KERA/Dallas Blog take issue with Trinity Parkway’s impact on Pegasus Project
Unfortunately I don’t have the opportunity to link to this story from the dallasblog.com right now, but I’ve gotten a number of e-mails regarding my “Vote No” post last week. Here’s the post and I’ll clean it up and give the proper credit later.
From DallasBlog.com
Texas Transportation Chairman Ric Williamson agreed there would be delays, but he said he can’t imagine a scenario where Project Pegasus would be scrapped, according to KERA. Project Pegasus is TxDOT’s plan to improve the Canyon/Mixmaster.
“If the toll road as envisioned now is radically changed, Project Pegasus will have to be redesigned. I’m not taking a position; it’s just a logical conclusion,” Williamson said. “Project Pegasus is so important to the clean air plan and congestion relief for North Texas. I can’t imagine a circumstance where it wouldn’t be redesigned and moved forward. It’s just that important.”
The Vote No! campaign and Michael Morris of the North Central Texas Council of Governments have continued to scare voters into believing that Project Pegasus depends on a reliever route. In fact, Morris’s 10 reasons to build the Trinity Parkway was published in The DMN and no. 5 says “creates opportunity to rebuild Canyon/Mixmaster.”
This is taken from the story’s intro.
Michael Morris, NCTCOG’s director of transportation, says that nearly $5 billion of needed transportation projects would be in jeopardy if voters pulled the plug on the Trinity Parkway. Without the planned toll road, improvements to roads such as Interstates 35E and 30 and U.S. Highways 67 and 175 cannot be made.
So you can choose to believe Morris, who has been giving presentations with the Vote No! campaign to help convince voters that voting yes will kill other needed transportation projects in Dallas, or you can believe Ric Williamson, who hasn’t inserted himself into this campaign and is the top transportation official in the state.
