Help us STOP foreign-owned toll roads = $13 a DAY in NEW taxes! Public pension funds at risk, too!

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CDAs mean foreign corporations have the power to control EVERY MILE WE DRIVE for a half century at a time!

The San Antonio Express-News' ability to engage people at the citizen level is remarkable, and I applaud your encouragement of ordinary Texans to make their voices heard. A new perspective on local issues and public policy is always refreshing to hear, so long as it is an informed one.

For this reason I must question your recent decision to allow a citizen activist from outside of San Antonio to publish a regular blog on the Express-News' Web site.

Terri Hall has misrepresented facts to support her arguments in the past. I hope she will use this new-found prominence to make her arguments based on substance and fact rather than one-sided opinions.

You and your readers must hold her accountable for the accuracy of what she says.

Hall does not represent the voice of all Texans. She represents a small group of followers who are apparently pro-gridlock, given their lawsuits to block additional lanes, which would relieve congestion on U.S. 281 North. Their voices may be loud, but they are misguided and use misinformation and scare tactics to block possibilities for new or innovative transportation finance options.

Instead, Hall clings to an old, indirect, and increasingly ineffective model for building new transportation infrastructure: the gas tax.

Now, don't get me wrong, the gas tax can work. However, we would be looking at an increase of more than $1.25 per gallon to begin to seriously address our huge transportation infrastructure deficit. An increase of that magnitude is politically unacceptable to state policymakers.

Frankly, many Texans and Texas businesses oppose dramatically raising the gas tax in challenging economic times and welcome the idea of private funding and user fees as ways to lower traffic congestion and improve our quality of life.

I hope Hall's Express-News blog will cause other readers who are frustrated with traffic congestion to speak up rather than allow her to tell the story for all of us.

Terrell McCombs is chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition.