AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Texas officials Thursday picked a Madrid-based firm to begin development of an 800-mile-long Texas transportation corridor from Mexico to Oklahoma.
Cintra, an international transportation developer, agreed to invest $7.2 billion in toll roads and other transportation projects proposed in Gov. Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor.
The Texas Transportation Commission selected Cintra over two other bidders on the first stage of the project that envisions the construction of toll roads, rail lines and pipelines running in the same corridor parallel to I-35.
Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said the agreement is "an historic change" in the way major transportation projects are built in Texas. He said private investment, not taxpayer dollars, will finance the first projects.
Cintra proposed to invest $6 billion in a toll road between Dallas and San Antonio by 2010, give the state $1.2 billion for additional transportation projects along the route and extend the corridor into the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Mexico.
