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April 26,
2007
Far
West Texas on the Web
La Entrada, MOTRAN, Stop
the
Trucks, and
rural
land values
By
Jack D. McNamara
We
received a press release last Friday from “Stewards of the Big
Bend,” an organization formed to “coordinate the opposition to MOTRAN's
proposal for La Entrada al Pacifico.” The press release identifies the
group’s Web blog as www.stopthetrucks.org. The site is the brainchild
of Marfa architect Mike Green and is also administered by Susan Curry
and Pete Smyke of Alpine.
The
controversy stimulated by the Texas Department of Transportation’s
recent study thus generates what is in most respects an electronic
newspaper to record the facts, events and opinions concerning the
controversy.
No license
from any governmental authority is required. No advertising
is indicated as necessary to fund the activity here at its beginning.
You can go to the site and examine maps of the proposed corridor, read
transcripts of the Midland and the Ft. Stockton meetings in March, and
most importantly leave a comment on the Web blog.
MOTRAN
has a Website but it is far less sophisticated than stopthetrucks.org.
Of course MOTRAN has plenty of assets in the Petroplex and improvement
of their site is possible.
For the next round of meetings there will certainly be more material in
the public domain.
The Nimby News receives communications on the issue and many of those
reveal facts which deserve an airing.
For example, one writer pointed out that the railroad tunnels on the
Texas Pacifico route through Copper Canyon are much too small to
accommodate the double stack of cargo containers on flat cars. The
tunnels would have to be enlarged to fully use the railway.
Another correspondent who frequently travels the new Ojinaga to
Chihuahua highway which skirts the Peguis Mountains says the “highway”
is barely two lanes and not up to U.S. highway standards for the
battering from fully loaded semi-trailer trucks.
Yet another pointed out that the Mexican press had published an
interesting link in a cargo consignment headed for Topolobampo —
The U.S. Coast Guard is now off-loading a cocaine shipment seized off
the Pacific coast of Panama. The cocaine is estimated at 26 tons which
embarked in a Colombian port. Mexican cartel members were arrested
before the cargo ship could sail for Topolobampo.
Perhaps our most interesting news comes out of Laredo yesterday (April
23). The Laredo City Council was scheduled to meet and consider a
partnership with Webb County for the construction of a fifth
international bridge, including a railway. In the Laredo Morning Times
the deal is described as a “joint venture.”
A
more detailed story in the San Antonio Express online, “Laredo may
finally build a new bridge,” by Mariano Castillo, says that for about
seven years the city and the county have been squabbling about who
would own the bridge. County “supporters” said the city of Laredo
violated the Texas Open Meetings (TOMA) when the council met to oppose
the county’s project. The city said the county needed the city’s
permission to build the bridge. The city appealed to the Third Court of
Appeals in Austin. The county appealed to the Fourth Court of Appeals
in San Antonio. One court ruled the TOMA was violated. The other ruled
the county needed the city’s permission. The U.S. State Department,
which has the ultimate say in permitting international bridges, told
the warring entities to get together and resolve their differences.
This month the city and the county agreed to drop the lawsuits.
But according to the San Antonio Express, bridge traffic has dropped
21% between 2000 and 2006.
Before we find too much amusement in the civic struggles of Laredo we
ought to remind ourselves of the history of the Presidio-Ojinaga
bridge. It was originally a private bridge. In the recent past there
have been frequent discussions for the reversion of control of the
bridge to the city of Presidio. The idea was that bridge tolls would
fund the city of Presidio, or perhaps the county.
If bridge tolls could be dedicated to the support of local governments,
perhaps the local governments could use the money to build more and
better roads?
This sort of discussion is occurring now in Austin in connection with
the governor’s toll road initiatives. The argument goes that the state
is not receiving enough money to build and repair the existing road net
so we should let the private sector build toll roads and thereby force
motorists to pay directly for their roads.
The Legislature disagrees with the governor’s entrepreneurial
enthusiasm and there are currently two bills, Senate Bill 1267 and
House Bill 1892 which seek to establish some sort of moratorium on toll
road building.
Bridges from Mexico
connecting to toll roads across Texas — where does
all this go?
Across increasingly valuable Texas rural land, that’s where.
Livestock
Weekly (Internet edition) on April 19 told us that “Land Prices
Continue to Rise; Far West Texas Up 71 percent,” by Colleen Schreiber.
The story relates that the highest priced land in Texas is Kerr County,
median price over $7000 an acre.
“It was Far West Texas however that
topped the list this year in terms of price advance. In 2006, the
Trans-Pecos saw a 71 percent increase in median land price.” The land
price reports come from the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M who is
quoted saying “this just can’t go on.”
Perhaps that is why they call Marfa the new Santa Fe.
So would you prefer to fill your back porch view with exhaust-belching
18-wheelers going 80 miles an hour or would you prefer antelope happily
munching range grass?
Two weeks ago we quoted Fran Sage of the Big Bend Sierra Club. She
asked MOTRAN to come to Alpine and tell her how our lives would be
improved by La Entrada al Pacifico. We have read a lot of argle-bargle
lately about the economic advantages of global transportation; but we
have no persuasive answers for Mrs. Sage’s question. •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas April 26, 2007.)
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