Superhighway fight not over yet.(THE LAST WORD)

It was a full year ago when the New York Times carried a small 220-word article claiming that rumors about construction of a massive new highway system from Mexico through the United States into Canada were the product of "urban legend." But the July 31, 2007 article included a tiny 1x1.5-inch photo showing a map of the planned route that would, in effect, bisect Texas and gravely impact other states. Only a conceptual drawing of the road's potential location, the photo had been released by NASCO, the North American SuperCorridor Coalition. If no substance to the rumors, why the NASCO map?

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The Times noted that candidates for the GOP presidential nomination were even then facing questions about this supposedly nonexistent project. Former candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney claimed no knowledge of the project when queried in faraway New Hampshire and Iowa. Others would later concur that there was nothing to it.

With its relatively tiny article, the Times had nevertheless rendered its contribution to discounting the existence of plans for what has been correctly labeled the "NAFTA Superhighway." Denials that the road project is actually a portion of an even more sinister plan to merge the three North American countries continue to this day, and not just in Texas.

An outpouring of citizen resistance to the scheme throughout Texas, and even into neighboring states, has forced the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to rethink at least part of what is being planned. On June 11, TxDOT announced that it was now "recommending that the 1-69 Trans-Texas Corridor Project be developed using existing highway facilities wherever possible." This roadway, known as TTC-69, would stretch from southern Texas to the state's northeast corner. If built as originally proposed, a huge chunk of property rights would be its significant victim.

So, TxDOT claims to have rethought TTC-69. While that might be welcome news, what about TTC-35 pictured on the NASCO drawing? If constructed as planned, this massive roadway from Laredo to the Oklahoma border would actually cut the state in half and take millions of acres of farm and ranch land.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who opposes this entire project, saluted the tens of thousands of Texans who had voiced their resistance to TxDOT's plan. Noting that the Texas agency had received "nearly 28,000 public comments" and "12,000 ...