Wolff: I like tolls, if you won’t carpool or get on a bus, then you oughta pay
Wolff: I like tolls, if you won’t carpool or get on a bus, then you oughta pay
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
February 6, 2014
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff wants you to pay up to 50 cents a mile in new toll taxes to drive San Antonio freeways. Tolls will cost the average family $2,000-$4,000 a year in new taxes on driving and Wolff has his fingerprints all over the deals that brought it to San Antonio.
First, Wolff lobbied for a new $10 hike in your vehicle registration fees from the Texas legislature last year - the only local fee hike that didn’t require a public vote first. This money goes directly to the county-run toll authority. Then, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) decided to offload part of the state highway system to local governments.
Rather than tell TxDOT to take a hike, Wolff brokered a back room deal with Transportation Commission Chairman Ted Houghton to takeover some state roads from TxDOT and utilize half of the new fee hike to add toll lanes to I-10 in a financing package that includes tolls on US 281, and in return, TxDOT dropped $70 million in discretionary funds to extend the non-toll expansion on Loop 1604 West. However, all of Loop 1604 is targeted for tolls, too.