On September 5, 2014, Burnt Orange Report posted an article
written by Joe Deshotel about a possible Texas toll road default. In his article,
Joe tries to grab the attention of Texans, specifically tax paying Texans, by saying
things like the toll roads were a “bad idea for tax payers.”
Deshotel carefully outlines his arguments, using various
secondary sources including articles from Texas Tribune, Houston Chronical, Rolling
Stone, and Texans for Toll-free Highways, to undermine the Texas Tollways and
Rick Perry. Deshotel argued that Perry has done a disservice to Texas by
allowing Cintra, a Spain toll operator, to get too far into debt when building
“the NAFTA superhighway”. Deshotel then made Perry seem anti-American by discussing
all the foreign companies Perry used while governor of Texas.
Deshotel, however, never talks about the growing population
of Texas and how these roads could be key for transporting people as our population
grows, or how multiple other states have used foreign companies, including
Cintra, to build their toll roads.
At the end of his article, Deshotel argues that Perry is not
pro-America like he claims to be because he had foreign companies assist Texas government
operations. When Perry was making the decisions as Texas governor, not The
United States President. As many know, Texas government is pro-Texas business, innovation,
et cetera. Perry did what he thought was best of the TEXAS government because that’s
what he was in charge of doing. If he were the president of our country, he
would likely do what is in the best interest of the whole country.
Because Deshotel failed to share the other side of all his
arguments and give counterarguments to the other side, he fails to give solid
information to his readers.
A classmate of mine believes that building more toll roads is the solution to the increasingly compact traffic in Texas, even if foreign investments are unavoidable. The article can be found in this webpage. However, I believe that improving public transport, including civil aviation and railroad, is a better alternative to toll roads.
ReplyDeleteAs an engineer, I am always concerned with the technical perspective of a proposal prior to whether foreign companies are involved. An issue is how much traffic can new toll roads diverge? Not many. Currently the interstate highways generally have three to five lanes on each side in downtown areas and two or three lanes in the suburb. I have seen some toll expressways in Dallas and Houston. They are single lane highways. Practically, it is not possible to build 8-lane toll roads in addition to the existing highways. Therefore, I don't see how single lane (or dual lanes) expressways can alleviate the traffic flow. Secondly, I note that these toll roads have fewer ramps than regular interstate and Texas expressways. An important reason behind building highways is to spur economic growth. Hence bypassing many blocks is not helpful to local economy. Thirdly, building toll roads is against the Texan value of small government. Charging to use toll roads means charging tax payers another time after using their taxes to build the toll roads.
But what are the alternatives? I would recommend the employment and refinement of RNAV approach procedures in major airports. RNAV combines GPS, on-board inertial navigation and radio navigation to guide airplanes through a precise path to approach the airport. With this technology, we can optimize air traffic flow, enhance safety in malicious weather conditions,thereby increasing the number of flights. Another way to solve the needs of transportation of the growing population would be reviving railroads.