Monday Morning
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Internal The Corridor Council Executive Committee met last week (6/20) in San Marcos and unanimously selected former San Antonio city councilman Richard Perez as co-chairman of the Council with Austin Frost Bank chairman Robert Huthnance. Mr. Perez is vice president of a family-owned landscaping business. Welcome aboard. The Corridor Council Transportation Task Force Steering Committee met last Friday in San Marcos to finalize their transportation infrastructure recommendations and hear details of a $4.5 million Austin-San Antonio IH-35 Corridor Improvement project approved at their request by TxDOT. More details at a July press conference. Stay tuned. Infrastructure The San Antonio Express-News certainly liked the speedy way in which the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority moved within hours of last week's TxDOT Commission meeting to seek local toll authority over the Loop 1604 and 281 projects. Read their editorial here. Washington lawmakers touted a bill last week that would provide railroads and other transportation entities tax credits to expand capacity. The Freight Rail Infrastructure Capacity Expansion Act of 2007 (HR 2116) would provide a 25% tax credit for capital expenditures made by railroads, shippers, ports, trucking companies and other transportation businesses to build or expand track, intermodal facilities, yards or other rail infrastructure. Qualifying expenditures also would include tunnels, signals, certain locomotives, bridges, yards, terminals and transload facilities. Details here. TxDOT's top government affairs man, Coby Chase, had quite an acid-laced earful for TxDOT Commissioners about the legislative session at a special called meeting in Austin recently: "They [legislators] all but completely cut off access to private capital except to a handful of projects, and transferred approximately $1.5 billion from the state highway fund to non-transportation purposes," he reported. Our favorite part: a Lege-passed bill that wants to study whether there's a conspiracy to link Canada, Mexico, and America under a single government ("Red-neckistan"). Read his comments here... Mark Werner of TxDOT will present a "Texas NAFTA Study Update" Friday, July 13, 7:45 am, discussing the effects of NAFTA trade on the State's transportation system at the UIW International Conference Center Main Dining Room, 837 E. Hildebrand Ave., in San Antonio. About 200 Caldwell County landowners have begun getting letters from TxDOT about acquiring right of way for State Highway 130 Segments 5&6. Details can be seen here. "Thou shalt not cut off a certain glass-walled Popemobile:" The Vatican has weighed in on traffic courtesy with its own Ten Commandments of driving, including the ever-popular if somewhat self-evident, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Pat Driscoll's got some comments from the less-than-faithful here on his blog. The first of two public meetings for the New Braunfels Outer Loop study is at 6 pm today at Canyon High School. The study area is a 40-mile band around New Braunfels that encompasses portions of Comal and Guadalupe Counties, possibly requiring two new crossings over the Guadalupe River connecting to IH 35 north and south of the city Economic Development The Seguin Fire Department is trying to help low-income local residents who don’t have air conditioning or can’t afford to pay the utility costs of running their air conditioning by providing them with low-cost, 20-inch box fans. Read more and help out. As the immigration legislation battle heats up for US employers (Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced over the weekend that she'll oppose the current bill), the New York Times ran an interesting piece out of Midland yesterday about how President Bush's years in the Permian Basin formed his views on the issue. Read the story here. Market Street Services presented a 'Competitive Realities Report' documenting the Austin area's economic and demographic trends compared to other benchmark cities, including Denver, Nashville, Phoenix and Raleigh-Durham. Conclusion on the economy vis a vis industry clusters: "It is still too narrowly focused. It is still at risk." Read the entire report here. The Austin region is the 11th-largest market for new housing in the country, according to the latest issues of Builder Magazine. Ranked by total building permits issued in 2006, Austin, with a total of 26,900 permits, just missed the top 10. The Houston area ranked first on the list with 71,257 permits, followed by Atlanta with 68,240 and Phoenix with 43,657. Austin- based CAS Consulting & Services Inc. is expanding into San Antonio in order to enhance its market opportunities and to be closer to the highway project work the firm has already secured in the area which includes State Highway 130 toll road and IH-35 improvements. Work has begun on a new 160,000 sq. ft. medical and professional office building near Seton Medical Center Williamson and Scott and White's new hospital in Round Rock. The Round Rock Wellness Center will be developed on the southwest quadrant of University Blvd and Sunrise Road. Completion is slated for spring 2008. Buda completed a truck bypass to re-route heavy commercial traffic off of a portion of the city's Main Street. The truck bypass will take trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds off Buda's Main Street between Cabela's Drive and FM 967. The bypass runs from the access road of I-35 to FM 967. Skanska USA Building Inc. has appointed Brian Freeman to be the new manager of its Central Texas operations based in San Antonio. Skanska was recently awarded a $43.5 million contract to build a new three-story building at St. Philips College campus, part of the Alamo Community College District. Seton Medical Center Austin broke ground on a new five-story, 124,000 sq. ft. addition to the west side of the hospital on West 38th Street, which will house an expanded obstetrical services department. Seton Medical Center currently has 440 licensed beds. The addition will add another 32 beds immediately, and up to 60 by the time construction is completed in December 2008.
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