it's going to affect me any.

MR. CHASE: And we learned last legislative

session, the mere absence of $200 million can shut down

quite a bit.

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes, and I think that's

important that we start planning that process today to say

that reduction takes Loop 375 project out of El Paso, or

some other project -- I'm picking on El Paso because it's

easy -- or some other project in Houston or Dallas or even

in the Valley here, and we've got to get people inside to

go in the same direction.

And I really believe -- and again, I just don't

know if it's even possible to get some folks focused in on

any increase in the gas tax has got to be leveraged.

That, we've talked about, is new money, and we're looking

for all of those pots of new money.

MR. CHASE: I think just running the

calculations and those scenarios and in the context of

possible legislative proposals, I think we can do that

very easily with James and others.

MR. HOUGHTON: Absolutely.

MR. CHASE: I think so too. And the $400


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million hit, however much it was the comptroller said,

that's on top of just a recent federal rescission that we

just got another one.

MR. HOUGHTON: That's on top of.

MR. CHASE: Yes. It's another 90-some-odd.

That's all I have. Thank you.


MR. HOUGHTON: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mr. Coby.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to agenda item number 5

in which we have two rules for final adoption. The first

one, agenda item 5(a), concerns our motor carrier

operations. Carol Davis, please.

MS. DAVIS: Good afternoon. For the record,

I'm Carol Davis, Motor Carrier Division director.

The final adoption package you have before you

contains amendments to Chapter 18 concerning motor

carriers and vehicle storage facilities. These amendments

incorporate new vehicle storage facility requirements

concerning fees, proof of ownership, notification, and

acceptable forms of payment. They also incorporate

modified liability insurance levels for certain commercial

school buses and modify alternative motor carrier

registration based on vehicle weight for household goods

carriers.


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The proposed amendments were published in the

December 2, 2005 issue of the Texas Register and posted on

TxDOT's website. The public comment period for the

proposed amendments ended on January and four comments

from two associations were received. Two of those

comments were incorporated into the final adoption

package.

As you know, additional comments were received

at the February and March commission meetings, and our MCD

staff members have worked extensively with that commenter,

who I believe is here today, to address his concerns

regarding auto liability insurance and other issues.

Based on those comments and the statutory

requirements passed during the 79th Session, we are

recommending moving forward on the changes with the

exception of the auto liability insurance requirement, and

those amendments have been withdrawn. MCD will hold a

public hearing on the auto liability insurance issue and

at a later date proposed related amendments based on input

received at that hearing.

And at this time we are recommending approval

of the amended sections.

MS. ANDRADE: Commissioner Houghton, before we

move forward, we've got a citizen to be heard. Mr.

Johnson?


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MR. HOUGHTON: Could we have a palace coup at

this time, or do we have enough votes?

MR. BEHRENS: We don't have enough votes.

MR. ROD JOHNSON: Good afternoon -- I would say

Chairman Williamson, but he's gone -- members of the

commission. My name is Rod Johnson, I'm president of a

small local moving company called The Apartment Movers.

We move people out of one apartment into another

apartment. We use regular pickup trucks that are owned by

independent contractors and they pull small trailers that

are owned by us.

In Texas there are two classes of household

goods movers: Class A, the large van lines using big semi

trucks, over 26,000 pounds, generally long haul; and Class

B, small local movers using small box trucks or pickup

trucks, like we use, that are considerably under 26,000

pounds.

House Bill 2702 removed the distinction between

Class A and Class B; it did not remove the insurance rate

differential and it did not set new minimum insurance

limits for any weight class; it did not give Texas DOT the

authority to set any limits higher than the current

standards; it did remove the requirement for any further

study of insurance requirements for household goods

movers. Why? Because the study has already been done.


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Vernon's Civil Statute, Senate Bill 370, House

Bill 1418 created regulations for all household goods

carriers. These statutes required a study be conducted to

determine the different insurance level for vehicles over

or under 26,000 pounds. This applied to all household

goods carriers. House Bill 2702 removed the requirement

to conduct any further studies. TxDOT conducted that

study in 1998 based on the current insurance requirements

on that study.

Late yesterday I finally obtained that study.

I have presented that study to the commission today. Here

are some of the findings of that Texas DOT study titled

Texas Department of Transportation Household Goods Carrier

Advisory Committee Vehicle Liability Insurance Study.

Quote, "As with any vehicle operated over the

public roads, streets or highways of Texas, the owner of

the vehicle is responsible for complying with the Texas

Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibilities Act." I do not own

those pickup trucks.

Quote, "Texas DOT may not have the statutory

authority to require vehicle liability insurance higher

than those specified in Transportation Code Chapter 601,

as explained in Exhibit 1."

Quote, "Additionally, the committee considers

the feasibility necessary of holding the Class B, under


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26,000 pounds, to a higher standard than the minimum

vehicle liability requirements. The committee did not find

any evidence indicating that vehicles operated by Type B,

under 26,000 pounds, household goods carriers pose any

different danger than any other vehicle under 26,000

pounds."

Texas DOT asked the DPS, Texas DOT asked the

Federal Highway Administration, Texas DOT asked the United

States Department of Transportation. No one could find

any greater risk for small trucks or small box trucks.

Again quote, "We can interpret the lack of

specific authority within the statute as an indication

that Texas DOT has not authorized the legislature to

establish vehicle liability insurance for the Type B

household goods carriers for vehicles under 26,000

pounds."

Continuing to quote, "The committee recommends

that the vehicle liability insurance limits apply

consistently within similar weight classes of commercial

vehicles, with the exception of vehicles operated by tow

truck operators, hazardous materials transporters, and for

motor carriers."

Those were all set out by the legislature,

they're in statute.

Again quote, "We believe the minimum vehicle


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liability insurance limits specified in Transportation

Code Chapter 601 is appropriate for Type B household goods

carriers unless the legislature has the desire to review

the vehicle liability requirements for all commercial

vehicles."

Again quoting, "In the future, the committee

recommends any increased limits should be established by

the legislature in the Transportation Code, or the

legislature should authorize Texas DOT to establish the

increased limits through the Administrative Code." That

has not happened, to my knowledge.

Again quoting, "If the legislature wants

increased vehicle liability limits, then Vernon's Civil

Statutes, Article 66758 would need clarification as to

Texas DOT's authority to establish the increased limits."

Exhibit 1 answered two questions directly,

quote, "Can the Texas DOT create rules to require Type B

carriers, vehicles under 26,000 pounds, to carry or file

proof of insurance limits other than 20-40-15." Answer:

"No."

And I continue to quote, "Texas DOT has no

inherent authority, only statutory authority. There is no

statutory authority authorizing Texas DOT to require any

carrier to carry or file insurance. Instead, Article 6675

and the Transportation Code laws created by the


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legislature specifically outline when and to what extent

insurance levels may be set forth by Texas DOT." That's

your school buses, your tow trucks, your HAZMAT, and that

has not changed.

The bill's author, the clerk for the House

Transportation Committee failed to come forth to refute

any of these findings.

There were minority comments. Quote, "In

closing, my colleagues on the committee should be

commended for their work on the committee's document as

there is much of it that is right on target. They arrived

at their conclusions with thought, deliberation and

insight." That's a dissenting opinion.

I respectfully submit that by Texas DOT's own

study, Texas DOT lacks the statutory authority to set

minimum liability auto insurance limits without specific

legislature authority to set minimum limits. Texas DOT

insurance requirements have repeatedly in this study and

elsewhere, been recommended by Texas DOT to be referred

back to the legislature for clarification if the

legislature decides.

I respectfully request that the committee refer

House Bill 2702, Article 6 back to the next legislature

for debate, modification, clarification, if they see fit.

Thank you.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, Rod, I want to be sure I

understand --

MR. ROD JOHNSON: Pardon?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to be sure I

understand. what's before us right now is 5(a). Is that

correct? Does 5(a) have anything to do with his insurance

concerns?

MS. DAVIS: Out of the final package we've

taken the liability insurance requirements out of those.

We will be holding a public hearing on that issue and will

propose rules at a later date on that particular piece.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. And so Rod, you're just

reinforcing that this is a good decision we've made.

MR. ROD JOHNSON: I'm reinforcing there's no

statutory authority. With due respect, what you did last

meeting was absolutely what needed to be done. I don't see

in what I'm reading here that there's any statutory

authority going forward for the Texas DOT, with all

respect, to set any higher minimum standards than what's

already there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So that would be an argument

you'll offer for the public hearing that's going to come

up. Correct?

MR. ROD JOHNSON: I certainly will continue on

with that argument.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: But I don't want to

interpret -- I know you marked "On" on the card, but you

don't see anything in this 5(a) that gets back to the

meeting of a month ago where you were so eloquent in

explaining the problem?

MR. ROD JOHNSON: Honestly, I got that day

before yesterday and it's 150 pages long. I stayed up

most of the night and tried to read it and comprehend it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But you don't think that our

employees would lie to you?

MR. ROD JOHNSON: Absolutely not.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I mean, they'd be lying to us

and they don't do that.

MR. ROD JOHNSON: Not knowingly, anyway. I

believe that some people have some misunderstandings, but

I think that's clarified in this report that was done in

depth and it's quite a document. And it's prohibited --

not prohibited, that's not correct -- there no longer a

requirement to do another study, they took that out

specifically of 2702, they struck it out the requirement

to do any further study of liability requirements.

MR. HOUGHTON: That's your opinion. We're

going to do the hearings, we're going to do public input

now.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It would be your position at


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the public hearing that there's no inherent authority, it

might be someone else's opinion -- in fact, I think Carol

needs to share with us what she thinks it is.

MR. HOUGHTON: Right.

MR. WILLIAMSON: If you want to do that, please

go ahead. Although, I don't want to drag out 5(a) by

having a discussion on this.

MS. DAVIS: Right. You can take this report

which was done in 1998 and there's been a couple of

sessions since then, and take out pieces of it, but if you

read it in context, there are other pieces like on page 2,

"The committee is concerned about non-compliance with auto

liability requirements by Type B carriers. The Department

of Insurance and the insurance industry has confirmed and

suggested that a form of commercial vehicle insurance

would be appropriate rather than the personal liability

policy."

Also, our authority -- and Richard could

probably talk more about this -- our authority for setting

insurance limits, we didn't have any explicit authority

for Type B prior to 2702, we had explicit authority for

other carriers that weren't Type B carriers, and there was

a maximum of what we could set it at.

Well, the Type B carriers are gone. House Bill

2702 removed that distinction between carriers, so one


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would assume that that ability to set those limits would

apply to all household goods carriers.

MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our

staff for going back and researching and listening and

exploring and doing everything else, and I think we've

asked them to do this twice and I'm ready to move forward

with their recommendation.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Rod, just be sure to go to

the public hearing because we have a continuing interest

in not putting small business out of work.

MR. ROD JOHNSON: I appreciate that. If I

could make a little short comment, in the preamble, the

last preamble there was a statement that there would be no

impact on small businesses, I believe also on small

minority businesses. You'll notice in the current

preamble it's gone and it never was done, they never did a

study on small minority businesses, they never did one,

and we asked for it in writing and never got it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We do appreciate your bird-

dogging this issue for us. Citizens like you help us make

better decisions.

MR. ROD JOHNSON: And people like you make it a

better state.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. That's kind of

you.


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MR. ROD JOHNSON: Well, it's true. Some very

flattering things have been said about all of you,

specifically yourself.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We appreciate that, and we're

going to get the insurance thing worked out one way or the

other.

And Carol, what we're fixing to consider,

there's nothing in here that should affect what we

understand to be his concerns about the insurance?

MS. DAVIS: Nothing about insurance.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, do you have other

questions of staff?




All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


We look forward to seeing you again, Buddy. We

know you'll help us.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to agenda item 5(b),

another rule for final adoption. This is concerning state

participation in toll-related relocations concerning right


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of way. John Campbell.

MR. CAMPBELL: Good afternoon. For the record,

my name is John Campbell, director of the Right of Way

Division.

I'd like to present for your consideration item

5(b) which provides for the final adoption of amendments

to 43 Texas Administrative Code, Section 21.23 concerning

state participation in utility adjustments made on toll-

related projects.

The amendment is made necessary in order to

implement the requirements of House Bill 2702 of the 79th

Legislative Regular Session in 2005. This amendment

provides for the department and utilities affected by

toll-related state highway projects to equally share the

costs of utility adjustments made prior to September 1,

2007. It also establishes procedures concerning the

reimbursement for those. The new Section 21.23 requires

the utility to enter into an agreement with the department

prior to commencing the utility work.

These rules were presented for proposed

adoption at the January 26 commission meeting and no

comments were received before the deadline of March 13,

2006, and staff recommends your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Now, did you notice the way he

said that, that no comments were received before, so what


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was received after the deadline?

MR. CAMPBELL: There was one comment that was

received the day after the filing deadline and the comment

reflected a misunderstanding of the impact of the law. We

prepared a department response to the comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And did the commenter seem

satisfied?

MR. CAMPBELL: So far we have not heard

anything back.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So far.

MS. ANDRADE: I'm just so glad we responded

after they submitted after the deadline, so thank you for

doing that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Such precision in your

employees, Mr. Behrens.

Okay, members, you've heard the staff

recommendation and explanation.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


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MR. BEHRENS: Item number 6 is under

Transportation Planning and Programming. This concerns a

proposal to Hays County and the City of Buda to construct

some new facilities on the system in their area, and Jim

Randall will lay that out for you.

MR. RANDALL: Good afternoon, commissioners.

Jim Randall, director of Transportation Planning and

Programming Division.

Item 6, this minute order tenders a proposal

from the City of Buda and Hays County to construct a new

location facility on the state highway system from I-35 to

State Highway 45, realign FM 2001, and construct

interchanges at I-35 and FM 2001 and at I-35 and Main

Street.

Both the city and the county have considerable

interest in the development of these projects. This area

is becoming increasingly urbanized and experiencing rapid

development. The proposed projects will provide for

improved north-south mobility by enhancing utilization of

the State Highway 45 and the State Highway 130 toll roads.

In addition, the projects for safer improved access to

area developments and facilitate incident management along

I-35.

The proposed projects consist of four elements:


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number one, upgrades to the I-35 overpass road

interchange, number two, the realignment of FM 2001;

three, the construction of the I-35 and Main Street

interchange; and four, the construction of an eastern Main

Street extension to State Highway 45.

The city and county will be responsible for all

costs associated with these projects except for the

construction cost of the two interchanges and 90 percent

of the right of way and utility relocation costs

associated with the I-35/Main Street interchange. In

addition, the department will agree to take the newly

constructed Main Street extension onto the state highway

system and the county will agree to accept the abandoned

alignment of FM 2001.

The estimated cost to the department is $22.4

million, and the costs to the city and county are $23.2

million. If agreed to by the city and county, the local

governments will submit a SIB loan to the department not

to exceed $15 million for the construction of the Main

Street extension project.

Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, is this part of our

large transaction we've got going with Hays County, or is

this different?

MR. SAENZ: This is different.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: What's to be gained -- how

does this reduce congestion on the state system?

MR. SAENZ: It will reduce congestion on 35.

By building Main Street, you will be able to feed that

whole area that's developing around the Cabela's and

provide them direct access. Instead of going up 35 and

getting 45, they can take Main Street back over that way.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it will take congestion off

of 35, local road congestion.

MR. SAENZ: Local road congestion off of 35.

MR. WILLIAMSON: How does this enhance safety?

MR. SAENZ: Safety in that in the interchanges

we're putting a turn-around. It also reduces traffic, it

will reduce congestion. By reduced congestion on 35, we

have a safer facility. We're moving them over to a

separate facility that's built with adequate capacity that

we're able to address both of them.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm sure we can quantify the

reduced congestion, but can we quantify the enhanced

safety? Not yet because we're still polishing our

indexes?

MR. SAENZ: We have them already and I can run

those for you. It will be a reduction in traffic on 35;

based on the reduction in traffic, we'll see a reduction

in accidents.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: There's not an economic

opportunity component here because it's already there, or

is there?

MR. SAENZ: Well, the economic opportunity in

that you're opening a corridor on Main Street to connect

to 45 southeast that's under construction that connects to

the 130 toll road.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it is economic opportunity

for the tax base of that city, county and school district.


MR. WILLIAMSON: And it's also going to be some

access to our 45 toll road.

MR. SAENZ: It provides access to our 45 toll

road. Main Street provides new access to our 45 toll

road, provides economic opportunity, it will reduce

traffic congestion on 35, improve safety on both of the

facilities. The 2001 project is just a realignment, it

provides for a much better connection and circulation in

the area of the Cabela's, and so now we're able to address

and space the two interchanges on 35 at better distances

than how they were connected before, so that's another

safety improvement element. And of course, relocation of

2001 will add some additional economic opportunity. Also,

we're removing that one sharp curve so we also have

enhanced safety on 2002.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Jim. Members, you've

heard the staff's explanation and recommendation.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. SAENZ: To add to that, if you look at it,

it's a joint venture between the county and the city and

TxDOT, and they're almost equally spending money to

address congestion problems for that whole area.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I just want us to be

sure -- you know, we have to put our litmus test on every

project, not just the ones that -- we're sitting here in

Brownsville and there's about 15 projects like this in

Brownsville they'd probably like to pursue and they need

to hear that we use a certain value set for every project.

Okay, Phillip.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 7, these are

toll road project recommendations in those minute orders.

The first one is 7(a) for Cameron County, and this is a


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request from the Cameron County Regional Mobility

Authority to have the department help them with some toll

equity. Phillip?

MR. RUSSELL: Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon,

commissioners and Roger. For the record, I'm Phillip

Russell and I'm the director of the Turnpike Division.

As Mike just laid out, we recently received a

request for financial assistance from the Cameron County

Regional Mobility Authority. The request originally had

asked for about $41 million for two projects: one is the

West Loop -- that I think Mario may have talked a bit

about in his district presentation -- from 83/77 all the

way down to Palm Boulevard, as well as a second causeway

connection.

The requested work is fairly straightforward

development work, engineering, environmental. There were

a couple of little elements in there that we thought were

probably a bit premature, right of way acquisition and

some relocation dollars, so through some discussions

between my office, Mr. Saenz, the district and the RMA,

we've been able to refine that back to what you see before

you which is a request for $21.6 million that would be in

the form of a loan, and again, we've taken out that right

of way and relocation assistance scope.

So of course, on a request like this it's a


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two-stage process; this is the first, the preliminary

request. And so staff would recommend approval of this

financial request.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And there's nothing about this

approach that's markedly different from the way we've

dealt with Bexar County, Central Texas?

MR. RUSSELL: Absolutely not.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That same basic approach.

Everybody in the state gets treated the same way.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Well, we have some

witnesses, and poor David has sat back there and taken the

brunt of two of my jokes and waited all morning long to

get to this point, and I apologize, but believe it or not,

we're running ahead of a normal TxDOT meeting schedule,

we're going to be out of here before the sun goes down.

MR. ALLEX: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have

a short presentation, Pete and I will. But I think it's

important that I bring before you the six members of the

Cameron County Regional Board of Directors that have been

sitting here since nine o'clock for this to come up. So

I'm going to introduce them to you. They're not going to

talk, they're just going to come up here and stand with me

because they're my partners in crime -- I guess you could

call it that.


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I'll start out with a new judge, Cameron County

Court at Law elect, Laura Bettencourt; retired county

judge and now business associate, Ray Ramon;

transportation specialist, David Garza -- these are their

specialities in their private lives; real estate

developer, Scott Campbell; financial expert, Michael

Skief; and the man of the cloth that prays for us to keep

us out of trouble, Dr. Victor Alvarez.

And ladies and gentlemen, this is your Cameron

County Regional Board of Directors.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, first of all we've got

to give them a hand.

(Applause.)

MR. ALLEX: I'm most proud of these individuals

because of the time they have spent, they dedication to

the job at hand, and their vision of the future. I'd like

to thank the Cameron County Commissioners Court also for

appointing these fine people because evidently they knew

what I was getting and I appreciate it.

In the last 15 months of our existence, we have

had 17 regular and special meetings with almost 100

percent participation. Some came late, some left early,

but we had them all there at one time every time. We made

ten major decisions, unanimously, on all of the items that

we had. We have presented our goals and objectives to all


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the major cities in Cameron County, chambers of commerce,

economic development corporations. We have made three

presentations to the governor of the State of Tamaulipas,

we've made presentations to the mayors of Matamoros and

Reynosa, and numerous other meetings with your staff here

at Pharr and in Austin.

I especially want to recognize Mario and Amadeo

for the help that they have given us in this organization

time period. Without their help, we would have been lost.

Everybody has been talking about population but

I with population, that's my job. I'm not a demographer

but I work with the market, that's my job. And if you

visualize the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico as an

oval that starts at Padre Island and goes to Rio Grande

City which is 80 miles long -- and these guys always get

on me when I do my presentation, but that's all right --

and it's 60 miles wide, visualize that oval. And in that

oval there are 4 million people, and the only thing that

divides those 4 million people is a street with water in

it.

I don't have to tell two of you commissioners

what relationship we have on this side of the border with

our friends, our business partners, our families on the

other side of the river. Four million people right now;

14 years from now by the year of 2020, based on my


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projections and based on Mexico's projections, there will

be 10 million people in that same oval.

Now, I can't tell you what kind of dynamic effect that's

going to have on the transportation infrastructure in the

Rio Grande Valley and Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

I'm especially pleased today -- and he's stuck

with us here, you've already met him, the chairman of the

Hidalgo County RMA, Dennis Burleson -- and it's really

unique because we've had about three meetings together at

lunch, in the morning at breakfast, talking about the

issues of Hidalgo and Cameron counties, and it's really

unique and I'm real proud to say that he shares the same

vision that we do in Cameron County about making these two

counties one single economic unit, transportation-wise,

economic development-wise.

So we've got a partnership here that we can

grow on and work on. We both the mayors of both Reynosa

and Matamoros, they want to work with us also. So this is

a unique relationship that we're dealing with in the RMAs

on the border in that the engine that fuels our economy is

Mexico, and so we've got to look at that when we start

developing our own plans and specifications.

In fact, we were sitting there back in the back

trying to figure out ways we could tap into some other

markets, and I ask you and I ask your legislative people,


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how can the RMAs help pay for more of these developments

on 77, 281 and 83 as they come into the Valley. There's

got to be some other areas out there that we can get into.

And you talked about your gasoline tax. One

cent -- I forgot what you said, Ted, $1 billion was what

one cent was, or something like that?

MR. WILLIAMSON: One cent, $100 million.

MR. HOUGHTON: $100 million.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Statewide.

MR. ALLEX: Pete and I will take some of that

and we'll do something with it, we'll make it work for

you, I promise.

So I think it's important that we have this

kind of camaraderie here in the Valley. You saw it

earlier in the day, we all got in the same boat and we're

all going in the same direction to try to get an

interstate to the Rio Grande Valley. We've got the same

thing with the two RMAs, and it's going to be exciting

five, ten, fifteen years out.

So here we are. Our goals and ambitions are

simple: to build a great urban society here in South

Texas, giving all of our citizens an equal opportunity to

be gainfully employed, jobs, jobs, jobs. We have a high

unemployment but we have a more serious under-employment.

We have 40 to 50 percent of our people working today have


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good work ethics, they have families, both husband and

wife are working, and they want new jobs, they want jobs

that are better paying. So our under-employment is just

about as serious as our unemployment -- in fact, it's

worse.

We're going to do all those things, and as the

chairman said last night, you ain't seen nothin' yet, I

promise you that. And so we've got effective mobility,

we've got economic growth, and I want to do some magic for

a few minutes, what you'll see on television in the next

four or five years.

(Whereupon, a video was shown.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Bravo. That's great.

(Applause.)

MR. ALLEX: And I would be remiss if I didn't

say that the people that put this all together basically

are these six members right here. They're great people,

and that's all I'm going to say.

Pete, come on up here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That was pretty slick.

MR. HOUGHTON: Well done, Pete.

MR. SEPULVEDA: Mr. Chairman, commissioners,

Mr. Behrens. Thank you for the opportunity to be here

with you today. I have a real short power point just to

give you an idea of what we've done the last 14 months to


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get to this point.

The purpose of the Cameron County Regional

Mobility Authority is to respond to both the changes

taking place in transportation management in Texas, as

well as the exciting growth and economic possibilities in

Cameron County. I'm happy to report there's much to which

to respond.

We in the Valley like to say, As goes the

economy of the Valley, so goes Texas. Never before in

history has this been truer. As a result of NAFTA and

other exciting economic changes, the Valley is more

vibrant and exciting than ever before. However, that same

vibrancy means that we must stay on top of the

infrastructure needs of the area or the Valley, and

therefore all of Texas, will be negatively impacted.

These changes mean that a whole new

responsibility for the mobility needs of Cameron County

and the economics of good transportation planning now

reside with the local governments and local citizens of

our area. However, this also means that the

responsibility for funding mobility needs also rests

squarely with the citizens of our county.

The Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority

is the organization that's taken responsibility for

funding mobility projects in our area. It's a large task


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that lies before us, but on behalf of the board and the

staff of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority,

we accept the responsibility and the challenge.

We've taken many critical steps towards

organizing our agency to fulfill this responsibility. We

had our very first regional mobility authority meeting on

the 25th of February of 2005. In subsequent meetings we

adopted bylaws, we finalized and adopted procurement

procedures, we issued a conflict of interest policy to our

consultants, we wrote a disadvantaged business enterprise

policy statement, and we wrote a drug and alcohol policy.

There's two major milestones that we feel paved

the way for us to be here before you today. The first one

occurred on the 12th of January when the RMA board of

directors unanimously selected the firm of Instala

[phonetic] Hinojosa to be a financial advisor for the RMA.

The second one came on the 23rd of January when again the

board of directors unanimously selected the firm of HNTB

to be the general engineering consultant for the RMA. On

the 16th of February, the board unanimously approved a

contract with HNTB and on the 1st of March, two weeks

later, we submitted two toll equity grant applications to

the district engineer in Pharr and to the Texas Turnpike

Authority.

This is some of the projects that we're working


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on. The first project is the West Loop project. The West

Loop project is about an eight-mile stretch of road that

will add about a 40,000 vehicle a day capacity to the city

of Brownsville in an area that desperately needs access.

A byproduct of this project is the West Rail Relocation

project where we will relocate the existing main through-

line of Union Pacific away from the downtown area in

Brownsville and Matamoros and locate it to a more rural

area in the city of Brownsville. The second project we're

working on is a second causeway project that would liken

the town of South Padre Island with the city of Port

Isabel.

Both of these projects, Mr. Russell mentioned

earlier, are on the agenda. On the West Loop project

we're requesting financial assistance so we can do

environmental analysis and we can do preliminary

engineering. The second causeway project, also requesting

financial assistance so that we can do preliminary

engineering and traffic and revenue studies.

In addition to these two projects, we've also

sat down with your local TxDOT office and identified nine

different pass-through financing projects that hopefully

in the next couple of months we'll come back before you

and bring those projects before you.

The other project we're working on is the North


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Rail Relocation project. This project involves the

relocation of the main through Union Pacific line that

goes through downtown Harlingen and San Benito. The idea

is to relocate the line away from the urban area to a

rural area, eliminate 80 at-grade crossings, and have much

safer and less congested areas in Harlingen and San

Benito.

A different project within the same project is

the potential relocation of the switch yard in downtown

Harlingen to the switch yard in Olmito.

Along with this project, we're also involved in

the FM 509 Loop project. FM 509 begins at the Free Trade

Bridge at Los Indios, it goes north between the

communities of Harlingen and San Benito, and it ends in

the industrial park area of the city of Harlingen right by

Valley International Airport. What we're considering

doing is taking that road, go about 17-18 miles to the

north, and align it with the loop that's coming from

Hidalgo County which would then allow us to have access

from our international bridge up to Expressway 77 and into

Hidalgo County.

What we're trying to do here is establish a

transportation corridor that has the rail component and

has the highway component, and we're trying to clear the

project environmentally so that we can begin with the rail


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relocation and the construction of the loop.

We've got partners on this project, we've got

Cameron County, we've got the City of Harlingen, the City

of San Benito, and obviously the Union Pacific Railroad.

The rail relocation project, we've got earmarked funds

that we're utilizing to do technical studies. The FM 509

project, Cameron County is providing the funding to

advance that project.

Now, Cameron County -- and you've heard it

before and I'll mention it one more time -- we have an

excellent, excellent working relationship with your

district office in Pharr. About ten years ago, the

citizens of Cameron County passed a bond, about $9-1/2

million. The idea was to leverage that money, do

technical studies, advance projects so that TxDOT could

then step in and take over the project and do

construction. Of the $9-1/2 million that the voters

authorized, we've spent about $6 million and we have

gotten in return from TxDOT over $150 million worth of

construction. So I tell you, that's a pretty investment

for our money.

Action items that we have, two different ones.

The first one is a strategic plan. We have completed the

first draft of the strategic plan which includes a mission

statement with an emphasis on economic development, strong


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relationships including international relationships, local

leadership, local business resources, technical

excellence, ethical business practices, increasing safety

in our transportation system, assessing federal, state and

other funding mechanisms.

We've set eight goals that we want to achieve

between the year 2007 and the year 2011. We also have a

statement about our commitment to transportation

partnerships.

We're also working on a public involvement

plan. Phase one would include issue identification

through key person interviews, spokesperson training,

materials development, database development, in

preparation for a two-way communication program that will

give everyone in Cameron County an opportunity to

participate in the process.

Now, what's our promise to Cameron County? The

Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority will make

significant contributions to a high quality of life by

providing our residents, businesses and state, national

and international visitors with effective accelerated

mobility improvements to encourage economic development in

South Texas.


will see local leadership, management and local business


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resources to build transportation projects sooner,

providing alternatives that will save time, increasing

safety for the local traveling public, and creating a more

pleasing destination for business and leisure travelers

which supports job creation.


will work in conjunction with state, federal and local

planning and funding organizations to develop a strategy

and plan to generate revenue for maintaining and improving

the total transportation system.

What do we envision? The achievement of an

efficient, locally managed, world-class regional mobility

organization that supports economic development,

facilitates life-saving medical and emergency services,

and promotes the overall quality of life in our region.

The resourceful use of federal, state and other

funding mechanisms that maximizes local business resources

to prevent congestion, improve and maintain transportation

assets, reduce commute time during peak hours, protect

natural resources, and encourage business and tourist

travel.

The development of a customer-focused, market-

driven mobility organization, utilizing local leadership,

technical excellence, ethical business practices, and two-

way communication with our public to build a


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transportation system that inspires creativity and

encourages social and business interaction for the benefit

of the region.

What are our next steps? As we work through

each goal over the coming months and years, we will

partner with the general public, other transportation

agencies, area elected officials, economic development

experts and many more to make sure we provide innovative

regional solutions to our new mobility challenges. In

doing this, we will enhance the economic vitality of life

in South Texas which will positively affect our ability to

compete in the state, national and global marketplace.

The last slide is a map showing the different

projects we're working on. We've got nine different pass-

through toll projects within the county: we've got two or

three in Brownsville, one or two in the Harlingen-San

Benito area, we've got a project in the La Feria area.

The next project is the West Loop project study

area. That project will occur when the project is

environmentally cleared and the rail is relocated. We

also have the North Loop project that begins at the

International Bridge and goes to the north and will

eventually connect to the loop coming from Hidalgo County.

We've got the rail relocation project, and then a long-

term outer loop in Cameron County, and then of course, we


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have the second causeway corridor study area between South

Padre Island and Port Isabel.

We also have the Valley International Airport

in Harlingen, we've got the Cameron County Airport, and

we've got the Brownsville Navigation District, the Port of

Brownsville, we've got the Harlingen Port, and then we've

got the Port Isabel-San Benito Navigation District.

Mr. Chairman, commissioners, Mr. Behrens, thank

you for the opportunity, and this concludes my

presentation.

MR. ALLEX: We tried to make it as fast as

possible. I promise we won't do it at the next meeting,

we just wanted to give you a real quick overview of where

we're going.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's long today, but we stay

long at these meetings. We feel worse that you have to

wait so long to get to us, but you take as long as you

need to make your presentation. It's pretty fast-moving,

kind of takes your breath away. That's a good job, Pete.

MR. ALLEX: Thank you very much. I appreciate

the time you've given us and the work you're doing to

promote jobs in this great state of Texas.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, no doubt Ted and Hope

have something to add to this, but we're pretty pleased

with the progress your RMA in particular is making,


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because I knew it from almost we're not going to do that

to we can do that. You took off like a rocket. That's

always pleasing to us.

Go ahead, Ted.

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, to coin the saying, you've

come a long way, baby, in a very short period of time.

And I've had the opportunity of working with all of you,

and Pete, what a dynamic individual. I look forward to

always somebody lurking back there in the background doing

a lot of different things. I commend all the members of

the board.

And with that, Pete, you get the other side of

it too. Remember there's no sacred cows out there, we've

got to bring them all in. Right?

Thanks a lot. Congratulations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: I'm just so proud of you. I

still remember when I first met you, David, and I didn't

realize what a lead position you would take in

transportation, but thank you for doing that. And it's

great to see all of the board here.

I have to ask you, what are you doing, what

efforts are you making in reaching out to the community

and educating them on what you're doing? Any public

education?


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MR. SEPULVEDA: We're working on phase one of

the public involvement plan; phase two will be just that,

going out, reaching out to the community. We've done a

little bit of that, we've gone to the Rotary Clubs, we've

gone to the economic development corporations, we've gone

to the chambers of commerce. But before we begin our

first project, we want to make sure we've got a solid

public involvement plan in place and take that to the

community so that we can be prepared once we start going

to public meetings and public hearings on some of those

projects.

MS. ANDRADE: Does the community understand

what you're trying to do and is it positive feedback?

MR. SEPULVEDA: Absolutely. To this point I

have to say that they do and we have support from major

cities and smaller cities in the county. We even have

financial support from some of those cities and we're

still working on that with a couple of other cities and

economic development corporations.

MS. ANDRADE: That's great. Congratulations.

You should be celebrating.

MR. ALLEX: It's kind of our philosophy that if

you dream, you can do it. Well, we're going to dream but

we're going to do it also.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, you know, it's kind of


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interesting because what I've seen in my two days in

Brownsville this trip is something that Ted has been

telling me about for a while. We've thought for several

years that the triangle I talked to Judy about,

Brownsville to Corpus Christi, across to Laredo and back,

is probably going to be the center of economic development

in the state. We believe San Antonio is destined to be

sort of the economic activity center of the state, but

that little triangle on the tip of Texas, we weren't real

sure that you realized what was fixing to happen, but I

think you've got a pretty good grasp now. This economy is

going to change in ways that no one five years ago could

have even fantasized about. There will be people from

Dallas moving down here to go to work.

MR. ALLEX: I just want to reemphasize, don't

forget the engine that's fueling South Texas' economy.

When they're having 80 percent growth every ten years and

we're having 45 percent growth, as far as Mexico is

concerned, that's just going to compound itself, compound

itself every ten years, and we've got to get prepared for

it. And I know that these people that work on this board

live and work down here and they feel it every day, just

like I do, and Hope, you do, and so do you, Ted.

But you've got to realize what Mexico is doing

and you can't really grasp it until you're there. You see


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the young men and women over there taking care of their

own communities, professional people working, and I deal

with them all the time and it's exciting to be around

these young people, and they're making a name for

themselves in Mexico. You know, it's not a panacea but

they're going to do something in Mexico and they're going

to do something in the United States, they're going to do

something in the Rio Grande Valley, they're going to do

something in South Texas. Some say just get out of their

way. I'd rather work with them rather than get out of

their way.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for being so

patient. Our meetings take time, that's just the way it

is.

MR. HOUGHTON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And welcome to a new level of

public service.

And Dewey Cashwell, where's Dewey? He went

home to the island. The mayor of South Padre Island was

here for a while and I think he was here to offer his

support as well, and if you would, pass along to him that

we appreciate the fact that he was here for a while and we

understand why he had to leave.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to agenda item number

7(b), Phil, and this is to do some toll designations in


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Denton and Collin counties concerning State Highway 121.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, I've got a question for

you about this.

(General talking.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, I'm sorry. Members,

you've heard the staff explanation and the staff

recommendation, and you've heard the testimony of

witnesses. What's your pleasure?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved, with pleasure.


MR. WILLIAMSON: We have, with pleasure, so

moved and seconded on item 7(a). All those in favor,

signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: See, I just thought it was a

foregone conclusion that we were going to be in full

support. Sorry.

MR. BEHRENS: Okay, Phil, 7(b).

MR. RUSSELL: Thanks, Mike. Agenda item 7(b)

is possible toll designation of State Highway 121. This

particular project is primarily in Denton County in the


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Dallas District, it stretches from slightly east of

Business 121 all the way to Dallas North Tollway. DNT is

about a mile, mile and a half into Collin County, so

essentially it's that piece of Denton County State Highway

121.

The district did go back through an

environmental re-evaluation; that was environmentally

cleared as a toll road on April 14. And if you choose to

approve this minute order, you do two things: you would

designate this section of 121 as a controlled access

facility, and you would designate it as a toll road.

I'd be open to any questions you might have,

and staff would recommend approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm going to have some

questions. Members, do you have questions?

MS. ANDRADE: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Phil, I was on KRLD Radio the

other day getting kind of gently chewed on about 121, and

the guy kept referring to a stretch of 121 that's paved

and ramped and ready to go. Is this the stretch he's

talking about?

MR. RUSSELL: This piece of 121 is currently

under construction, yes, sir. It's not open to traffic.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But it's not ready to be open

to traffic?


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MR. RUSSELL: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: How close is it?

MR. RUSSELL: Probably about June, July,

somewhere in there.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you have anything to add to

that, Amadeo? Because I had to confess ignorance to him.

I told him I thought that there wasn't any of 121 ready to

open yet.

MR. SAENZ: This portion of 121 in Denton

County was identified in the MPO's long-range plan as a

toll project, and we were going through the environmental

re-evaluation. We just got environmental clearance. Now

we can then designate it as a toll road. We're working

right now on putting in place the video tolling equipment

that will go on this project so when it opens we'll be

able to then operate it as a toll road under video

tolling.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And are we convinced we're

doing enough public outreach for the community to

understand that it's going to be an electronic toll and

they'll be paying for it when they use it?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. We have full support

from the Denton County folks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What I mean by that is we're

not going to have a bunch of people hitting that thing


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thinking it's a tax road.

MR. SAENZ: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Like a big old yellow sign

saying, "Toll, Toll, Toll".

MR. RUSSELL: The other thing, Chairman, that I

think is very important, I think the district thinks this

section of 121 as a toll road is going to be critically

important because it feeds back into their near-neighbor,

near-time program. There's five other projects that are

going to be built as kind of spinoffs from tolling this

particular piece of 121. So that's why I think the MPO

has been full square behind designating this as a toll

road.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Does this mean when this gets

rolling, Amadeo, we're going to reduce our gap, we're

going to close the gap?

MR. SAENZ: It will reduce the gap because of

the projects that are going to be done near-time, near-

neighbor were unfunded, so they're part of $86 billion.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we're closing the gap.

MR. SAENZ: We are closing the gap.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you heard the staff's

explanation and recommendation. What's your pleasure?




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aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


Thank you, Phil.

MR. RUSSELL: Thank you, Chairman.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 7 (c) is

recommendation to accept the General Engineering

Consultant quarterly progress report on the Central Texas

Turnpike System.

MR. RUSSELL: Thanks, Mike. This is our

standard quarterly update, construction update, prepared

by the general engineering consultant, Post, Buckley,

Schuh & Jernigan (PBS&J). I'm happy to say that the

prognosis, the health of the project continues to be good.

The project is on budget and on time.

I'd be happy to address any questions you might

have, and would suggest approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, you've heard the

staff's explanation and recommendation. Do you have

questions?



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aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 8 is under

Finance, and this is also recommending acceptance of the

Quarterly Investment Report. James?

MR. BASS: Good afternoon. Again for the

record, I'm James Bass, chief financial officer of TxDOT.

Item 8 presents the Quarterly Investment for

the second quarter of 2006 which ended February 28. The

investments covered in the report are associated with the

2002 project of the Central Texas Turnpike System and with

the lease with an option to purchase for the Houston

District headquarter facilities.

The details of the investments have been

provided to you in the quarterly report, and staff

recommends your acceptance of the report, and I would be

glad to answer any questions you may have.


staff's explanation and recommendation.


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aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you,

James.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 9 concerns

pass-through tolling. This would be concerning Hidalgo

County and to negotiate a pass-through toll with either

Hidalgo County Road District No. 5 or Hidalgo County for

improvements to various projects in the county. Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon, commissioners.

Again for the record, Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive

director for Engineering Operations.

The minute order before you on item number 9

authorizes the department to begin negotiations for a

pass-through toll agreement with Hidalgo County Road

District No. 5 or Hidalgo County for improvements on

several highway facilities that the road district and the

county want to pursue and build and then request pass-

through tolling.


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These facilities include FM 494, FM 676, State

Highway 364 and Abram Road. Abram Road is currently not

on the state highway system, they're working with the

district on an exchange to be able to bring Abram Road on

to the state highway system and taking over some existing

roads that are not operating.

These roads are collectors and arterials; they

act more in a local capacity right now. One of the things

that we want to work with the county on is how do we get

some regional benefit for these facilities and also some

statewide benefit, so that it probably will have to be

lengthened, but we need to sit down with them and discuss

them to see how we can tie to a more complete

transportation plan.

With respect to congestion, the roads currently

are at Level of Service F. By adding capacity, they'll go

to C, so we will see a good improvement in congestion

relief.

Safety, of course by going from these two-lane

roads to four- and five-lane with continuous left turns,

we will have a reduction in accident rates of 20 to 30

percent.

Economic opportunity, this area in western

Hidalgo County is very congested already, it's pretty much

built out, just the roads have not been able to keep up


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with the growth out there.

Air quality, because we're able to increase

speeds on these by reducing congestion, we'll be able to

improve air quality. Even though Hidalgo County is not in

non-attainment, it is in a inland area, so we will still

have an air quality improvement.

Staff has reviewed and recommends that you

approve this minute order so that we may move forward and

continue to negotiate with Hidalgo County and the road

district.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Members, we have a most

distinguished guest who wishes to comment for. Mayor

Salinas? A good transportation local leader.

MAYOR SALINAS: Thank you, Amadeo, Mr.

Chairman, commissioners. Thank you for working so hard

for the state of Texas and giving us an opportunity to

come before you again and ask you to support this pass-

through toll road.

As you know, this is a very important project

for us. I'm the chairman of Road District 5, appointed to

this Road District 5 by a county commissioner on the

commissioners court.

As you know, we have got a commitment from

Mexico City to Washington, as the [indiscernible] has been

approved. I'm on the Anzalduas Bridge board, we are


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working to start the agreement to advertise for proposals

to build the bridge starting December of 2006. We have a

commitment of construction ending in September of 2008.

This is going to be a project that is going to bring a lot

of economic development to our area, and working with the

Pharr office, we feel that this is a very important

project for us, for Hidalgo County.

We are working closely with McAllen, Edinburg,

Pharr and the city of Hidalgo and Mission. We have an MSA

there that we have unemployment of 4 percent, we have a

lot of growth and we need some kind of help in this

project. I think this would kind of put it together where

all our traffic is going to come in through the Anzalduas

Bridge, it will help us, especially the Abram Road, and it

would help us grow.

So I'm here representing our committee and of

course our county commissioner, and hopefully you will

help us on this agreement that we would try to work out

with TxDOT.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Members, any

questions of Mayor Salinas?

MR. HOUGHTON: Mayor, thanks for coming. Nice

seeing you again.

I have a question of Amadeo. The project cost

is $75 million. Are they requesting us to fund 100


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percent?

MR. SAENZ: I guess before I answer that,

Commissioner, just to kind of tie in a little bit to what

the mayor has talked about, if you look at the map that's

behind the cover sheet, the project on the east side is FM

494. FM 494 to the south has already been improved and it

eventually will tie down to the area that will connect to

the new bridge the mayor was talking about.

And of course, Abram Road is the one farthest

to the west, and of course, what I mentioned a little

while ago that we want to talk to them because the

projects are limited to the boundaries of the road

district, and to get some regional importance or regional

benefit for these things, we'd like to hopefully work with

the county to expand them so that we can get these

corridors stretched further north so they can tie back to

the corridors that will international traffic to possibly

go north.

Now, to respond to your question, right now the

way that the application has been submitted, it was a $75

million project. The metropolitan planning organization

had identified about $24 million and they were requesting

the remainder of it in their pass-through toll

reimbursement.

Like I said, we're going to have to look at


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these projects because right now as they're shown, they're

local. We need to tie them to some regional and then come

up with, I guess, a determination of benefits for the

local versus the state, and then come up with some ratio

to that.

MR. HOUGHTON: Okay, thanks.

MR. SAENZ: Any other questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I don't have any.

MR. HOUGHTON: No.


MAYOR SALINAS: Thank you very much.

MR. SAENZ: Recommend approval of the minute

order.


staff's explanation and the witness testimony and the

staff's recommendation.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)



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I have to comment, Mayor. There's been so much

said the last couple of days about everything we've done

and everything that's going on down here, and we all

appreciate that. But this to me is the perfect example of

the system we started building a few years ago where a guy

or gal with a local and regional following and the ability

to help him or herself and the need for a partner has a

system by which he or she can go to the commission and

say, Here's my deal, here's why it makes sense, here's how

it's rated. And the staff and the commission can move

forward and nobody is begging, it doesn't really matter

that it's the tip of Texas or Amarillo, it doesn't really

matter if it's El Paso or Weatherford, it's just a deal

for Texas.

I mean, we always like to come to Brownsville

to see these deals work, but the truth is we're happy that

it's just working because it's Texas, it's a problem in

Texas that needs to be solved.

MR. HOUGHTON: Always glad to help a great

mayor too.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's always good to have a

great mayor.

Okay, Michael.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 10 under Right

of Way, this will be minute order recommendations for


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using options to purchase right of way on I-35E in Denton

County.

MR. CAMPBELL: Again for the record, my name is

John Campbell, director of the Right of Way Division.

I'd like to present for your consideration a

minute order under agenda item number 10 to authorize the

use of option contracts for the potential future purchase

of right of way along the proposed route for the expansion

and widening of I-35E in Denton County.

The minute order provides for the authority for

the Dallas District engineer to negotiate the execution of

option contracts and to extend funds for option fees and

related expenses. Staff recommends your approval of the

minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: You're not condemning Lake

Lewisville, are you?

MR. CAMPBELL: No, sir. We do not have the

authority to condemn for options.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We ought to change that.

MR. HOUGHTON: We need the lake. So moved.


MR. WILLIAMSON: There's been a motion and a

second. All those in favor of the motion will signify by

saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


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(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you,

John.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 11, our

contracts for the month of April, both Maintenance

Contracts and Highway and Building Construction Contracts.

Thomas?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Good afternoon, commissioners.

My name is Thomas Bohuslav, director of the Construction

Division.

Item 11(a)(1) is consideration of award of

Highway Maintenance contracts let on April 11 and 12, 2006

whose engineers' estimate is $300,000 or more. We had 18

projects, an average of 2.7 bidders per project. Staff

recommends award of all the projects.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I notice it's down below our

bids. Were our bids too high or are we seeing some

competition we haven't seen in a few months?

MR. BOHUSLAV: Could you say that again?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Were our estimates a little

high, or are we starting to see some competitive pressure?

MR. BOHUSLAV: We're probably moving our

estimates up. We have some that are a little bit high as

far as bids, but in the construction and maintenance area


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we're seeing increases in bid prices and trying to stay

even with that on our estimates. But prices are up and

we're seeing much more increase, and I can talk about that

more in the construction arena, if you'd like.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we estimated $13.8

million would be the low bids and they came in at $13.4-,

so I'm assuming we're beginning to increase our estimates

somewhat for the costs that have occurred the last few

months, or if not -- I mean, this is 3 percent below, 3.2

percent below our estimate. What would be the competitive

pressure that would have reduced that?

MR. BOHUSLAV: I believe that districts are

adjusting in the maintenance area. They've been doing a

good job in the maintenance area on keeping up with their

prices and watching and seeing what they need to estimate,

they see those pretty quick.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions, members?





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


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MR. BOHUSLAV: Item 11(a)(2) is for

consideration of award or rejection of Highway

Construction and Building Contracts let on April 11 and

12, 2006. We had 91 projects, an average of 3.5 bidders

per project. We have seven projects we recommend for

rejection.

The first project is in Howard County, project

number 3204. We had one bidder, it was 32 percent over,

about a $10 million bid on this project. It's rehab of

IH-20 in Howard County. We have some pretty tight

sequencing of work in this project, we need to open up

some opportunities for contractors to be able to move in

and set up a plant and crushing operations to make

materials, we need to make some changes in the plans to

address that. We'd like to go back and re-let this

project and solicit more competition, and hopefully by

opening it up we will get more bidders on it.

The second project recommended for rejection is

in Scurry County, project number 3243. We had one bidder,

it was 69 percent over, the bid was $1.1 million. It's a

pavement repair and surface with PFC on FM 1605, I

believe, in Snyder. This is really high and it's going to

hurt their budget in the district and they'd like to go

back and they're going to consider possibly using state


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forces to do some work there and some other things to try

to save some money on that project.

The next project recommended for rejection is

in Travis County, project number 3037. Had one bidder on

this project as well, 62 percent over, $3 million bid.

It's for safety work on US 183 and FM 1327, includes some

shoulders and SET work, left turn lanes, guard fence work.

We only had one bidder, we would like to get some more

competition and there were some discrepancies in the plans

we need to address and fix and hopefully we can get more

bidders and get better prices on that.


in Brazos County, project number 3229. One bidder, 127

percent over, a small project, $167,000 bid on that

project. This is landscape work and we need to get some

other bidders on this project. In fact, we had talked to

another bidder and they are interested in bidding it and

we believe we can save some money by going back and re-

advertising and re-bidding the project.


in Hale County, number 3218. Two bidders, 41 percent

over, $13.2 million bid. Rehab of State Highway 194 in

Hale County. We need to do some redesign work to bring

more clarity to the plans. The bidders had some problems

understanding the work required in the plans. We'd like


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to go back and do that.


in Wilbarger County, project number 3246. Had two

bidders, it was 69 percent over, $830,000 bid on that

project. This is replacing a structure on FM 91, only two

bidders and the prices are significantly higher than a

project we just let five months ago, and we want to go

back and see if we can do something to save, re-advertise

and solicit more bidders and get better prices on it.

The last project recommended for rejection is

in Austin County, project number 3207. Two bidders on it,

44 percent over, $4.1 million bid on the project. It's a

road widening on an FM road there, and we're looking at

some redesign work on this project to see if we can go

back and save some money on that as well.

And with that, we've been looking at our

Highway Cost Index, as you discussed, primarily on our

construction projects. We're seeing a 20 percent increase

over the past year in the cost of all work, significant.

In fact, probably pushing those today are asphalt prices

and fuel prices, of course. In the last two years we've

seen on our bid prices for surface work, asphalt for

surface work, we've seen it almost double. On hot mix

prices in the last year we've seen a 20 percent increase

in the cost of hot mix on hot mix work out there. So


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we're seeing significant increases recently in true crude.

And what's happening a lot right now in the

asphalt area is the bidders or contractors are not able to

get quotes for the duration of the project and the

suppliers are giving them a quote at the time of delivery.

So we're seeing some impact of that, and there may be a

little bit of risk in our bids for that as well.

Staff recommends award with the exceptions

noted.


explanation and recommendation from staff.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 11(b) is a

contract claim. Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Good afternoon. For the record,

Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering

Operations.


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The minute order before you for item 11(b) is

approval of a claim settlement for contract by Kothmann,

LTD. for Project CSR 924-00-34 in various counties in the

El Paso District. The Contract Claim Committee met with

the contractor on March 13, considered the claim, and made

a recommendation for settlement. The contractor has

accepted. The committee feels that this is a fair and

reasonable settlement offer and recommends your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I don't know how you could

conclude it's fair and reasonable.

MR. SAENZ: Fair and reasonable.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think you whacked him.

MR. SAENZ: Zane has done a better job than I

have.

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: Well, whoever did it, so moved.


MR. WILLIAMSON: There has been an explanation

and recommendation. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 12(a) and

12(b), one in Maverick County and another in Starr County,


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is the way we're looking to improve some of our facilities

by going out with proposals. Amadeo, if you'd lay both of

those out.

MR. SAENZ: Thank you, Mr. Behrens. Again,

commission, for the record Amadeo Saenz, assistant

executive director for Engineering Operations.

Item number 12(a) is a minute order before you

authorizing the department to issue a request for

qualifications and proposals to select a private entity

who can provide a 10- to 12-acre site and construct a

maintenance facility in exchange for the existing Eagle

Pass maintenance facility, and also to commence

negotiations to enter into a development and exchange

agreement with the private entity that offers the best

value to the state.

Upon review of the proposals, we will evaluate

them and then negotiate with the one that gives us the

best value. Then we will come back before the commission

for final approval of the property exchange.


MR. WILLIAMSON: Didn't we have another one of

these going someplace and never tied it up, maybe at Bull

Creek or someplace else?

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir. We're working on a

project at Bull Creek and I don't believe we've come


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before you to ask permission to go out for proposals yet,

but we will start working on that. This is in Eagle Pass

and the next one will be very similar.

House Bill 2702 is what gave us the authority

to be able to go out there and request proposals to do a

property exchange with the private sector, so this is one

of the new tools that the legislature has provided us in

the last session.


explanation and recommendation.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


MR. SAENZ: Thank you. Item number 12(b) is

also very similar to 12(a). It is also a request for the

department to go out and request for qualifications and

proposals to select also a private sector entity that can

provide a 10- to 12-acre site and construct a maintenance

facility in exchange for our Rio Grande City maintenance


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facility, also to begin negotiations with the proposer

that gives us the best proposal, and then come before the

commission at a later time to request your approval.

This maintenance section is in Rio Grande City,

I have personal knowledge of it. It is a small facility,

we've outgrown it many, many years ago, and in fact, there

was a possibility of doing some property exchange many

years ago before we had the authority, but now with the

authority we can move forward and see what we can get.



explanation and the recommendation.





aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. And I know

that we wouldn't do anything without an evaluation, but

just out of an abundance of caution, just let me say

before we go do anything, let's be sure we have --

separate and apart from the deal, let's have someone go


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out and give us a third-party evaluation of what the

property is worth, separate from the deal.

MR. SAENZ: Yes. We have done that already and

have values already determined for the facilities.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And the guy or the gal that

did that evaluation is not involved in the deal?

MR. SAENZ: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.

MR. SAENZ: Real property improvements are

valued for our Eagle Pass facility at about $1.36 million,

and for our Rio Grande City facility, right at $1.045

million. That's the value we're looking for.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do we own the minerals under

those properties?

MR. HOUGHTON: Not hardly.

(General laughter.)

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item number 13 is our

Routine Minute Orders. They've all been duly posted as

required. If you have any of them that you'd like to

discuss, we'll be happy to do that. We will be deferring

item 13(d)(4) which is in Travis County where we're

looking at exchanging some right of way. Hopefully we'll

bring that back in May.

MR. WILLIAMSON: 13(a), the donation from Wal-

mart, is that part of the Routine Minute Orders?


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MR. BEHRENS: Yes, it is.

MR. HOUGHTON: That's nice that conference

somebody is going to in Las Vegas.

MR. BEHRENS: With the exception of 13(d)(4), I

recommend approval of the Routine Minute Orders.


explanation and the motion.

MS. ANDRADE: So moved.

MR. HOUGHTON: Second.



aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)


Mr. Behrens, do we have any reason to go into

executive session?

MR. BEHRENS: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Behrens, do we have any

general comments?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, we have some.

MR. WILLIAMSON: McAllen city commissioner,

Scott Crain. Are you still here?

MR. CRAIN: Since nine o'clock this morning.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: You are magnificent.

MR. CRAIN: Actually I've enjoyed it. I've

learned quite a bit today. I was unaware of the Panama

Canal issue that's taking place and how that's going to

affect our area.

But anyhow, my name is Scott Crain. I'm a

member of McAllen City Commission. I'm here on behalf of

our mayor, who is out of the country, and our commission

just to extend a welcome and appreciation for coming to

the Rio Grande Valley.

I wanted to give you just a brief update on

four projects in McAllen, where we're at on those

projects.

We've got a convention center that's about

halfway through development. It's a $50 million facility

on the freeway on Expressway 83, and I wanted to give

thanks to Mario Jorge for helping us with enhancements to

the access, ingress-egress and so forth at that project.

I wanted to touch on the McAllen Economic

Development Corporation, as you're aware, has been working

on a multimodal terminal. And I don't know if Mario is

the appropriate person or yourselves, but to consider

funding SH-115 -- to give thanks for the funding of State

Highway 115 and the access that's going to provide to the

multimodal terminal which is more commonly know here as


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South 23rd Street.

But we recognize the value that that's going to

bring to our community and look forward to being more

competitive really in the global marketplace by reducing

transportation costs. It's estimated that by putting the

trucks to rail, the transportation costs could be reduced

anywhere from 25 percent to a third or so, and we feel

it's going to make us very competitive in the global

market in terms of recruiting manufacturing companies to

our community.

And then I wanted to also touch on Mission

Mayor Norberto Salinas's comment. We're partners in the

Anzalduas Bridge that's going in, and we just wanted to

reiterate the need to move forward with the connection

from the Anzalduas Bridge to expressway Highway 83.

Then the last thing I wanted to touch on, there

is a group Valles de los Terceros which has proposed to

build a $23 million Class 2 horse track at McAllen.

Should that take place, we wanted to put in the pipeline

the request for some help on ingress and egress which

would be State Highway 336 and Vickers Road.

And then again, just thank you for all you do

here, to express our appreciation. And I also wanted to

comment that I learned from you today in your time and the

value and importance that you saw in acknowledging the


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children that were here this morning and bringing them and

getting them involved, and I take that away with me today

and intend on trying to practice the same behavior that

you did today. So thank you so much for allowing me to

comment today.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's kind of you to say

that. We're hoping one of those young people will go to

Texas A&M or UT and get an engineering degree and come to

work for us.

Any questions for this young man?

MR. HOUGHTON: Just thanks for your support.


MR. WILLIAMSON: And we really appreciate your

staying so long.

MR. HOUGHTON: Yes, for sticking around.

MR. WILLIAMSON: It's very nice of you to do

that.

MR. CRAIN: I did go to one previous meeting in

Houston where Governor Perry gave a luncheon to talk about

how he was going to take the Trans-Texas Corridor, if you

will, to the financiers in New York and his vision for

that and so forth. So this is my second opportunity and I

enjoyed both times.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much. We do

appreciate it, Scott.


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MR. WILLIAMSON: I think we waited Carlos out,

unless he's laying down asleep. Carlos Arudes, I think to

tell you, Mario, that he doesn't appreciate your median

project on Alana. And we don't blame him about that. He

waited right there in that chair for three hours.

Dan Miller?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: He wanted to comment on

posting, representing the Jones Ranch.

Jose Herrera?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: "I think that all the

improvements are excellent but think that when building at

major intersections there should be ramps built to allow

flow of traffic instead of creating bottlenecks. I don't

know more costly but it wastes a large amount of time

which is money." Which is a good observation.

Okay, Jose, we appreciate your having waited as

long as you did, and your thoughts are noted for the

record.

Anything else, Mike?

MR. BEHRENS: That's all.

MR. WILLIAMSON: No open meetings business.

Anything else, Amadeo, last call?

(No response.)


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MR. WILLIAMSON: The most privileged motion is

in order.

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved to adjourn.



All those in favor of the motion to adjourn will signify

by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)


(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. We are

adjourned at 2:24 p.m.

(Whereupon, at 2:24 p.m., the meeting was

concluded.)


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C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission

LOCATION: Brownsville, Texas

DATE: April 27, 2006

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages,

numbers 1 through 232 inclusive, are the true, accurate,

and complete transcript prepared from the verbal recording

made by electronic recording by Penny Bynum before the

Texas Department of Transportation.

5/02/2006(Transcriber) (Date)

On the Record Reporting, Inc.3307 Northland, Suite 315Austin, Texas 78731


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Documents

APR27TRN - Texas Department of Transportation€¦ · Web viewMS. HAWLEY: And Houston and Victoria. And I think what you have captured so well is that your mission is what's good