First off: the TTC is NOT neccessarily an international or even a national proposal, it is the brain(less)child of Texas Governor Bill "Goodhair" Perry and his grafters at the Texas Highway Commission who would prefer that all major controlled access highway infrastructure be sold off to private interests or converted to toll roads because raising the gasoline tax and other means to fund public infrastructure is nothing short of Godless Communism.
Secondly...the proposed TTC isn't just a highway project; it also involves dedicated truck lanes, dedicated rail lines for high-speed commuter and heavy freight as well as for local light-rail; and right-of-way for fiber-optic and other "high-tech" pipelines...all within a 1,000' wide corridor.
The first phases of the TTC which have generated the most controversy are: (1) the proposed TTC-35 corridor which would generally parallel and run just east of the existing Interstate 35 corridor from San Antonio to suburban Dallas, then run south and east of SA to the Mexican border at Harlingen/Brownsville; and (2) TTC-69, which would serve as Texas's contribution to the prooposed extension of Interstate 69 from Indianapolis down through southwest Indiana (Evansville, Bloomington), western Kentucky, western Tennessee (Memphis), Mississippi (Tunica, Greenville), Arkansas, and northwest Louisiana (near Shreveport) down through East and southeast Texas (Lufkin, Houston, Laredo; with a spur route going towards Texarkana). Ultimately, the plans were to develop other main corridors throughout Texas (including I-10 from San Antonio through Houston and Beaumont).
Now, there are perfectly legitimate and worthwhile reasons to oppose the TTC from a progressive's point of view: eats up entirely too much farmland and human resources; privatizes a major public transportation resource and puts it in the hands of foreign companies with no responsibility to the people who will have to pay the tolls and use the highway; the "no-compete" clauses that eschew any needed improvements to "free" public roads located nearby; and above all, the fact most of the congestion can be resolved through a combinatioin of improving and widening existing freeways (such as I-35), or upgrading existing highways to Interstate standards (like US 59) and using public transportation to fill in the rest of the gap for a fraction of the price of the TTC.
Scaring the people about Meskins crossing the border by the truckloads and gripping about shady Illuminati-led organizations taking over our government, though, is a far cry from being legitimate at all; and those who are pushing that nonsense are probably the usual right-wing isolationists and racist xenophobes giving updated lyrics to the same old tired hymnal. Any progressive and radical worth his salt who attempts to ape the likes of Ron Paul on this issue will be deserving of contempt.
Besides, along with existing I-35, we will already have a literal international corridor when Interstate 49 is ultimately expanded as proposed from New Orleans to Kansas City. Last time I checked, even our local right-wing isolationists here in Louisiana aren't even raising a peep about that proposed "Superhighway".....but then again, it's being built as a free road, not a private tollway.
Anthony