Rick Perry Calls for More Funds for I-69 Project
State transportation officials and advocates stood with Gov. Rick Perry at a news conference Wednesday to tout the early progress in developing the Texas portion of a new interstate highway system while warning that more funding was needed for the $16 billion project to continue.
Supporters of the Interstate 69 project envision it stretching 1,600 miles from South Texas to Michigan and serving as a key trade corridor for truck traffic to and from Mexican and Texan ports while also boosting infrastructure in key regions. In the last year, the federal government has designated portions of U.S. Highway ...
Comments (24)
Arthur M. Thomas IV via Texas Tribune on Facebook
"winning streak"? I don't call being on the caboose of a train going over a cliff a "winning streak".
Donna Pazdera via Texas Tribune on Facebook
As someone who lives in the Valley, it would be great to have this finished. We are one of the only major metros in the country that is growing and has no interstate.
Jeremy Jones via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Mofo needs to deal with this education needs!
Genevieve Van Cleve via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So sad that this new-found interest in investment does not extend to school children.
Home Cooker via Texas Tribune on Facebook
we need less cars and more smart hiring so people don't have to drive so far. It's funny/wierd how the very immature conservatives come up with all these ways to help their buddies get huge profitsbutt they don't care that they are sucking the life out of U.S. manufacturing and distribution systems; once the industry is here they outsource/cart it off to some foreign land[cheaper labour-Dixie Mafia dreams of another slave state] and then demand money from the "rainey day fund" which most said we would never ouch unless it was an emergency, creeps!
Brian Bauer via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I want that road built today. Why wait till tomorrow?
John Tunmire via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This will make it much easier for the Mexican Drug gangs to transport drugs to Michigan.
Craig Steiger via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I hate Perry, but I'm with him on this! We need this road to move things in and out of the Port of Houston!
Robert Wyatt via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yep, a true big spender.
Angie Hester Wagner via Texas Tribune on Facebook
shouldn't be a priority until the rest of the country builds their section of I69. Otherwise, traffic will just divert to currently existing highways when I69 ends... sections are done all the way up in Kentucky, but I doubt the states in between are investing in the project - worth investigating before investing.
Andy Jones via Texas Tribune on Facebook
rail, rail, rail
Ann Grochowiak
You couldn't be farther from the truth when you say Indiana's I-69 progress has slowed down. A 67-mile section of new terrain I-69 was opened on Nov. 19. Another 27 miles is slated to open late next year! This is the largest contiguous highway construction project occurring in the nation as far as we can ascertain.
Michelle Grovak via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Indiana just opened 67 miles of new terrain I-69 on Nov. 19 with 27 more miles to open in 2014. I-69 is alive and well in Indiana, despite criticism from a few old soreheads.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Andy, rail is just one important component. But those are built by private companies and not the state. There use to be an unused segment of rail from Wharton to Rosenberg. Shut down in the 1980s. KCS came in and reopened it to save time getting in and out of Houston.
What people do not realize is that unless you have adequate transportation network, you can not create jobs and expand businesses and industry for a growing state population. They will harp on education despite the fact more money is spent on education than transportation! OF the total funds in the state budget, Education gets 42%. Of funds just from General Revenue, education gets 56%. Source is the Legislative Budget Board which is overseen by both democrats and republicans.
Nick Zwegchen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
69 hheheheh
Nick Zwegchen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I 69 all day long
Debbie Mason via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Is this the one he wanted that would be done by another nation? The one we had to stop years ago?
Lori Trammell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We need this road. Yesterday.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No Debbie, it is not the same
Enedelia Obregon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Highways? Education? The poor? Guess who's gonna win!
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That is easy Enedelia...EVERYONE WINS!! We win when highways are constructed allowing for more commerce for the goods we want to buy and sell. It makes it easier for us to travel from one point to another. We win with education funding. From the LBB, Education accounts for 42 of all revenue in the State Budget. IT accounts for 56% of all General Revenue in the state Budget. We when with 32% of the states budget goes to programs for the poor. That is far better than 0. So in the end we ALL win
Scott Moore Jr. via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That would be the InterCountry route. Direct pipeline for US manufacturing jobs to move to Mexico. Kill it.
Gary Bennett
I think this would be a wonderful project, and should be accelerated. The Lower Rio Grande Valley (1.3 million) and Houston (6.3 million) represent one of the great missing links in the Interstate Highway System (consider that Lubbock and Amarillo, which combined have about half the population of the Valley alone, have a standalone link of the IHS). And do you know what an even greater gap in the system is? Houston to Austin (1.9 million)!
How is it that our grandparents' generation was able to finance the bulk of the system, at many times the money and labor, but even small projects are now beyond us?
Jim Vance
In a word. boondoggle.