Dead Ends for La Entrada?
October 9th, 2007 at 10:16 am
How likely is the ambitious plan to build the superhighway called La Entrada al Pacifico? The planned highway will stretch from Lubbock through West Texas to the border and on to the Mexican port of Topolobampo. The Texas Department of Transportation is currently performing a feasibility study and hopes to release some kind of recommendation in March of next year. But despite the signs announcing the highway that dot West Texas roadways, the idea always seemed farfetched to me.
There is the obvious question of why a superhighway would be needed to an area of the state that is losing population. Now, after reading this story in the Los Angeles Times, I’m even more skeptical. The article relates how shipping at California’s ports, the busiest in the nation, is severely down due to a softening U.S. economy. So we would be boosting a Mexican port when the ones in the United States aren’t near capacity? It doesn’t make sense.
In fact, this really makes sense only as an outsized fantasy of civic boosters from Midland. One sure sign that this is the case is the involvement of Nadine Craddick, wife of the speaker of the Texas House in MOTRAN, the Midland-based booster of the plan. According to an article in the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Nadine Craddick “helped establish the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance in the early 1990s and its La Entrada al Pacifico trade corridor.” Not surprisingly the only actual construction to begin on La Entrada has started in Midland. One wonders with Tom Craddick battling for his political survival whether La Entrada is even more imperiled than it might appear?
October 9th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I am fervently hoping La Entrada fizzles like a soggy campfire match.
Let’s hope your theory is right.
October 9th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
The mileage for shipping cargo via La Entrada al Pacifico as opposed to other ports like the Alameda corridor is several hundred miles shorter. The backup on time for delivery due to excessive uses and labor disputes only adds to value in developing alternatives to constrained corridors like Alameda. For those of us that understand economics, that means lower cost goods which benefits all sectors of the economy including primarily the poor. Business interests across the United States, Mexico and Asia are interested in developing La Entrada and other trade corridors as a way to cut transportation costs. You have heard that gas prices are high. That is a transportation cost for people in the real world.
The trade corridor will provide a less costly overland route for Texas farmers, especially cotton growers, to ship their products to the booming foreign markets by providing greater access at lower costs to foreign manufacturers. Are you against farmers?
And since when do you want to help the California economy over Texas jobs. If you prefer to protect California jobs, move there. People that want to protect jobs in California over jobs in Texas, I call Californians or people I disagree with. You work for the Texas Observer right? Shouldn’t you have Texas best interest at heart?
That LA Times story talks about how projected increases in shipping have not been met. Read the opening paragraph. “Cargo containers crammed with foreign-made goods that were supposed to set a record in August at major U.S. ports took an unexpected turn, with imports sinking 1.4% in another sign of the slowing of the economy.” That article is about the slowing economy related to the housing market. Alameda is backed up severely. Read articles other than this on the subject and you might actually learn something. La Entrada includes shipping TO Asia. Roadways and railways are usually two-way paths.
State Representative Pete Gallego, a Democrat, sponsored the legislation creating La Entrada and helped to get state and Congressional approval of this route as a high priority trade corridor. That’s a big deal, it means you will receive priority for funding. Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, a Democrat, also supports La Entrada. Ask both of them. This idea is as economically viable and bipartisan as ideas come.
You either wrote this out of personal disdain for Craddick, or perhaps you talk only to people probably in California that oppose la Entrada about trade issues. I’m guessing you just read Craddick’s name in an article and thought you would prove your lack of knowledge by penning this blog.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Hi Meredith,
As one who lives in the area along La Entrada, I can tell you that a large majority of the population here is opposed to it. Just so you know. Whether Jake hates Craddick or not isn’t the issue. Also, no one that lives in this area thinks that La Entrada is going to get them a job. More are worried it’ll cause them to lose their jobs. In Alpine, tourism provides many people jobs, and who’d want to go to a place where 300 trucks are roaring down the tiny two lane main street every day?
http://www.stopthetrucks.org
http://www.alpineavalanche.com/articles/2007/03/15/news/news01.txt
October 22nd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
For Meredith:
Gosh, I was really surprised at the anger and condescending attitude you showed towards the author of this article.
For the record, Nadine Craddick is the wife the of a state representative from Midland/Odessa, which is a good deal away from the Big Bend region, and it clearly presents what is termed legally as an “appearance of impropriety.” Midland is far away from Big Bend and the economic and environmental impacts this proposed route will have on the Big Bend region.
Your understanding of economics seems to be focused on the short term—sure this route might make sense short term, but the long term aspects of it will be to destroy one of the few remaining unspoiled areas in North America and wipe out a thriving tourism industry. There are already plenty of trade routes for cotton to get shipped, if you pull out your atlas, and these can always be upgraded. Why add more when you already have infrasturcture in place? That certainly sounds more economical to me. Additionally, there are under-utilized railroads that could serve this purpose and save much more energy.
As for your remark about supporting Texas and “If you prefer to protect California jobs, move there. People that want to protect jobs in California over jobs in Texas, I call Californians or people I disagree with” reflects a very disturbing and provincial attitude. All of us human beings don’t just live in our home town or state; everyone on earth is a citizen of the planet, and we need to keep the bigger picture in focus, rather than focus on self-interest and the local.
As for the Observer, It is not a state supported publication, and because someone doesn’t want something damaging in their hometown, do you feel they should move? This folly is not about jobs or benefiting Texas farmers. It is about making money for business interests in Midland/Odessa and wealthy people in Mexico.
By the way, this proposed route will not only be environmentally and economically disastrous for the Big Bend Region, it also goes straight through Copper Canyon, in Mexico, which is another endangered ecosystem that dwarfs the Grand Canyon.
I hope that this encourages you to do more research and not respond so angrily when people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake, and who are dis-empowered through lack of political power and proper represenation. As for Ciro Rodriguez, I don’t think you have your facts straight on that either.
I may not be an economist, but I do know that it is a science usually manipulated to profit the group in power at the expense of all else, if that’s what you meant by an understanding of economics.
I hope that you will consider this, and the fact that this un-needed route is going to destroy many small lives and many small towns, for the benefit of BIG BUSINESS.