State seeks proposals on new TTC leg

State highway officials are accepting proposals for a leg of the Trans-Texas Corridor that would run from North Texas to Mexico, passing west of the Houston area and including links to the Port of Houston.

The TTC is a proposed network of superhighways that will include separate lanes for cars and trucks, freight and passenger rail lines and infrastructure for communications and pipelines. The first TTC route will run parallel to Interstate 35 through Central Texas, passing near Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Laredo. The route that would come near Houston, along the future I-69 alignment, would run west of Houston so it wouldn't affect pollution, but it could be linked to Fort Bend, Brazoria, Liberty and Chambers counties by spurs. TxDOT hopes to have a short list of proposers by late summer, and it may publish a detailed proposal for the corridor in the fall. The state could select a firm to develop the proposal by late 2007.

Both TTC corridors will be developed near cities first and could take 50 years to complete.