For nearly two hundred years, the desire to improve transportation has been of major interest to those who have lived in Texas. With substantial increases in the population of the Lone Star State predicted in the coming years, this matter is taking on even greater importance today.
The Trans Texas Corridor initiative announced recently by Governor Rick Perry is an innovative way to draw Texas’ wide open spaces closer together. His goal is to change the nature of transportation in Texas over the next several decades by creating a multi-use, statewide corridor that will move people, products, and information safely, efficiently, and effectively.
The Governor’s plan to improve the state’s aging and jam-packed transportation network is definitely a bold and visionary move to improve the way we travel and how we transport products in and around Texas. This novel transportation infrastructure program will provide substantial economic benefits and create a notable competitive advantage for our state.
The proposed Corridor calls for the construction of some 4,000 miles of new highways, high-speed railways, and underground pipelines, electric lines, and telecommunication linkages. This infrastructure will be developed in close proximity along the same routes from Brownsville to Amarillo and El Paso to Texarkana, plus all the pertinent in-between places. Outlying areas and border communities, as well as major cities across the state, will be uniquely linked together.
The project is expected to cost about $175 billion and span several decades. About $100 billion will be for road construction; the remainder will be in other new projects. There are numerous possibilities regarding funding options for the Corridor, but a cornerstone will be a public-private partnership combined with private sector initiatives. The new flexibility in transportation funding offered by the recent passage of Proposition 15 makes it possible to envision such an approach.
Of course, there are still many matters to consider as the details of the plan are reviewed, but overall it is a win-win situation. The Corridor will provide huge benefits to the state through construction and enhancement of efficiencies in mobility and access to the infrastructure, as well as the economic gains associated with attracting or retaining business activity.
I recently completed an intensive study of the Governor’s plan and have concluded that the average benefit per year from the construction activity alone over the first 25 years of the project will be (in constant 2001 dollars): $20.6 billion in annual total expenditures, $10.1 billion in annual gross state product, $6.7 billion in annual personal income, and 176,900 person-years of employment.
In addition, my study shows that the enhanced efficiency associated with the notable infrastructure impacts will, at project maturity, yield net gains of: $79.5 billion in annual total expenditures, $41.7 billion in annual gross state product, $25.2 billion in annual personal income, and 433,800 permanent jobs.
Furthermore, the potential development gains accruing at project maturity include: $505.0 billion in annual total expenditures, $231.7 billion in annual gross state product, $135.3 billion in annual personal income, and nearly 2.2 million jobs. The project will generate in excess of $13 billion per year (upon complete implementation) in state revenues on an inflation-adjusted (constant 2001 dollars) basis.
The Trans Texas Corridor is a whole new approach to transportation, the type of out-of-the-box thinking that can spawn long-term economic vitality. Although this bold plan is not without its obstacles, the same could be said in days past for D/FW International Airport, the Port of Houston, or, for that matter, the Goodnight-Loving Trail. We are at our best as a state when we strive to go beyond the structures of the past and chart a new course. The Trans Texas Corridor offers such an opportunity.