by Jeanne Williams| Temple Daily Telegram

ROCKDALE - The Texas Department of Transportation’s 32nd hearing on the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor drew a smaller, but no less potent crowd of dissidents Thursday in Rockdale.

TTC-35 is proposed as a 600-mile network of highways, railroad lines, and utilities running roughly parallel to Interstate 35. TxDOT is conducting 54 hearings from July 10 to Aug. 10 throughout the TTC-35 study area to gather comments on the draft environmental study.

During a brief video and Power Point presentation, the corridor was explained as the answer to the state’s future transportation needs and growth by providing faster, safer movement of people and goods, relieving congested roadways, providing alternate routes for hazardous materials, expanding economic growth and developing new markets and jobs.

Less than 100 people attended the session at the Knights of Columbus Hall, with 15 protestors going on record vocally with complaints and criticism, ranging from destruction of valuable farmland to cries rallying all Texans to vote against every incumbent on the ballot to defeat the corridor proposal. Some speakers criticized the video as misleading because it depicted the proposed area as a desert or desolate prairie devoid of communities, homes and farms.

Conn Tatum charged that Gov. Rick Perry intends to cut Texas in two “like a watermelon, we are going to have separate East Texas and West Texas.” Tatum also criticized the corridor as a key target for terrorists. He also said the route would have a negative economic impact on Texas, and would have a negative impact on controlling illegal immigration.
Tatum called the corridor “a road to nowhere.”

Hank Gilbert, Democratic Party candidate for Texas Agriculture commissioner, said the corridor would “facilitate NAFTA ... taking the vegetable industry away from Texas. By building this corridor from here to Canada, we will effectively take the U.S. out of the fruit and vegetable market. We will seriously deteriorate the beef cattle industry in this country because of the influx of foreign products across this border.”

“This is the one single largest thing that is going to affect and begin to destroy Texas agriculture,” Gilbert said. “And this is just one road. There are over 4,000 miles of these toll road plans taking up over 600,000 acres of farmland.”

Evelyn Summerlin said the corridor would effect everyone. She added the state should use the roadways already in place, and build elevated highways to accommodate traffic volumes.