Cruz reveals another area where red tape is blocking SpaceX at Boca Chica: roads
In a interview with a local news outlet in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) revealed that the state’s bureaucracy is stymieing SpaceX at Boca Chica in another unexpected way, getting the road to the facility repaired and upgraded.
“SpaceX has offered to invest their own money to improve the highway, and the problem is they’re running into permitting obstacles, environmental permitting obstacles that is slowing it down,” Senator Cruz said.
Cruz is the new Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. There are steps he says he can take to fix these roads, even if it is not something that will directly address the issue. “As chairman of the Commerce Committee, I am very focused on permitting, on reducing the barriers of permitting, on speeding up the ability to do things like improve and expand State Highway Four,” Cruz said.
In a statement, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Ray Pedraza said, “TxDOT is currently providing upgrades and pavement improvements for the existing SH 4 between Brownsville and Starbase Texas (SpaceX). TxDOT is also working with SpaceX on further planning and environmental efforts to achieve additional widening on SH 4 in the future.”
I think Cruz did this interview to apply some public pressure on the Texas Transportation Department. Hopefully it will get the tortoise moving.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In a interview with a local news outlet in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) revealed that the state’s bureaucracy is stymieing SpaceX at Boca Chica in another unexpected way, getting the road to the facility repaired and upgraded.
“SpaceX has offered to invest their own money to improve the highway, and the problem is they’re running into permitting obstacles, environmental permitting obstacles that is slowing it down,” Senator Cruz said.
Cruz is the new Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. There are steps he says he can take to fix these roads, even if it is not something that will directly address the issue. “As chairman of the Commerce Committee, I am very focused on permitting, on reducing the barriers of permitting, on speeding up the ability to do things like improve and expand State Highway Four,” Cruz said.
In a statement, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Ray Pedraza said, “TxDOT is currently providing upgrades and pavement improvements for the existing SH 4 between Brownsville and Starbase Texas (SpaceX). TxDOT is also working with SpaceX on further planning and environmental efforts to achieve additional widening on SH 4 in the future.”
I think Cruz did this interview to apply some public pressure on the Texas Transportation Department. Hopefully it will get the tortoise moving.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I think it was the late, great, P. J. O’Rourke who, in his travels around the world, made this observation. He was in a rural location in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and a local consortium wanted to build a factory. They needed a road to that factory. The locals argued back and forth vociferously about the need for a ‘plan’ to build the road. Mr. O’Rourke observed to the locals that they didn’t need a plan, they needed a few dump trucks full of gravel. No, no, the locals said, we need plan!!
O’Rourke later was in China. In China, when a factory needs a road, the local government builds a road.
So, Texas: are you more like Russia or more like China? SpaceX needs a road improved. Go improve the road.
I think the roadbed on Hwy 4 would be far more structurally sound if a number of worthless State bureaucrats were buried beneath it. From the comically awful TCEQ to the equally blundering TxDOT, things would be far better if the bureaucracies simply got out of the way.
One hopes that the New Speaker soon to be elected will bring these bureaucracies up short, and remind them that getting in the way where they don’t belong is often painful.
My county is really good about tearing roads up–then not pave them
It took about a year to replace the road in front of my house. It’s only three blocks long. They did pull everything out – roadbed, water, sewer, etc… – and rebuild from scratch, but still. The big bottleneck was labor. The crews worked hard, but there were rarely more than dozen people out there at any given time.
I just discovered that the bit of easement that they took to put in a suicide lane was important. The plows throw snow onto my sidewalk, now, which means I need to clear it twice. That’s annoying.