Senate votes to end private toll moratorium, give highways to highest bidder


Link to story here.

April 06, 2009
Opening the door to more private toll road contracts (UPDATE)
By Peggy Fikac - Houston Chronicle

Transportation officials could enter into new agreements with private companies to operate toll roads - with restrictions - under a pair of bills approved today by the Texas Senate.

The measures, which still need House consideration, represent the latest steps in the battle over leasing toll roads to private companies.

Lawmakers allowed the public-private partnerships in 2003. In the face of a public outcry, they put a moratorium on new agreements (with exceptions) four years later.

Both the moratorium and the ability to enter into such agreements are set to expire later this year.

Senate Bill 404 by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, would extend the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation and regional mobility authorities to enter into so-called comprehensive development agreements through at least 2015 - but only if protections included in another bill also take effect.

Those protections in SB17 by Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, include specifying that local authorities and then the state have first right to develop a project as a publicly owned and operated one.

In addition, Nichols' bill says a contract with a private entity must specify a purchase price in case the state ever needed to buy back the project. The current standard is "fair market value," which would leave the state on the hook for an unspecified amount of money.

Carona said the private toll agreements are needed as one financing tool, especially since lawmakers for years have balked at raising the gasoline tax that also funds roads.

Anti-toll activist Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom said the private toll agreements amount to selling the state's highways in exchange for quick cash. She and like-minded activists want transportation officials' authority to enter into such agreements to expire.

Hall also said the protections in SB17 could be waived. I'm waiting for some clarification on that from Nichols' office.


UPDATE: Nichols' office said steps in the process could be waived - such as maximum timelines for making a decision - but not protections.

Senators also approved another transportation-related bill, SB970, by Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, to would delete a requirement that TxDOT's executive director be a registered professional engineer.

It would add the requirement that the executive director be experienced and skilled in transportation planning and development and organizational management. That bill also goes to the House.

Fixing TxDOT before the sun goes down…

The best line of the whole hearing came from Rep. Yvonne Davis (and more than once): "Is this agency worth keeping?" She questioned if we're going to micromanage TxDOT this closely, why not scrap the whole agency and start over. To this we cheered and said, "Amen!"

Fixing TxDoT before dusk. Isett possible?
TxDoT's sunset bill to be Picketted apart in committee.
BY Ben Wright
The Newspaper Tree.com
April 1, 2009
House Bill 300 is a big deal for both the Texas Department ofTransportation and Texas.

According to it's author state Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, it would“change the agency from top to bottom” creating a “whole new paradigm” that would allow localities to “chart their own destinies” when it came to transportation planning.

“Our vision for this bill is to transform this agency (TxDoT) from one that now acts as the final arbitrator … to one that acts as a partner with our local communities,” Isett told reporters after a public hearing for the bill yesterday.

The Lubbock representative added the bill would make TxDoT more transparent by creating an online reporting system to show the progress of projects.

“Every Texan will be able to get online and look at their project and see the process,” he said.

The most obvious and potentially controversial provision of HB 300 would do away with the five-member Texas Transportation Commission, which El Pasoan Ted Houghton currently sits on, and replace it with a single commissioner appointed by the Governor. Another provision would create a Transportation Legislative Oversight Committee consisting of six appointed state reps and senators.

TxDoT would be headed by a single administrator while the committee would be there to ensure accountability.

The bill represents several years of work and research into TxDoT, one of the state agencies up for review and possible elimination this session by the Sunset Advisory Commission. According to Sunset’s website, the commission's staff produces a report with recommendations on agencies under review. The report then goes to the commission, made up of members of the Texas House, Senate and members of the general public. (See document below.)

The commission, which votes on its decisions, can accept or reject any aspects of the staff report in crafting legislative recommendations. HB 300 represents “verbatim the recommendations of the commission,” Isett said. As such, the author does not agree with everything his bill would do, particularly the downsizing of the Texas Transportation Commission from five commissioners to one.

“I personally don’t support that. I know that the Senate does not support it so we’ll just have to see how that plays out,” said Isett, who believes more commissioners means more input from different parts of Texas in TxDoT decisions.

“Multiple commissioners give El Paso a commissioner. They give Lubbock a commissioner. They give Central Texas a commissioner,” Isett said.

Furthermore, Isett believes only having one commissioner could jeopardize TxDoT’s transparency. Because the transportation commission has five members, it is subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act, and its decisions are made, “in the light of day,” Isett said.

But the five-member commission has hardly been transparent, argues Terri Hall, representing the group, “Texas Turf” at Tuesday’s hearing. Hall wants to see the five-member TTC replaced by a single elected commissioner.

“I think an agency is more accountable, more efficient and more streamlined when you have elected leadership,” Hall said after the hearing. She also called HB 300 “woefully inadequate” and questioned whether the bill truly represented the Sunset Commission’s recommendations.

“I’m hearing from people on that commission that ‘this is not the bill we wanted. … It’s Isett’s bill, not necessarily the commission’s bill,’”Hall said.

Hall’s testimony at the hearing raised concerns about how the Bill. Texas turf are concerned about a clause which would require TxDoT to maximize alternate (private) sources of investment in road building.

“How is the agency supposed to do that without toll roads?” Hall said, arguing that toll roads are “taxation without representation” and make TxDoT a “de facto taxing agency.”

Hall said if private entities want to build toll roads fairly, they should offer landowners market rate for rights-of-way, finance the deals themselves, and recoup their investment through toll revenue.

But according to Hall. That is not what happens.

Because TxDoT have become the “arm of private toll operators,” such companies are able (through TxDoT) to use eminent domain to take the land, pay for nothing and run roads for profit.

“That is not only un-Texan. It is an outrage,” said Hall.

The bill will now be worked on by the House Transportation Committee, chaired by state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. On Tuesday, testifying witnesses and committee members all agreed that, as-is, HB 300 isn’t a done deal.

“In my opinion, the bill needs to address a lot of the questions brought up here today,” Pickett said.

But the key to fixing TxDoT may have nothing to do with the number of people on the TTC, how many private contracts are doled out, or the number of toll roads that get built.

Pickett wants to roll his own bill, HB 2589, into HB 300, to change formula funding and hand more decisions on spending transportation dollars to local communities. In essence, that would mean more money would come to the local MPOs and less would go to TxDoT’s discretionary pot.

By putting controversial decisions like toll roads and private contracts in the hands of the local communities, Pickett thinks that many of the problems associated with TxDoT would be eliminated.

“I believe if we use and strengthen the language I‘ve got in (HB) 2589, then a lot of the other issues we’ve got become a moot point.” Pickett said.

Isett seemed open to that idea Tuesday. Regarding HB 2589 and HB 300 he said, “we have to make sure all the pieces fit together.”

But Hall remains cautionary. While believing HB 2589 could go a long way to improving HB 300, she was keen to stress elected leadership as the solution for TxDoT.

“We’re trying to make it very clear that the status quo is not acceptable,” said Hall. “We’re already at the point where we would like to see TxDoT scrapped completely. They are a king on a high throne and they don't answer to anybody."

Related Documents:

Sunset's Jan 09 report on TxDoT

SB 17 fails to protect public from private roads

TURF Legislative Bulletin
HB 2929/SB 17
March 31, 2009

Protecting the public interest is PARAMOUNT! How we do that is the open question here today.

We have some concerns with HB 2929/SB 17 as drafted. CDAs need to go away completely. CDAs are almost universally opposed wherever we go in Texas, they cost 50% more, are failing all over the country, and result in extremely high tolls, like the DFW contracts just signed that will charge commuters 75 cents a mile to get to work! That’s $3,000 a year in new toll taxes. Especially in these economic times, that’s unsustainable!

And knowing how TxDOT operates and how it has become an extension of private industry instead of the guardian of the public interest, we think there are some gaping holes through which TxDOT will gladly leap through using the language of this bill.

HB 2929/SB 17:

- Allows compensation to the private developer for the future loss of toll revenue (Sec. 301.103) in the form of a non-compete agreement for up to 30 years. Though you could argue the Dept. can still build anything in an MPO plan and for safety and maintenance, we've seen TxDOT strip-out projects from the MPO plans in anticipation of selling bonds where the bond investor required a non-compete. So this will be manipulated in favor of the private investors placing the public interest at risk (by guaranteeing congestion on surrounding free roads for 30 years).
- We feel strongly that the State Auditor should still review these contracts. Even on a public toll project, US 281 in San Antonio, the Auditor reviewed the terms of a design-build CDA and found the RMA had not properly factored the price of gas into their toll viability studies and recommended they re-do the study. The public deserves this extra protection.
- Allows the private developer to receive "fair market value" for a PUBLIC road. We’d like to see the bill require transparency on the debt owed (to avoid a self-reported figure) and have the calculation of “fair market value” scrutinized for soundness by the State Auditor or the public will, once again, be left holding the bag.
- TxDOT will naturally decline the project as a public project in favor of a private concession as they've already demonstrated when asking Harris County to sell their toll system to a private entity. The way this is structured, if the public toll entity like an NTTA cannot get the financing together (or the bonding capacity), they'd have to pass this to TxDOT and then TxDOT could hand it to the private developer, especially to use private funds to subsidize a toll project that can't stand on its own feet (that isn't 100% toll viable) (Sec 373.054). So this section ultimately doesn't give the public protection, but shows TxDOT they can just wait it out, not provide any public subsidies (like TMF funds, other discretionary funds, etc) until they get possession of the project and then they can hand it to the private companies.
- Allows TxDOT & toll entity to waive these steps, which defeats the purpose of the bill (Sec 373.057) and allows them to jump precipitously into a CDA.

Ultimately, we’d like to see an honest, legitimate process to evaluate ALL road projects with a process that helps us determine FIRST between tolled and non-tolled, then go to a public or private toll road evaluation scenario. This assumes most projects will be tolled. All these pots of public money being used to subsidize toll projects that won’t collect enough toll revenue to pay for the cost of construction, operation, and maintenance simply should NOT be built as toll projects. If they’re not 100% toll sustainable, don’t build them as toll roads! To subsidize toll projects with public money is a DOUBLE and TRIPLE tax scenario unduly burdening our citizens for generations to come.

What it comes down to is, the citizens do not trust any process where the status quo Transportation Commission is still in place. As we described, TxDOT can quite easily hand over a massive portion of our highway system to private operators through CDAs (even using this process) that would cost 50% more than publicly owned projects and are faltering or failing all over the country. Not one PPP could even be held up as a model during the CDA Study Committee hearings, not even by the FHWA Administration who has been pushing this stuff.

Instead of investing so much time and effort on how to cage the beast of CDAs unleashed by HB 3588 in the Williamson era, allow them to ride off into the sunset as scheduled and chart a new course. Modestly raise the statewide gas tax and get back to the business of building and maintaining a STATE highway system, instead of a slice and dice, hodge-podge separating rich from poor, urban and rural, and the city-state system you’re creating versus ONE unified and uniform system we can all easily access and be proud of again.

Nichols pushes propaganda to convince public he’s banned conversions

Link to article here. Note Nichols' words very carefully: "It ensures that the free lanes, even though they're moved off to the side, still have the same traffic flow they had before the toll lanes were built"...that means you get no improvements to any freeways. If your highway has stoplights at the crossovers causing congestion now (like 281, 1604, 290, and 59), his bill, SB 220, is a license to come in and convert your freeway into a toll road and leave you access roads as the only non-toll road.

Nichols' wants to exploit freeways where the "traffic flow" is artificially congested by stoplights as a way to make Texans pay an extra tax to use highways they've already built and paid for. Swapping highway lanes with frontage roads is unfair and unacceptable! The taxpayers will NOT tolerate this DOUBLE TAX scheme and we MUST fix this bill or KILL IT! What else can we expect from a former Transportation Commissioner who helped write the FIRST bill that supposedly banned tolls on existing freeways. Read our press release that reveals this new loophole in SB 220.

State Senate Moves Quickly on Toll Road Restrictions
Bill to ban tolls on existing roads passes...in two minutes!
By Jim Forsyth
Friday, March 27, 2009
WOAI newsradio

Do Texans hate toll roads, or what?

1200 WOAI news reports the Texas Senate Thursday night passed a measure prohibiting TxDOT from converting existing free roads into toll roads, after debate lasting less than two minutes!


That's absolutely the speed of light for state lawmakers, who have been known to debate all day on minor points of language on obscure bill substitutes.

State Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) says the measure also assures motorists that no barriers will ever be placed in the way of the use of existing roads.  Some people have expressed concern that the 'free lanes' promised by toll road builders will suddenly become clogged with stop signs, stop lights, and other annoying impediments designed specifically to convince motorists to pay the tolls.

"It ensures that the free lanes, even though they're moved off to the side, still have the same traffic flow they had before the toll lanes were built," Nichols said.  "This way you won't have stop signs, red lights, and things like that."

Nichols says this bill makes certain that no existing road which currently is free to motorists will never be converted to toll lanes.

A 1200WOAI news report last year of a plan by TxDOT to ask Congress for permission to 'buy back' Interstate highways so tolls could be charged on them created a firestorm of protest, and prompted TxDOT to withdraw the proposal.

Many Senators said they have been listening to their constituents complain non-stop about toll roads for the past two years, which is why approval of the bill was so quick.

The bill now goes to the Texas House, where debate may last for...three minutes.

Commissioners want to get rid of RMA before state interferes

Link to article here.

Web Posted: 03/26/2009 12:00 CDT

Bexar County may beat state at retooling toll road agency

Jaime Castillo - Jaime Castillo, San Antonio Express-News

A major bill being pushed by San Antonio Democratic Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon to consolidate several agencies dealing with local transportation policy hasn't even been assigned to a legislative committee.

But that hasn't stopped the politicking back here in Bexar County.

At least three county commissioners — Tommy Adkisson, Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez and Kevin Wolff — are mulling an effort to dissolve the Regional Mobility Authority, perhaps even before the Legislature acts on the consolidation effort.

In separate interviews, all three said the RMA, the toll road agency that has been the subject of intense criticism, is saddled — rightly or wrongly — with a perception that it's a lapdog for the Texas Department of Transportation.

“I just think the RMA is a fifth wheel,” Adkisson said. “We ought to fold its powers into VIA. The time has come.”

Until now, local officials have been focused on the legislative effort, which would collapse the RMA and VIA Metropolitan Transit into the Advanced Transportation District, the voter-approved entity that currently uses a quarter-cent sales tax for road, bus and transportation improvements.

Rodriguez said he doesn't want to do anything to harm the consolidation effort, which is designed to streamline transportation efforts as local leaders ponder new efforts for light rail and expanded rapid bus service.

But he said the RMA's only current reason for being is a pair of recently awarded projects to add ramps at the interchange of Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 and to alleviate gridlock on a northern stretch of 281 with a “superstreet” concept.

“The RMA only has one hanger to hang its clothes on,” Rodriguez said. “We can transfer those projects elsewhere.”

Bill Thornton, the RMA's chairman, bristled at suggestions that the agency doesn't perform a valuable public function and that it's too closely allied with TxDOT.

“If you give up on the RMA, you're giving up local control that will just fall back to Austin,” he said. “Had we not had the RMA and the right of first refusal, we would've had that Spanish company handling the projects around 281.”

Thornton was referring to Cintra, a private company that was part of the state's initial plans to build a network of tolled lanes in northern Bexar County.

Wolff said he's “been trying to understand the viability of the RMA, and I can't come up with anything.”

But he said he'd like to see a legal opinion regarding the transfer of the RMA's powers before he commits to moving forward.

“I'll know shortly what we'll lose if it goes away,” Wolff said.

The commissioner's father, County Judge Nelson Wolff, said he doesn't think doing away with the RMA is the right approach.

“It would be my position to let the consolidation process work itself out,” he said.

However, it takes only three votes on the five-member Commissioners Court to get something passed.

Superstreet gets green light at MPO

Link to article here.

03/24/2009
Stimulus may bring some relief to U.S. 281

By Scott Huddleston - Express-News

Leaders with the Metropolitan Planning Organization agreed Monday to direct nearly $23 million in federal stimulus money to street projects aimed at reducing congestion on U.S. 281 North and creating new jobs on the Southwest Side.

The plan approved by the group's policy board also includes nearly $2.5 million to upgrade low-water crossings and close funding gaps for three street and drainage projects.

The largest amount is $14.74 million to extend and realign 36th Street, from U.S. 90 to Billy Mitchell Boulevard, a project that Port San Antonio officials said could generate more than 4,500 jobs by enhancing airfield access and the flow of cargo at the 1,900-acre aerospace, industrial and international logistics complex.

“It's really a great project that will open up a lot of opportunities for the port,” said Sid Martinez, director of the MPO.

The other major project on the list for stimulus funding is a $7.8 million upgrade to a roughly four-mile stretch of U.S. 281, extending north from Loop 1604 to Marshall Road. Under a “super street” concept that's been used in other states, the road would be reconfigured to eliminate cross traffic, increasing flows by an estimated 30 percent, officials said.

“It should provide some temporary congestion relief until a permanent solution is found,” Martinez said.

The 281 project would be funded with $5.7 million in stimulus money, $1.6 million from the Advanced Transportation District and $500,000 from the city. Councilman Louis Rowe said residents in his North Side district have urged him to do anything he could to relieve the logjam there.

People could be driving on the improved stretch within a year, Rowe said.

Also approved is $750,000 to improve Eagleland Drive south of downtown; $500,000 to complete an upgrade to Jones Maltsberger Road on the North Side; $660,000 for two drainage projects on Salado Creek; and $550,000 for low-water crossings.

The Texas Transportation Commission earlier this month decided to allocate $60 million in stimulus money for part of the interchange at U.S. 281 North and Loop 1604. Combined with $60 million in state bond funds and $20 million in local funds, the money is to finance ramps on the south side of the loop.

In addition to a lawsuit filed last year by Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom that could delay the interchange, the other stimulus projects could face design, legal or right-of-way issues that could endanger San Antonio stimulus funds. Any money that isn't obligated by March 2010 will have to be returned to the federal government, Martinez said.

For that reason, the MPO has a list of 62 backup projects totaling more than $148.5 million that could get stimulus money. The largest are $40 million to widen and improve Interstate 10 from Huebner Road to Loop 1604; $33 million to build Wurzbach Parkway from Jones Maltsberger Road to Wetmore Road; $32 million for Wurzbach Parkway from Blanco Road to West Avenue; and $28.8 million for bus rapid transit improvements on Fredericksburg Road.

“Local option” bill with menu of tax increases faces opposition

Funding for North Texas roads, rail faces rising opposition
By Dave Montgomery
Star-Telegram
March 21, 2009

AUSTIN -- A month after it was introduced with a burst of fanfare from North Texas officials, supporters of a major transportation funding bill are now confronting the challenges of trying to advance the measure in an economic downturn against emerging opposition on several fronts.
The bill, which has undergone substantial revision since it was unveiled in a Feb. 16 press conference at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport, would allow countywide elections in which voters would decide on a menu of fees and taxes to finance road and rail improvements. It was originally intended for North Texas but has been broadened to include the San Antonio and Austin areas.

Potential hurdles

Gov. Rick Perry, who supported the original concept of locally-approved financing for North Texas rail projects, began taking a hard look at the measure because of the proposed fee increases and the inclusion of other areas. His spokeswoman, Allison Castle, said Perry is committed to working with the bill’s Senate sponsor on Metroplex transit issues, but “has concerns about the bill.”

Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, the House sponsor, was questioned about the measure at a recent meeting of the Tarrant County Republican Executive Committee. Of the more than 300 precinct chairs who compose the committee, “in excess of 50 percent” are opposed to the bill, said Tarrant County Republican Chairwoman Stephanie Klick, herself included.

“Our precinct chairmen are pretty skeptical,” said Klick. “Every day we’re hearing about a new proposal to raise taxes out of D.C. People feel kind of tapped out right now financially. This is not a time to be raising taxes.”

Truitt wasn’t discouraged by the views expressed at that meeting, though. “I didn’t perceive it to be a bad meeting at all,” she said in a phone interview Friday. “People recognize we have a serious problem (with transportation) and we need to do something about it. I invited them to be part of the process so we could incorporate their thoughts and concerns in the bill.”

Democrats concerned

Although the most visible opposition is coming from conservative circles, Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, said there is also concern among urban Democratic lawmakers worried about the impact of added fees on low- and middle-income constituents. Veasey is co-sponsoring an alternative that would base funding on sales taxes.

“I’d say the buzz among the members right now is that it’s not looking too good,” Veasey said of the bill’s chances for passage before the Legislature adjourns just over two months from now. “With the economy the way it is right now, it’s really driving a lot of members’ decision on it,” he said.

Veasey, a member of the House Democratic leadership team, said that “all of us would like to support our mayors and county commissioners” who strongly support the bill. But opposition to increased fees, he said, was virtually unanimous among his East Fort Worth constituents at two town hall meetings before the session started. “There was not one person in the room,” he said, who thought “this was a good idea.”

From the outset, supporters have touted the measure as vital to help the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Metroplex finance road projects and more than 200 miles of commuter rail to help the nation’s fourth most populous region escape from gridlock and pollution. They have repeatedly portrayed it as a work in progress, inviting critics to help them smooth out objectionable features.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a pro-business research institute, and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a watchdog organization, have aggressively attacked the bill, saying it would impose an added tax burden on citizens trying to struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Supporters confident of eventual passage

Supporters have countered those concerns by pointing out that the bill leaves it up to local voters on whether or not to approve the fees or taxes. The “absolute earliest” elections wouldn’t be held until 2010 or 2011, said Truitt, adding that local leaders aren’t likely to call an election for tax and fees increases if the economy is still in the tank. “Pretending that the Metroplex is not going to grow and the infrastructure is just going to pop up by itself is a short-sided bad mistake,” she said. She dismisses speculation that the bill is trouble, saying it’s chances are “improving greatly” as sponsors continue to refine its contents. Of conservative think tanks opposed to the measure, she says: “I think they need to do more thinking and less tanking.”

Truitt and the bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, have both expressed frustration with those who they say are attacking the bill without offering to improve it. “People who stand back and throw rocks are not helping the process,” said Truitt.

What’s next

The bill underwent its first hearing before Carona’s committee last week, with a large delegation of municipal and county officials from North Texas testifying in its behalf. Carona said he is hopeful that the bill could come up for a vote in his committee on Wednesday but committee staff members said continuing refinements could delay the vote until the following week.

More than 30 cities and communities in the Metroplex, including Fort Worth and Arlington, have passed resolutions supporting the bill. Leaders in fast-growing Collin County are apparently divided: County Judge Keith Self testified against the bill at last week’s committee hearing while Commissioner Jerry Hoagland supported it and accused opponents of engaging in “scare tactics.”

Some lawmakers are taking a wait and see attitude. Rep. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, announced dissatisfaction with an early version of the bill but noted last week that the bill is continuing to change. He said he will wait to see the finished product before making his decision.

Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, says he hopes the bill will ultimately pass but acknowledged that it’s difficult to predict the outcome.

“I’m a big supporter of it and I think it’s imperative that we pass something this session,” he said. “I think it’s still in good shape but it’s never easy to pass something like that. There are some things you just can’t predict about the Texas Legislature and that’s one of them. I just cannot tell.”


Transportation bill background

A bill allowing local voters to fund billions of dollars in road and rail projects tops the legislative priority list for governmental leaders and chambers of commerce in North Texas and elsewhere in the Metroplex. Here’s a look at what it does and substantial changes chances since it was introduced.

HB9 by Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller. SB855 by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas.

Summary: Would allow designated counties to hold elections in which voters would decide on proposed fees and taxes to fund road and rail projects. It applies specifically to counties in North Texas and two Central Texas counties: Travis (Austin) and Bexar (San Antonio). El Paso and Houston are also interested in being included.

The proposed county ballot would ask voters to approve any combination of local-option funding from the following six fees:

■ A county tax on gasoline sales, not less than one-tenth of a cent per gallon or more than 10 cents per gallon.

■ A “mobililty improvement fee” on vehicle registrations ranging from $1 to $60.

■ An added parking fee of up $2 per day at municipal and county parking lots used by the public. Would not include parking meters.

■ A vehicle emissions fee between $1 and $15, based on the amount of pollutants released by the vehicle.

■ A drivers license renewal fee.

■ An “impact fee” on new residents moving into Texas from another state or country. Under a revised bill introduced by Carona last week, counties would not be able to use the fees for anything other than the designated projects. The fees would expire after the improvements are completed or the bonds are paid off.

Carona’s reworked bill, called a “committee substitute,” also:

■ Includes a “low-income relief” component which would allow county commissioners courts to exempt low- and moderate-income residents with “significant financial hardship” from several of the fees. The exemption would not apply to the fuel tax or parking fee.

■ Requires annual audit reports detailing use of the local-option revenue and progress on the transportation projects.

■ For North Texas counties, would create “project and ballot selection committees” composed of city, county and transit officials under guidelines based on population. County commissioners courts and the cities would form the committees to select the projects and prepare a ballot proposition for the local option election.

■ Includes a “city override” if a county commissioners court declines to participate in the election process. The governments of one or more cities encompassing at least 60 percent of the county’s population could pass a resolution establishing a joint project selection and ballot committee.

Arguments

Supporters: The improvements are urgently needed to keep the North Texas economy – one of the most robust in the nation – from strangling under the weight of traffic congestion and pollution. The legislation is not a tax bill and the proposed fees and tax increases would not go into effect unless they are approved by voters at the local level. It gives local voters the right to decide on transportation options and would enable them to bypass the need for toll roads and reliance on overburdened state and federal transportation funds.

Opponents: With Texas beginning to feel the impact of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this is the worst time to ask voters to consider more fees and taxes. The state could provide billions of dollars to help pay for local projects by ending diversion of gas tax revenue for non-transportation uses. The proposal has grown from a North Texas-only measure to include Bexar and Travis counties and could become statewide in scope as other areas want in, submerging the local option concept.

Cintra lands 52 year deal on I-635 in Dallas

Link to article here.

Spanish-Led Consortium to Build $4-Billion Texas Freeway Project
By Eileen Schwartz
March 9, 2009


The Texas Transportation Commission Thursday conditionally awarded the LBJ Development Partners, a private-public partnership, a contract to finance, design, construct, operate and maintain the $4-billion, 13-mile LBJ-635 corridor in Dallas. The PPP’s main partner is Spanish toll road developer Cintra, which will lead the design and construction team. The 55-year contract is expected to be finalized in two months.

courtesy of TxDOT
courtesy of TxDOT
The project could begin as early as mid-2010 with completion expected in four to five years. The design will enable the new highway to be constructed while minimizing the need for additional right of way, according to the Texas Dept. of Transportation. Mark Pettit, spokesperson for TxDOT’s Dallas district, says the design places new managed toll lanes—between U.S. 75 and IH-35E—below the existing non-tolled main lanes. This will be accomplished by first digging a 25-ft-deep trench between and partially under the existing freeway. It adds costs to the project, he says, but public approval and local businesses required the design not go higher or wider. “With those restrictions, TxDOT chose to go below-grade,” Pettiit says.

Those depressed lanes, three in each direction, will operate as managed lanes. Eight main lanes will be widened and cantilevered above the managed lanes. The project includes two-lane frontage roads in each direction, adding a third lane in several sections, for a total of 18-20 lanes at build-out.


Comparing the project's estimated value to the expected stimulus package transportation funding amount in Texas—approximately $2.5 billion—shows “the full impact of what the project means to the local economy,” says Dallas City Council member and Linda Koop.

Deirdre Delisi, chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, called the project “a victory for North Texas residents, businesses and visitors."

___________________________________________________
Link to article here.

Cintra, Meridiam, Dallas cops/fire pension concessionaire for TX/I-635 toll lanes
Toll Road News
Mon, 2009-03-02

TxDOT has announced that a Cintra/Meridiam/Dallas police/fireman's pension system team are the preferred investors in a 52 year toll concession to finance, build, operate and toll "The New LBJ" or I-635 Managed Lanes Project, an expansion to 14 travel lanes from 8 of the major east-west expressway across the northern part of Dallas.Operating under the project corporate name  LBJ Development Partners it is essentially the same team that just last month was selected for the North Tarrant Express project to the northwest of Dallas.

A TxDOT official told us they are aiming at a commercial 'close' on the contract by late April, following a close on the North Tarrant Express project late March.

The 635 project involves complete rebuilding of 15.5km (9.7 miles) of I-635 and 5.8km (3.6 miles) of intersecting I-35E to provide 2 frontage road lanes, 4 tax supported general purpose lanes and 3 toll managed lanes in each direction along with ramps and interchanges - a total of 21km (13.2 miles) of centerline roadway.Elevated or depressed

A lot of the length of the project the tolled roadways will be elevated (on 35E and at each end on 635) or subsurface (on 8km or 5 miles of 635 where it will be in trench with the new tax supported lanes cantilevered over to avoid the need for extra right of way acquisition.

An earlier plan to put several miles of the new I-635 toll lanes in a pair of mined tunnels was abandoned in favor of the present entrenched/cantilever design - less costly to build and operate.

In a future phase the toll lanes are planned to be extended further east and southeast (clockwise) along I-635, but scaled down progressively in size.

$19m/lane-mile addition

Cost of design and construction of the first phase is expected to be around $1,500m. The project will produce an extra 130 lane-km or 80 lane-miles of expressway-standard travel lanes so the unit cost could be regarded as $11.5m/lane-km ($19m/lane-mile.) But the whole roadway will be rebuilt so it could be viewed as 14 lanes for the money and then it comes to 295 lane-km (185 lane-miles) and the cost is only $5m/lane-km ($8m/lane-mile). Adding in the frontage roads and you'd drive the lane-km/mile costs down even further.

Spanish armada

The Cintra-led group was chosen over a Dragados/ACS-led group called LBJ Mobility that included Kiewit, Zachry, Granite, SICE, Sauer, Aecom, Iridium and ING. Macquarie was part of the winning Cintra-led group but pulled out as part of its scaling back of its investments worldwide. Ferrovial Cintra's major shareholder and WW Webber are also involved in the Cintra team.

Concession terms

The concession agreement called in TxDOT terminology a comprehensive development agreement (CDA) provides for tolling in Schedule Mode (CA91 Express Lanes style) or Dynamic Mode (CA/I-15 style). Schedules cannot be changed more frequently than monthly and dynamic tolls more frequently than every 5 minutes.

Toll rates are to be set for each segment and direction "to encourage and stimulate demand while maintaining average speeds at or above 50mph," the concession says. (Exh 4, p7)

Damages if traffic slow

The concessionaire (called 'developer') is liable for damages where average speeds in the managed lanes fall below 50mph (80km/hr) CDA p137  The concessionaire is excused in case of incidents beyond his control.

There is a sliding scale of damages payments to TxDOT if Average Speeds in the toll lanes are less than 50mph.

- in the 45mph to 50mph band the concessionaire pays TxDOT 25% of the tolls collected during that time

- in the 40mph to 45mph band the damages payment is 50% of the tolls to TxDOT

- 35mph to 40mph TxDOT gets 75% of tolls

- when average speeds are <35mph the concessionaire has to turn over 100% of tolls collected in damages payment

Toll rate caps related to traffic

However an annex lays down a formula for adjusting a Base Toll Rate Cap to be initially 75c/mile. After 180 days if average vehicle volume is consistently >3300 cars/hr on 2-lanes or >5100 cars/hr on 3-lanes or average speeds are <50mph the Base Toll Rate may be increase by a Demand Factor of between 1.0 and 1.25. If average hourly volume is <2500 on 2-lanes or <4000 on 3-lanes the Base Toll Rate may be reduced by a Demand factor of between 1.00 and 0.75.

The Base Toll Rate Cap of 75c/mile is adjusted based on an escalation factor of 2.5% every 5 years. 

The concession requires that the speed of every vehicle be measured and recorded and a detailed schedule of reports of performance be made to TxDOT every week.

TxDOT to pay HOV tolls

TxDOT has had studies done in which all vehicles in the managed or tolled lanes are tolled and in which high occupancy vehicles (HOV3+) go free. The concession is written as if a toll is collected from all vehicles regardless of occupancy. If HOVs get a discount TxDOT pays the concessionaire the difference between the prevailing toll and the amounts charged to HOVs - called an HOV Discount.

Profit sharing

The concession has a profit sharing schedule with six bands based on a blended nominal after-tax internal rate of return for equity which starts at 12% and steps up being 50% at 23%, though the available exhibit says the table will be replaced with another in the executed concession contract. Exh 7  p8

There is an elaborate disputes resolution procedure laid out.

Termination terms

Termination of the concession for "convenience" or through TxDOT default requires the concessionaire be paid the greater of fair market value and the senior debt termination amount plus reimbursement for demobilizing and terminating subcontracts. This is outlined in great detail in Exhibit 23.

We don't see any restrictions mentioned in the CDA on expansion of competitive capacity.

Vehicle classification is axle-based.

Separate toll rates may be calculated for each of the three operating segments thought TxDOT's traffic study doesn't suggest this will be needed in the early years of the project.

Segments

Toll segments are:

- on I-35E: Loop 12 to I-635 5.8km (3.60 miles)

- on I-635: Luna Rd to DNT 8.1km (5.02 miles)

- on I-635: DNT to US75 7.5km (4.63 miles)

Traffic & revenue study

A traffic and revenue study by WSA in 2005 concluded that optimum per mile car toll rates in 2012 would range between 5c and 55c depending on time of day and direction of travel. It said that initially the same toll rates could apply in all segments, but that by 2020 it would be necessary to introduce differential rates by segment to properly manage traffic.

WSA modeling suggested that the toll lanes would carry about 11% of traffic in the morning peak and 10% in the afternoon peak under an all-pay scenario in 2015. By 2020 this share would increase about one percentage point.  With HOV3+ free, the usage was rather similar.

Average weekday traffic of about 40k to start

In the opening year 2012 the toll lanes produce around 39k/day trips under an all-pay scenario and 41k with HOV3+ free, and about $17m/yr ($68k x 250 days) to $16m/yr. By 2025 transactions are up to 58k/day and 53k and tolls of $35m/yr and $33m.

Allowing more holidays WSA calculates annual toll collection of $87m and $80m in 2040.

WSA assumed the 10-county Dallas Ft Worth metro area will grow in population from 3.15m in 2000 to 5.42m in 2030, annual growth of 1.8% compared with 3.9% in the 1990s.

The modeling found that relatively high toll rates will be required immediately westbound mornings to limit traffic to the density needed to allow free flow.

At low toll rates on opening in 2012 they'd get 50k VMT/hr or 17k VMT/lane/hr well above free flow. At 45c/mile however the traffic would be halved and speed would be 60mph.

Eastbound in the mornings generates almost no revenue because the general purpose lanes are flowing well and the speed advantage as modelled is only 5mph. The post peak hour is actually better for the toll lanes with a 15mph at 10c/mile.

Middle of day toll lanes do well

In the middle hours the toll lanes do surprisingly well both directions, offering 65mph travel vs less than 40mph WB and 50mph EB on the tax supported lanes.

3pm to 7pm eastbound the speed differential is 30 to 40mph at tolls of 30c to 50c/mile the modeling suggests providing decent utilization of the toll lanes. Westbound there are differentials too but only at toll rates of 10c or less.

By 2025 WB in the AM peak there is a huge speed differential 22mph in the tax lanes and 60mph in the toll lanes and high usage of the toll lanes at 60c/mile. In the following shoulder hour there is a 30mph/65mph speed differential at 35c/mile. Midddle of the day operations show speed differences of 20 to 25mph at tolls of around 15c/mile.

2025 speed differentials are 30 to 35mph EB at 60c/mile. WB in the evenings there are similar 30mph/60mph and 65mph at tolls of 25c to 30c/mile.

http://www.newlbj.com/

http://www.txdot.gov/business/partnerships/i_635.htm

http://www.txdot.gov/project_information/projects/dallas/635_lbj_cda/developer_proposals.htm

The LBJ or 635 as it is known locally is one of the urban freeways built in the immediate interstate construction boom set off by the federal aid highway program and the beginning of the federal gas tax. It is mostly 2x4 lanes at present and runs about 200k veh/day.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-03-02

Obama nixes charge by mile idea

Link to article here.

Obama Nixes Mileage Tax Idea
President Says He Won’t Adopt Policy Considered By Transportation Chief
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20, 2009

President Barack Obama will not adopt a policy to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive instead of how much gasoline they buy, his chief spokesman said Friday.

Press secretary Robert Gibbs commented after Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told The Associated Press that he wants to consider the idea, which has been proposed in some states but has angered many drivers.

“It is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration,” Gibbs told reporters, when asked for the president's thoughts about the policy and LaHood's remarks.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood told the AP in an interview Thursday.

“We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled,” the former Illinois Republican lawmaker said Thursday.

LaHood spokeswoman Lori Irving said Friday that the secretary was speaking of the idea only in general terms, not as something being implemented as administration policy.

Most transportation experts see a vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution, but Congress is being urged to move in that direction now by funding pilot projects.

The idea also is gaining ground in several states. Governors in Idaho and Rhode Island are talking about such programs, and a North Carolina panel suggested in December the state start charging motorists a quarter-cent for every mile as a substitute for the gas tax.

A tentative plan in Massachusetts to use GPS chips in vehicles to charge motorists by the mile has drawn complaints from drivers who say it's an Orwellian intrusion by government into the lives of citizens. Other motorists say it eliminates an incentive to drive more fuel-efficient cars since gas guzzlers will be taxed at the same rate as fuel sippers.

Besides a VMT tax, more tolls for highways and bridges and more government partnerships with business to finance transportation projects are other funding options, LaHood, one of two Republicans in Obama's Cabinet, said in the interview Thursday.

“What I see this administration doing is this - thinking outside the box on how we fund our infrastructure in America,” he said.

LaHood said he firmly opposes raising the federal gasoline tax in the current recession.

The program that funds the federal share of highway projects is part of a surface transportation law that expires Sept. 30. Last fall, Congress made an emergency infusion of $8 billion to make up for a shortfall between gas tax revenues and the amount of money promised to states for their projects. The gap between money raised by the gas tax and the cost of maintaining the nation's highway system and expanding it to accommodate population growth is forecast to continue to widen.

Among the reasons for the gap is a switch to more fuel-efficient cars and a decrease in driving that many transportation experts believe is related to the economic downturn. Electric cars and alternative-fuel vehicles that don't use gasoline are expected to start penetrating the market in greater numbers.

A blue-ribbon national transportation commission is expected to release a report next week recommending a VMT.

The system would require all cars and trucks be equipped with global satellite positioning technology, a transponder, a clock and other equipment to record how many miles a vehicle was driven, whether it was driven on highways or secondary roads, and even whether it was driven during peak traffic periods or off-peak hours.

The device would tally how much tax motorists owed depending upon their road use. Motorists would pay the amount owed when it was downloaded, probably at gas stations at first, but an alternative eventually would be needed.

Rob Atkinson, chairman of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the blue-ribbon group that is developing future transportation funding options, said moving to a national VMT would take about a decade.

Privacy concerns are based more on perception than any actual risk, Atkinson said. The satellite information would be beamed one way to the car and driving information would be contained within the device on the car, with the amount of the tax due the only information that's downloaded, he said.

For more info:

National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission

By Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy
© MMIX The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

281/1604 Interchange to get stimulus funds

03/06/2009

Ramps linking 281, 1604 get funding

By Patrick Driscoll and Peggy Fikac
- Express-News
 
AUSTIN — A spurt of federal stimulus dollars soon will help douse one of San Antonio’s worst daily traffic flare-ups.
Four ramps directly linking North Loop 1604 to U.S. 281 on the south side of the loop could be open within four years, thanks to the Texas Transportation Commission’s decision Thursday to pour in $60 million in stimulus money from Congress.

The commission also threw in $60 million in state bond funds for the $140 million project. San Antonio’s Metropolitan Planning Organization is putting up $20 million of its local share of federal stimulus handouts.

“It is just new money from heaven,” said Bill Thornton, chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which had intended to charge tolls at all eight ramps envisioned at the interchange.



The four new ramps wouldn’t charge a toll, but they could connect to future toll lanes along with freeway lanes.

In all, the commission Thursday allocated $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funds — including $783.2 million on toll or toll-related projects — despite calls for delay from tollway foes and other critics.

Toll opponents in general object to the large share of the projects that are toll-related, saying it amounts to paying twice for the same road — with the taxpayer-financed stimulus funds and with tolls.

Texas Department of Transportation officials said the use of several sources of funds allows more construction to be done and that such leveraging meets federal requirements. The $1.2 billion in stimulus funds approved Thursday will be part of $2.6 billion in overall construction, the agency’s John Barton said.

The commission, which once before had delayed action on the $1.2 billion in projects, declined calls for another postponement from toll critics, environmentalists, some lawmakers and officials whose projects didn’t get funded.

“The opinion of this commission, and certainly my opinion, was the more we delayed, the more we were delaying putting Texans to work,” said Deirdre Delisi, the commission chairwoman. “If today’s action means that we prevented one Texan from being laid off or we’re helping contractors to hire more Texans, I’m very pleased with that action.”

Although the commission didn’t slow up, it did make some changes in its proposed allocation of the stimulus funds for predominantly new construction projects Thursday and in $505 million in stimulus spending for road and bridge maintenance that it approved last week.

The changes came after state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, who heads the House committee overseeing the spending of stimulus funds in Texas, voiced concern over whether the commission had directed enough of the money toward economically distressed areas, as required by the federal government.

The commission added projects in some counties classified as economically distressed after getting further guidance from the federal government. Also in Bexar County, the commission allocated $10 million in stimulus dollars, which the local planning board will match with $4 million from another fund, to widen several miles of Loop 1604 near Randolph AFB to four lanes.

The wider road will help handle growing traffic from jobs being added to the base, said Clay Smith, a Texas Department of Transportation planner. Not long after the current interchange was built about two decades ago, it routinely became an amalgam of crawling cars and sizzling tempers as drivers negotiated access roads and traffic signals to get from one freeway to the other.

Stirring the pot were plans crafted about five years ago to fund the direct connecting ramps by charging a toll on them. Thornton, blistered for years over the toll push, often said the agency would build nontoll roads if there were money.

Now the agency has enough money for half the ramps, and cautious toll critics intend to hold Thornton to his promise.

“If it stays nontoll, that would be fantastic,” said Terri Hall, founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Construction could start in a year and finish by 2013, when an estimated 50,000 motorists a day would soar into blue sky to get through a five-level interchange. Overall, Texas’ share of stimulus funding for roads and bridges is $2.25 billion, including $1.7 billion under the commission’s purview and $500 million overseen by metropolitan planning organizations.

That stimulus money will be part of $3.4 billion in total construction, creating an estimated 90,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to TxDOT. Staff Writer Peggy Fikac reported from Austin.

Slanted survey says we want higher transportation taxes....what?

This is the exact opposite of what a scientific poll conducted by Texas Lyceum said. Texans don't want tolls or higher gas taxes!

Survey Regarding Taxes and Infrastructure
SAMPO Fasttrack Newsletter
March 2009

A new survey suggests that Americans realize infrastructure is in bad shape and 68 percent would pay more taxes to help fund highway and bridge maintenance and new construction. About 1,000 Americans were polled earlier this month for the survey commissioned by HNTB Corp.

More than four in five (81 percent) respondents say making sacrifices to pay for infrastructure improvements now will make the difference between a more prosperous or a more difficult future for the next generation.

The average American would pay $22 a month to cut down on the time they spend in traffic by 20 percent, says the survey.

Other findings include:

• When asked about infrastructure spending in the economic stimulus package, 60 percent said highway and bridge maintenance and new construction was most important to them
• 81 percent think the expansion of high-speed rail and light rail transit systems can transform U.S. travel and commerce like the Interstate Highway System did during the 20th century
• 50 percent believe spending on highway projects should equal spending on public transportation
• 66 percent think freight and passenger traffic should be separated on the roads and rails

Credit: Washington Business Journal

States Wear Blinders On The True Costs of Sprawl

Link to article here.

States Wear Blinders On The True Costs of Sprawl
By Mary Newsom
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Citiwire.net

Across the U.S., civil engineers are practically giddy–well, they’re as giddy as civil engineers are ever going to be.“For the first time in my career,” says Wayne Klotz, a Texan who is president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, “infrastructure is a hot topic.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, president of the National Governors’ Association, has for a year been trying to spotlight the nation’s serious infrastructure needs–although (don’t tell Klotz) Rendell himself concedes the topic lacks a certain sexiness.

But these days, recession-pummeled Americans are following the federal stimulus package almost as avidly as, in happier times, they obsessed over Anna Nicole Smith or Laci Peterson. They’re arguing whether stimulus money should go to the arts, or to repair and expand infrastructure, such as fixing bridges, boosting transit or finishing urban loop roads.

It’s about time people noticed those public works projects.

Klotz — speaking recently in Raleigh, N.C., at a statewide conference on growth and infrastructure — gave a shiver-inducing rundown of failing bridges, inadequate levees and high-hazard dams. In January the engineering group’s latest report card on the nation’s infrastructure rated it “poor.” Drinking water? D-. Levees? D-. Roads? D-. Transit? D.

“We continue to use the ‘patch-and-pray’ system,” Klotz said. Yet every $1 spent for maintaining infrastructure saves $16 in repair costs when something breaks, he pointed out.

But is the welcome public attention also spotlighting one of the reasons our infrastructure spending is so high–the vast sums required by suburban sprawl? In fast-growing North Carolina, at least, it isn’t.

Amid plenty of talk at that two-day conference about huge needs and inadequate money, about transit funding and open space preservation, one topic went all but unmentioned: Sprawl and its costs.

You’d think more of the leaders in this fast-sprawling state would be paying attention, because huge sums are at stake. For instance:

The outerbelt highway for Charlotte, the state’s largest city, will have cost at least $1.2 billion in state and federal funds by the time it’s finished, some 30 years after it was begun. Yet uncontrolled development along its route induced congestion almost as soon as each section opened.
State transportation officials project a $65 billion gap over the next 20 years between transportation revenues and transportation needs.
Charlotte officials estimate it will cost $7.4 million per mile in state and local money to upgrade old farm-to-market roads now carrying suburbanites to and from home, work and shopping.
While there’s plenty of head-scratching about how to find the money, state policymakers are bafflingly silent about the dollars wasted by spread-out, low-density, metastasizing suburban sprawl–and how much the state needs to reel it in.

Part of the problem is a simplistic yet potent belief that “growth is good,” and any new development is a net revenue gain. That idea is “fool’s gold,” ex-developer Rand Wentworth, president of the national Land Trust Alliance, told the forum. Typical suburban development costs $1.15 in services for every $1 in revenue it brings in, he said.

Another piece of the problem is that in North Carolina, state government types pretend growth is a local issue. They practically stick their fingers in their ears and shout “La, la, la, I can’t hear you!” when state growth policy comes up.

Yet the state has plenty of skin in this game. Consider state road money. The state spent millions in past decades to build so-called “bypass” highways around many of its town and cities. Then local decisions lined those bypasses with big-box stores, fast-food joints and strip shopping centers. Now, because developers have strip-mined the “bypass” highways, the state wants to build expensive “bypass-the-bypass” highways.

In another example, state-maintained roads through cities and towns tend to be major thoroughfares, lined with subdivisions and shopping centers. They carry exponentially more traffic than if the cities had adopted common-sense requirements for connected street grids, and had banned cul-de-sacs and gated subdivisions, which funnel traffic onto those quickly clogged thoroughfares. Then the state must pay for more lanes, wider intersections and other costly “improvements.” Why isn’t the state looking at its expenditures and telling the cities to stop this idiocy?

An intriguing study from Charlotte’s city staff illustrates another of sprawl’s hidden costs, with city taxpayers in this instance footing the bill: Fire station costs are sharply lower in older parts of town where streets connect. The study analyzed eight stations and found the annualized per-household life-cycle cost almost five times greater in disconnected, cul-de-sac-laden suburbia. That’s because fire stations in neighborhoods with traditional street grids can serve more square miles, since they can reach more homes within acceptable response times.

It’s heartening to hear President Obama declare we’re past “building sprawl forever,” that there has to be a smarter way to design communities. Now, we just need more officials at all levels of government to heed his words.

Mary Newsom is an associate editor, op-ed columnist and blogger at The Charlotte Observer. Her e-mail is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Orlando: Grand Jury report released in wake of toll hikes

Grand Jury Report Released As Toll Hike Planned
Expressway Authority Approves Toll Hike
February 26, 2009
WESH.com

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A grand jury report released on Friday accuses the former head of the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority of improperly using his power and influence.

Allan Keen is accused of using expressway contractors to raise money for his favorite political candidates, such as former Congressmen Ric Keller and Tom Feeney and present Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty.The report comes out a day after the authority voted to raise tolls 25 cents beginning in April.

The grand jury report criticizes Keen, the former chairman of the expressway authority, of fostering a "culture of corruption" and acting like a "shakedown artist" to get vendors and contractors of the toll agency to help keep his political friends in office.Keen resigned in 2007.


But Keen's attorney said Friday that it was legal, which is why Keen is not being criminally charged.The report, which has been sealed since October 2007, reveals Keen had expressway authority contractors and vendors raise money for 18 candidates and the "Mobility 2020" effort to raise the sales tax to pay for roads. The total raised through Keen was more than $468,000.

The expressway authority held a public hearing on the proposal and voted on Thursday to change the fares.The authority's vote was unanimous. The hike will occur April 5.The last time fares were increased was in 1990.

Officials said fewer drivers on local toll roads forced them to push for the hike."We have needs on the system that need to get done to be completed on the 408, on the John Land (Apopka Expressway), down on the BeachLine," Expressway Authority representative Mike Snyder said.

The Expressway Authority argues that if the increase didn't pass, roadway projects would have been delayed. Also, toll revenue has been down nearly 5 percent each month for the past year.The increase promises guaranteed completion of the Greater Orlando Beltway by 2018, officials said.

Orange County Mayor Rich Crotty serves as board chairman. "Do I like the idea of raising tolls? No. Is it better for the authority to do it and raise jobs rather than have a bond agency come in here and do it for us? Yes," Crotty said.

Tolls will be adjusted to inflation every five years starting in 2012.Many drivers said the struggling economy has them driving on toll roads less, and since the increase passed, some drivers said they will drive them even less.

"I do go out of my way, actually, to not use the roadways and tolls and stuff," driver Byron Fain said.

The following toll plazas will not see a rate hike:

S.R. 408 and Good Homes Road
S.R. 408 and Orange Blossom Trail
S.R. 408 and Mills Avenue
S.R. 408 and Bumby Avenue
S.R. 417 and Orange Blossom Trail
S.R. 417 and Boggy Creek Road
S.R. 417 and Lake Nona Boulevard
S.R. 417 and Valencia College Lane
S.R. 429 and S.R. 438
Mainline at S.R. 414

Copyright 2009 by WESH.COM. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Woman gets $11,000 toll road bill!

Woman receives toll road bill for more than $11,500
2/25/2009
By: Bob Robuck
News 8 Austin

It all began with a woman who received a $4,000 bill from the Texas Department of Transportation for toll road usage and penalties.

Now, another woman has come forward with a bill a lot larger than that.

Samone Murray was recently laid off from her job as an administrative assistant. As such, money has been tight, a factor that only added to her shock when she received a toll bill for more than $11,500.

"Eleven thousand dollars in administrative charges -- that's not going to happen," she said. "That will not be paid, not by me. That's ridiculous."

The actual toll charges on the bill amount to about $358 and the remaining $11,142 is attributed to administrative fees.

"At first I laughed and thought, 'Well, maybe I'm reading this wrong. I'm a little tired or something,'" she said. "So I put it down and came back to it, read it again and immediately called my sister, and she said, 'Are they crazy?'"

Murray's problem actually started in December, when she received a number of invoices, for tolls assessed six months earlier, each including a $5 administrative fee. Since Murray did not receive any notices or bills prior to that month, she said she didn't know that every time she used the toll road, somebody was adding a new charge to her account

"I called customer service and they explained, 'Well maybe it was going to a different address,' and I said, 'Well I've been here long enough to have gotten them from you before, so what would be the difference?'" Murray said.

Murray said she's had a TxTag on her car the entire time and always passes under the readers in the toll plazas. She said the toll lights never signal a problem.

Though she said she called customer service several times, no one could explain why Murray owed so much. At one point, Murray said, a customer service representative increased the bill right over the phone, without giving Murray an explanation.


In the end, she said a representative told her she now owes more than $13,000.

For more than a week, News 8 Austin has tried to get a representative from TxDOT to explain and to detail the workings of the toll road system and third parties involved. They said they're working to get that information and may have something later this week.

Ft. Bend Commissioners vote for control of Grand Parkway

After Heated Debate, Court Takes Step Proponents Say May Put Parkway Under Local Control
Ft. Bend News
February 24, 2009
By Bob Dunn

Over strenuous objections by two members, Fort Bend County Commissioners Court approved a complex agreement proponents said gives county officials their best shot at controlling development of the Grand Parkway locally.

But Precinct 3 Commissioner Andy Meyers and Precinct 1 Commissioner Richard Morrison said they believe the agreement - approved on a 3-2 vote - may obligate Fort Bend County to make a future payment of $100 million or more to the state of Texas.

The agreement approved Tuesday is between Fort Bend, six other regional counties and the Texas Department of Transportation. Titled “Market Valuation Waiver Agreement for SH 99 (Grand Parkway),” the document does more than waive a valuation study of the Grand Parkway project. (Such a study is required as part of Senate Bill 792, passed by the state Legislature last year.


The agreement also appears to define the Grand Parkway as “a single project that will ultimately include the full scope of work included in the Terms and Conditions.” Those terms were included as an exhibit to the main agreement.

The Grand Parkway, a proposed giant ring around Houston running through parts of Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Galveston, Liberty, Chambers and Montgomery counties, has generated significant opposition.

So-called Segment D, running from U.S. 59 north to Interstate 10 in Fort Bend County, is the only portion of the parkway that’s been built. TXDot has stated that its preference is to construct the parkway as a series of toll roads, which many residents in Fort Bend oppose.

The idea of running Segment C from U.S. 59 south past Greatwood in Fort Bend County has infuriated residents of that community and nearby subdivisions.

County Judge Bob Hebert said a market valuation study of the Grand Parkway project would take two years or more to complete. By that time, he predicted, the Texas Legislature will have decided to reauthorize funding for TXDot, and possibly could designate the Grand Parkway as a state project - a designation the project currently carries.

Hebert and Precinct 4 Commissioner James Patterson said they believes that by waiving the requirement for a market valuation study, the stage is set to allow Fort Bend, Harris and the other five regional counties to meet and see whether consensus exists to make the Grand Parkway a locally controlled project, taking it out of TX Dot’s hands.

If such consensus were reached, Hebert said before Tuesday’s meeting, the seven counties could create a new entity to develop the Grand Parkway on behalf of the counties. Although the agreement passed Tuesday refers to “a single project,” Hebert said it would be developed locally in sections, based on economic demand.

“The citizens of Greatwood and Bridlewood have a bigger influence and voice with local government - as we certainly saw in the last election - than they do in state government,” Hebert said prior to the meeting.

He referred to Morrison’s victory in the November elections over former Precinct 1 Commissioner Tom Stavinoha. Greatwood residents’ strong opposition to Segment C of the Grand Parkway was seen as a major issue in the race.

On Tuesday, Morrison told court members he had spoken just before the meeting with an attorney who had authored the market valuation waiver agreement, and shared concerns he had about the document. Morrison said the attorney had agreed with concepts Morrison described for making certain changes to the document. In order to make such changes and give the revised document to the Fort Bend County Attorney’s Office for review, Morrison asked to table the vote on the Market Valuation Waiver agreement for a week.

Although commissioners almost routinely grant each other such requests, Morrison’s request was rebuffed.

“What in here are you concerned with?” Patterson asked him, holding up the agreement.

“No. 6 -” Morrison began.

“That’s a simple statement,” Patterson said.

“I can read, commissioner, I can read it,” Morrison said. “I have read it.”

Section 6 of the agreement reads, “Development of a market valuation for the Grand Parkway Project is waived.”

Morrison and Meyers’ concerns stem from a provision in SB 792 that indicates if a county or group of counties decides to develop a project such as the Grand Parkway locally, once certain conditions are met, the local development entity would have to:

“Commit to make a payment into a toll project subaccount in an amount equal to the value of the toll project as determined by the market valuation…” or:

“Commit to construct…additional transportation projects in the region in which the toll project is located with estimated construction costs equal to the market valuation of the toll project…”

“I don’t think this agreement, the way it’s written, gives us local control,” Morrison told the other court members. “…it ties the hands of those in the future.”

Hebert and Patterson argued that provisions Morrison referred to in the senate bill could not apply to the Grand Parkway until and unless Fort Bend and the other six counties agreed to create a local entity to develop the parkway. And, Hebert said, a waiver of the provisions quoted above are “implied” by TXDot’s agreement to waive the market valuation study.

“Anything is negotiable,” said Precinct 2 Commissioner Grady Prestage, after about 10 minutes of debate on the issue. “I suggest we go ahead and do it,” whether it’s 5-0 or 3-2 or whatever.”

Prestage, Hebert and Patterson then voted to approve the agreement, trumping “no” votes by Meyers and Morrison.

Bait & switch interchange…red herring to NOT fix 281 north

Link to article here. Read our complete press release with separating fact from fiction on the interchange saga here.

03/21/2009
Toll road debate heats up — again

By Craig Kapitan - Express-News

Two factions that have harbored a running argument in recent years over the fate of a congested stretch of U.S. 281 just beyond North Loop 1604 are at it again.

Each side has held news conferences over the past two weeks — the most recent one on Friday — accusing the other of pulling a bait-and-switch on San Antonio residents.

Representatives for Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, both of which oppose a “mega toll road” in the area, stood near U.S. 281 and Stone Oak Parkway on Friday to take aim at the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

“The public is sick and tired of the misleading information, broken promises and outright lies,” TURF founder Terri Hall said.

The mobility authority, she added, “will say and do anything ... to gain access to our wallets and build a $1.4 billion boondoggle of a toll road.”

The dispute now hinges on a five-story, $140 million interchange project that would link 281 and 1604 on the south side of the intersection. Ramps on the north side of the loop would be built at a later time.

The mobility authority, which would oversee the project, announced recently that construction on the southern ramps could begin within the year thanks to $80 million in federal stimulus money.

The only catch, agency representatives have said, is the threat of a lawsuit from the opposition groups. With projects required to be “shovel ready” to receive stimulus money, a delay caused by a lawsuit could sink the whole endeavor, officials said.

In his own news conference last week, mobility authority chairman Bill Thornton railed against the groups. The ramps built with federal money would be nontoll, he said, adding that it would be disingenuous for the anti-toll groups to now say they're opposed because of environmental concerns.

But the problem, Hall said Friday, is that building a large-scale interchange lays the groundwork for a large-scale tollway in the future.

Instead, she said, the stimulus money should be used to relieve traffic by building smaller-scale, less environmentally destructive overpasses at U.S. 281 intersections that currently have stoplights.

The mobility authority is overreacting about the possibility of a lawsuit, she said, explaining that her group and AGUA haven't yet decided whether to file one.

“We are not interested in endless litigation,” Hall said, adding that it is their only weapon for negotiation.

Another problem, she and others said Friday, is that the mobility authority is trying to get around developing an environmental impact statement on the interchange by using an exemption intended only for minor projects with little impact. A set of five-story ramps is not a minor project, they said.

But what the groups neglect to mention, mobility authority spokesman Leroy Alloway responded, is that three of the stories for the ramps already are in existence at the intersection.

Further, the Federal Highway Administration has sent signals that it would be impossible to build overpasses with the stimulus money, Alloway said. That would require the building of on- and off-ramps and access roads, which would have a major impact and necessitate a lengthy environmental study, he said.

“It's badly needed,” he said of the proposed interchange. “We recognize their concern, but we question its validity. It starts looking like a straw argument.”

During last week's news conference, the mobility authority announced the launching of 411on281.com — part of a new public relations campaign to promote the road projects. TURF and AGUA responded Friday with Operation: Meltdown the Phones — a new campaign urging residents to call local politicians while stuck in traffic. The project is outlined at FixGridlock.com.

The anti-toll groups also are expected to show up at City Hall today for a public hearing on stimulus funds. It begins at 10 a.m.

RMA launches web site in repsonse to www.281Overpasses.com

Link to news report here. Here is the TURF response to the RMA's propaganda. Read about Operation: Meltdown the Phones here.

Alamo RMA Opens Web Site Touting Toll Roads
Opposition Groups Planning Friday Response
Thursday, March 19, 2009

SAN ANTONIO -- The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is taking their case for various Highway 281 improvements to the Internet."The conversation with the community needs to get started again with what can be done and what can't be done," said Terry Brechtel of the ARMA.

"A lot of folks believe you can build overpasses. Read the letter from the highway administration, read the prior environmental studies, overpasses do not meet the long-term solution."

Brechtel said the authority believes toll toads are only one option, but that it must be considered along with other financing options.

Opposition forces are expected to voice their opinions at a press conference tomorrow, said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a nonprofit group opposed to toll roads.

The Metropolitan Planning Commission is recommending $22.9 million of funds from the economic stimulus package be used to widen 36th Street as well as the so-called super street project along Highway 281 north of Loop 1604, according to sources.

RMA comes unhinged at concerned citizens over interchange


Link to article here. There is NO new lawsuit or a threat of one. All that AGUA/TURF did was send a letter to the Federal Highway Administration questioning the "clearance" the RMA claims to have for this 5 level interchange. The interchange is a red herring and an excuse NOT to fix 281 north. Read more here.

Suit might block use of stimulus money
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
03/13/2009

The $140 million in federal and state funds allocated for the building of long-awaited ramps linking North Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 could end up being sent back if two sides in a lawsuit can't find common ground.
The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority hopes to use $80 million in federal stimulus funds and $60 million from state bonds — dubbed “money from heaven” by one local official — to start construction on the four ramps within a year. The ramps on the loop's south side wouldn't be tolled, according to plans.

But lawyers for Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom are poised to challenge federal environmental clearance for the five-level interchange, saying there likely would be significant changes in traffic, suburban growth and Edwards Aquifer water quality.

The groups filed a lawsuit last year to demand a detailed environmental study of planned toll lanes on 47 miles of U.S. 281 and Loop 1604, and the Alamo RMA later decided to do so. The interchange should be part of that study, plaintiffs' attorney Bill Bunch said Thursday.

“We certainly don't think you should sacrifice San Antonio's sole source of drinking water to do that,” he said. “We still have a lawsuit pending. It would probably be raised in that context.”

If the Alamo RMA were forced to probe the interchange's impacts, work could be held up three or more years, and that means the federal stimulus funds could go unused.

“It's not a lawsuit yet, but there's a general concern,” RMA spokesman Leroy Alloway said. “What's going to happen next, that's the big question.”

Bunch said he asked the Alamo RMA to discuss less invasive improvements to the two roads but hasn't heard back.

“We want to avoid the litigation as much as anybody,” he said. “But there's been no response to that.”

Alloway said he hasn't heard of such a request, but negotiations aren't likely anyway.

“We're not willing to negotiate out the environmental protections necessary for our community,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Alamo RMA on Wednesday launched an effort — called 4-1-1 on 281 — to engage residents along U.S. 281 in dialogue. Officials also mentioned AGUA and TURF skepticism as a potential bogeyman to the non-toll interchange.

“We knew we needed a fresh approach,” Chairman Bill Thornton said in a statement. “The public is frustrated by the delay in construction and they want answers.”

Go to www.411on281.com for more about 4-1-1 on 281.

Local government supports litany of transportation taxes

Well, of course, proponents outnumbered opponents because the proponents were government officials testifying in favor of tax hikes on their constituents! There were either paid to be there or traveled there on the taxpayers' dime.

Those against are in the tens of thousands but don't have the luxury of taking time off work and traveling to Austin at THEIR OWN EXPENSE to oppose this bill in person (which is required by our messed-up anti-taxpayer system of government!). All the emails sent in opposition DO NOT count for the official record!

Saturday, Mar 21, 2009
North Texas leaders voice their support for transit bill
By DAVE MONTGOMERY
Star-Telegram

AUSTIN — North Texas municipal and county officials presented an almost unified front Wednesday in favor of legislation designed to raise money for billions of dollars in road and rail improvements.A three-hour hearing before the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee was the first legislative test of public opinion on the measure. Supporters outnumbered opponents by about 7-to-1.
Opponents said proposed taxes and fees in the bill would impose added hardship at a time of economic uncertainty.

State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, the committee chairman and the bill’s sponsor, said the measure is still being refined and will come up for a committee vote next week.

Leaders of Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington and four other North Texas cities repeated their central message: The bill is urgently needed to finance road improvements and commuter rail lines to help the nation’s fourth-most-populous region reduce traffic congestion and pollution.

"The No. 1 issue is transportation," Fort Worth Councilman Jungus Jordan told the committee, citing the findings of survey after survey in North Texas.

Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck said his city is "the largest city in the nation without public transportation, and I’m not proud of that."

"We’re pleading with you to allow us to move ahead with transportation in our state."

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley testified that the current transportation funding system is "broke," citing a $100 billion deficit in the amount of transportation assistance that the region gets from the state and federal governments balanced against its transportation needs.

"We need your help to give us a local ability to solve this problem," Whitley said.

A heated moment

The most contentious moment came after Collin County Judge Keith Self testified against the measure, saying that it would force a family of four in the Collin County suburb of Plano to pay an additional $250 a year in transportation taxes.

"Make no mistake about it," he said. "This is a tax increase."

"You’re wrong about that," responded Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, saying that the bill gives local voters an option of whether to assess themselves fees and taxes.

Watson cautioned Self against "throwing around words that are not entirely accurate."

Carona also confronted Self, who has been one of the more visible opponents of the legislation, telling the county judge that "you do a disservice to the community" by criticizing the measure "without knowing what the bill says."

"We would welcome your help," Carona told Self. "Thus far, we haven’t seen any of it."

Collin County Commissioner Jerry Hoagland told the committee that he supports the bill, pointedly disagreeing with those who use "scare tactics" to argue that "taxes will go through the roof" if it passes.

What the bill would do

Carona’s bill would allow counties to ask voters to choose taxes and fees to finance transportation improvements. The options include increased gasoline taxes, parking fees, driver’s license fees, vehicle emissions fees and an "impact fee" charged to new Texas residents.

State Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, is sponsoring the companion measure in the House of Representatives.

An alternative bill by Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, and Robert Miklos, D-Mesquite, calls for city-by-city elections — instead of county-by-county — and proposes sales taxes as the funding source for transportation improvements.

The local-option legislation, deemed North Texas’ top legislative priority, was originally tailored for Metroplex counties but has been broadened to include Bexar and Travis counties. Carona said El Paso and Houston have also expressed an interest in being included.

Gov. Rick Perry originally signaled support for the bill, but his office has since raised questions about the fee and tax increases and the inclusion of areas other than North Texas.

Tax concerns

In written testimony presented to the committee, Justin Keener of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative pro-business research institution, said the bill would create "excessive tax burdens that do further harm to our economy."

"I certainly hope this does not pass," Keener said outside the hearing. "It would be devastating."

Terri Hall of San Antonio, founder and director of TexasTURF, a transportation advocacy group, also registered concern about the proposed fees and taxes during hard times.

"From the citizen’s perspective, just your average housewife here, I don’t see how we can do it," she said.

Seventy-two witnesses registered in favor of the bill, and 10 signed up in opposition, though not everyone testified.

Other supporters included representatives from the Tarrant County Mobility Coalition, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the Fort Worth and Dallas chambers of commerce, the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, Denton County, and Plano, McKinney, Denton and Frisco. Officials from Travis and Bexar counties also testified in behalf of the bill.

Opponents included the Texas Eagle Forum, Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity.


What the bill provides The local-option transportation act would provide ways for counties to raise money to build their portions of a regionwide commuter rail system.The idea is to build 215 miles of commuter rail across Dallas-Fort Worth — a system that could cost $3.5 billion to build and $333 million a year to operate through 2030 — and let voters in each county decide how to pay their share.
Counties with less emphasis on rail — or, in the case of Dallas, with a rail system already in place — could instead use the funds to supplement and speed up road work.

In Tarrant County, priorities include building commuter rail lines from southwest Fort Worth to Grapevine, downtown Fort Worth to Arlington via the Union Pacific main line, Arlington’s entertainment district to the Trinity Railway Express, downtown Fort Worth to Texas Motor Speedway and downtown Fort Worth to Mansfield.

— Gordon Dickson

Source: North Central Texas Council of Governments

Feeding frenzy…taxpayer funded lobbying in FULL view


If ever there was a display of the ugly realities of politics today, it was at Senator John Carona's Transportation Committee hearing on his "local option" menu of new taxes. Virtually EVERY county judge, mayor, and local transportation official traveled to Austin to lobby for more of YOUR money on the taxpayer's dime! The stack of witness cards was 3 inches thick, and not from ordinary citizens wishing to testify AGAINST this litany of taxes (we were too busy working to pay the government), but from our own government working full-time to get access to what's left of our money.

Add to that, the parade of Chamber of Commerce types and taxpayer-funded "Mobility Coalitions" along with "ousted" former House Transportation Committee Chair Mike Krusee slithering about, it was a taxation free-for-all with everyone but the taxpayers themselves as invited guests to the aristocracy's ball.

It's such fun for them to spend other people's money, but at the end of the day, there's only so much of OUR money to go around and it's plum run out! Rather than heed the warning signs of the collapse of the credit market, the implosion of toll roads, these public-private toll roads in particular, they bury their heads in the sand and proceed unabated headlong into MASSIVE leveraged debt that will put us, our children, and great grandchildren in a deep hole for generations.

This latest feeding frenzy will only come back to haunt us, but it never seems to haunt them since they will have already moved on to higher office by the time it all hits the fan! We'll be the ones left holdiing the bag. Knowing their policies are TOTALLY unsustainable, we're witnessing a wreckless neglect of their fiduciary duty to build and maintain a STATE highway system and to be guardian's of the public interest.

SB 855 & SB 882
Senator John Carona's menu of tax hikes

His bill could increase your gas tax every year, charge new residents an impact fee but not developers, a vehicle registration tax hike, driver's license tax, an emissions tax, and even a tax on a parking space. Then, Carona tried to sneak in an increase in payments to LOSING BIDDERS on road projects into a bill on toll collection in SB 882! He raises the current cap of $250,000 to a payment solely at the discretion of the tolling authority. They say there's no money for roads, and yet they've got money to pay road contractors even when they DON'T build the road! Only in transportation does it pay to be a "loser."


SB 17
Private toll road nightmare!

Senator Robert Nichols claims this bill protects the public from privatized  toll roads (called CDAs, pure profit centers), when TxDOT has the option to waive the restrictions! It also allows non-compete agreements (which guarantees congestion on the free roads), payments for "future" loss of toll revenues to the private toll operator if the state buys back the road, removes the State Auditor's review of these contracts, and the private operator would be paid "fair market value" if the state buys back the road (without stating how that value is calculated or who decides the final pricetag).

It's supposed to "protect" the taxpayers from private roads and keep them in public hands, but if the local toll entity doesn't have the bonding capacity to make it work and declines the project, TxDOT can then also "decline" the project giving it to the private operators by default (which we can rest assured, they'll do). CDAs cost at least 50% more and they charge extremely high tolls (like the deal Cintra just got on 820 in Tarrant County; commuters will pay 75 cents a MILE to get to work). It's unsustainable!

Even after hearing an example of how the State Auditor caught the Alamo RMA not properly factoring in gas prices in their projections for toll traffic on 281, Nichols actually insulted the intelligence of our State Auditor by saying they "didn't understand" toll viability studies so he arbitrarily removed the Auditor from oversight on these deals, stripping the process of a needed layer of accountability, and transparency. Don't we owe it to the taxpayers to subject these deals to every level of scrutiny possible before handing our highway system over to foreign companies for a half century?

It was only two years ago when Nichols championed this very clarion call. Where has that taxpayer warrior gone?

Then, the grandaddies of them all...


SB 404
Carona's bill to extend PPPs rather than let them die their rightful death this fall

These Public-Private Partnership Toll contracts called PPPs or CDAs in Texas, are scheduled to sunset in September. They're rife with problems, trample on the public interest, amount to government-sanctioned monopolies, and utilize massive risky leveraged debt that threatens the very solvency of this country. Please read our CDA Fact Sheet for the details here.

SB 942
Bill to charge a congestion tax, commuter tax, tax on every mile you drive!

Senator Jeff Wentworth's, SB 942, would allow a county to impose any or all of these taxes WITHOUT A VOTE. The vote is optional. Taxes could also be hiked for "services" (not just transportation projects) without naming the services they can tax.

The bill calls for a menu of tax increases like:
- an impact fee for new residents BUT NOT an impact fee on developers
- a gas tax
- a tax on passenger vehicles but NOT commercial vehicles
- a commuter tax on those commuting into a county (with no limit whatsoever)
- a real estate transaction tax
- a vehicle registration tax
- a vehicle sales tax
- a sales tax
- a tax on every mile driven (with no limit)
- a congestion tax for "high congestion areas during peak hours" (in addition to their plan to toll those areas!)

The county could impose one or ALL of these all at once without a vote! Glaring problem number 1,561 is the "optional" vote is only on the table if the citizens gather signatures (with a very high bar to meet, 10% of the last gubernatorial general election!). All this while Wentworth is also advancing his bill, SB 690, to increase the number of signatures needed for local referendums!

None of these taxes should EVER be imposed without an automatic public vote, period. Lastly, the bill doesn't mandate the tax be tied to a specific project or that it sunsets when the projects are paid for (this, too, is optional), and the county can increase the tax rate without a vote. It's a taxation free-for-all!

Your emails and phone calls did help because he offered an amended version of the bill that would at least REQUIRE a public vote. Gee, thanks. Now we can look forward to them choosing the most ackward day on the calendar to call for an election, hold every road project hostage until we agree to the new taxes, and hold our breath that more of us turnout than all the road contractors and their employees.

Apparently us working stiffs and mere taxpayers don't have the clout the real estate lobby does, because he stripped out their real estate transaction tax in the new version.

Needless to say, we oppose this bill outright. We think, after ending the diversions to the gas tax (and curbing tolling), that a fixed increase in the gas tax is a far better, more accountable, and transparent long-term solution.

******************************************

TURF testified against these bills. Here are some of the formal comments...

TURF's Testimony on SB 17

We commend Senator Nichols' efforts for working on this evaluation process that has been in the works for nearly a year. Protecting the public interest is PARAMOUNT! How we do that is the open question here today.

Here are some of our concerns with SB 17 as drafted. We overall support the idea of CDAs being the last resort (we'd prefer they go away completely). But knowing how TxDOT operates and how it has become an extension of private industry instead of the guardian of the public interest, we think there are some gaping holes through which TxDOT will gladly leap through using the language of this bill.

Concerns with SB 17:

- Allows compensation to the private developer for the future loss of toll revenue (Sec. 301.103) in the form of a non-compete agreement for up to 30 years. Though you could argue the Dept. can still build anything in an MPO plan and for safety and maintenance, we've seen TxDOT strip out projects from the MPO plans in anticipation of selling bonds where the bond investor required a non-compete. So this will be manipulated in favor of the private investors placing the public interest at risk (by guaranteeing congestion on surrounding free roads for 30 years).

- We feel strongly that the State Auditor should still review these contracts. Even on a public toll project, US 281 in San Antonio, the Auditor reviewed the terms of the CDA and found the RMA had not properly factored the price of gas into their toll viability studies and recommended they re-do the study. The public deserves this extra protection.

- Allows the private developer to receive "fair market value" for a PUBLIC road without saying how this is to be calculated. It's likely the private operator who will ultimately determine the price, so we’d like to see the bill require transparency on the debt owed (to avoid a self-reported figure) and have the calculation of “fair market value” scrutinized for soundness by the State Auditor or the public will, once again, be left holding the bag.

- TxDOT will naturally decline the project as a public project in favor of a private concession as they've already demonstrated when asking Harris County to sell their toll system to a private entity. The way this is structured, if the public toll entity like an NTTA cannot get the financing together (or the bonding capacity), they'd have to pass this to TxDOT and then TxDOT could hand it to the private developer, especially to use private funds to subsidize a toll project that can't stand on its own feet (that isn't 100% toll viable) (Sec 373.054). So this section ultimately doesn't give the public protection, but shows TxDOT they can just wait it out, not provide any public subsidies (like TMF funds, other discretionary funds, etc) until they get possession of the project and then they can hand it to the private companies.
- Allows TxDOT & toll entity to waive these steps, which defeats the purpose of the bill (Sec 373.057) and allows them to jump precipitously into a CDA.

Ultimately, we’d like to see an honest, legitimate process to evaluate ALL road projects with a process that helps us determine FIRST between tolled and non-tolled, then go to a public or private toll road evaluation scenario. This assumes most projects will tolled. All these pots of public money being used to subsidize toll projects that can’t stand on their own two feet simply should NOT be built as toll projects if they’re not 100% toll sustainable. To do less is a DOUBLE and TRIPLE tax scenario unduly burdening our citizens for generations to come.

What it comes down to is, the citizens do not trust any process where the status quo Transportation Commission is still in place. As we described, TxDOT can quite easily hand over a massive portion of our highway system to private operators through CDAs (even using this process) that would cost 40% more than publicly owned projects and are faltering or failing all over the country. Not one PPP could even be held up as a model during the CDA Study Committee hearings, not even by the FHWA Administration who has been pushing this stuff.

We need fundamental, sweeping change by abolishing the Commission and replacing it with ELECTED leadership, whether it’s a single elected, or regionally elected commissioners, status quo is not an option for trust to be restored and to halt the legal and political wrangling that’s been keeping many projects from moving forward.

Instead of investing so much time and effort on how to cage the beast of CDAs unleashed by HB 3588 in the Williamson era, allow them to ride off into the sunset as scheduled and chart a new course. Modestly raise the statewide gas tax and get back to the business of building and maintaining a STATE highway system, instead of a slice and dice, hodge-podge separating rich from poor, urban and rural, and the city-state system you’re creating versus ONE unified and uniform system we can all easily access and be proud of again.

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