2008 a big year for transportation in Texas

From statesman, December 22, 2008...

Texas Transportation Commission chairman Ric Williamson, whose imposing will and enterprising ideas had dominated state transportation policy for five years, died of a heart attack in a Weatherford hospital the morning of Dec. 30, 2007 . His sudden absence — coming just as the agency he ran was facing a cash crunch and an as-yet-undisclosed accounting problem of historic proportions — left TxDOT rudderless. That leadership vacuum affected everything to come in 2008, at least in Texas highway circles.

Capital Metro, meanwhile, had a whirlwind of a year, raising fares as ridership boomed, weathering a strike and announcing when its over-budget and tardy passenger rail line would open.

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