In Quiet West Texas, Residents Fight an Anticipated Trade Corridor
By BARBARA NOVOVITCH
nytimes.com
MARATHON, Tex., March 17 — The idea that in a few years hundreds of diesel-puffing semi trucks from Mexico could be tooling through two small towns in this area of West Texas every day has upset residents.
The towns are on the route of a projected trade corridor from Mexico called La Entrada al Pacifico. In the proposal’s present form, La Entrada would route semis through single-stoplight Marfa, population 2,400, and neighboring Alpine, population 7,000, which has three traffic signals on two one-way streets through town.
At a Texas Department of Transportation hearing here this week, dozens of residents spoke out against the plan, which state officials insisted was strictly preliminary.
“We own a precious natural resource that is becoming more and more valuable: peace and quiet,” said Don Dowdey, chairman of the Big Bend Regional Sierra Club. “Out here, scenery, tranquillity and a rural way of life have attracted people seeking relief from congested cities.”
The Entrada proposal, he said, “would ruin the heritage of the Big Bend area’s beautiful, wide-open spaces.”
“Although we are few in number, we will fight to save this resource,” he said. Interrupted by loud applause, he then predicted, “And we will be joined by Texans from all over the state who value our unique area.”
Some here, however, doubt that the proposal can be stopped.
“How we behave in the next year could have an impact,” Mayor Dave Lanman of Marfa said Wednesday, “but I don’t think we’re going to stop the corridor.
“They have the ability to chip away at it — a little piece here, a little piece there — and they think as the traffic increases the public will get used to it,” Mr. Lanman added. “They won’t remember when you’d pass just two or three cars for the 24 miles between Marfa and Alpine.”
Mr. Lanman said he believed that the current highway construction intended to create more passing lanes between Marfa and Alpine was the start of La Entrada, and he fears that the public hearings, which continue Monday in Midland and Tuesday in Fort Stockton, are simply being held to fulfill a legal requirement.
Brian Swindell of HDR Engineering in Dallas, which is conducting a study of the plan for the state, said, “We expect to identify the preferred alternative — it could be rail or roadway — and the supporting information that supports selection of that corridor.” He said bypass routes or a “do-nothing alternative” could also be considered.
La Entrada al Pacifico was signed into law in 1997 by George W. Bush when he was governor. The oil cities of Midland and Odessa to the north, through the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance, have budgeted over $34 million in state and federal transportation money to promote the route, saying the increase in freight traffic will boost local economies.
By 2010, according to figures cited at a recent alliance conference, 550 trucks are expected to pass daily through Presidio; by 2020, 1,455 trucks. The current average is 49 per day.
Residents of Marfa and Alpine fear that the truck traffic will harm their towns economically because they thrive on tourism.
The Alpine City Council has passed a resolution urging the Texas Department of Transportation to explore an alternative solution of restoring an old rail line that runs 362 miles from San Angelo through Fort Stockton and Alpine to Presidio. The line would need improvements estimated at as much as $104 million. Bob Schwab, a Marfa resident, said a rail alternative would also be better for national security because trains are subject to stronger controls.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company |
