El Pasoan David Marcus, who is vice chair of a state committee tasked with creating a report on long-range transportation needs for the state, is bringing one of the group's meetings to El Paso this afternoon.
The 12-person 2030 Committee, announced several weeks ago, already has met in Austin. The El Paso meeting, at 4 p.m. Thursday in the Main Library Downtown, in the first of five planned for around the state.
Marcus said being on the committee, and being an officer, "puts me in a great position to keep pushing for El Paso."
The committee, created by Deirdre Delisi, Chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, is to issue its report on the future of Texas transportation in December.
"Although the committee will not attempt to calculate available funding or identify funding solutions, it will work to quantify and describe the need for infrastructure investment over the next 20 years and beyond," stated the news release announcing the committee on July 10.
“In recent years I have seen a sharp rise in the discussion about the transportation challenges we face in Texas,” Delisi said in the prepared statement. “From the everyday commuter to large shippers, most everyone seems to understand that something needs to be done. However, before we solve the problem we need to define the problem so we can properly align our limited resources.”
The three-member Texas Transportation Commission, of which El Pasoan Ted Houghton is a member, oversees the Texas Department of Transportation, or TexDOT.
TexDOT has been heavily criticized in recent years. At the beginning of June, the staff report to the state's Sunset Advisory Commission recommended that TexDOT should be abolished and replaced by a commissioner serving under the "conservatorship" of the state legislature.
Marcus said that the 2030 Committee was not a response to the Sunset Commission's report.
"This committee idea, it came before the Sunset report came down, although I'm sure they all knew it was coming," Marcus said. During initial meetings, he said, "We never even brought up the Sunset report and our mission is pretty well defined."
He said the committee will work with research teams from Texas A&M and the University of Texas.
"I brought up whole different aspect of this. It wasn't on the agenda. I asked research teams if they allocated any research time into impact of mass transit on 20-year plan," Marcus said. "They hadn’t even discussed it yet so I requested they go out and find out more information on bus rapid transit such as in Los Angeles and Oregon.
"I think $4 a gallon gas is going to look real good in two years. Realistically, our economy is controlled by crude oil and the price of crude oil. And we need to address the fact people can't afford to drive like we have."
