NAFTA superhighway extends north

A NAFTA superhighway plan under way in Texas will be extended to Oklahoma and Colorado, stretching the four-lane, train-truck-car-pipeline corridor from the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, to Denver. The Federal Highway Administration is promoting public-private partnership projects to expand superhighway projects, consistent with extending the Trans-Texas Corridor network north. The plan is for the states of Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado to apply the TTC toll road concept first developed by the Texas DOT to largely rural areas along the Ports-to-Plains Corridor. To advance this plan, the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition – sponsored by the consulates of Mexico and Canada along with the Texas and Colorado transportation departments – is co-sponsoring a "Great Plains 2007" international conference Sept. 19-21 at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver. A brochure on the planned conference recommends it be attended by real estate developers, transportation planners, highway services business executives, as well as state, local, county and municipal public officials and international trade professionals. An April Texas DOT study on the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition website documents the tie between the two groups. The study says the Ports-to-Plains Corridor offers an opportunity to apply the Trans-Texas Corridor technology to NAFTA superhighway development in rural settings. It concludes by recommending new highway construction be undertaken parallel to the existing Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor route in order to apply the superhighway design north through Oklahoma into Colorado.