Waco economist touts financial impact of Trans-Texas Corridor

BYLINE: Mike Copeland, Waco Tribune-Herald, Texas

Nov. 4--Many people oppose it, but the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor would have a $1.4 trillion impact on the state's gross domestic product and create 3.7 million permanent jobs.

That's according to Ray Perryman, a Waco-based economist who prepared a report on the corridor and its potential impact for the Texas Department of Transportation.

A massive traffic-moving corridor between Oklahoma and Mexico would grease the skids for economic development in Texas and make the state even more competitive in attracting business and industry, Perryman said.

"With the growing population and expanding economy of Texas, transportation constraints and congestion will only worsen over the coming decades," Perryman wrote in his summary.

The transportation department estimates that road use in Texas will rise by 214 percent over the next 25 years. Perryman said traditional approaches and resources to deal with this growth "can only meet about 36 percent of significant needs."

The answer is the Trans-Texas Corridor, Perryman said in his report titled "Moving Into Prosperity: The Potential Impact of the Trans-Texas Corridor on Business Activity in Texas."

The transportation department released the findings earlier this week.

Several groups oppose the corridor, which Gov. Rick Perry proposed in 2002 in order to deal with the state's projected trade and population growth.

They don't like the loss of farmland, the use of toll roads to pay for the corridor, or the choice of a Spanish company to develop it.

But Perryman, in an e-mail to the Tribune-Herald, said: "Change is always difficult and election season can make it even worse. Every highway project requires land, and (projects) are rarely accepted without question.

"I hope that the study offers proponents and opponents alike a proper framework in which to understand the project," he added. "If it is viewed in a proper context, the benefits outweigh the costs by a huge margin."

Perryman said he believes business activity and investment would thrive along the 800-mile-long corridor that would basically run parallel to Interstate 35.

The corridor, he said, would improve efficiency and reduce transportation time and costs. Companies could more easily expand their market within the state.

"Texas as a site for corporate locations and expansions is improved," he writes.

As hotels, stores and restaurants pop up along the corridor, Perryman said, local communities would see more hotel/motel occupancy taxes and sales taxes.

They could spend this money on their own infrastructure, making them better able to deal with increased business activity.

He estimates that local communities statewide would see these revenues increase by $1.39 billion annually.

Eliminating congestion, Perryman said, is a quality-of-life issue that would allow Texas to attract companies whose employees could live anywhere. These are "knowledge workers," he said, with good salaries.

It is true, Perryman said, that farmers and ranchers would lose land with the Trans-Texas Corridor.

"But our analysis indicates that rural property values will rise and output will increase as a result of the corridor," he said in his e-mail.

Chris Hammel, chairman of the Blackland Coalition, a Bell County group opposed to the corridor, said he has not yet read Perryman's report but has heard about it.

"I am frankly stunned that anybody could hold that a road that cuts across people's property and doesn't allow them access to it could somehow miraculously produce an economic benefit," he said. "There are no access roads and few on-ramps."

Hallsburg Mayor Mike Glockzin said the corridor "will stifle traffic on rural and farm-to-market roads because you will be limited on where you can cross."

But Perryman said it is a myth to suggest the corridor will have no access.

"There will be access to the various TTC routes from towns as well as rural areas," he said.

McLennan County Judge Jim Lewis said he respects Perryman "but I'd like to sit down eye-to-eye with someone and see how the corridor is going to affect agriculture."

He said he also wonders about increased trucking costs if truckers have to pay tolls to use the corridor.

Those increased costs, he said, would be passed along to consumers in the form of higher costs of goods.

Staff writer Mike Anderson contributed to this story.

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