John Barton named TxDOT interim exec

SH 99 advocate

David Crossley, Aug 29, 11.

The Texas Transportation Commission has named John Barton, P.E., as TxDOT’s interim executive director, effective Sept. 1, according to a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) email newsletter. The Commission announced the appointment at its Aug. 25 monthly meeting.

Barton, a 25-year TxDOT veteran and currently the department’s interim deputy executive director, will manage TxDOT policies, programs, and operating strategies while the Commission seeks a replacement for outgoing Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, who retires Aug. 31.

Note: Barton has been a leading advocate of building State Highway 99, a 180-mile new loop around the Houston region designed to encourage sprawl development at the region’s edges. In encouraging the Transportation Commission to move forward with segment E of the $6 billion project, Barton said building the road through the nearly vacant Katy Prairie is “an opportunity to open up areas for development in the Greater Houston area.”

At a local address to the Houston-Galveston Area Council’s Transportation Policy Council earlier this year, Barton said “The Commission basically asked that our chief financial officer, our executive director, and myself and staff start turning over every seat cushion to see if we can find any coins available, put out collection plates at all our churches, synagogues, and temples, and try to gather up any funding that we can to try to make that a reality.”

Subsequently, the Commission announced that it had “found” $450 million to begin the work. At the same time, State officials were complaining that TxDOT was not going to be able to pursue new projects as the gas tax funds began to shrink. SH 99 would be among the largest new projects in TxDOT history.

Last week, according to a story from Guidry News, Barton, speaking about SH 99, told the Transportation Policy Council “It is certainly a tremendous project, an outer loop around the Greater Houston and Harris County area, approximately 180 miles in length.”

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