The Texas Department of Transportation announced Wednesday it will literally wipe a segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor planned alongside Interstate 35 off the map.
Since 2002, the proposed right-of-way that stretched 600 miles from Laredo through North Texas and onto the Red River angered property owners whose land was in the way, which ultimately led to the project's death.
TxDOT said as it finishes an environmental review, it will tell the federal government that the TTC planned along I-35 will not be built.
Last year, TxDOT told lawmakers it spent almost $60 million studying the project, which has now been canceled. Gov. Rick Perry's grand network of toll roads crossing the state never got off the drawing board.
In the end, an admission of failure rarely seen in government came from Ted Houghton, one of Perry's appointees on the Texas Transportation Commission.
"We didn't do a very good job of explaining the Trans-Texas Corridor," he said. "A lot of it was mostly our fault."
As the project comes to an end, TxDOT said it's committed to finishing the widening of I-35 to three lanes each direction from San Antonio to Hillsboro.
A separate 11-mile, two-lane stretch of I-35 through Waxahachie needs expanding, too.
In the Dallas area, the planned Loop 9 surrounding the metro area is part of the canceled TTC-35; but it will continue as a separate project.
The section running from Highway 287 along the Dallas and Ellis County line up to Interstate 20 is furthest along in development. About 400 homes are in the proposed right of way.
After the TTC fiasco, TxDOT said it will listen to the public to better balance property rights and transportation needs.
The mayor of Cedar Hill, Rob Franke, is on an I-35 citizens committee.
"Loop 9 in the southern part of Dallas County is really going to be critical ultimately because of the intermodal facility and the amount of truck traffic that you're going to see coming into the Dallas-Fort Worth area," he said.
The TxDOT announcement didn't happen in a political vacuum. Just two days ago, the Texas Farm Bureau, which opposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, endorsed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for governor in the Republican primary over Perry.
