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“The TTC, The Trans-Texas Corridor, is a transportation program to establish new highways that run parallel and link old ones in order to facilitate the transportation of―oil, water, and natural gas pipelines, petroleum, utility lines, and telecommunication services. The supercorridors are supposed to be divided between commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and high-speed rail, but essentially they’ll be toll roads that individual commuters will have to pay for. They want to replace commuter highways with toll roads, with about fourteen separate lanes. It’s like a double taxation. Residents will end up paying for the state-sponsored infrastructure, but will also have to pay a toll to basically use the highway. It’s some sort of lucrative clandestine deal between the Texas legislature and the Texas Department of Transportation. And well I guess NAFTA too. It’s only in the beginning stages right now, but it’s definitely going to wipe out tons of farmland and ranchland, acres upon acres of wilderness, not to mention displacing people and entire towns, cities, and communities like Fair Oaks―oh good, we’re here?”
I was surprised to see how desolate Fair Oaks was. It looked like it would have been a great place to raise a family. I thought about Chloe and her children. “So what’s going on here exactly, why’s this place so deserted, it looks like a lot of other communities I passed up coming down here from San Antonio?”
“Well, it was supposed to be a new tract home community, mostly single-families that wanted to get away from the whole downtown crowd. I mean…I get it, people want more space even though their commute might be longer…it’s a trade-off. Fayetteville’s not a big city, but we do have urban sprawl like everyone else.”
I interrupted, “I know what you mean…it’s happening everywhere. It’s definitely happening in other parts of the world as well. I’ve covered a few international stories about urbanism and city-planning and it’s the same, even in small towns.”
“Well here in Fair Oaks, the project had been moving forward for about a year or so with these homogenized homes, you know…those big yards, plenty of space, two or three car garages, even a golf course with a park attached…the works. It seemed like it was going to be a great community, I had a couple of friends who were planning on buying a home here already, then all of a sudden construction just stopped. There was all this talk about the economic crisis and inflated adjustable loans. Then they couldn’t sell any new properties any more, it was just a big ugly mess. Then some developers addressed the local residents at a town hall meeting and said they couldn’t continue to pay the contractor to finish the projects, and well…they filed for bankruptcy. A few developers did, actually.”
“Are you serious, just like that…that’s crazy. I mean―you heard about this going on throughout the country, but the actual developer filing for bankruptcy? So what happened to the people’s money…the one’s that had already made the down payment?” I asked, but I thought about my own situation of financial crisis. I lost my home to an adjustable loan.
“I represented the families in a class-action lawsuit against the developer, which we won, but now they’re going to demolish what they had started…to build this new supercorridor. You know something Michael, I think they expected us to file a class-action lawsuit…I think they wanted us to win and have those people get their money back. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“How come, well, what’s the benefit? I mean, that’s a good thing right? Those people weren’t robbed of their money, they got it back, you won them the case. They had representation. What’s the problem, now they could even go buy a home somewhere else, right?” I was puzzled.
“You see that over there?” Helena pointed towards a concrete extension that had already been built.
“They’re already bringing in the infrastructure without public participation. It’s just going to cause all this environmental damage. Without dedicated people here to protest against this new infrastructure, the government has seized the land. They could do whatever they want now. What about all the additional noise and exhaust? The citizens weren’t even informed about this supercorridor.”
Helena looked devastated with wrinkles of despair around her eyes. She buried her hands into her face and began weeping, while I glanced at her with aloofness, but with sharp observance. Helena had a radiant glow of magnanimity around her dark defined eyebrows, the thought of her fighting for a cause against the big business-type corporate government made me feel inferior as a person. The Trans-Texas Corridor seemed to be undermining the plurality of the common people, but Helena’s position in the David and Goliath campaign gave me hope for humanity.
I felt like patting her on the head or shoulder as she wept, but I didn’t dare, I hadn’t touched a woman since Chloe had moved out about two years ago. The thought of it terrified me. Shawn Hunter had been right about Fayetteville, Fair Oaks, and the supercorridors, but I still couldn’t see the bigger picture in the grand scheme of things.
“Look Michael, we’re going to have a town hall meeting tomorrow, the local constituents of Fayetteville want to address the State legislature. We need to spread the message across to the citizens of Texas, maybe you could help. Maybe you could write an article about what’s happening in Fayetteville and throughout the entire state. People read your stories, right? The people need to know what’s really going on in the state of Texas...if you want to get involved.”