Lawmakers push privatized toll roads, putting affordable travel out of reach
Lawmakers may like outsourcing the tax hikes to private companies, but taxpayers don't. When these deals mean paying 75 cents PER mile to access our PUBLIC roads, it's like adding $15.00 to every gallon of gas you buy! So when these lawmakers and so-called "fiscal conservatives" tell you they're balancing the budget WITHOUT raising taxes, you'll know they're lying to ya.
How many Texans can afford that? Even if you never take the road, you'll be paying for it. In the the last paragraph of the Statesman article below it says the 183 toll project in DFW will be 100% paid for by ALL Texans' gas taxes, yet they're still going to hand it over to Cintra or some private, for-profit toll road company (using a concession CDA or PPP) to collect the tolls (that will charge 75-80 per mile). If this doesn't tell you that this push to privatize and toll is NOT about a lack of money for roads, but rather a way to MAKE money for roads, then I don't know what would.
No Texan should have to pay a TOLL TAX (a DOUBLE TAX) to access a freeway that's ALREADY PAID FOR nor should a PUBLIC road that's paid for EVER be owned and operated by a private company! It's eminent domain for private gain and highway robbery. We're gettin' fleeced in broad daylight, Texas!
Then there's the toll collection problem. TxDOT has added up to 4000% administrative fees for pay by mail, for those who don't buy into the government TollTag system.
As an example of just what a taxpayer disaster it is to hand control of our public roads to private, foreign toll operators using CDAs, drivers on a road operated by Spain-based Cintra (who has won three Texas contracts already) in Canada receive their first bill totaling thousands of dollars in fines years after they supposedly took the tollway. The government has no power to step-in and protect motorists from runaway taxation nor disputed toll fines.
A 2009 article in the Toronto Star chronicles the nightmare:
"’We, as a government, have no control over that, as a result of the (Mike) Harris government's deal,’ to lease the toll road to a private consortium for 99 years and include a provision in the contract forcing the transportation ministry to deny new plates to anyone who doesn't pay the 407 whatever it demands, said Bradley.
“The 407 ‘negotiated a deal that was very favourable to them and they covered all the aspects of the deal that they would want,’ said Bradley.
“Many readers said they think the 407 deliberately holds back invoices on unpaid balances to allow interest charges to grow, but Bradley noted that it "is responsible for establishing its own business practices, and under its deal ... it has the right to set and collect tolls and administration fees and interest."
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Link to Statesman article here.
Law would allow private tollway deals for MoPac, U.S. 183
Legislature warming to long-term leases with private companies after spurning the approach in 2007 session.
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 5:15 a.m. Thursday, March 24, 2011
Published: 7:41 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Private toll road contracts, which fell out of legislative favor in 2007, are making a comeback this session.
And that includes at least the potential that two such projects in Austin, the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) toll lanes and U.S. 183 in East Austin, could end up being financed, built and operated for decades by private firms.
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who is carrying a bill that would allow such contracts on those two roads, said it is not necessarily an endorsement of that approach or an indication that the toll projects will end up in private hands.
"I want to make sure all of the tools are on the table," Watson said this week. "But it will be up to the local (metropolitan planning organization) to see if it gets used."
Right now, the local plan is for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, a toll agency that runs the 183-A tollway in Cedar Park, to build and operate the $248 million MoPac and $678 million U.S. 183 projects.
The Texas Department of Transportation would contribute $70 million in tax money to the MoPac project, which involves adding a fourth, tolled lane on each side between Lady Bird Lake and Parmer Lane, and $130 million to build express toll lanes and frontage roads on U.S. 183 between U.S. 290 in Northeast Austin and Texas 71 near the airport. The mobility authority, in theory, will raise the rest through borrowing.
But the authority's development plans in general were put on hold for at least two years when the 2008 credit crunch hit and it became difficult to borrow money. Carlos Lopez , TxDOT's Austin district engineer, said the ability to bring in the private sector would be an "insurance policy" if something goes awry with the TxDOT and mobility authority approach.
Watson's bill, which he filed March 11, has not yet been given a committee hearing. But four similar bills, allowing TxDOT to reach long-term leasing agreements with the private sector to build tollways in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, made a lightning-quick trip through the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Wednesday .
All were approved unanimously and then channeled to the Senate's queue of uncontested legislation. Such bills are generally approved en masse by the Senate with no debate, meaning that the toll road bills in effect are almost surely halfway through their legislative journey. Similar bills are pending in the House, including one by state Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman , that lists a dozen tollway projects that would become eligible for what are generally called concession agreements.
The Austin-area roads, however, are not included in Phillips' legislation.
This renewed embrace of toll road concessions is a notable departure from 2007, when the public and lawmakers soured on the idea of private companies being in control for a half-century of tollways on the state highway system, and profiting from those leases. Such deals, particularly the participation in them of foreign companies, had become a high profile issue in the 2006 gubernatorial election, and the fervor continued into the new year and the legislative session.
The 2007 Legislature passed, and Gov. Rick Perry signed into law, a bill that put a moratorium on all but a handful of such potential deals. Authority for TxDOT to reach the long-term deals in general expired in September 2009, and the ability to reach agreements on the excepted roads from that 2007 law will die on Sept. 1 this year.
However, with state gas tax revenue stagnant and federal highways grants diminishing, TxDOT officials have said that sometime next year they will have no money available to approve construction of new road projects. That threat has lawmakers taking a fresh look at concessions, but on a case-by-case basis.
Anti-toll road activists on hand for the committee hearing Wednesday let legislators know that time has not diminished their distaste for private toll road agreements. Raising the gasoline tax would be a cheaper approach, said Don Dixon, a retired San Antonio mechanical engineer.
"We're going to these fringe processes" to fund highway construction, he said. "We're going to have a two-tier system: those who can afford to drive the toll roads, and those who can't."
Opponents were also disturbed that TxDOT planned to pour billions of public dollars into projects that likely will lead to private profits by operating companies, according to TxDOT figures. In one of the four projects named in the bills approved Wednesday, TxDOT would supply almost one-third of the $3.7 billion cost for the North Tarrant Express in the Fort Worth area. In another case, the Texas 183 managed lanes project, also in Dallas-Fort Worth, TxDOT would cover the entire $1.3 billion construction cost. The operator would, in theory, be responsible for only the operating and maintenance costs to follow.
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Senate transportation panel boosts Dallas-area private toll projects
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER
Transportation Writer
Dallas Morning News
Published 23 March 2011
The Senate transportation committee took steps Wednesday to speed the development of two major toll projects in North Texas, approving bills that will expand the state’s authority to partner with private firms to build toll roads.
The bills both passed unanimously in the committee, though they still must be passed by the full body and win acceptance in the House. If they become law, the Texas Department of Transportation will be permitted to partner with private firms to build a 28-mile stretch of Interstate 35E between Dallas and Denton and a 9.1-mile segment of State Highway 183 from Dallas through Irving.
The projects would add free lanes and new paid managed lanes. The roads would be financed with public and private funds. In return, the companies would be given rights to toll the paid lanes for decades.
Denton County Judge Mary Horn said privately financed toll roads are essential given that Texas roads funds are running short.
“We keep hearing the message loud and clear from constituents — do something now,” Horn said. “Leveraging private equity through a public-private partnership is the best and perhaps only way to address growing congestion before it worsens further.”
Terri Hall, a San Antonio activist who has spearheaded years of opposition to private toll roads, spoke out. “You remember the dust-up in 2007, and Texans haven’t changed their mind,” Hall said. “It’s public money for private profit, and the public hates it.”
The committee also heard a compromise bill that would significantly limit the late fees charged by the North Texas Tollway Authority, a practice that has left some frequent violators owing thousands of dollars for unpaid tolls.
If the bill passes, the NTTA would have to stop charging $25 for every unpaid toll transaction. Because a single invoice can easily have scores of transactions, the fees can quickly dwarf the original amount owed.
The bill would instead allow the NTTA to assess the $25 for only the first eight unpaid tolls per invoice. After that the bill’s $200-per-invoice cap would apply.
NTTA Executive Director Allen Clemson told senators he supported the bill, written by Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
Nelson initially filed a bill that would have capped late fees at $25 per invoice, a move that the NTTA said would cost it tens of millions of dollars each year.
Clemson vowed to work with Nelson at the time to craft a compromise.