Horseshoe project goes to bid using controversial contracts

Link to article here.

Design build contracts are code for taxpayer rip-off. They are not competitively bid contracts and have a track record of costing taxpayers more by outsourcing design and engineering work to high-priced consultants -- work tat can and should be done in-house at TxDOT at a lower cost to the public.

Infra Insight Blog

Posted at 4:33 PM on November 15, 2011 by Linda Cunningham

Texas Transportation Commission Authorizes RFQ for Horseshoe Project

At its October 27 meeting, the Texas Transportation Commission approved the issuance of a request for qualifications for the Horseshoe Project in Dallas County.  The project will be the first under new design-build legislation passed by the Texas legislature during the 2011 session.  Subchapter F, Chapter 223, of the Transportation Code prescribes the process by which the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) may enter into a design-build contract with a private entity that provides for the design, construction, expansion, extension, related capital maintenance, rehabilitation, alteration, or repair of a highway project. Transportation Code §223.242 authorizes TxDOT to enter into, in each fiscal year, up to three design-build contracts for highway projects with estimated construction costs of $50 million or more.

The Horseshoe Project is part of the larger Project Pegasus, a $2.1 billion (construction only) project in downtown Dallas on two major interstates, I-35E and I-30.   All four legs of Project Pegasus are on the list of 2011 Top 100 Most Congested Roadways in the State of Texas.  The Horseshoe Project will replace two key bridges and connecting roadways crossing the Trinity River at I-30 and I-35E, as well as upgrading outdated roadway geometry.  The estimated construction cost of the Horseshoe Project is $800 million.

The Horseshoe Project is one of several major new design-build projects in the United States, including the Gerald Desmond Bridge replacement project in Long Beach, Calif., VTA’s BART Berryessa extension project in the Silicon Valley, and New York's Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project, which is one of 14 projects chosen by the Obama administration for expedited federal review and approval.

Perry's stubborn insistence on Trans Texas Corridor costly

Link to article here.

Perry's leadership style is sometimes costly

The failure of the Texas governor's vast transit project, a 4,000-mile-long network for cars and trains, can be attributed in part to his inattention to detail and his insularity with a small number of advisors, observers say, problems that also have hindered his presidential campaign.

By Paul West, Washington Bureau

Los Angeles Times

November 21, 2011

Reporting from Austin, Texas

 
Rick Perry launched his Texas gubernatorial campaign in 2002 with an idea that he hoped would become his legacy: a 4,000-mile-long, 21st century transit network on which motorists would drive 90 mph on toll roads 10 lanes wide, high-speed trains would hum alongside, and there would be room for electric power lines, broadband fiber and pipes to pump oil, natural gas and water to a rapidly growing state.

Perry called it the Trans-Texas Corridor, and advertised his blueprint as "bold" and "visionary" — a "plan as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people."


And it would all be done without raising taxes, thanks to partnerships with the private sector. The entire venture, priced at more than $200 billion in today's dollars, would leave the old interstate highways in the dust and provide, in Perry's view, a model for the nation.


FOR THE RECORD:
Rick Perry: A Nov. 21 article in Section A about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's failed plan in 2002 to create a massive transit system said the Texas Farm Bureau had "endorsed his previous campaigns." While the bureau had endorsed Perry in most of his races, it backed his opponent in the 1998 election for lieutenant governor. —


Then "they rolled the thing out and it just blew up," said Bill Allaway of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Assn., a pro-business think tank in Austin. "The Trans-Texas Corridor turned out to be a political disaster for him."

What happened to the most controversial initiative of his 11 years as governor provides a window into a style of management that doomed not only the transit corridor but has contributed to the severe turbulence that has wracked his presidential candidacy. It is the sometimes lethal combination of inattention to detail and an insularity that blunts opposing views until it's too late.

Unlike many governors, Perry has generally declined to involve himself in the day-to-day particulars of managing government, say those who have worked for or watched him over the years.

At the same time, he has surrounded himself with a small number of advisors who have remained by his side for many years, from before his election as lieutenant governor in the 1990s to his current foray as a Republican presidential candidate.

Few in his kitchen cabinet were closer to Perry than Ric Williamson, who roomed with him when they were both state representatives in the 1980s. Shortly after Perry became governor — rising from his lieutenant governor post after George W. Bush was elected president — he installed Williamson on the state Transportation Commission.

The transit corridor appealed to Perry and Williamson because it would address many of the state's biggest challenges: relieving urban traffic congestion, keeping hazardous cargo out of populated areas, speeding freight north from the Mexican border and improving air quality, while creating, by their estimate, more than 2 million jobs.

And yet, the futuristic plan was really a throwback: the old idea of state government as a driver of economic growth.

"You'd be very hard-pressed to get Rick Perry to say that Washington will have a good effect on people's lives," said Chris Lippincott, a former official with the Texas Department of Transportation. "But his career is full of examples that government can have a positive effect on people."

In sketching out their grand concept, Perry and Williamson bypassed former colleagues in the state Legislature who dealt with transportation on a daily basis, an omission that loomed large as details of the plan became known and it became obvious that the governor and his advisors had failed to think through the politics of their idea.

The vastness of the corridors — nearly a quarter-mile wide — meant that Perry's plan could eat up more than 500,000 acres of private property. The biggest land grab in state history, opponents said.

Conservative property rights advocates were outraged. Rural landowners, who had supported Perry, a fellow rancher, ever since his 1990 election as state agriculture commissioner, exploded. The state's largest farm organization, the Texas Farm Bureau, which had endorsed his previous campaigns, lobbied to block the plan. Even the state Republican Party, driven by conservative anger over the looming "confiscation of private land," went on record in favor of killing it.

Perry failed, as well, to anticipate the opposition of vested interests — like those tied to existing toll road authorities in Dallas and Houston — who feared they would be left out once the project took off.

Those worries appeared to be justified when the Perry administration, in late 2004, gave a Spanish construction firm, Cintra, the lead role in building the system. The governor called it "one of the most significant days in the history of transportation." But the decision merely intensified the opposition. It fed nativist fears, which had been stirred by descriptions of the plan as a "NAFTA superhighway," a reference to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The governor's project, to some, conjured up dark visions of Mexican trucks, loaded with foreign freight, barreling unchecked into Texas as part of a vague conspiracy to undermine U.S. sovereignty.

In late 2004, Perry began scaling back his grand vision. He quietly dropped the idea of building rail lines and highways side by side, shrinking the amount of private land that would be required. The governor "did a very effective job over time in backing away in steps from that idea, while keeping the concept alive," said Allaway, who calls it one of the hallmarks of Perry's style. "He makes a decision and he will back it until he can't any longer."

Mike Krusee, a former Republican state lawmaker, drew a comparison with Perry's ill-fated executive order in 2007 that required girls in Texas to be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. The mandate, which has backfired on Perry in the presidential race, was blocked by the Legislature after blindsided opponents rebelled.

"Again, he talks to people who are close to him — whether it's his wife or others — he had a vision and put it out and then got push-back from the Legislature," said Krusee, now a lobbyist in Austin.

Ray Sullivan, a Perry campaign spokesman and onetime chief of staff to the governor, acknowledged that in presenting the transit project, "we could have used more coalition-building and communications with citizens, elected officials, legislators and stakeholders prior to that major policy announcement being launched."

He added that while it is "wonderful to live in a conservative state" like Texas, "it's important to remember as well that conservatives can be as resistant to change as anybody else." The governor, who according to the aide has never spoken at length about what went wrong, declined an interview request, as did several others who were top advisors at the time.

By 2007, it was clear that the Republican-dominated Legislature, which initially authorized the ambitious project, wanted nothing more to do with it. Lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to curb new public-private toll road deals.

Williamson, the man who conceived the plan and spearheaded the drive to build it, told Reason magazine in fall 2007 that the "retrenchment" would be temporary. Three months later, not long after being described by Texas Monthly as the "most hated person in Texas," Williamson was dead of a heart attack.

A year after that, following a series of noisy public hearings around the state, his brainchild was gone too.

"The name Trans-Texas Corridor is over with," said Perry in January 2009, as state transportation officials announced they were dropping the plan.

Sullivan points out that Texas is still building toll roads through public-private partnerships. "So even if one argued that the original plan was unsuccessful, the thrust and goals of the public policy have been achieved in a different way," he said.

Still, even the wariest opponents say the governor's dream is dead. Conservatives cheered last spring when the Legislature unanimously approved a measure expunging all references to the Trans-Texas Corridor from state statutes. On June 17, Perry signed it into law, effective immediately.

Lawmakers try to fool taxpayers with tax cloaked as 'fee'

Link to article here.

Trying disguise a tax as a 'fee' may be an old trick utilized by politicians through the centuries, but it doesn't work anymore. Ben Wear gets it right: "But it might be good to remember that a $50 fee and a $50 tax look pretty similar coming out of the wallet."

 
A fee by any name smells sweeter than a gas tax

Ben Wear, Getting There

Austin American Statesman
Published: 7:21 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011

Give state Sen. Tommy Williams credit, at the very least, for actually trying to address the problem.

The problem, in this case, is the diminishing purchasing power of Texas' 20-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, which the Legislature hasn't increased since 1991. Revenue from the tax has stalled out in the past three years and, given the effects of inflation and ever-improving vehicle fuel efficiency, is headed in the wrong direction.

Mind you, the Republican from The Woodlands isn't talking about increasing that tax.

The last chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee who advocated publicly for doing that (repeatedly) is no longer the chairman of that committee. Williams is, and he'd probably like to keep that influential gig for a while. And calling for increasing a tax, any tax, is not exactly a career builder for a Texas Republican politician.

No, what Williams suggested last week was increasing the vehicle registration fee on the state's 21 million cars and trucks by about $50 each. That would raise about $1.2 billion each year, according to Texas Transportation Institute figures provided by Williams' office.

Sell bonds and use this extra registration fee revenue to pay them back over 30 years, the Texas A&M-based think tank estimates, and the Texas Department of Transportation could borrow more than $16 billion to spend on roads and bridges now.

This would allow TxDOT, and the Legislature, to once again forestall a day of reckoning that has been threatening to arrive for several years now. TxDOT since 2005 has already borrowed, or been authorized to borrow, about $19 billion, money that has more than made up for the gas tax's losing battle with inflation.

The Legislature, in fact, bestowed a beefy $4 billion increase on TxDOT's two-year budget this spring even as the rest of the state budget was put on a liquid diet. But that hike was possible only because of that borrowing mentioned above, not new tax or fee revenue, and that cupboard is about to get bare.

So, Williams is floating the idea of that $50 registration fee increase. Always better to raise a fee than a tax, right?

Here's where it gets interesting.

If you drive 12,000 miles a year and get 25 miles per gallon, you'll use 480 gallons in a year. So, in this case, to generate an extra $50 in gas taxes over a year, the Legislature would have to increase the gas tax by just over 10 cents a gallon. Or, in other words, by 50 percent.

Whoa! The Legislature, asked a couple of sessions ago to index the gas tax to inflation, said no way. Which means that they weren't willing to countenance a 2 percent or 3 percent annual increase.

But wait: Williams, remember, is suggesting is a fee, not a tax, which presumably makes it ... different, more palatable.

But the gas tax, in fact, is a user fee. The more you use (meaning the more you drive or if you drive with a car that gets poor gas mileage), the more you pay.

The vehicle registration fee, on the other hand, is a kind of a flat tax. As of Sept. 1, all Texas vehicles under 6,000 pounds pay $52.75 a year, and it doesn't matter if it's a Mercedes or a Taurus, or how old the car is. The fee is the same whether the owner drives the wheels off, or parks it in the garage indefinitely. And you pay it all at once, not a little bit at a time like the gas tax.

A registration fee increase, Williams' staff points out, has at least one (apolitical) advantage over a gas tax increase. The revenue won't decrease over time as vehicles move toward the federally mandated average fuel efficiency of more than 50 miles per gallon. And that's true.

Again, kudos to Williams for openly acknowledging that the Legislature, one way or the other, is going to have raise revenue for transportation in the 2013 session. But it might be good to remember that a $50 fee and a $50 tax look pretty similar coming out of the wallet.

WASTEFUL: Toll agency gives away money for 'green' highway ideas

Link to article here.

As if special interests aren't already taking taxpayers to the cleaners, now we're giving away money at a gala to make highways 'green.' Environmentalists must be doubled over with laughter and taxpayers are 'red' with anger over the wasted money.

Can a road be green? Agency looks for ideas for two long-awaited roads
By Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
 
Published: 8:02 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, 2011

Can there really be a "green" highway?

I suspect a good number of Statesman readers would say "no way," arguing that, by definition, cutting a new road through the countryside or widening an road inevitably pollutes nearby areas to some degree and encourages more suburban and exurban development. And more development means more trees leveled, more dirt moved, more ranchland turned into cul-de-sacs, more fertilizer- and grease-laced rainwater settling into aquifers, and more cars traveling more miles in Central Texas.

True enough. We still need the darn things to get around.

But maybe a highway can be "greenish," or at least a paler shade of whatever color is associated with environmental degradation. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, no doubt with its own road-building plans in mind, last week made a $64,000 stab at that goal.

The local tollway agency held a $50-a-head gala to award prizes to contestants in its "green mobility challenge," handing out $15,000 and $10,000 prizes to four engineering companies or groups of companies and $14,000 in scholarships and faculty honoraria to a team of students from Rice and Texas A&M universities for suggestions about how to make two future highways more environmentally friendly.

The choice of highway projects for the contest — the Texas 45 Southwest and U.S. 290 West tollways — was not a coincidence. Environmental activists have successfully resisted construction of those highways for more than a decade.

Both projects are over the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer, an area where much of the creek flows and rain makes its way to Barton Springs Pool. The aquifer is also a drinking water source for tens of thousands of people who have wells.

Texas 45 Southwest, which the authority is calling the Manchaca Expressway, would be a new 3-mile-long road connecting FM 1626 to the south end of MoPac Expressway. The Oak Hill Expressway would be a six-lane tollway built on top of U.S. 290 and Texas 71 where they converge, and current plans call for it to have six frontage road lanes as well.

The mobility authority, by holding the contest and by ultimately using some contestants' ideas in highway designs, could blunt some criticism. That might be the triumph of hope over experience, because the road's opponents have proved to be a tenacious bunch. But in the end, the authority's primary audience is the group of politicians making the decisions on the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board, and they might be more persuadable.

At any rate, the contest ginned up some interesting suggestions.

In Oak Hill, for instance, one team suggested that instead of frontage roads alongside the tollway, a new parallel parkway should be built a couple of hundred feet from the existing road, just north of Williamson Creek. That would avoid what has been one of the major defects of the 12-lane plan — the requirement to build it over the creek and knock down some vintage oaks alongside the existing road.

For Texas 45 Southwest, designers suggested an arched concrete bridge over Bear Creek to minimize damage there, wildlife tunnel crossings, "bioswales" in the median to better filter out pollutants, a "teardrop" interchange at Bliss Spillar Road with roundabouts rather than a traditional diamond design, a park with walking paths alongside the road, and movable "zippered" concrete barriers that would allow a middle lane to switch from northbound to southbound during the day, minimizing the width of the road.

Will the authority use any of these ideas?

Some of them, probably. Agency spokesman Steve Pustelnyk said the ideas will be evaluated for their feasibility (including added costs) and would have to be cleared by environmental regulators.

A green highway? These two roads, like all of them, instead will probably be tinted in shades of gray.

Relief for HOT lane gridlock on I-85 denied by feds

Link to article here.

It's obvious that HOV lanes aren't about reducing congestion or addressing air quality or environmental concerns, they're about extorting money from the traveling public and paying for the privilege of mobility. HOT lanes are runaway taxation at the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats. Why should any Governor elected by the people have to bow to the whims of an unelected federal agency?


Georgia: Feds Deny Relief to HOT Lane Gridlock
Federal highway officials refuse to ease occupancy restriction on new Georgia toll lane project.
November 23, 2011
The Newspaper.com

I-85 HOT lanesThe Federal Highway Administration this week turned down the state of Georgia's request to relax the occupancy requirement on the new Interstate 85 high occupancy toll lanes (HOT lanes) in Gwinett County. In October, the state imposed the toll on the existing carpool lane, raising the number of occupants qualifying for a free ride from two to three.

The initial $5.50 on top of the occupancy change proved too much and traffic ground to a halt in the general purpose lanes while the toll lanes remained relatively unused. In a panic, Governor Nathan Deal (R) moved on October 6 to slash the toll and request a waiver from the Federal Highway Administration to drop the occupancy requirement back down to two.

Groups opposed to the tolling are now redoubling their efforts to pressure state officials to cancel the project they see as an absolute failure. The Stolen Lanes coalition held a town hall meeting on Saturday featuring two state senators convinced that the tolls ought to be removed. The State Road and Toll Authority (SRTA), in a written response to a set of coalition questions, emphasized that the tolls are only meant to reduce congestion.

"The Express Lanes project was never intended to be a revenue generating system," the agency's letter stated. "Though we do not expect any excess revenue for several years, a final determination of the use of excess funds has not been made at this time. We are collectively working with other transportation agencies both at the state and federal level to determine how those funds would be utilized in the future, if and when excess revenues occur."

Chris Haley, a co-founder of the Stolen Lanes group, insists the HOT lanes are making congestion worse, and not better, so the system ought to be scrapped entirely.

"In my opinion, a system to 'collect money to pay for a system to collect money to pay for a system' is clearly an example of government run amok," Haley told TheNewspaper.

SRTA officials touted the issuance of 108,000 Peach Pass toll transponders as evidence that drivers are slowly embracing tolls and insisted that the HOT lanes need more time to prove themselves. Only 23,762 were used on I-85, and the number includes 6231 "toll-exempt" passes, 2761 passes for "emergency" vehicles, and 791 government passes.

Lawmakers want to raise taxes to pay for roads


Link to article here.

Note there is no push to end diversions of the gas tax for non-road uses, nor to dedicate vehicle sales taxes to roads (which is currently being dumped into general revenue and pays for general government services), the only 'solutions' being considered are tax increases, even a tax on debt service!

Texas lawmakers push for tax reform in 2013

APRIL CASTRO, Associated Press

Published 06:55 p.m., Tuesday, November 8, 2011

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Legislative leaders warned Tuesday of a bleak future for Texas roads, water supplies and other basic needs if steps aren't taken to ensure the state has the money to maintain them.

Tax reform is expected to be a major yet contentious issue for the 2013 Legislature. A House committee started work on the issue last week with a meeting to study the effectiveness of the state's tax structure and various exemptions in the law. Challenges to the business tax and school funding plan have already been filed in court.

Speaking to a meeting of a tax policy association, Republican Sen. Tommy Williams implored the group to "have an honest look in the mirror about" the challenges and tough choices the Legislature faces. The state is running out of money and options to build new roads and maintain existing ones, he said. The state's water management plan also is without a long-term funding source.

Any increase in taxes will face ardent resistance from fiscal conservatives.
"I ask for your help in having an honest conversation with the public ... about the infrastructure needs of our state," Williams said. Otherwise, he said, the future won't be "rosy" for future generations.

Republican Sen. Steve Ogden, who led the Senate's budget-writing efforts, suggested the state let the voters decide about new taxes through a series of constitutional amendment propositions to override a ban on certain types of taxes at the state level.

"In the areas of school finance, in the area of the state business tax, in the area of highway funding, we need to let the people tell us what they want," Ogden said. "It's not important whether they say yes or no, what's important is that they answer the question."

For schools, he suggested scrapping the current school finance system and replacing it with a statewide property tax to eliminate disparities in levels of funding across districts.

For new highways, he suggested a new tax on debt service to pay off road bonds.

If voters reject it, "their answer is 'we like the roads the way they are,'" Ogden said. "So quit complaining about traffic."

The state's business tax, which was adopted in 2006 under a court order to fix the school finance system, has yet to meet revenue projections.

"We've got basically a ... poor state business tax now because we believe that the constitution prohibits us from levying an income tax on the income of limited liability partnerships," Ogden said. "We ought to ask the people of Texas if they'd like to scrap the current franchise tax and allow us to levy an income tax on all businesses that receive some sort of legal protection from the state of Texas.

"And their answer ... whatever the answer is, it will give the Legislature guidance."

Motorists face 'avalanche' of higher tolls

Link to article here.

In Texas, the Legislature just passed a bill to allow toll entities to steal toll revenue from one corridor to pay for another. So this mythical 'user fee' argument no longer applies as the Legislature dominated by so-called 'conservatives'  implements a Robin Hood tax grab stealing from one and giving it to another.

One of the objections to the toll hikes in New York involves another practice of the Texas Legislature -- diverting road taxes to non-road purposes. Several state lawmakers recently came out in favor of raising vehicle registration fees to raise more revenue for roads, yet ending gas tax diversions and ending the practice of heisting vehicle sales taxes for non-road purposes was not mentioned as a priority. Until these politicians use the taxes we already pay for the purposes for which they're collected, taxpayers aren't going to give them permission to increases taxes (whether cloaked as a 'fee' or not) to bail out their mismanagement of our money.

_________________________________________

Monday, November 21, 2011
Motorists face an 'avalanche' of higher tolls

By Daniel C. Vock, Stateline Staff Writer

Tolls along the Eastern seaboard are going up so much, says Darrin Roth, that in four years, a semitrailer making the four-hour trip from Baltimore to New York City could pay as much as $209.25. The price of tolls, in other words, will be more expensive than paying for the driver and fuel.

“The Northeast has become a very unfriendly place for business,” says Roth, the director of highway operations with the American Trucking Associations, “and these higher toll rates make things worse.”

Toll rates are climbing on highways, bridges and tunnels across the country. But the Northeast, with its dense concentration of high-priced toll roads, is especially affected. Tolls went up this year in Maryland, Pennsylvania and on the bridges and tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey. And officials are looking at hikes in Maine and upstate New York soon.

“Times are tough right now,” says Chris Plaushin, director of federal relations for AAA, the club for automobile drivers. “States are looking at any ways they can find revenue, particularly for transportation.”

The toll surge is happening even though many of the agencies that run toll facilities are insulated from the fiscal pressures hitting states. The gas tax, for example, is steadily decreasing in buying power as politicians at both the state and federal level resist raising it. But unlike most state highways, toll roads typically do not depend on it.

So there are many factors behind what Roth calls the “avalanche of toll increases” in the past few years, and not all are tied directly to the recession. Some states are trying to make up for lost revenue from thinning traffic. But others decided they can no longer afford to put off crucial repairs. And still others — the most controversial of the toll increases — will pay for new construction.

Big city, big controversy

This summer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates three Hudson River crossings, riled up drivers with a massive toll hike proposal. But even after the Port Authority slimmed down its plan and refashioned it to shift some of the burden of the hike from cars to trucks, motorist groups still hate it. AAA filed a lawsuit trying to roll back the toll increases, which would continue to climb through 2015 under the recently adopted plan.

For car drivers paying cash, the cost of entering New York City on one of the Port Authority’s bridges or tunnels will go from $8 before the hike to $15 when it is fully implemented. The maximum rate for a semitrailer will reach $105.

But it is not just the magnitude of the hikes that upsets the advocates for drivers and truckers. Instead, they claim that the money that motorists pay will go to subsidize projects that have nothing to do with transportation.

The controversy stems from the Port Authority’s vast mandate. It controls some of the most crucial routes into New York City by air, land or sea. It also owns the World Trade Center, where a new office tower is being built to replace the towers destroyed in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

“Before the increase, they were raising money to cover the costs of their toll facilities,” says Roth, from the trucking association. “They increased the toll rate to pay for a whole bunch of things unrelated to those toll facilities, primarily to pay for construction for the new World Trade Center.”

“In the case of New York,” adds Plaushin of AAA, “it seems pretty clear the justification for the toll increase is not to benefit the system users, it is to benefit real estate [developers]. And it was not done in a transparent way.” The group filed the lawsuit after the Port Authority refused to release more details about how the new toll revenues would be spent.

A Port Authority spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation with AAA. But an earlier Port Authority announcement said the proceeds from the toll hikes would pay for a new bridge, repair suspender ropes on the George Washington Bridge and make improvements at the airports and on its commuter rail lines.

Increasing capacity

The Illinois Tollway Authority, which runs a network of roads in northern Illinois, also approved major toll hikes this August. Tolls nearly doubled on some stretches of road, from 40 cents to 75 cents. The revenue is expected to raise $8 billion over 15 years, to go toward a major highway construction program. Much of the effort is focused on improving the agency’s existing roads over the next 15 years.

The toll hike will help fund some new construction in Illinois, as well. Most noteworthy is the extension of a suburban highway to the west side of O’Hare airport, which is currently only accessible from the east.When tolls go up in January, it will be the first time most Illinois motorists paid an increase since 1983.

Maryland, too, has raised tolls that for certain drivers using some facilities had not been raised in decades. In raising tolls on bridges, tunnels and highways around the state, Maryland officials cited the need to catch up on maintenance —as well as paying for a new toll road called the Intercounty Connector, a segment of which opens today (November 22).

Routine increases

Maine drivers could face a toll hike, thanks to one byproduct of the down economy: fewer drivers on the road paying tolls to support the system. This is highly unusual for the state. For six decades, the Maine Turnpike Authority never saw a drop in revenue; the streak ended in 2008. Declining traffic remains a problem. This year’s traffic is down 1 percent from last year, with a corresponding drop in revenue. That is one reason, says agency spokesman Dan Morin, that the turnpike authority is looking at raising tolls by about 25 percent in 2013.

The extra $25 million would also help pay for the reconstruction of bridges. There are 176 spans along the 109-mile road, and many are reaching the end of their life. Plus, the agency is preparing to expand an eight-mile stretch of the road from two to three lanes in each direction. The turnpike authority put the widening project on hold, because of the recession, Morin says, but it is still upgrading the bridges in that area so that they will be able to accommodate the wider road.

In Florida, state law requires the Florida Turnpike Enterprise to raise tolls by next summer. A 2007 law directed the agency to raise its tolls within five years in order to keep up with inflation, and now that deadline is approaching.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike enacted toll increases for the fourth year in a row when it scheduled hikes in 2012. It also approved a plan to hike those rates again in 2013 and 2014. Those hikes include money that the turnpike must hand over to the state to help pay for other transportation needs.

TxDOT bait & switch: Yanks free lanes from toll plan

Link to article here.

When will lawmakers learn they can't trust TxDOT nor take it at its word. They're snake oil salesmen and will do a bait and switch EVERY time. They'll tell lawmakers one thing to get the project in the bill and to win enough votes for passage, and then when legislators have gone home, they'll renege as they've done here. The Texas Legislature had the chance to gut and reform TxDOT for two sessions, but they blew it and caved to Rick Perry's cronyism. Lawmakers, many of them bought-off by the road lobby themselves, left Perry's pet agency alone despite mounds of scathing reports and audits revealing how dysfunctional it is.

Goldman Sachs sued over exposing investors to global debt crisis

Link to article here.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are two of the key players in global toll road and infrastructure deals, especially those called public private partnerships or P3s (called Comprehensive Development Agreements, or CDAs, in Texas). What are Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan NOT telling their investors about their exposure to risk on ill-conceived toll projects that we see failing across the country? JP Morgan has also been sued and forced to pay a $51 million fine imposed by the SEC for bid-rigging, including for defrauding Texas taxpayers on an Austin toll road deal. These corrupt firms CANNOT be trusted to protect either the public interest or private investors' interests.

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Sued for Alleged MF Global Misstatements

November 20, 2011, 8:37 PM EST

By Joel Rosenblatt

Bloomberg.com

(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. units were sued by two pension funds over claims they made misleading statements about the exposure of MF Global Holdings Ltd. securities to European sovereign debt.
As a result of the misstatements, MF Global’s stock traded at “artificially inflated prices,” the funds said in the complaint filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan. “While the extent of MF Global’s exposure to European sovereign debt was concealed, the defendants were able to raise some $900 million in the offerings.”

MF Global Holdings, which was run by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. co-chief executive officer Jon Corzine, filed for bankruptcy Oct. 31 after making bets on sovereign debt and getting margin calls. The New York-based company listed debt of $39.7 billion and assets of $41 billion in Chapter 11 papers. The broker-dealer is being liquidated separately.

Other companies named as defendants in the complaint were Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., RBS Securities Inc. and Jefferies & Co. Corzine and MF Global officers were also named as defendants.

The complaint was filed by IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund and the Plumbers & Pipefitters’ Local #562 Pension Fund. The funds seek to represent other shareholders in a class-action, or group suit.
David Wells, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs, declined to comment. Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, and Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan, didn’t immediately return calls after regular business hours seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Separate Liquidation

The broker-dealer unit of MF Global Holdings is being liquidated separately. The trustee liquidating MF Global Inc. said yesterday distributions of collateral in customers’ accounts are “dependent upon assets available and there is no assurance of a 100 percent return.”

The trustee, James Giddens, got court permission Nov. 17 to transfer $520 million in assets to about 23,300 accounts. While planning a third transfer to include a “few hundred” accounts that haven’t had distributions so far, Giddens said the assets available for segregated commodities accounts are “substantially less” than his estimate of claims that will be allowed.

Shortfall, Remedy

“Efforts are ongoing to analyze the cause of the shortfall and to seek to remedy it in coordination with multiple regulators and law enforcement officials,” he said in a statement yesterday.

The broker-dealer’s bankrupt parent moved hundreds of millions of dollars from its futures client accounts to other accounts before its bankruptcy filing, according to a person familiar with the audit of the company, who declined to be identified because the discussions are private.

MF Global Holdings was required to segregate funds posted as collateral by futures clients. The company filed the eighth- largest U.S. bankruptcy after making a $6.3 billion bet on Eurobonds and getting margin calls.

Giddens, whose first transfer of assets was almost $1.6 billion, said the third payment might be a bulk transfer to bring the value of collateral to 60 percent of the net equity in the accounts of all claimants, including those who have received nothing yet. A bulk transfer depends on finding futures brokers to receive the assets, he said.

Multiple Probes

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating cash movements at the firm before the bankruptcy filing. The CFTC has been probing about $600 million in futures client funds that disappeared as the firm prepared for bankruptcy. Regulators said they haven’t located the money.

In a separate matter, a federal judge yesterday said he will approve a $90 million settlement of investor claims stemming from a 2008 wheat-trading loss incurred at MF Global’s commodity brokerage.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan also said he would approve attorney fees of $16.2 million. A class of investors, led by four public pension funds, claimed losses of $1.1 billion on MF Global shares after the firm disclosed that a broker in its Memphis, Tennessee, office lost $141 million in a few hours in unauthorized trades.

Defendants in that case include MF Global; Man Group, its former owner; underwriters of MF Global’s initial public offering in July 2007; and some former and current officers and directors. The suit claimed MF Global deceived investors by misrepresenting its risk management measures.

Settlement Share

MF Global’s $2.5 million contribution to the settlement will be fully reimbursed, the company said in a court filing earlier this month.

The case is IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund v. Corzine, 11-8401, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. The bankruptcy case is MF Global Holdings Ltd., 11-bk-15059, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

The brokerage case is Securities Investor Protection Corp. v. MF Global Inc., 11-cv-7750, and the wheat-trading case is Rubin v. MF Global, 08-cv-02233, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

--With assistance from Linda Sandler and Bob Van Voris in New York. Editors: Michael Hytha, David E. Rovella

Europe bans naked body scanners due to cancer threat

Link to article here.
 
Europe Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used At U.S. Airports Because They Cause Cancer

Michael Grabell, ProPublica | Nov. 16, 2011, 11:00 AM

The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners [1] in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing.

The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the EU's 27 member countries, adopted the rule “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.”

As a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation detailed earlier this month [2], X-ray body scanners use ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and cause cancer. Although the amount of radiation is extremely low, equivalent to the radiation a person would receive in a few minutes of flying, several research studies have concluded that a small number of cancer cases would result from scanning hundreds of millions of passengers a year.

European countries will be allowed to use an alternative body scanner, on that relies on radio frequency waves, which have not been linked to cancer. The TSA has also deployed hundreds of those machines – known as millimeter-wave scanners – in U.S. airports. But unlike Europe, it has decided to deploy both types of scanners.

The TSA would not comment specifically on the EU’s decision. But in a statement, TSA spokesman Mike McCarthy said, “As one of our many layers of security, TSA deploys the most advanced technology available to provide the best opportunity to detect dangerous items, such as explosives. “We rigorously test our technology to ensure it meets our high detection and safety standards before it is placed in airports,” he continued. “Since January 2010, advanced imaging technology has detected more than 300 dangerous or illegal items on passengers in U.S. airports nationwide.”

Body scanners have been controversial in the United States since they were first deployed in prisons in the late 1990s and then in airports for tests after 9/11. Most of the controversy has focused on privacy because the machines can produce graphic images. But the manufacturers have since installed privacy filters.

As the TSA began deploying hundreds of body scanners after the failed underwear bombing [3] on Christmas Day 2009, several scientists began to raise concerns about the health risks of the X-ray scanner, noting that even low levels of radiation would increase the risk of cancer.

As part of our investigation, ProPublica surveyed foreign countries’ security policies and found that only a few nations used the X-ray scanner. The United Kingdom uses them [4] but only for secondary screening, such as when a passenger triggers the metal detector or raises suspicion.

Under the new European Commission policy [4], the U.K. will be allowed to complete a trial of the X-ray scanners but not to deploy them on a permanent basis when the trial ends, said Helen Kearns, spokeswoman for the European transport commissioner, Siim Kallas.

“These new rules ensure that where this technology is used it will be covered by EU-wide standards on detection capability as well as strict safeguards to protect health and fundamental rights,” Kallas said.

Five-hundred body scanners, split about evenly between the two technologies [5], are deployed in U.S. airports. The X-ray scanner, or backscatter, which looks like two large blue boxes, is used at major airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, John F. Kennedy in New York and Chicago's O’Hare. The millimeter-wave scanner, which looks like a round glass booth, is used in San Francisco, Atlanta and Dallas.

Within three years, the TSA plans to deploy 1,800 backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners, covering nearly every domestic airport security lane. The TSA has not yet released details on the exact breakdown.

Ohio mulling sale of turnpike

Link to article here.

State ponders turnpike's fate

Legislators disagree on lease option, where proceeds will go

7:52 AM, Nov. 12, 2011  |  The News Messenger.com
By Mark Tower


Purchase Image

Traffic passes through Ohio Turnpike tollbooths Wednesday in Fremont. / Jonathon Bird/News-Messenger

FREMONT -- On a recent visit to Fremont, Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray laid out what he and other state officials are doing to determine the future of the Ohio Turnpike.

"The issue is the turnpike and, first of all, why would we want to do something with the turnpike," Wray said. "Secondly, if we are going to, what would that be; and how would that happen. And if we generated revenue from that, what would we do with that revenue."

Each of those questions is controversial. Some state lawmakers question the need for any change at all, while others have strong opinions about who should benefit from any lease proceeds.

The 241-mile-long toll road, which runs east-to-west through Northern Ohio from Indiana to Pennsylvania, is administered and maintained under the direction of the nine-member Ohio Turnpike Commission.

Gov. John Kasich and other state officials have proposed options for the road's future, including leasing its operation to a private company or turning management over to the Ohio Department of Transportation.

Studying options

State transportation officials met Wednesday with five consulting companies, a group that had been whittled down from 14. All five are bidding on a study meant to determine the feasibility and economics of the options on the table.

Wray said the state transportation system, including the turnpike, faces falling revenue and rising costs.

"We have a real revenue crunch," he said. "As we look around and say 'What assets do we have that we could perhaps leverage to bridge the gap until there is more funding for transportation infrastructure?' And one of the things we are looking at is the Ohio Turnpike."

State Rep. Matt Lundy, D-Elyria, is an outspoken critic of a turnpike lease. He compared the promises of added revenue to the pitch of a Wild West patent medicine salesman.

"He says he is going to cure all your ills, and then he leaves," Lundy said. "They want Ohioans to believe that all their infrastructure ills and woes will be solved simply by leasing the Ohio Turnpike. I think that is an exaggerated representation of what is and isn't possible."

State Rep. Rex Damschroder, R-Fremont, has some issues with the direction the state is taking on the turnpike, but said there is excess spending under the current system.

"I don't think doing nothing is the best solution," Damschroder said. "I'm sure there is an asset there that is underutilized."

Lundy argued state leaders should not spend any money on a study, saying state residents are largely opposed to a lease.

"My position is, why spend money on consultants when Ohioans don't want this to take place in the first place," he said.

In a Quinnipiac poll in September, 56 percent of Ohio voters said a turnpike lease was a bad idea. About 32 percent considered it a good idea. In Northwest Ohio, 65 percent of those polled opposed a lease.

Wray said the study will be completed by independent consultants, so the process will be fair.

"It is going to be a transparent process," he said.

ODOT spokesman Steve Faulkner said if the study determines privatization is the best option, the goal would be to have a proposal in front of the Ohio General Assembly before the end of 2012.

What's next?

The next step, Wray said, is figuring out what to do with the road.

On one side are those who completely oppose privatization, like Lundy. He said a private company would likely downgrade services and increase tolls, resulting in trucks diverting and damaging nearby roads.

"Once motive becomes profit, then it's all about the dollar, not about the quality and the service," Lundy said. "The greatest fear is this is going to result in trucks using other routes and tearing them up; that it would lead to even more infrastructure damage."

According to a study published in February by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, a lease of the turnpike would increase tolls and truck traffic on other routes.

Data collected by the agency suggests a 25 percent increase in tolls would result in 2 percent fewer trucks on the turnpike. A 50 percent increase, according to the study, would result in 13 percent fewer trucks. More than half the truck traffic is expected to leave the highway if tolls are doubled.

When the turnpike was proposed, Damschroder said, Ohioans were promised the road would be toll-free in 1992 after the construction debt was paid. He proposes that promise should finally be fulfilled.

"The legislature voted in 1992 to keep the tolls and ignore the original contract with Ohio voters," Damschroder said. "The rest of Ohio pays nothing for their four-lane highways. That's all it is, is an extra tax."

His idea is to give state residents a free pass to travel the turnpike, which he believes would only slightly decrease state revenue or receipts from a potential lease.

Wray said he recognized most individual trips on the turnpike are made by local commuters, but said that group of drivers makes up a minority of the commission's revenue. That is just one of the pieces, he said, that the study will detail and analyze.

"We have not decided to do anything with the turnpike," Wray said. "What we have decided to do is to analyze the options that we have with the turnpike. We're interested in doing an analysis to determine how we can leverage this asset."

Lease proceeds

The final controversial decision is what to do with any funds gained, if the leasing option is approved.

Kasich recently promised the majority of proceeds from a deal would benefit infrastructure projects in northern Ohio. He defined the region as anything north of U.S. 30, which runs across the state from Van Wert, at the Indiana border, to East Liverpool, which borders West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

During his visit to Fremont, Wray also pledged proceeds would go to communities through which the turnpike passes.

"The majority of the money will go to northern Ohio," he said.

Damschroder said he doesn't understand why any of the money would go to projects south of U.S. 30.

"That would make as much sense as putting toll booths up in southern Ohio and have the money pay for projects up here," he said.

Lundy agreed any proceeds should stay in northern Ohio.

"One hundred percent should stay in northern Ohio," he said. "Especially in the communities close to the turnpike. They are the communities that will see their roads and highways suffer."

Wray suggested a program be set up in which local townships, villages and cities along the turnpike could apply for some of the funds to repair bridges or build noise barriers.

"Where you have been negatively impacted by the presence of the turnpike, we'll fix your problem," he said.

Local bridges

ODOT officials say the 11 damaged bridges spanning the turnpike in Sandusky County will be fixed, regardless of how the toll road is managed.

Local legislators were able to include language in the state's transportation budget bill, signed by Kasich in March, requiring the Ohio Turnpike Commission to pay for the bridge repairs.

The repairs began on Riley Township Road 226 in August and all the roads are expected to be repaired by the end of 2014.

Denton officials balk at carrying load for I-35


Link to article here.

I-35E project funding in doubt

State funds aren’t available; county rethinking its path

01:20 AM CST on Saturday, November 12, 2011

By Bj Lewis / Staff Writer

Denton County officials find themselves at odds with Texas Department of Transportation on how to fund the expansion of Interstate 35E between Carrollton and Denton.

In Thursday’s inaugural meeting of the 1420 Committee, officials dove into some of the logistical and financial difficulties ahead as they work to get the expansion project moving forward, and county officials are not happy with the current scenario.

That committee is a requirement of the Senate Bill 1420, which authorizes the use of public-private partnerships to fund the expansion of I-35E.

The current highway consists of four to six regular lanes and four lanes of frontage roads.

The new project would expand the highway to eight regular lanes, four tolled HOV lanes and four to six frontage lanes, depending on the need. The current estimated cost is $3.3 billion in construction, $1.2 billion to purchase right of way and $800 million for operations.
But state funding is not available now, so if the project moves forward, Denton County will have to pay.

That has transportation officials rethinking how to proceed.

During the presentation, TxDOT offered several scenarios to move forward with what they could fund on the project from Denton County’s available $600 million. All of them involved managed toll lanes, but not adding any free general-purpose lanes, which drew the ire of County Commissioner Hugh Coleman.

“I was surprised that Michael Morris and the [North Central Texas Council of Governments] were proposing to take our $600 million and only build a sole toll lane,” Coleman said. “It was my belief when this was presented to various cities, if I-35E was to have managed lanes, it would also result in having general-purpose lanes at the same time.”

Coleman said it was disingenuous to make that representation and get support for the legislation to get tolling on I-35E and then say they can’t do it.

“This is the first time I have heard there is not enough money to get done what they proposed,” he said. “Frankly, I think we need to reset the situation and reassess how we will get this done moving forward.”

Coleman also questions why at this point only Denton County funds are being bandied about for the expansion project.

Andy Eads complimented the workgroup from TxDOT for the work over the last few months to better define the cost estimates, where to start and what the time frame should be.

“What we want at the county is for the state to contribute to this project, I think, that is my No. 1 message,” Eads said. “Denton County should not be the largest stakeholder in building this large project.”

Eads said that some of the project proposals made at the meeting were unacceptable and that it would take more participants at the table willing to write checks to get it done.

Denton County transportation consultant John Polster noted that both TxDOT and the Metropolitan Planning Organization had money to put into Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway, the North Tarrant Express and the DFW Connector and that TxDOT had $350 million to put into Grand Parkway in Houston during the time they were telling the county they had no funds at all for I-35E.

“There a real possibility if we can’t get TxDOT and the MPO to participate, Denton County may decide that no build is better than wasting our $600 million,” Polster said.

The committee’s next meetings will be at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 22 and 10:30 a.m. Nov. 30 at the headquarters of the Denton County Transportation Authority, 1660 S. I-35E, Suite 250, in Lewisville.

Perry's toll tax legacy turns five

Link to article here.

Here's the text of an email I sent to Reporter Ben Wear in response to this article claiming the dust-up over toll roads has faded....

Toll roads are no more popular today than when Sal Costello started the Austin Toll Party.

Case in point....

Defeat of Prop 4.

Other Indicators -
• Open Letter signed by over 100 grassroots groups, mostly tea parties across the state hand delivered to the Governor, Lt. Gov., Speaker and every legislator during the session. This level of opposition is UNPRECEDENTED, eclipsing even the backlash in 2007. (The file with 2,000 signatures that also signed onto this letter is too big to include here.)
• DFW is raging over the Cintra takeover up there, and the proposed tolls on every new lane of pavement
• Houston is hopping mad over the $10 HOT lanes
• San Antonio is as stirred up as ever

Though Sal Costello's online petition isn't dumping massive emails into elected officials' in-boxes (or yours) anymore, it doesn't mean the anti-toll angst has faded. It means the grassroots have adapted to spam filters and switched to new methods to protest the toll roads. Since the economic downturn (starting in 2008), driving overall continues to go down, not up. It shows the average motorist can't afford the sustained increase in gas prices much less tolls on top on it. People are being forced to change their habits and drive less to make ends meet.

Also, please don't confuse the cues from the politicians with the sentiment among taxpayers. Just because the politicos have allowed this nonsense to continue doesn't mean the PEOPLE of Texas are suddenly fine with selling off our roads to foreign companies nor are they okay with this new tax on driving! Few can afford the extra $2,000-$3,000 a year in new taxes to get to work (though maybe some will pony-up for the occasional football game as you did, but infrequent use isn't enough to pay for the roads). So few, the users aren't covering the debt. The fact you site that SH 130 has had a 70% increase in traffic since it opened (deeming it a success) while failing to mention that taxpayers have had to pony-up 70% MORE in subsidies to bailout the loser toll roads in Austin to the tune of $100 million, or ,to quote you, that the system will be 'in the red for a generation,' or that SH 45 SE though 100% paid for was opened as a toll road to cover the losses elsewhere, or that a distressed plane landed on SH 130 it was so empty shows either 'selective' memory or some other agenda at work.

SH 130 is the poster child of failed toll road policy in Texas. It promised to relieve congestion on I-35 and hasn't delivered.  Your own articles repeatedly note that even with drops in the truck toll rates, it hasn't made truckers switch from free I-35 to the SH 130 tollway. They're so desperate to increase traffic on SH 130, there's talk of tolling existing I-35 and making it SH 130, and making existing SH 130 the new I-35. Overall, drivers are protesting with their cars...they're not using the toll roads as much as projected, certainly not in the volume needed to pay for the debt. They're not solvent and now ALL Texans taxpayers, whether we use the toll roads are not, are paying dearly to prop-up this grand toll road experiment.

The wheels are coming off these failed policies and I hope you'll inform the public of the truth.

Terri Hall
Founder
Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom

Tollways turn 5, to little notice

Ben Wear, Getting There

Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011
Austin American Statesman

The anniversary passed quietly a week ago if anything that happens on Halloween can truly be considered quiet with no official notice.

Five years ago, Austin's toll road era began.

That opening, and the several year gestation that led to it, was anything but quiet. Austin media was all over the toll road system that day, watching TxDOT workers pull aside sawhorses and the first cars pull onto the tollways.

There had been querulous public meetings for several years, with people arguing about where to put toll roads (should Texas 130 go east or west of Walter Long Lake?), about whether to convert what were going to be free expressways into toll roads (the William Cannon Drive overpass on MoPac Boulevard, U.S. 183 north of Oak Knoll Drive, Texas 71 east of Interstate 35), and about whether building a toll road on top of a free road and adding free frontage roads was double taxation (U.S. 183 east of Interstate 35, the Y at Oak Hill).

Then there was angst over the possible conversion of free roads to toll roads (legal briefly, then scuttled before any conversions occurred), the Trans-Texas Corridor plan of toll roads all over the state (also in state law, also scuttled, eventually) and long-term leases to let private companies, particularly foreign companies, build toll roads on the state highway system.

I wrote so many toll road stories in those years that even I got sick of them. I checked the American-Statesman archives, searching for stories that had both "Ben Wear" and "toll" in them. From 2004 through 2007, I averaged 96 stories a year on the topic, or one about every four days. Including weekends.
In 2010, that combo showed up 24 times. So far this year, the number is 35. This will be No. 36.

So, the topic has cooled.

Central Texas has five toll roads open now, a total of about 77 miles, and including the extension of Texas 130 to Seguin, an additional 50 miles is under construction. The Texas Department of Transportation operates four of the tollways, and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority runs the other one. There are now 950,000 cars and trucks on Texas roads with TxTags, the electronic tolling devices issued by TxDOT that attach to windshields and enable overhead toll readers to automatically charge the car's owner. Most of these are in the Austin area, given that the majority of TxDOT tollways are here. (There are also TxDOT toll roads in Laredo and Tyler, and a short one near Houston that opened a month ago.)

I rarely get emails from readers anymore about toll roads, and those I do get are usually from people who have had trouble with a toll bill. Sal Costello, a graphic designer who started an anti-toll group called the Austin Toll Party and pushed for the recall of Austin City Council members who supported toll roads, moved away from Texas several years ago. Political attacks on Gov. Rick Perry over his pro-tollway policies (and his brainchild, the Trans-Texas Corridor) pretty much bounced off him.

And the Legislature, which in 2007 had indignantly smote down those long-term leases, has since softened and this spring authorized TxDOT and regional mobility authorities to initiate many more of them.

The Austin-area tollways have seen heavier usage as the years have gone by, even if only one is profitable so far (the mobility authority's 183-A in Cedar Park). Texas 130 on the metro area's eastern fringe, for instance, has seen a 70 percent increase in traffic since 2008.

Still, predictions that the toll roads would be financially ruinous for drivers have not come to pass. The reality: People who can afford to use the tollways for everyday commutes, do so. Those who can't afford it use the free roads they were using before.

As for the rest of us, some never go on a toll road. Others, like me, drive on one now and then when paying to save a few minutes makes sense.

Last week, in my part-time life as a football official, I had a 6 p.m. ninth-grade game in Manor. I bushwhacked my way from downtown east on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, hitting more traffic than I expected along the way. By the time I got to FM 973, which leads to Manor and is just short of Texas 130, it was already 5:40 p.m. So I made the choice to skip that slower, free road and drive 75 mph on Texas 130 for a few miles. My toll tag was dunned $1.35 for the trip.

As it happened, they started the game eight minutes early. As I was entering the stadium gate, the referee blew the whistle for the opening kickoff. After a sprint, I was in position for the first play from scrimmage.

Without Texas 130, I probably would have missed at least half of the first quarter. Money well-spent.

TSA asks woman to lift her skirt during patdown


No, TSA, I will not lift my skirt for you.

 
 
Posted by Tabitha Hale (Diary)

Tuesday, November 8th at 11:30AM EST

Yesterday, I arrived at the airport to head from Houston, TX (IAH) back to Washington, DC (DCA). I am a frequent flyer – I know how the system works. I took off my boots and glasses, pulled my laptop out and went to walk through the metal detector. Naturally, I’d been selected to go through the scanner.

I always opt out of the scanners. It’s sort of a form of civil protest for me. It slows the process down. They get cranky. And I always do it publicly because I want everyone to see what the pat down is actually like. I also feel like they’ll be less invasive if people are watching.

I happened to be wearing a sleeveless cotton dress, a lightweight cardigan, and tights. I stepped aside for the invasion and they ask me to spread my legs.

She started by asking me to take my cardigan off. I said I’d rather not. She seemed put out, but didn’t make me remove it and began the pat down from behind. She made me lift up my cardigan to check my back, went into my sleeves, and touched every inch of my hair.

Then she got to my waist band. I had on black tights under my dress, which I’m certain is not uncommon. She asked me to lift my dress so she could check the waistband of my tights.

I felt my stomach drop. I said “I’m not lifting my dress for you. No way.” She was obviously irritated with me now and said that she would take me to the private screening area if I would like.

I said “No, absolutely not. If you can’t do this in front of everyone, you should not be doing this to me.”
She then called a manager over. The manager approached me and explained what they were going to do and that if I failed to comply, they would escort me from the airport. I told her I saw no reason that they should have to lift my dress to clear me to get on a plane. I would have, however, allowed them to escort me out of the airport before they got me to lift my skirt and stick their hands down my tights. I was bracing myself to spend another night in Texas.

She sensed the rebellion in me, and it was almost like they were punishing me for not just lifting my dress and making their lives easier. She checked every inch of my neckline, sticking her fingers between my breasts because she needed to “clear” the (very slight) ruffle.

They cleared the waistband of my tights through my dress, then made me put one leg forward at a time so they could get better “definition of my thigh.” She then proceded to pat down every inch of me, all the way up to my crotch. And yes, she used that word. Twice.

It reminded me of the time in Columbus, Ohio last November that one of the agents told me to think of the pat down as a “free massage from TSA.” I reminded her at the time that you needed to post a license for that.

The pat down in Houston yesterday was so vigorous I had to readjust my clothes when she was finished. Even my bra straps had been pulled down my shoulders in the process. I felt completely violated, immediately called a friend to recap, and took to Twitter to draw as much attention to the incident as I could.

Here’s the thing. If anyone else had done this to me, I would have decked them and likely filed charges. The fact that the person has on a TSA uniform is supposed to make it okay? It isn’t. Why should any person be subjected to this to get on an airplane? We’re supposed to subject ourselves to inappropriate touch for teh sake of “safety”?

I fly for my job. I travel frequently. I take trains when I can, but most of the time it’s just not practical. The fact that I have to endure this type of force just to do my job is horrifying. I don’t really have another option. Most of us who travel for work don’t have a choice.

I have to get on a plane to Denver tomorrow, and am honestly dreading the idea of going through the airport. TSA needs to go. This has gone so far beyond a security precaution, and is a clear violation of the rights of travelers. Showing my business to an airport full of people is not in the interests of safety. It is wrong.

Highway bill should eliminate 'enhancement' program

Link to article here.

Next Highway Reauthorization Bill Should Terminate the Transportation Enhancement Program

By Ronald Utt, Ph.D.
Heritage Foundation
November 7, 2011

As this Congress and President continue their struggle to reauthorize the federal highway program (now more than two years overdue), their focus should be maximizing the value of each dollar spent by directing available funds to programs that improve mobility and safety on the roads. To do this, Congress should eliminate low-value programs that add nothing to mobility yet pander to influential constituencies and lobbyists, and redeploy these funds to more productive uses.

Heritage has noted that only about 65 percent of federal surface transportation spending is used to support general-purpose roads, while the remaining 35 percent is diverted to high-cost, underutilized programs like trolley cars, transit, covered bridges, hiking trails, earmarks, administrative overhead, streetscapes, flower planting, hiking and bicycle paths, museums, “transportation enhancements,” tourist attractions, and archaeology.[1] In recent months, several Members of Congress have proposed eliminating the Transportation Enhancement program and have introduced legislation to accomplish that goal.

“Enhancements” Defined

Transportation enhancements are among the more useless of the many federal programs that divert highway money to low-value or no-value purposes. Under current law, each state is required to devote 10 percent of the Surface Transportation Program (STP) funds it receives each year from the federal highway trust fund to eligible enhancement projects as defined in existing statutes. Under legislation extended by SAFETEA-LU (P.L. 109-59), fiscal year 2012 spending authorizations for the STP will total $9.3 billion, implying that enhancement spending would then total $930 million that year.

According to current law, enhancement program spending must be limited to the following 12 purposes:[2]
Provision of facilities for pedestrians and bicycles;
Provision of safety and educational activities for pedestrians and bicyclists;
Acquisition of scenic easements and scenic or historic sites (including historic battlefields);
Scenic or historic highway programs (including the provision of tourist and welcome center facilities);
Landscaping and other scenic beautification;
Historic preservation;
Rehabilitation and operation of historic transportation buildings, structures, or facilities;
Preservation of abandoned railway corridors;
Inventory, control, and removal of outdoor advertising;
Archaeological planning and research;
Environmental mitigation; and
Establishment of transportation museums.  
Alert readers will note that none of the above eligible uses supports transportation in the modern sense of the term. Indeed, these 12 categories have as much to do with transportation and mobility as G.I. Joe dolls have to do with national security.

Example: Virginia’s Enhancements

The Virginia Department of Transportation provides detailed information on its enhancement projects, and its annual list illustrates just how silly the program can get, as measured by the misspending on approved projects using scarce federal transportation dollars.[3] Among the 82 approved projects costing $30.2 million for FY 2012 are the restoration of the historic Bull Mill in Scott County, a hiking trail on an abandoned rail bed in Buchanan County, renovation of a former rail passenger waiting area in Danville, renovation of the LaCrosse Hotel, restoration of the Assateague and Cape Henry lighthouses, construction of a pilot schooner for a Norfolk museum, smartphone-based battlefield tours, and gateway signs to various Virginia wine regions.

These Virginia “transportation” projects probably do not differ much from the projects approved in other states, and therein lies the chief reason why both state and federal governments have trouble convincing citizens to agree to pay higher fuel taxes for more “transportation.” As a review of the Enhancement program reveals, every state has its own “Bridges to Nowhere,” and motorists have the good sense to keep their hard-earned dollars out of the hands of elected and appointed officials who think that projects such as this nonsense—Virginia also approved funds for interpretive signage at Fort Nonsense in Mathews County—are a good use of taxpayer dollars at a time when many families struggle to put food on the table—while traffic congestion and road deterioration worsen.

Legislative Remedies Would Take Small Steps

In recent months, several Members of Congress have introduced legislation to eliminate the program or to make it optional for states, allowing states to redeploy that portion of their STP funds to legitimate transportation purposes. In early November, Senator John McCain (R–AZ) introduced an amendment to the Senate appropriations bill (H.R. 3288) that would allow states to divert their enhancement funds to other highway purposes, while Senator Rand Paul (R–KY) introduced an amendment to the same bill that would allow states to divert enhancement funds to the Highway Bridge Program. Both amendments lost, failing to overcome bipartisan support for the enhancement program.

Also in November, Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) introduced the Long-Term Surface Transportation Act of 2011 (S. 1786) to extend the existing federal highway program for another two years (through FY 2013) and to make certain changes to reform the program. That bill was defeated, and Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Committee for Environment and Public Works have since agreed to a compromise extension that retains the enhancement program, albeit with a few modest changes.

Senators who attempted to end the enhancement program should be commended for their efforts, but it is disappointing to see that in a time of near-record budget deficits, a low-priority program that undermines the U.S. transportation system can consistently receive the support of a majority of the Senate.

The yet-to-be released House plan should terminate this program as well as the many other wasteful programs that have become a part of federal surface transportation policy. The best way to achieve this goal would be to allow states the flexibility to use all of their trust fund apportionments for transportation programs of their own choice, as Heritage has previously recommended.[4]

Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.


[1]Ronald D. Utt, “Setting Priorities for Transportation Spending in FY 2011 and FY 2012,” Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 3141, February 9, 2011, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/02/Setting-Priorities-for-Transportation-Spending-in-FY-2011-and-FY-2012.

[2]See U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “FHWA Guidance: Transportation Enhancement Activities,” March 25, 2010, p. 4, at http://www.enhancements.org/download/Publications/FHWA_TE_Guidance_March2010.pdf (November 4, 2011).

[3]The complete VDOT Enhancement project list for FY 2012 can be found in U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, “FHWA Guidance: Transportation Enhancement Activities.”

[4]Ronald D. Utt, “How to Create an Effective Transportation Program in an Age of Fiscal Austerity,” Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 3115, January 24, 2011, at http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/how-to-create-an-effective-transportation-program-in-an-age-of-fiscal-austerity.

D.C. offers $12,000 to move closer to work!


Link to article here.

Washington, D.C. Offers $12,000 to People Who Move Near Work

By Andrew Price
Former Web Editor, GOOD.is

Sure, in a perfect world, we'd all live near work. A short commute saves time and money and makes it easy to bike or walk to the office. But in the real world there are lots of factors affecting where we choose to live, and work is only one of them.

Perhaps moving to be near your job would be more appealing if it came with $12,000 dollars. Washington, D.C.'s Office of Planning is launching a pilot program called Live Near Your Work that will match up to $6,000 in incentives that businesses offer to employees to move near work or public transit. The new digs just have to be within two miles of work, within half a mile of a Metro station, or within a quarter mile of a "high-quality" bus corridor. The program has $200,000 to give out in total, which isn't much, but that's just for this initial phase.

If it works, this program could help reduce traffic and pollution in the area, spur an urban revitalization, and improve the quality of life of the people who participate. And with $12,000 in incentives to move and no need to buy $4 gas, you could buy one hell of a bike.

DFW transportation board meets in SECRET


Link to article here.

Regional Transportation Council meets in secret for the first time

 MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER - 10 November 2011

The Regional Transportation Council held its first closed meeting Thursday, and officials later adjourned without ever saying what the session was about.

About an hour after kicking scores of staff, consultants and other observers out of the meeting, RTC members opened the doors and then quickly adjourned without comment.

They were able to meet in secret by citing an exemption to the Texas Open Meetings Act that allows public bodies to meet in private when they want to talk about economic incentives they plan to offer a firm that is considering moving to their jurisdiction.

In addition, the law provides an exception to allow the body to consider “commercial or financial information received from a business prospect to locate in the region.”

So what was the meeting about?

No one was saying. No action was taken in public session.

Several RTC members, including Dallas County Commissioner Mike Cantrell and energy executive Jere Thompson, said they could not comment. Bill Hale, the Texas Department of Transportation’s chief engineer for the Dallas district, said members had been warned not to speak under penalty of potential criminal prosecution.

Officials referred questions about the meeting to Arlington attorney Pat Remington, who serves as outside counsel for the North Central Texas Council of Governments and occasionally for the RTC.

Remington, a former Arlington City Council member, would not say whether such a warning had been issued to RTC members and could not comment on the matters discussed in the meeting. He said only that through its funding decisions, the RTC makes choices that can affect businesses’ decisions about investments and thus plays a role in economic development.

For that reason, Remington said, it was entitled to the same exceptions to the public meeting act that cities, counties and other bodies enjoy.

He said a new situation has arisen that necessitated the private briefing, but he could not explain what.

The Regional Transportation Council is a 43-member planning body made up of members appointed by city councils and county commissioners, and others, including representatives from the state Transportation Department, area transit agencies and the North Texas Tollway Authority.

The council makes decisions about which transportation projects can be put into long-range plans, applies for federal grants and — through agreements with the Texas Transportation Commission — often has the final say about which major projects get state funding and which do not.

Opposition to Keystone from left & right


Link to article here.

Keystone XL pipeline unites left and right

By Rachel Weiner, Published: November 11, 2011

WASHINGTON POST

President Obama’s decision to delay a final ruling on the “tar sands” pipeline from Canada to Texas has been cheered by environmentalists a s a rare victory — and it is. But it’s also a rare product of a coalition between conservationists and conservatives in red states.

Environmentalists oppose the project because of the energy-intensive, pollution-creating oil extraction. Conservatives and tea party activists are worried about the use of eminent domain, or the government’s ability to take private property, to build a pipeline for a foreign company. And both sides are concerned about oil leaking into aquifers that supply Texas and the Plains states.

While Obama’s decision focused on the opposition in Nebraska, environmentalists all along the pipeline’s path have joined forces with conservative Republicans in opposition to the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

The issue has not yet become a national one for conservatives, as it has for environmentalists. But Nebraska and Montana both have competitive 2012 Senate races, and the pipeline could become a problem for candidates on both sides of the aisle. For now, it’s an example of how left and right can overcome their divisions — just like Obama always wanted.

In Texas, an active alliance has formed between tea party and environmental groups.

Debra Medina, a prominent activist who ran against Gov. Rick Perry (R) in last year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, said environmental groups reached out to her. Medina was active in the fight against the Trans-Texas Corridor, a complex all-in-one transportation network supported by Perry that collapsed in the face of public opposition.

“I initially said, ‘What’s the big deal? You’ve got a company moving its product.’ The guy said, ‘Well, they’re using eminent domain to do it,’ and all of a sudden I got real interested.”

Alberta-based TransCanada filed with the Texas Railroad Commission as a “common carrier” — meaning the project is for public use, which gives TransCanada eminent domain rights. Local opponents argue that there’s no justification for it — and that even if there is, there was no process to determine whether the pipeline is a public good.

“We have folks from every affiliation involved, including tea party folks,” said David Daniel of Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines (STOP), a landowner collective formed to oppose the project. The pipeline would cut through the middle of his property. “Doesn’t matter who you are, everybody needs water.”

And tea party activists start to sound like liberals when asked about the involvement of Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian group funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that has backed the pipeline.

“You’ve got Americans for Prosperity out there promoting this and saying we want you to put in comments in favor of the pipeline,” said Terri Hall of Texas Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “Anyone who’s done five minutes of research will find out that not only are the Koch brothers involved in this, TransCanada has never made any promises that this is going to be domestic energy.”

Koch Industries is heavily invested in Canadian oil sands exploration.*  

“Americans for Prosperity is not a tea party group,” said Medina. “Americans for Prosperity says, ‘Koch funds us, this is good for the Koch brothers, so we’ll support it.’ There are a lot of wolves in sheeps’ clothing masquerading as tea party groups.”

Some local tea party activists do support the pipeline, arguing that eminent domain issues can be handled.

“I strongly support the project; however, TransCanada should be held accountable for both safety compliance and in regard to private property rights,” said JoAnn Fleming, who chairs a group of tea party members that advises state legislatures.

Landowners say the TransCanada refused to work with them to minimize damage, as oil companies normally do, and that not enough research was done on potential water contamination.

“There are folks in East Texas who are wary of working with ‘environmental organizations,’ but the statewide organizations are more wary of letting these groups be divided over silly distinctions,” said Trevor Lowell of Public Citizen. “They’re going above and beyond. They’re pretty independently frustrated about this whole project.”

There are also eminent domain fights going on in South Dakota, and Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R) is asking the state legislature to impose “additional protections.”

In Montana, the conservation group Northern Plains Resource Council is working with local landowners, who have formed the Northern Plains Pipeline Landowners Group to oppose the pipeline’s current path project.

The pipeline has created some strange bedfellows — an alliance of convenience that could have local implications, even if another such national victory is unlikely.

* This article originally stated that Koch Industries “stands to gain significantly from the project,” citing this InsideClimate article. The Columbia Journalism Review found that while the author was “probably right,” there is no proof that Koch Industries will profit from this pipeline. Koch Industries denies supporting the project, although they are interested in it. A Koch subsidary filed for “intervenor” status with the National Energy Board of Canada, citing a “direct and substantial interest in the application.”

Keystone put on hold


Link to article here.


Print | Close this window

UPDATE 1-Studying new Keystone US route may take 12-18 months

Wed Nov 9, 2011 4:13pm GMT

WASHINGTON Nov 9 (Reuters) - The United States may decide within weeks whether to pursue a new route for the Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas pipeline, a move that could delay a final decision beyond the 2012 U.S. election, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision on the pipeline is being scrutinized by environmentalists who oppose the project and by proponents, who say it would create jobs, the central issue in his 2012 re-election campaign.

As a result, TransCanada Corp.'s proposed $7 billion pipeline may become a political hot potato for the administration. Some of Obama's liberal supporters have strongly opposed the project and the president risks alienating this important constituency ahead of the November 2012 election if his administration approves it.

Further delay on the project, which is already about a year behind schedule following an extended U.S. government review process, could roil oil markets.

Asked how long evaluating a new route might take, the U.S. official who spoke to Reuters said "the best judgment is somewhere between a year and 18 months." He said the timeframe was based on past experience and was not a precise estimate.

"Generally speaking it takes a year to 18 months," he said, saying it could happen faster but was unlikely to be completed in less than a year.

Traders are counting on Keystone's 700,000 barrel-per-day capacity to relieve a build-up of crude in the U.S. Midwest, which does not have enough pipelines to ship growing Canadian output to Gulf Coast refineries for use around the United States.

TransCanada Chief Executive Russ Girling warned recently that another extended delay in the regulatory process would lead oil shippers and refiners to abandon support for the project, rendering it uneconomic to build.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, editing by Will Dunham and Bill Trott)

Congressmen asleep at switch, let transportation funding pass by

Once again, our lawmakers are asleep at the switch, failing to lead on transportation issues (other than selling off our public roads to private corporations and outsourcing the new taxation to their buddies -- they're down for that). Texas members of Congress allowed $285 million out of $300 million in new transportation funding for areas around BRAC bases go to Maryland and Washington state instead of to San Antonio. That's enough to go a long way toward fixing Loop 1604 by Randolph or I-35 near Ft. Sam.

Maryland outmuscles Texas on federal aid for military projects

Posted on 11/05/2011 by Gary Martin

Disparity over the amount of federal aid doled out to Maryland and Texas to relieve traffic congestion due to base realignment and closure actions is raising a few eyebrows.

Maryland will receive $270 million to ease gridlock and improve traffic around two military hospitals consolidated under BRAC.

Texas sought $125 million for improvements around the San Antonio Military Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, but will get only $25 million.

The stark differences in the amounts going for improvements around military hospitals in Maryland and in Texas raised questions about the clout of the Texas congressional delegation for Nelson Wolff, the Bexar County judge.

“There has been a sea change in the last few years,” said Wolff, who has watched as federal spending come to a trickle for local projects.

Wolff has cajoled and derided local lawmakers for their efforts to tack down federal help for environmental restoration of the San Antonio River south of downtown, the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park and SAMMC.

But Wolff said the congressional delegation has sometimes been a reluctant partner.

“They are all up there with the mantra that they want to cut spending,” Wolff said. “They are missing in action. That’s just their philosophy.”

And it has become a political reality in the new era of deficits, the debt ceiling and austerity plans.

Wolff hails Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for her continued efforts to direct federal spending to projects under federal supervision.

The Army Corps of Engineers is heading the San Antonio River restoration, the Interior Department would oversee land acquisition and improvements at the Missions, and the Pentagon ordered the military hospital consolidation at Fort Sam Houston.

Hutchison, who long championed those projects and brought back federal funds, was pummeled in her 2010 Republican primary race to unseat Gov. Rick Perry, who tagged her as a liberal spendthrift and the queen of pork-barrel spending.

Wolff said Hutchison’s defeat had a chilling effect on other members of the Texas congressional delegation.

It also may have had consequences for the state, which was outmaneuvered by Maryland in recent requests for Pentagon help with infrastructure projects due to BRAC decisions.

A $300 million pot of money made available by the Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment to help states grapple with unintended problems created by BRAC.

In the end, it was split between three states.

Maryland got $278 million, Texas received $25 million and Washington state got $7 million for improvements around Madigan Army Medical Center.

Read the rest of the story here.

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