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Submitted as public comment to the Commission in 2007
TxDOT is a rogue, unaccountable, defacto taxing entity that does not do what the people of Texas want, which is NO TOLLING EXISTING ROADS & RIGHT OF WAY! The people have also spoken LOUD & CLEAR that they do NOT WANT to privatize the PUBLIC'S highway system. So what does TxDOT do? Spend $7-9 million in taxpayer money on an ad campaign to push those very policies, including the Keep Texas Moving web site that steers everything to toll roads, the Trans Texas Corridor, and privatization of our public infrastructure. TxDOT is a State agency; they are not policy makers. It violates Texas Government Code Chapter 556 to lobby in favor of toll roads and privatization. The taxpayers deserve a responsive, frugal, and accountable highway department that simply implements the policy the public wants.
Dissolve TxDOT as an agency and replace the appointed Transportation Commission with a single ELECTED Commissioner. Then start fresh with zero-based budgeting and only fund what's necessary, not increasing their budget year after year without justifying every line item. Put Texas taxpayers, frugality, accountability, TRANSPARENCY, proper planning, and environmental concerns (including human health and economics) ahead of international trade and private, special interests like road contractors and bond investors.
TRANS TEXAS CORRIDOR
The Trans Texas Corridor is a national travesty and threatens one of the bedrock foundations of our country, private property rights. Never should a government agency be given the power to steal land (eminent domain abuse) from one to give it to another for profit (a private, foreign company no less) in a revenue sharing scheme with the State of Texas. Tens of thousands of Texans have adamantly opposed the Trans Texas Corridor network of privatized toll roads, yet TxDOT continues to railroad the project and even spends taxpayer money to advocate for it over the LOUD opposition to it.
FREEWAY TO TOLLWAY CONVERSIONS
When the law (HB 2702) prohibiting tolling existing highways requires as many non-toll lanes as exist before the toll lanes, it often means that the taxpayers will then have to foot the bill for more lanes than are actually needed simply so government can get away with stealing FREEways and convert them into tollways. Tolling existing right of way is DOUBLE TAXATION per the Comptroller's Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority:
A Need for a Higher Standard Special Report in 2005. Converting freeways into tollways more expensive, it's unnecessary, and it encourages TxDOT to bulldoze perfectly good roads in order to rebuild them as toll roads. This policy makes no fiscal sense, is a total waste of taxpayer resources, serves to grow government and it primarily benefits road builders, not taxpayers.
For instance, the gas tax plan for US 281 promoted by TxDOT in public hearings in 2001 demonstrates that overpasses and adding 2 additional lanes along with access roads was more than sufficient to fix the traffic congestion woes in the 281 corridor north of Loop 1604 in Bexar County. The cost was $100 million in 2003 & 2004 dollars (today it would be $170 million). The funds have been there since 2003 for the first segment and the San Antonio TxDOT District Engineer David Casteel confirmed they now have $100 million in gas taxes available to fix 281 TODAY without TOLLS! But then TxDOT did a bait and switch. They decided they could profit from picking motorists pockets in that corridor and by extorting toll taxes to make the public BUY BACK what's already built and paid for by withholding those overpasses and lying to the public saying the ONLY way to get those overpasses is to convert 281 into a toll road.
Now as a toll project, the pricetag for bulldozing that FREEway and rebuilding it as a tollway is a whopping $475 million. The gas tax plan, 10 lanes (including access roads); as a tollway, 20 lanes (including access roads). Now TxDOT claims the original gas tax plan in "insufficient" due to growth and it's also lying saying the gas tax plan didn't have access roads when it did. The Federal Highway Administration data shows driving in Texas has NOT GROWN and has remained flat since the rise in the price of gas began in 2005. Also, the home values in the 281 corridor are already plummeting due to the mass exodus because of the proposed tollway, so growth is NOT going to happen as projected.
With such abuse and lies taking place, the public NO LONGER TRUSTS the highway planning process nor anything related to toll roads. In fact, each region's planning has been hijacked by road builders and complicit politicians and officials to put profit and pavement ahead of sensible transportation solutions. There is NO ACCEPTABLE JUSTIFICATION for building a 20 lane, $475 million tollway when a $170 million, 10 lane FREEway plan is sufficient. There is NO ACCEPTABLE JUSTIFICATION for converting an EXISTING FREEway (already built and paid for with taxpayer money) into a tollway leaving stop light ridden access roads as the ONLY non-toll "option." That's STEALING our FREEWAY and forcing drivers into economic servitude or forcing more than half of motorists to become second class citizens relegated to congested free lanes for the next 40 or more years WITHOUT A VOTE!
This is taking one of the foremost highway systems in the world and chopping it up into a two-tiered highway system, expressways for the wealthy and congested access roads for the rest of us. Tolling roads is the MOST EXPENSIVE and most UNACCOUNTABLE transportation option.
TxDOT has become a defacto taxing entity through tolling, which is taxation without representation. One thing I hear repeatedly from the more than 35,000 supporters of TURF is LET THE PEOPLE VOTE! EVERY toll project should come to a PUBLIC VOTE just like voters weigh in on bond initiatives! The excuse for not doing so is that a messy little thing like Democracy is too cumbersome and expensive for every toll project. Not only is such an elitist attitude more akin to kings and dictators, it also shows that far too many toll roads are being crammed down the people's throats all over this state! Projects that affect the public's right to travel (especially those that takeover highways people depend on to make their daily bread), and that involve privatization or multi-million dollar (and in some cases multi-BILLION dollar) public debt need to come to the voters for approval, period!
Also, this practice of keeping traffic & revenue studies and vital financial information to determine the market valuation of toll projects SECRET from the public until 10 days before a contract is let is unacceptable and a total violation of the bedrock principles of open government! MPOs are voting to give FINAL approval on projects BEFORE the financial guts are made public. Secondly, this whole notion of market valuation is an affront to taxpayers! Viewing the PUBLIC'S highways as assets to hawk-up to the highest bidder on Wall Street is driven by greed, not the public interest. Dennis Enright testified before the Senate Transportation Committee on March 1, 2007 that toll roads are MONOPOLIES by their very nature. They are not assets in a free market, competitive environment nor do these PUBLIC highways belong to TxDOT to offer up for sale! Their ad campaign "Texas is Open for Business" is yet another testament to what's wrong with TxDOT.
Not only should all toll projects be brought to a public vote, all toll projects should have economic impacts studies conducted by an independent, honest source not tied to the bond market or highway lobby to determine the impact on existing businesses (including ability to retain employees, potential losses in revenue and sales tax losses to cities and counties) property values (and potential losses in property taxes for cities and counties), motorists and the overall economic health of the region.
Studies have shown increasing the cost of transportation HURTS not helps the economy. Pro-toll economists like Ray Perryman try to gin-up economic benefits to massive road projects, but there is no substantive data to show there is the same economic cost to benefit ratio today as there was when the interstate highway system was built (connecting the states for the first time allowing interstate commerce to boom).
The PEOPLE must have VETO POWER over road projects. The Texas version of the federal NEPA law should not stop at presenting and considering alternatives in public hearings without being required to implement the option the public determines is the best option. The taxpayers MUST have a say in which alternative is best for the residents in each particular project area. TxDOT must be made to COMPLY with what the taxpayers determine is the best project route and/or alternative and that includes how it's financed!
Also, MPOs and TxDOT should have a more ethical and formal process for receiving and evaluating public comments on road projects, especially when it comes to final approval of toll projects. For instance, we've personally witnessed road contractors and those connected with building highways turn out at public hearings and testify in FAVOR of toll projects that their companies would financially benefit from. There is an inherent conflict of interest in so doing and it skews the public comments to appear as though more people are in favor of toll projects than actually are. Anyone with ties to the road building industry or whose company would potentially profit from the project should be required to disclose it when submitting comments or testimony just like public officials must disclose this sort of information when serving on boards or serving in public office.
Also, at a recent San Antonio MPO meeting to approve toll rates on 281, highway interests started a stealth email campaign to submit comments by road contractors and their employees to the MPO Board in support of the toll project. The grassroots soon found out about it and starting sending in comments to the MPO board members. However, there was NO OFFICIAL nor publicized means of getting comments on the record for the vote. Once at the meeting, MPO Board members in favor of tolls claimed they had received up to 5,000 comments in favor and only a few hundred opposed and they claimed to base their decision on those unofficial comments. Our group alone confirmed more than 1,200 comments were sent to ALL MPO Board members prior to the December 3 vote. So clearly, there was monkey business happening and those 5,000 supposedly in favor were not vetted to see which were submitted by those connected to the highway lobby and which were ordinary taxpaying citizens.
There was also a closed door meeting October 19 at the Valero headquarters in San Antonio (the public and press were denied access) where the San Antonio Mobility Coalition and members of the highway lobby discussed how to win approval of the 281 toll project at the December 3 MPO meeting (this was the stated purpose of that meeting IN WRITING! Link to memo in this post: http://texasturf.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=260&Itemid=26). I personally witnessed SAMPO Chairwoman Sheila McNeil and two TxDOT employees (one a voting member of the MPO Board) walk into that meeting that took place prior to the December 3 vote at SAMPO. This is collusion to gain approval of a toll project among members of the MPO Board and those who will financially benefit from the project. This behavior needs to be expressly PROHIBITED IN LAW.
Clearly, everything about TxDOT and the approval of toll projects is not occurring with the public's best interest at the forefront; TxDOT as an agency and the process as a whole is corrupt and unethical. Such collusion to "fix" a vote needs to be made a criminal violation with jail time and the ability to void the vote of ANY agency affected by such violations. This is where we get the term "the fix is in." When our government is so clearly sold out to private interests, the taxpayers don't stand a chance.
It's up to this Sunset Commission to right what's wrong at TxDOT, but also to make strong recommendations about how to reform the entire process by which transportation decisions are made and how projects are chosen, funded, and approved. As it stands today, every step of the process is broken! Thank you for your service to the great state of Texas!