I drive through Wheatland on my way into Fort Worth. Wheatland has a big, fat billboard supporting the TTC. It has a rancher/cowboy smiling, as though he is happy about this. It says it will create jobs, improve emergency evacuations, and lessen traffic.
They are right. It WILL create jobs, most likely for more illegal aliens, and fatten the back pockets of the investors and foreign interests. It will aid those in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and the Red River counties to evacuate from all the hurricanes that make landfall in those areas. It will have less traffic on it because no one will use it, except for the trucks from Mexico and Canada.
Indeed the TTC is a wonderful thing. Taking beautiful grass and tree covered lands used by cattle and other livestock, AND OWNED BY SOMEONE ELSE, in order to replace it with cold, hard pavement, a rail line, utility lines, billboards, and more strip centers is a grand idea. These strip centers will no doubt be filled with your typical Payless Shoes, Hallmark cardshop, Jose's Taqueria Grande, and the $1.25 Drycleaner. Sam Houston knows, we can't have enough of those.
The rancher clearly on the billboard is not one of those that will be losing his land. Perhaps the sign should tell the truth. Less ranchlands, more roadside eyesores, and yet another toll road.