SocraticGadfly: Well, TxDOT is at it again

August 31, 2007

Well, TxDOT is at it again

Well, more than six hundred new Texas laws went into effect Sept. 1. Unfortunately, not one of them was about controlling the Texas Department of Transportation making propaganda films.

I’m sorry, did I say that? I mean, informative commercials about just how wonderful TxDOT wants to make our lives with brand-spanking new, wide, fast-moving roads. Now, the word “toll” was never used, let alone the phrase “Trans Texas Corridor,” but, they were lurking in the background, like the shadow of an 800-pound gorilla.

Meanwhile, some people are even floating the legal possibility that TxDOT could “buy back” already-built roads; that is, it could pay the federal government its original construction costs and then make I-45, for example, a toll road.

Frankly, I’m shocked — shocked, I say — that TxDOT hasn’t pulled out the terrorism angle. This would make a better commercial than anything they’ve run so far.

Picture a TV commercial voiceover saying, “When our roads are no longer free, then terrorists will no longer be free to use our roads. Support TxDOT’s fight against terrorism by supporting the Trans Texas Corridor.

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