Texas Transportation Commission Special Meeting
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
Dewitt C. Greer Building
125 East 11th Street, Austin, TX 78701

Of the $2.25 billion dollars Texas has received for transportation from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), TxDOT plans to obligate $1.2 for road and bridge building, community revitalization projects and job creation across the state.

Click here to view the Commission's agenda, and here for a list of staff-recommended projects.

I highly recommend looking at the list of projects, specifically at the column titled "+ Other Funds". The key to notice here is that not only is TxDOT spending $1.2 billion in federal taxpayer money, but they are also leveraging an additional $1 billion from local RMAs, MPOs, bonds and cities to spread the ARRA funds around — that's surely better than any stock market investments are doing these days and should be applauded.

Last Thursday, the Commission approved $505 million-worth of staff-recommended maintenance projects across the state. Both lists of projects were developed since late 2008 with input from the bottom-up.