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Editorial: Texans at transportation crossroads

Dixon: Don't let the Legislature take a wrong turn when it comes to transportation
Don P. Dixon, SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR
Austin American Statesman
Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A secret hides in the midst of Texas Road Policy, and it doesn't just stop at money siphoning, conversion of public roads to toll roads or toll taxes. The 2009 Texas Legislature now lingers at a crucial transportation crossroad, as a select few determine the future of Texans' rights to public roadways.

Under former Texas Gov. Pat Neff, the Legislature implemented an efficient, affordable and uniform statewide public road system. Today our public road system is being converted into toll roads for the rich while the Texas Legislature diverts more than $10-12 billion from the building of public roads.

As jobs continue to become scarce and layoffs abound, Americans are cutting back on spending, which includes paying several dollars a day additional toll tax. The toll tax, which amounts to $4-6 per gallon, is actually a double tax and simply not affordable or acceptable for the vast majority of Texans. Toll roads destroy Gov. Pat Neff's ideal program for a uniform highway system that is freely accessible to all citizens regardless of income, status or location.

It is the duty of the state to fund and furnish a freely accessible public road system for all Texas cities. The state has failed. Current public policy is burdening our citizens with the cost of tolls, forcing many Texans to drive through neighborhood streets in an effort to avoid tolls. You may say: who cares? You should. High toll costs and toll avoidance doesn't only affect some, it affects everyone due to pollution, street damage and neighborhood safety is compromised.

The Transportation Commission recently issued a list of 87 proposed new toll roads with a base cost of $59 billion, resulting in an accrued $177 billion toll tax on Texas citizens over the next 23 years. Not only will this unduly burden Texans, but it will also cost more to build these toll roads, due to toll collection installation, than it would to build public roads. What's worse is that Texas continues to convert existing public right-of-ways into toll roads. Even worse is the fact that money that should be going to build and maintain public roads has actually been siphoned off to design and build toll roads. Several reports show that more than $93 million has been diverted from public roads to toll roads thus far.

At one time Texas had the best public roads in the nation using the proven best way to provide uniform, efficient roads: a properly applied gas tax along with vehicle registration. On average, Texans pay a gas tax of 1.6 cents per mile for public roads, compared to 20 cents a mile for toll tax. For a state with as large of a geographic area as Texas, the U. S. Government should return 100 percent of fuel taxes back to Texas for use on public roads; Texas is only receiving 88-92 percent. All gas taxes and financial assistance should exclusively be applied to public roads.

Engineering, construction and bond companies make huge profits from toll roads. Their political contributions promote toll roads.

The Texas Legislature needs to regain public trust by correcting errant road policies:

• BUILD the needed public roads, which are freely accessible to all citizens.

• QUIT diverting money from public road funds ($10-12 billion to date).

• STOP converting public right-of-ways into toll roads.

• SCRAP the fringe policies of toll roads, corporation-run toll roads on public right-of-ways, regional mobility authorities, Trans Texas Corridors and non-traditional funding.

This transportation crossroads will set the course of Texans' indebtedness or freedom as it either denies Texans' rights or empowers our growth and worth. Texas, it's your roadways; your ill-used money; and your right to drive on freely accessible public roads. Stand up and make your voice heard before our Legislature makes the wrong turn at this crucial crossroad.

Dixon lives in San Antonio.

Zaffirini Opposes Risking State Pension Funds to Finance Toll Roads

(AUSTIN) -- State Senator Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) today (Wednesday) expressed anew her opposition to risking state pension funds to finance toll roads.

"It's bad enough that some Texans' land is being taken to build roads that those same Texans later would be charged to utilize. It would be even worse for the state to risk the retirement funds of retired state employees and teachers to pay for them," she said.

The Texas Transportation Commission reportedly is looking into the possibility of using the state's pension funds to finance road projects.

"The focus of those who invest our pension funds should be solely on maximizing our return on the investments, not in funding risky and unproven toll road schemes which most Texans do not support," Senator Zaffirini said.

She added that recent weakness in the U.S. economy and tremendous volatility in investment markets affected the state's pension funds negatively and that requiring those funds to finance toll road projects would make a challenging situation more difficult for fund managers.

"Retired teachers and state employees need to know that the state's pension funds are solvent. Placing those funds in jeopardy by funding toll road projects sends a signal to our teachers and state employees that their retirement funds are at risk, at the whim of political pressures," Senator Zaffirini said.

During the most recent legislative session, Senator Zaffirini voted in favor of legislation that would have placed a two-year moratorium on Trans-Texas Corridor projects. Following a veto by Governor Rick Perry, the legislature then passed compromise legislation that sharply curtailed plans to build these toll roads.

Interchange an excuse NOT to fix 281 north

You may have heard the ad hominem personal attacks against Terri Hall by the UN-elected Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Chairman Bill Thornton on KTSA radio (550 AM) Thursday, March 12, when Thornton insulted stay-at-home moms, commuters who live in Bulverde, and citizens who oppose toll taxes. He came unhinged and has totally lost ANY regard for the citizens due to our questioning the legality of the supposed environmental clearance they claim to have for the interchange. To clear-up the confusion...

In the project list submitted to the Transportation Commission for stimulus funds under Bexar County/San Antonio it lists 281 as a toll road after Thornton promised it would remain a freeway if they got stimulus money for it (read it here). Clearly, they're not honest brokers and REFUSE to negotiate or work with the community on a consensus, non-toll solution. As far as the interchange, TxDOT/RMA is using a "categorical exclusion" (or CE) exemption as a way to claim it has the clearance to get away with building a 5 STORY interchange. This category is used for minor changes to intersections, etc. Yet they used it to build an overpass for the Dominion (off I-10), and then say they cannot use this same exemption (CE) to build overpasses on 281 with stimulus or other funds. It's total hypocrisy! Our 281 lawsuit is still pending with the court and our attorneys sent a letter to the feds questioning this "clearance."

Also, how can they build an interchange without knowing what it will connect to (a toll road, 6 lanes, 8 lanes, some tolled, some not what)? By locking-in the configuration of the interchange, they lock in the long-term plan for both those freeways. What we've been asking for and insisting on since day one is a non-toll solution to both. They've said for years if a new pot of money came out of nowhere, they'd keep them freeways. Now they've got it (stimulus money), and they're still going to toll our freeways. This is taxation without representation and a TRIPLE TAX rip-off. At the end of the day, they can work with the community to get a non-toll solution on 281, for the interchange, and parts of 1604 using stimulus money and other existing available funds RIGHT NOW!

Ft. Bend Commish: Stop spending stimulus money on toll roads

Link to editorial here. Amen! Finally an elected official who "gets it" with the courage to show some leadership. How refreshing to see someone actually represent the best interests of his constituents and ultimately ALL Texans! He's absolutely correct in that his constituents will be paying tolls to fund segments of highway they'll NEVER use. That sums up Rick Perry's "vision" for transportation, steal from Peter to pay Paul. It's DOUBLE TAX highway robbery using oppressive taxation against Texans just trying to get to work!

Stop spending tax funds on toll roads
By RICHARD MORRISON
March 7, 2009
Texas stands to receive $2.25 billion in transportation funding from the federal stimulus program. This funding is critical to maintain and upgrade our transportation infrastructure. It is also critical to stimulate the Texas economy. It will create jobs, from the engineers who design these roads to the construction crews who build them.

The Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees the Texas Department of Transportation, has recommended that the East Region, which includes ,, receive $431,516,770 for transportation projects. Of this amount, more than 53 percent, or $231 million, will be spent on the construction of toll roads.

These recommendations ignore the will of ordinary Texans who are opposed to our tax dollars being spent on toll roads and see these schemes as a type of double taxation. They also ignore the federal law that requires these funds to be spent in economically distressed areas. The small number of projects in economically distressed areas added to the stimulus list on Thursday do not satisfy the federal requirements.

Over the last ten years, Fort Bend County has consistently been one of the fastest growing counties in the country. As a county commissioner in Fort Bend, I am on the front lines of mobility issues on a daily basis. Many of my constituents have a deep distrust of government and these actions by the commission only confirm that distrust. After the commission’s recommendations, I have been asked on numerous occasions why tax dollars will be spent on a road that will then be tolled. This is a valid question that Gov. Rick Perry should be required to answer.

Unfortunately, Gov. Perry has taken the position that the preferred method of financing our public roads in Texas is through tolls. And many of our current mobility projects have been designed according to this policy.

Tolling the Grand Parkway is a prime example of the shortsightedness of the commission and our regional planners. Powerful interests with goals other than mobility have been pushing this “outer-loop” for 30 years and ignoring the other long-term mobility needs of the area. As a result, Segment E of the parkway is one of the few “shovel-ready” projects in the Houston-Galveston area.

Now this shortsightedness is finally bearing fruit. If Segment E is funded from the stimulus money and finally constructed, exorbitant tolls from this segment will be used to finance and construct the remaining segments in Liberty, Montgomery, Brazoria, Chambers and Galveston counties. That means the citizens of Fort Bend County and northwest Harris County will be paying for those segments even though they never drive on them.

From a mobility standpoint, many of these remaining segments are useless. Miles and miles of the remaining pieces will cross open prairie where no one lives, will have little or no effect on traffic and are not needed. When our transportation dollars from Washington are desperately needed to get people to and from our population centers, it only seems reasonable that the federal stimulus money should be spent on mobility projects that are actually needed.

A solution to this ridiculous dilemma over how to pay for road building is for Gov. Perry to show some courage and demand that the Legislature index the gasoline tax to inflation. After all, the gasoline tax is one of the fairer taxes: The more you drive, the more you pay.

Of course, if the Legislature decides to pass this tax, it must also ensure that all of the tax revenue raised from gasoline taxes will be spent on roads. That revenue should no longer be raided for other needs of the state.

Gov. Perry should take a leadership role in making sure this happens. It will take courage, but it is the right thing for Texas.

Morrison, a Democrat elected in 2008, is the county commissioner of Precinct 1 in Fort Bend County. Segment C of the Grand Parkway is proposed to be located in his precinct.

Commission approves 70% of stimulus funds for DOUBLE TAX toll roads

Despite the protest by Texans statewide, the un-elected Transportation Commission (appointed by Governor Rick Perry) voted to give 70% of the stimulus money to toll roads (in a massive DOUBLE TAX scheme) when it was intended to bring economic recovery! TURF led the fight to stop it with a press conference Tuesday at the Capitol during its Lobby Day and with a grassroots email campaign to the Commission.

Panel approves stimulus road projects
By KELLEY SHANNON
Associated Press
March 5, 2009, 7:35PM
AUSTIN, Texas — Transportation commissioners approved $1.2 billion in highway work Thursday to be paid for with federal economic stimulus money after adding more projects requested by local officials and benefiting economically distressed areas.

Texas Department of Transportation officials proposed that some projects be added to the $500 million in stimulus money maintenance work approved last week and to the $1.2 billion in major projects that were under consideration Thursday. The extra money needed to complete the added projects would come from local or state funds.

"This is a good thing for the state. We're going to employ people. We're going to put people back to work," said Commissioner William Meadows before the five-member panel's unanimous vote.

More than $2.6 billion in transportation work will be achieved with the federal money approved Thursday once those dollars are combined with other financing, the agency said.

"Texas is making the most of our economic stimulus funds," said commission chair Deirdre Delisi. She said the decision is the result of four months of work by the agency and community leaders.

Some state lawmakers had complained this week that economically distressed areas weren't given a priority in choosing projects, as required in the federal law signed by President Barack Obama in February. The transportation department's executive director, Amadeo Saenz, said distress was not a factor in deciding which roads and bridge maintenance projects would get stimulus money.

In a letter Wednesday, U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, chairman of the congressional Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said the government must ensure transportation spending meet all requirements, "including giving priority to economically distressed areas."

TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said that requirement was taken into consideration with the group of 29 construction projects approved Thursday, as were other requirements such as a quick time frame for completing the projects and maximizing job creation and economic benefit.

Among the projects approved are ones that would widen part of Interstate 35 in Bell County; construct a new interchange at U.S. Highway 281 and Loop 1604 in San Antonio; make improvements along U.S. 281 and U.S. 59 in the Pharr and Corpus Christi area; and construct an interchange at Interstate 10 and Loop 375 in El Paso.

One of the added road projects is Cuatro Vientos, intended to relieve congestion in Laredo. Lawmakers and local officials from that border city spoke out strongly for including the project.

Waco area officials complained that improvements to Interstate 35 in their city wasn't included. Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy said more than 100,000 vehicles per day cross the Brazos River on I-35.

Before the commission meeting, about a dozen activists gathered outside to protest the use of federal stimulus dollars on toll roads.

"It's at least double taxation, using federal tax money to toll a road — to build it and then toll a road," said Linda Curtis, director of Independent Texans, an organizing group for toll road protesters.

Houghton’s new low…calls TURF & its members “bigots”

In a stunning display of arrogance and downright mean-spirited rancor, Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton, the same Commissioner who lied under oath and admitted to crimes under oath (see it here and here), decided to break from protocol during citizen comment and hurl a slur not only at TURF Board Member Hank Gilbert, but also directed it at ALL TURF members when he said "you and your organization are bigots" (though some thought he said "idiots" because of the cross talk) for opposing the sale of our public infrastructure to the highest bidder. Since then, Senator Glenn Hegar fired-off a letter to denounce Houghton's new low stating, "TxDOT remains arrogant and unresponsive to the people it serves." It demonstrates why we need to insist the Legislature ABOLISH the Transportation Commission and replace it with a single elected commissioner! Ask your representatives to support HB 565 to do just that!

Texas Monthly
Burkablog
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Week in Review
posted by paulburka at 10:40 AM

The transportation stimulus package.

This is one area where the stimulus package can produce real jobs and have real economic benefits. So why is the amount so small–just $2.5 billion overall, and $1.2 billion in the first installment? One of the reasons is that Obama wants to invest in high-speed rail. I think this is a boondoggle.

I’d like to see more of the money go to highways and less to high-speed rail. High-speed rail requires total grade separation. For rural Texas, it will make the Trans-Texas Corridor battle look like a walk in the park. I ran some numbers back in the early nineties, when the idea of a bullet train was first floated, and to break even on the project’s then $6 billion cost, trains had to run 97% full between Houston and Dallas 24 hours a day. Like it or not, the most efficient method of getting people from point A to point B is one lane of freeway. In an hour, it carries six times the number of people as rail, and the cost is approximately the same.

Politically, the most important aspect of the transportation funding battle was the continuing hostility between TxDOT and the Legislature. TxDOT froze lawmakers out of the discussion of which projects should be funded, with the result that 70% of the money will go to toll roads. Legislators did not cover themselves with glory either, as some took the opportunity to lobby for projects in their districts. The level of mistrust of TxDOT is as high as it has ever been–thanks to Commissioner Ted Houghton, who decided to do a little bomb-throwing of his own at the March 5 meeting of the Texas Highway Commission, calling one of the witnesses and the organization he represents “idiots.” Senator Hegar fired off a letter to Houghton, which included the following observations:

* I am … compelled to strongly denounce your comments to Mr. Hank Gilbert at the … meeting as completely out of line and wholly unacceptable.

* Regardless of the criticism you may have received over the last few years in your duties as a commissioner and regardless of your thoughts about Mr. Gilbert or the group he represents, he is a Texas taxpayer, and it is extremely inconsiderate for you to dismiss him and the organization he represents as “idiots.” Anyone who holds the prestigious position of Texas transportation commissioner must take both the good and the bad that comes with that position and treat our fellow citizens with respect; the same respect that he paid you in politely expressing his thoughts and opinions.

* [I]ncidents like this one only underscore the problems of the past and retard future progress. They certainly do nothing to change the perception of many of my legislative colleagues that TxDOT remains arrogant and unresponsive to the people it serves….

Lots of fodder here for the coming battle over TxDOT sunset.

Grassroots Lobby Day a success!

Concerned citizens took the time off work in difficult economic times and traveled hundreds of miles from all over the state (DFW, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and everywhere in between were represented) to make their voices heard as part of TURF's Lobby Day. From wanting to raid public employee retirement funds to finance risky toll projects, and to hand over our highway system to foreign toll operators, to allowing the conversion of existing freeways into tollways and looking the other way when our wreckless highway department engages in lobbying with taxpayer money, TEXANS are STANDING-UP and demanding that these irresponsible practices come to an END!

We started with a press conference on the East Capitol steps with 6 other organizations who shared the same message: Slow down TxDOT and spend the stimulus funds wisely, including NO STIMULUS FUNDS FOR TOLL ROADS! Projects aren't necessarily being chosen based on priority or even where the people and congestion are, but on anything they can conjure up as "shovel ready," including playing politics with the final list. We had a great crowd, catchy homemade signs, and got national press coverage!

Then it was off to the House gallery to learn about the proceedings in that chamber and to be introduced from the House floor by Representative Ruth Jones McClendon. Next,TURF supporters met one on one with their representatives to share the Citizens Agenda below:

Citizens’ Toll Road/Eminent Domain Reform Agenda

* A Sunset Bill that provides real reform of TxDOT like abolishing Transportation Commission and replacing with single ELECTED Commissioner and Legislative Oversight Committee;
* Stop any and all conversions of freeway lanes into toll lanes
* Affordable transportation funding like raising or indexing the gas tax and ending diversions from the gas tax so that the funds are used strictly for transportation purposes;
* End privatization of our PUBLIC infrastructure through Public Private Partnership (PPPs known as CDAs in TX)
* Prevent pension fund investment in risky PPPs;
* Local control and decision-making, so that any toll road projects are planned and voted on regionally;
* Real eminent domain reform (that provides just compensation including for diminished access to property, such as HB 2006 that was passed by the Texas legislature in 2007, but vetoed by Gov. Perry)
* Protecting unique and sensitive environments, such as the Blackland Prairies, Edwards Aquifer

We also delivered the TURF Edition of Truth Be Tolled to EVERY legislator as well as our Toll Road/CDA Fact Sheet highlighting the problems with widespread tolling and handing over our infrastructure to private, foreign companies.

We finished up with a mini workshop on the legislative process, or Legislation 101, and heard from some key lawmakers: House Transportation Committee Chair Joe Pickett, and from the offices of Speaker Joe Straus and Rep. David Leibowitz. This session emphasized the need for vigilant public involvement in the legislative process, particularly as watchdogs at the committee level. Feedback for the day was positive and the overall consensus was that Lobby Day proved helpful in learning about the process.

Concerned citizens can stay informed with important action items through TURF's Grassroots Action Center.

Stimulus funds for toll roads a DOUBLE TAX rip-off!

Link to article here. In an almost inexplicable heist of stimulus funds, many elected officials and TxDOT alike are salivating over the opportunity to subsidize their toll projects that can't stand on their own two feet. Not only is it a DOUBLE TAX to use public money to build it and then charge an extra tax to drive on it, it's horrible public policy.

We shouldn't be building toll roads during one of the worst economic crises since the 1930s. Folks are clamoring just to keep their jobs and homes much less have the money to pony-up an extra tax to get to work.

Send TxDOT this simple message in time for their March 5 meeting: "NO stimulus money for toll roads!" Email TxDOT here.

$700 million eyed for toll projects
Grand Parkway's among 21 Texas roadways where money will be spent
By ROSANNA RUIZ Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 27, 2009

The Texas Department of Transportation has set aside more than $700 million in economic stimulus funds for toll road projects across the state, sparking criticism and questions about whether the pay-to-drive roads are an appropriate use of the federal dollars.

The toll roads — including the Grand Parkway in Harris County — are among 21 major projects up for a vote at next week’s meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission in Austin. The commission had planned to vote on the list this week but delayed its consideration a week after at least one state legislator complained the money was being spent without enough input.

The delay has given opponents an opportunity to organize a lobbying effort aimed at persuading state leaders to withhold stimulus money from toll road projects.

“It’s a total rip-off,” said Terri Hall, director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a nonprofit opposed to toll roads. “That’s not how the money is supposed to be used.”

TxDOT leaders and transportation planners defend the projects, saying all of them, including the toll roads, are important to their regions and offer tangible economic and mobility benefits.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the discussion about these funds has eclipsed the broader discussion about the state’s transportation needs,” TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said.

The discussion should be on reducing gridlock now, said Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, whose criticism led the commission to postpone its vote. Toll roads should be built later with state money, not onetime federal stimulus funds, he said.

“The Legislature continues to vote for toll moratoriums,” he said, “and TxDOT keeps ignoring us.”

More fees for drivers

U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also questioned the use of stimulus funds on toll roads.

“It concerns me that state officials would prioritize toll projects that will hit already hard-pressed Texas drivers with additional fees,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “I would like to see stimulus dollars fund projects that ease not only congestion, but an over-taxed public as well.”

The economic stimulus bill does not address toll roads, only that proposed projects satisfy requirements to create jobs and promote economic growth, said Jim Berard, a spokesman for the U.S. House Transportation Committee.

In addition to $181 million for the Grand Parkway, TxDOT’s list includes an additional $50 million for four new ramps connecting the Eastex Freeway and Beltway 8.

The other toll road projects slated for stimulus funds are: $36 million for Texas 550 in Cameron County; $42.5 million for a toll road in Smith County; $144.9 million for Fort Worth’s Southwest Parkway; and $250 million for toll lanes along the Dallas-Fort Worth Connector.

Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack, whose precinct includes Segment E of the Grand Parkway, said the segment satisfies the federal stimulus mandate as a “shovel-ready” project. The Harris County Toll Road Authority would add $16.6 million to the project.

Prioritizing projects

The 15-mile project, he said, potentially will alleviate congestion on U.S. 290.

Citizens Transportation Coalition chairwoman Robin Holzer, who opposed the Commissioners Court’s vote on the Grand Parkway segment, said the state should spend stimulus money on projects other than toll roads that typically are used by a small portion of motorists.

“It’s incomprehensible that TxDOT could think that this is the most important project in the Houston District,” she said.

U.S. 290, she offered, could benefit more from the federal funding.

Radack countered that a planned overhaul of U.S. 290 is not at the appropriate stage for the stimulus funds.

The Grand Parkway and the other projects landed on TxDOT’s project list after extensive planning to identify projects that would improve safety, among other criteria, Lippincott said.

The proposed Grand Parkway would span 180 miles, circling around the Houston area, at a projected cost of $4.8 billion. Segment E calls for a 15-mile, four-lane toll road that would connect the Katy Freeway and U.S. 290 at an estimated cost of $330 million, according to the Harris County Toll Road Authority.

A tolled Segment E could finance other portions of the parkway, proponents say.

Thorton LIES! Said 281 non-toll if got stimulus money, then still tolls

There can be no doubt about the intentions of our corrupt UN-elected transportation officials. They will lie, cheat, and steal to convert our freeways into tollways, even when they're paid for. Chair of the tolling authority, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), Bill Thornton promised motorists if it got stimulus funds for 281, it WOULD NOT BE TOLLED. Then, when you look at the project list submitted to TxDOT, it clearly lists 281 as a toll project, in spite of stimulus funding. The deception and lies are breathtaking!

January 14, 2009 -

Bill Thornton states in a news report: “If the project is paid for through federal funds, you don’t need that option of tolling.”

February 23, 2009 -

Project list submitted to House Select Committee on Federal Economic Stabilization Funding: "281 north of Loop 1604 - Construct new toll road" (which is in itself misleading since it's NOT new, they'll convert every lane we drive on today to a toll lane and the NEW lanes they build will be the frontage roads to the outside)

Non-toll alternative proposed for 281

Link to article here.

Non Toll Alternative for 281 Proposed
Local officials to submit wish list for federal economic stimulus funds
By Jim Forsyth
WOAI Newsradio
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

For the first time ever, officials are floating a proposal to build the long planned new main lanes of US 281 outside of Loop 1604, without making them toll lanes, 1200 WOAI news reports.

The Regional Mobility Authority today proposed submitting $2.7 billion in local highway construction projects for approval under the proposed Federal Infrastructure Economic Stimulus Act, which President Elect Barack Obama says will allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to ‘shovel worthy’ projects nationwide as a way to create jobs. One of the proposals submitted by the RMA is the $585 million US 281 construction project.

“If those dollars are going to be pushed through to communities across the nation, we’re saying, we have the projects, we’re ready to go, and this will solve real needs in our community today,” said Dr. William Thornton, former San Antonio Mayor and RMA Chairman.

Other projects on the RMA’s wish list include the long awaited interchange between US 281 and Loop 1604, which Thornton says has already obtained environmental clearance and could begin construction immediately, and expansion of Loop 1604 from Military to Braun Road into a six lane expressway. Also, construction of an interchange at Loop 1604 and State Highway 151 near Sea World is on the list, along with completion of the Wurzbach Parkway.

Thornton says any of the projects approved would be designated as ’free’ roadways and tolls would not be collected.

“Tolling is simply a way to pay for the project,” he said. “If the project is paid for through federal funds, you don’t need that option of tolling.”

Thornton held open the possibility that the feds will approve construction of a portion of 281, leaving local officials to find a way to pick up the tab for the rest.

He says competition will be stiff for the money, but he says the San Antonio projects

Have additional advantages that projects in other communities may not have.
>
“These projects are not just for convenience,” he said. “The congestion which exists in that area is not only terribly inconvenient for motorists, but it is also an environmental issue when it comes to clean air due to the idling traffic. None of us like cars driving over the Aquifer, and what we like even less is cars sitting over the Aquifer with their motors running. So this is more than just building a road, it solves congestion, clean air issues, and has many benefits that other projects around the country may not have.”

The economic stimulus plan has not been approved by Congress, so it is unclear when a decision may be mad eon which projects to fund. The RMA’s proposals still have to be approved by the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a move Thornton says he hopes will happen next week.

Blatant taxpayer-funded lobbying by local govt for transportation tax hikes

Link to article here.

As if TxDOT's lobbying for toll roads on the taxpayer's dime isn't bad enough (read about our lawsuit to stop it), local government gets off scott-free since their thievery has been deemed legal by default. We MUST DEMAND and end to taxpayer funded lobbying on ALL levels of government!

Sun, Feb. 15, 2009
North Texas officials want more money for transportation lobbying
By DAVE MONTGOMERY

AUSTIN — After committing more than a quarter of a million dollars in lobbying fees for a major transportation bill, North Texas officials are asking suburban cities to step up with more money to push the legislation "over the goal line."
HillCo Partners, one of Austin’s blue-ribbon lobbying firms, has been hired to lead the charge in behalf of the bill, designed to fund road and rail improvements in the traffic-clogged Metroplex.

But HillCo’s 13 registered lobbyists don’t come cheap. And the total price tag apparently remains a work in progress as the Austin firm tries to persuade lawmakers to approve a rewritten version of legislation they rejected two years ago.

Fort Worth, Arlington and the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition have agreed to pay HillCo $275,000 for its transportation lobbying efforts. The coalition and Fort Worth approved separate contracts of $100,000 each, while Arlington authorized $75,000.

The transportation coalition, composed of 38 cities and four counties, is also asking for additional payments from smaller suburban cities in what it predicts will be a hefty and costly undertaking. The bill, which will be outlined at a news conference Monday, is considered one of North Texas’ top legislative priorities.

Solicitation letters sent to member cities propose payments of $5,000 each for cities with more than 25,000 residents and $2,500 for cities with fewer. The payments can be made separately to HillCo or sent to the coalition as an "addendum" to its $100,000 contract with the firm, said Vic Suhm, the coalition’s executive director.

Appeals to the suburbs

"We need the participation of our region’s suburban cities to muster the resources we need to achieve success," said the letter from Mayors Ken Shetter of Burleson and Oscar Trevino of North Richland Hills. Shetter is coalition chairman and Trevino, a former chairman, is on the executive committee.

In the letter, the mayors proclaimed a "good start" on behalf of the funding bill but said "it is going to take a monumental effort to get us over the goal line. ... While smaller cities can’t match the large commitments Fort Worth and Arlington have made, we can and should do our part.”

Most towns and cities in Tarrant County are coalition members, as are businesses and chambers of commerce.

In the solicitation mailings, Shetter and Trevino noted that the coalition, "in partnership with the region’s largest cities and counties, has engaged HillCo as our legislative advocate to help get this critical legislation passed this session."

What’s next

Sponsors of the legislation, called the Texas Local Option Transportation Act, will outline their plans at a news conference today at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, plans to file a bill in the House, and Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, will introduce a companion measure in the Senate.

Approval by the Legislature would allow voters in North Texas counties, including Tarrant, to decide from a menu of taxes and fees that would fund road improvements and a multi-county regional rail network.

The plan, earlier called Rail North Texas, is a reworked version of a bill that died in the 2007 Legislature. It never made it out of committee because of objections to using sales tax as a method of financing. The sales tax is not part of the new measure.

HillCo, formed in 1998 by consultant Bill Miller and former state Rep. Neal "Buddy" Jones, has well-established ties in North Texas. In addition to its work on the transportation issue, the firm also promotes the legislative agendas of a dozen towns and cities, including Fort Worth, Arlington, Dallas, North Richland Hills, Burleson, Southlake, Irving and Denton.

The state government is prohibited from using public money for lobbying services, but the prohibition does not extend to cities, said Tim Sorrells, a spokesman for the Texas Ethics Commission. City officials say professional on-the-ground lobbyists are vital to help cities with their legislative needs, although some taxpayer advocates criticize the expenditure of tax money to private lobbying firms.

"People who make that charge really haven’t worked in the trenches down here," said Miller, the HillCo executive. "If you’re down here part-time, then you won’t be successful."

'Biggest, baddest partner’

Shetter said coalition officials considered other firms but agreed that HillCo, with its track record for success, had the best chance of reversing North Texas’ fortunes from the previous legislative session. "You want sort of the biggest, baddest partner you can get," the Burleson mayor said.

The coalition has paid HillCo a portion of its $100,000 contract for transportation lobbying and is paying the remainder on a monthly basis, said Suhm, the executive director. Fort Worth is finalizing its $100,000 transportation contract to HillCo after it was approved by the City Council on Tuesday, said Reid Rector, the city’s director of governmental relations.

The fee for transportation lobbying, he said, is separate from Fort Worth’s $93,000 contract with HillCo to represent the city’s other legislative issues in Austin, Rector said.

The Arlington City Council expanded its professional services contract with HillCo on Dec. 2 to pay the company an additional $75,000 to "promote a regional transportation system," according the council’s minutes.

Under a contract approved by the Arlington council Sept. 2, the city is paying HillCo $8,000 per month for the five months of the legislative session and $6,667 per month when the Legislature is not in session. The council also authorized $36,500 for a legislative consultant in another contract modification with HillCo on Feb. 3, according to council minutes.

Amassing resources for victory

Shetter and Trevino said the ultimate cost of the lobbying effort on the transportation bill has not been determined. The coalition, they said, felt that it is necessary to ask its suburban members to contribute to the effort, both to raise additional money and to give them a stronger stake in the outcome.

"We’re talking about millions of dollars of economic development," Shetter said. "When you’re trying to get something like that for a region, you don’t want to do things on the cheap. I want to make sure we have all the resources we need to see this thing through to the end."

Miller, HillCo’s co-founder, said that he was unaware of the request for the additional payments from coalition members.

"I’m happy that people see the value of hiring us and want to see us paid," he said. "That’s encouraging."

Miller said HillCo met with North Texas officials throughout the summer before getting the green light to take the lead on the transportation bill. The company’s lobbyists are working en masse to pass the legislation, he said, adding that HillCo is engaged in the most comprehensive deployment of "manpower and womanpower" since he co-founded the firm more than a decade ago.

"I’ve seen more HillCo people at these meetings than any other deal I’ve done," Miller said. "We have a big pool of talent, and we’re deploying it as fast and furiously as we can."

Although elected officials also participate in the effort and make contact with lawmakers, Miller said, HillCo is "quarterbacking the play" and directing strategy.

"We have to persuade people to support it, to find ways to make it attractive to them," he said. "Or to persuade them that their opposition is unwarranted. It’s a classic lobby deal."

A fundamental challenge, Miller said, is to convince lawmakers that the 2009 bill is not the same one the Legislature considered in 2007.

"The principal thing we’re fighting is the history of the bill," he said. "It’s a totally new bill, and we have to re-educate people."

No free ride for TxDOT in the Texas House

TxDOT had better be ready for this pit bull...

No free ride for TxDOT in the Texas House
San Antonio Express-News
By Patrick Driscoll on Feb 16, 2009

State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, once said the Texas Department of Transportation's strong-arming to push toll roads on local communities could come back to bite.

Looks like the new speaker of the Texas House has just handed Pickett some teeth.

Signaling what's sure to be a bumpy ride for TxDOT and its toll-road and privatization agenda, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, last Thursday named Pickett as chairman of the Transportation Committee.

"I have a lot of confidence in him," Straus said. "I think he's independent, he's smart, he's constructive, but he doesn't mind asking tough questions. From the mail I've received regarding transportation issues, that's the kind of profile of a chairman I was looking for."

Pickett, who serves on a regional transportation planning board and helped write TxDOT budgets while on the House Appropriations Committee, a few years ago accused the agency of threatening to pull funds to pressure toll critics in El Paso.

"It is the state's way or the highway, I mean tollway," he said in a widely circulated letter titled, "TxDOT trampled on us."

• 'TxDOT trampled on us'
• Toll angst in El Paso

In the last legislative session, Pickett filed a bill to replace the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT, with an elected commissioner. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, who Straus also put on the Transportation Committee, has revived the idea with a similar bill this session.

• Another anti-toll strategy
• HB 565 (McClendon)

Before the 2007 session, Pickett warned that TxDOT might get beaned in its own game of hardball. As the session came to a close, he said a bill nipping the agency's tolling power makes it clear "the public is telling TxDOT that 'We don't trust you. We have lost faith in what you are doing.' "

• This is tense
• Freeze on private toll roads ready for vote

Now, with so many key questions needing answers — such as what mix of gas-tax dollars, toll-road fees and private financing should pay for transportation, and how should TxDOT be reorganized as part of a sunset bill — Pickett finds himself in one of the driver's seats.

And Straus doesn't want the ball dropped.

"I just feel like transportation is going to be addressed in a much more serious way this session," he told the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board today.

Local option tax no good without sunset, accountability

How can the taxpayers support this array of tax increases when NO ONE, not even the Sunset Commission, has dug into TxDOT's books to find the waste and abuse? Also, these could be permanent taxes even after certain projects are paid for. Any tax increase should be tied to specific projects and sunset after it's paid for.

Posted on Tue, Feb. 17, 2009
North Texas voters could be asked to approve taxes and fees for transportation
By GORDON DICKSON

D/FW AIRPORT — Voters in counties across the Dallas-Fort Worth region could be asked to approve new taxes and fees for roads and commuter rail as soon as spring 2011, according to supporters of a sweeping transportation bill filed Monday.
Dozens of legislators, mayors and other supporters of the Texas Local Option Transportation Act gathered Monday at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. One by one, they expressed optimism that the measure will pass during the current legislative session, triggering what likely would be a multi-year process of identifying transportation needs in each county and taking the issues to voters.

Senate Bill 855 would allow counties to hold elections and ask voters to raise new monies for development of commuter rail lines or to supplement funding for road projects. It’s being pitched as a remedy for North Texas’ gridlock and air pollution problems.

"If we don’t have a forward-thinking transportation system, we won’t have economic development in this region 25 years from now," said state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, who filed the Senate version of the bill. The House version is being filed by Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller.

Taxes and fees

The bill would allow Tarrant County and other neighboring counties to hold local option elections, asking voters to raise a menu of taxes and fees, within these limits:

Motor fuels tax, up to 10 cents per gallon, indexed to increase gradually with a cost of living measure known as the producer price index. This is the equivalent of a cost-of-living increase for the construction industry.

"Mobility improvement fee" tacked onto car owners’ annual vehicle registration fee, up to $60 a year. This would be added to existing registration fees. In Tarrant County, fees are $51 to $69, depending on the vehicle.

Parking fee, up to $1 per hour per vehicle per parking space.

Vehicle emissions fee, up to $15 a year.

Driver’s license fee, equal to the renewal cost — currently $24 for a basic noncommercial license. This could potentially double current amount paid by motorists.

New resident impact fee up to $250, paid by car owners registering vehicles in Texas for the first time.

However, two of those funding sources — a motor fuels tax, and a mobility improvement fee — could require a constitutional amendment. The Texas Constitution currently doesn’t allow those funds to be used for transit or rail, and constitutional changes require a two-thirds vote statewide.

Carona on Monday also filed a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment allowing those funds to be used for freight and passenger rail. If that bill passes, the amendment would be placed on a Nov. 3 ballot.

If lawmakers approved the Texas Local Option Transportation Act during the current session, supporters wouldn’t anticipate widespread opposition to a constitutional amendment, said Vic Suhm, executive director of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition.

Calling an election

Each county would identify its road and rail needs, and set up a funding mechanism to take to voters.

Elections could be called by a county commission vote. Or, counties could be compelled to call elections if presented with resolutions from cities with a combined population of at least 60 percent of the county, or a petition signed by 10 percent of that county’s voters in the most recent gubernatorial election.

A public hearing would be required before the local option election. Ballot language would include a description of each project, including cost of construction and maintenance, financing method and expected retirement of bonds.

If voters approved the measure, existing agencies would issue bonds and manage the project. In Tarrant and Johnson counties, the lead agency for transit would be the Fort Worth Transportation Authority.

More challenges ahead

Crucial to the success of the Texas Local Option Transportation Act is ensuring that small cities are comfortable with the arrangement and don’t feel they’re being pushed around by the population centers such as Fort Worth, Truitt said. That can be accomplished by careful negotiations with those cities and their county officials, she said.

"This bill is an equitable and flexible approach to a complicated region," Truitt said.

The bill is currently written as a local bill primarily affecting counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as Bexar, Hays and Travis counties in the San Antonio/Austin area. Carona said he expected to continue talking with state leaders from other metro areas who also are interested in applying the legislation to their transportation needs.

Taking action locally

Supporters attending Monday’s announcement included Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who recently was appointed to the Senate transportation committee, and Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck.

Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief surveyed the bipartisan group at D/FW’s administration building and remarked that he felt like he was witnessing an historical moment — perhaps a first step in the Metroplex breaking its long addiction to the single-occupant vehicle.

Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, predicted that an improved transportation system would redefine the North Texas lifestyle and that future generations "will have trouble envisioning a time before that transportation system existed."

Carona said many state leaders, including Gov. Rick Perry, had agreed to support the Texas Local Option Transportation Act. He said the biggest challenge for the next two to three months would be ensuring that supporters of the plan continue to pitch it with the correct message.

Mainly, he said, the key is persuading skeptics that it’s not simply a tax bill, but a legislative response to grassroots demands for a better transportation grid.

Bill Watch
SB 855: Texas Local Option Transportation Act Description: Allows counties to hold local option elections, asking voters’ permission to raise taxes and fees for road and rail projects. Options include motor fuels taxes, vehicle registration and driver’s license fees, parking and emissions fees.

How to track: Go to www.legis.state .tx.us and search for Senate Bill 855 by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas.

"Merger" nothing short of hostile takeover of Via by RMA

Link to proposed draft legislation here.

TURF Statement on proposed creation of Consolidated Transportation Authority
RMA Board Meeting
February 11, 2009
The RMA’s involvement in lobbying for this change in legislation is obvious to any casual observer, especially in trying to persuade the Transportation Task Force to modify their initial plan to simply dissolve the RMA and turn it into a merger instead. This constitutes illegal lobbying for the passage of specific legislation (violation of Texas Government Code Chapter 556.005), particularly in the RMA’s attempts to lobby to keep their jobs. We are bringing this to the attention of law enforcement officials.

The fundamental question is, why a merger instead of just dissolving the RMA? The ATD can do toll projects as well as most every other type of transportation project. We do not need to continue $1 million in salaries and benefits for employees who perform the same function of an existing board.

The language of this proposed legislation is so broad and liberal (it even states to construe it as liberally as possible in the text) that its powers could be construed to mean just about anything!

Here's just the start of our list of concerns:
It allows the authority to toll a road without a vote if they use local funds instead of state money! The bill allows CDAs, including concession fees, which the people of Bexar County are adamantly opposed to, and even Judge Nelson Wolff himself stated publicly that he’s against a CDA with concession fees that take the money and control of our highways away from the people of Texas.

This bill throws fiscal responsibility and accountability to the wind. The authority could impose ANY kind of tax allowing total runaway taxation and bureaucracy run amok. The bill likewise allows the authority to steal money from one project to pay for another known as “system financing,” which results in one part of the community being overtaxed to subsidize projects elsewhere.

This lacks transparency and makes following the money trail near impossible. It allows un-elected bureaucrats to use taxes for purposes the taxpayers never intended. A tax should be tied to a specific project and sunset when the project is paid for, period. If more money is needed down the road, then you come to the voters and ask for it. Taxation in perpetuity in the hands of a band of unelected bureaucrats is legalized thievery.

If a road is tolled, it should be paying for the pavement those motorists are driving on, not used as a targeted tax to subsidize projects elsewhere. This bill creates the ability to co-mingle funds and pots of money to deceive voters and hide the fact that certain projects are not self-sustaining or truly viable projects. This authority would be more of the same elitist attitude we’ve seen from this Board….just give us your money because we know how to spend it better than you do.

The bill would allow the authority to form its own government-owned corporation to finance its own projects, which was defeated by the last Legislature. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse, the level of self-interest and incentive to make poor investment decisions (knowing the taxpayers will bail you out) is staggering!!

Lastly, it’s clear the intent of this authority is to engulf the Hill County and outlying counties into its boundaries by hook or by crook. The people and their elected representatives in the outlying areas have clearly spoken at past MPO meetings that they DO NOT WANT THIS!

A more detailed analysis of our concerns are attached. When will the public comment on the specific proposed legislation begin since last week’s hearing failed to produce the bill?
________________________________________________________________

Specific areas of concern by section:
1) Sec 451.901 6) (c) allows for monitoring of citizens

2) Sec 451.901 6) (f) allows for concession fees (presumably through CDAs and private sheisters)

3) Sec 451.901 7) can lump virtually any transportation project into their "system," which allows for "system financing" (code for stealing from Peter to pay Paul; targeted tax on one set of folks to give it to another, or subsidize another)

4) Sec 451.901 13) creates the ability to co-mingle funds and pots of money to subsidize ANYTHING without coming to the voters or doing so in a transparent way. It also allows an un-elected Board to levy taxes of all sorts without direct representation. It creates the ability to deceive voters and hide the fact that certain projects are not self-sustaining or truly viable projects.

5) Sec 451.902 - allows them to "liberally construe" the law to do anything they want. [again in Sec Sec 451.905 (d)]

6) Sec 451.903 (b) (1) mentions multiple counties. It was clear at the MPO meeting last October that the people nor their elected representatives in the Hill Country want to have anything to do with Bexar County toll roads and MPO agenda. The language of this bill makes it clear in multiple places that this new entity could perform a hostile takeover of the Hill Country through designating a project outside the county lines as a "system."

7) Sec 451.903 (b) (2) transfers the RMA's toxic debts and its $1 million dollar salaries, benefits, and pensions to VIA/ATD with no assurances in writing that TxDOT will continue to fund this failed agency (and why should they?).

8) Sec 451.904 references planning and development of "mobility" (code for toll) projects in the authority's county(ies) AND region thereby allowing toll projects in areas outside Bexar County where residents may be adamantly opposed to them. Allows the authority to make transportation decisions for other counties!

9) Sec 451.904 (d) transfers RMA salaries, pensions, employees and obligations to ATD...this doesn't shrink government for maximum efficiency, it bloats the agency with guaranteed work and wages for RMA employees who have yet to produce ANYTHING in 5 years!

10) Sec 451.905 (a) grants virtually unlimited powers to itself by this nebulous statement "has the power necessary or convenient to carry out this subchapter or to effect a purpose of this subchapter" ("to effect purpose" has staggering legal implications)

11) Sec 451.905 (f) can impose ANY kind of tax (except property tax)...total runaway taxation and bureaucracy run amok

12) Sec 451.905 (i) - this section is governed by Sec. 451.705. “SUBSEQUENT ELECTIONS. (a) If the initial election under Section 451.702 is held only in the principal municipality, or if the voters of another municipality or the unincorporated area of a county do not vote to join the district at the initial election under Section 451.702, the governing body of the other municipality or the commissioners court of the county may order an election in the municipality or the county at a later date on the question of joining the district..."

People would only be able to vote for or against the proposed tax hike, and aren't given a real choice of between methods of financing and the specific projects that a tax hike would fund. A tax should be tied to specific projects, not placed in a pot of money that can be used on things the voters didn’t directly approve. That would be the only fair way to do an election on transportation issues...you are given choices, not yes or no roads!

13) Sec 451.905 (i) could form its own government-owned corporation to finance its own projects! Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse, the level of self-interest and incentive to make poor investment decisions (knowing the taxpayers will bail you out) is staggering!!

14) Sec 451.907 (4) (b) allows two RMA board members to be holdovers (not to mention Henry Munoz is already running the board).

15) Sec 451.907 (f) (2) prohibits elected official to serve as director of this taxing entity. That’s precisely who should be serving on this Board, it’s called taxation WITH representation, not the other way around!

16) Sec 451.907 (D) allows board member to receive financial compensation for real property acquired by the authority if he/she can claim it wasn't known at the time of his/her initial appointment. The Board member ought to resign from the Board in such an instance and, at a minimum, recuse himself by abstaining from voting on the item. (Basic conflict of interest and bad ethics to not force recusal!)

17) Sec 451.909 (b) allows them to still issue debt without it being its report to the county/city in its strategic plan, so what's the point of the reporting to them and having a plan if it can be ignored? This isn't accountability; it's just checking a box!

18) Sec 451.910 potentially allows the authority to overtake/govern outlying areas by designating a project a "system" without that territory's permission. This section allows them to steal from one project or area to subsidize another. Bad public policy and co-mingles the money making transparency difficult.

19) Sec 451.911 (d) allows debt to be sold to private entities for private gain and allows debt for up to 50 years versus the traditional 30 yr municipal bond terms.

20) Sec 451.912 vague wording, "all powers are cumulative" and can be exercised either independently or in combination (with who? or what?) What does this mean? Could it mean in concert with a private toll operator like a Cintra?

21) Sec 451.913 this section should tie ANY sales and use tax to specific projects. By allowing a big pot of money to be used at the board's sole discretion without notifying voters of what projects types it could fund, they could finance a toll road WITHOUT A PUBLIC VOTE, which was promised when the ATD was formed. So this is a loophole, even Tuggey admitted they could toll without a vote if they didn't use state money and used local money instead! You can be sure they'll exploit it!

22) Sec 451.918 E. would allow CDAs, which the people of Bexar County have consistently rejected (hence the moratorium and the kabosh on the 281/12604 CDA in the 2007 legislative session (SB 792).

Subchapter M of Sec 451 in the Transportation Code allows for the withdrawl from an authority, so surely there's a away to dissolve the RMA, too. However, when you look at the procedure to withdrawl, in some cases, up to 20% of registered voters must sign a petition for a withdrawl election, which is a near impossible threshold to meet! After withdrawl, the region withdrawing has to pay back all the funds it ever received from the authority (again making it near impossible to withdraw)!

By contrast, the existing law on the public hearings to create a Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority takes just 500 signatures and the City can call for election to create one, but it takes 20% of ALL voters to dissolve it. That's NUTS! The RMA and Via gave less than a week's notice for its public hearing February 5, this law says it should be at least 2 weeks and published in the paper for those 2 weeks. Without a bill to scrutinize or comment on, Sec 451.653 could not be fulfilled. See below…

Sec. 451.652. NOTICE OF HEARING. (a) Notice of the time and place of the hearing on the creation of an authority, including a description of the area proposed to be included in the authority, shall be published once each week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the alternate municipality. The first publication of the notice must be published not later than 15 days before the date scheduled for the hearing.

(b) The governing body of the alternate municipality shall furnish a copy of the notice under Subsection (a) to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995.

Sec. 451.653. CONDUCT OF HEARING. (a) The governing body of the alternate municipality shall conduct the hearing on the creation of the authority at the place and time specified in the notice of the hearing. The hearing may be continued during the periods necessary to complete the hearing.

(b) Any interested person may appear at the hearing and offer:

(1) evidence on the issues described by Section 451.654(a); or

(2) other facts bearing on the creation, construction, or operation of the proposed transit authority system.

Cintra to takeover I-820; collect $6.50 ONE WAY in tolls!

Link to article here.

Private toll lanes, free highways merge first in Tarrant project
Friday, January 30, 2009
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News

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AUSTIN – Private toll roads are coming to North Texas, and coming fast.

In the first of three deals to be announced over the next two months, the Texas Transportation Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to hire a Spanish toll-road company to rebuild Tarrant County's busiest traffic corridor, adding two new toll lanes in each direction.

The 13-mile project will replace the two free lanes in each direction on Interstate 820 and on State Highway 183 in northeast Tarrant County. Four new toll lanes will run parallel, and drivers used to tolls of about 14 cents a mile will initially pay rates as high as 75 cents a mile.

Construction should begin late next year and be complete by 2015, said a beaming roster of officials from Tarrant County and the Texas Department of Transportation. Final details of the contract will be negotiated over the next 60 days, and lining up lenders for the project could take until the end of this year.

"This is a historic day for mobility in North Texas, and a historic day for the citizens," said TxDOT Commissioner Bill Meadows, a former Fort Worth City Council member. Nearly a dozen mayors, council members and others from the county traveled to Austin to hear the announcement Thursday morning.

For Dallas drivers, Thursday's announcement is a sign of things to come.

Next month, the TxDOT leaders are expected to pick a firm to rebuild the LBJ Freeway. Like the North Tarrant Express, the LBJ project will add no new free lanes, but will add tolled lanes. The six new toll lanes will be half-buried underneath the existing LBJ lanes in what some have called the most ambitious road-engineering project in America, now that Boston's Big Dig is complete.

The LBJ project is expected to begin construction next year and take five years – a significant challenge for the 280,000 drivers who currently use the lanes each day and the hundreds of businesses located along its frontage roads.

TxDOT officials said Wednesday that mitigation efforts with local business along LBJ have been under way for more than a year, though most lanes of traffic will remain open during peak hours throughout the construction period. Phil Russell, assistant executive director at TxDOT, said any contract awarded will include steep fines should the construction crews be forced to close main lanes.

Another project under bid by private toll companies is the DFW Connector in Grapevine, which will involve rebuilding and expanding State Highway 114 and State Highway 121, including interchanges across seven different highways. The 14-mile project will add free lanes and tolled lanes owned by the state along Highway 114.

North Texas drivers are increasingly familiar with toll roads, but they've never driven on lanes like these.

The new concepts that will be at the center of all three of these projects are what are called "managed lanes." Toll rates for these lanes will change 24 hours a day, depending on how much demand for them there is. That demand will be measured by the amount of traffic on the free lanes.

For drivers, that means the more backed-up the traffic on free lanes, the more it will cost to get a quick ride into town on the tolled lanes. Buses will use the tolled lanes free, and motorcyclists and carpoolers will get a discount.

The idea is that by raising the tolls on the toll lanes when traffic is bad, it will keep the traffic down to a manageable level, which in this case is defined as traffic moving at 50 miles per hour or more.

It's a rarely used concept, though drivers in Orange County pay a $1 a mile during rush hour into Los Angeles, and appear happy to do so.

For now, Cintra estimates that the peak-hour rates on the North Tarrant Express will be about $6.50 each way for the 13-mile trip, or about 50 cents per mile. It says tolls during nonpeak periods could be as low as nine cents a mile. By comparison, rates on NTTA roads, which do not change according to traffic levels, are about 14 cents a mile.

The Regional Transportation Council has adopted a policy that sets the maximum rate for the managed-lane tolls at 75 cents per hour for now, but even that cap is a soft cap. If the toll lanes prove so popular that they are getting overcrowded even at 75 cents a mile, the rates can be increased.

Jose Lopez, Cintra's president of American operations, said the managed-lane idea is a new one for his company, and he applauded North Texas leaders for adopting what he called a "modern concept."

It's catching on, however. Toll roads in Virginia headed into Washington, D.C., will use managed-lane toll policies, and so will Houston's rebuilt Katy Freeway, which opened late last year and is expected to begin using fluctuating rates within a few months.

The smiles all around the briefing room in Austin Thursday were in marked contrast with the consternation associated with Cintra's first attempt to build a toll road in North Texas.

Two years ago, the commission awarded the company the rights to Highway 121, only to see an enraged Legislature step in and pave the way for NTTA to successfully bid on the project. This time, however, NTTA has its hands full and did not seek to compete for the road. It will, however, be paid a fee to collect the tolls for Cintra.

"We're very pleased to see the level of support from local officials," Lopez said Thursday.

The team Cintra pulled together to bid on the project includes nearly a dozen firms, including two others who have agreed to put money in as equity investors. One of those is the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund, though neither Lopez nor fund officials would say how much money they are investing.

______________________________________________________
Link to article here.

Monday, Feb 9, 2009

Posted on Fri, Jan. 30, 2009

I-35W advocates express backing, hope for North Tarrant Express

By GORDON DICKSON

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AUSTIN — Beginning in 2015, drivers could pay as much as $6.50 each way to use four toll lanes that a private developer proposes to open on 13 miles of Loop 820 and Airport Freeway in Northeast Tarrant County.Yet on adjacent Interstate 35W, which many Fort Worth officials would argue is just as gridlocked and deserving of new lanes, there would likely be no improvements until 2018 or later, according to the $2 billion private contract with Spanish firm Cintra that the Texas Transportation Commission approved Thursday.
It’s a problem that advocates of highway improvements in Tarrant County can’t escape.

Faced with the alternative — no new construction at all in the county — proponents of I -35W expansion stood in unison Thursday to support the so-called North Tarrant Express project. Their argument, in part, is that the state’s unprecedented swim into the waters of highway privatization, using a combination of public and private dollars, will be good for the entire western subregion of Dallas-Fort Worth.

"We’re pushing forward with this, and we support North Tarrant Express," Fort Worth Councilman Jungus Jordan said, as he thanked state officials for their time invested in the project. "And now, we want to know what you’re going to do with I-35W."

Their support is something of a leap of faith that Cintra will not only build the variably priced toll lanes within six years, but will also follow through with plans to rebuild I-35W and add lanes during the second decade of the 20-year plan.

Huge project

Overall, the North Tarrant Express project is a $5 billion effort that will likely be built in phases through 2030. It involves rebuilding aging free lanes on Loop 820, Texas 121/183, widely known as Airport Freeway, and eventually I-35W.

The plan also calls for adding capacity by building toll lanes, mostly in the highway medians.

While free lanes will still be available, trends indicate that they will become far more congested as North Texas continues to grow.

Eventually, toll lanes would be built on I-35W, too.

In the end, Cintra’s promise to take over North Tarrant Express and immediately build the estimated $2 billion first phase was too good to turn down, supporters said.

"We’re getting a $2 billion project for a $600 million investment," Transportation Commission Chairwoman Deirdre Delisi said.

Cintra’s proposal was made public shortly after commissioners unanimously took action Thursday, ending a two-year competition that originally involved four bidders. During that time, North Texas officials who wanted a glimpse of the bids had to sign confidentiality agreements.

A competing plan by another Spanish company, OHL Infrastructure, was disqualified because a required security — a type of bond or deposit — wasn’t properly posted, officials said.

But in any case, Transportation Department officials said, Cintra would have beaten OHL head to head. Cintra’s proposal included construction of 169 lane miles, compared with OHL’s offer to build 64 lane miles.

Details of the deal

In addition to $570 million in gas-tax revenue from the Transportation Department, Cintra proposes to contribute $300 million in equity and $1.1 billion in debt, including federal and bank loans and private activity bonds.

Cintra’s offer was conditionally approved Thursday, pending approval from the Federal Highway Administration and the attorney general’s office. A review is expected to take about 60 days.

The tolls will vary, from $1.20 to $6.50 each way, Cintra U.S. President Jose Lopez said. The tolls will rise and fall through the day, with the goal of keeping toll-lane traffic moving at a minimum 50 mph.

Cintra’s proposal charges less than the 75 cents a mile allowed under a managed-lanes plan approved two years ago by the Regional Transportation Council, the Metroplex’s official planning body, Lopez said.

Cintra would build the first phase of North Tarrant Express and publish a master plan for the rest of the 20-year project. New free lanes would be built at state expense when certain congestion levels are reached, no later than 2030, according to the agreement.

I-35W complications

Although anyone who drives on I-35W knows it’s a no-brainer candidate for a makeover, construction is likely still years away, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

Eventually, Morris said, planners hope that the I-35W main lanes can be rebuilt from downtown Fort Worth to Alliance Airport. However, a federally required environmental study isn’t complete, he said.

Even so, members of the Regional Transportation Council will begin searching for public funds to divert to the I-35W project, especially now that private dollars are being injected into the North Tarrant Express project.

Also, the North Texas Tollway Authority is working on a plan to build parts of Southwest Parkway, a proposed toll road in southwest Fort Worth, entirely with debt issued by the Plano-based North Texas Tollway Authority. Such a move, if it is deemed feasible, would free up tens of millions of gas-tax dollars for I-35W.

And, the North Tarrant Express project will have some benefit to I-35W traffic, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley noted. Direct connections will be built from I-35W to the North Tarrant Express toll lanes, which will likely free up space on I-35W’s main lanes.

By including I-35W in the North Tarrant Express master plan, Whitley said, there’s a better chance that it will become more of a regional priority as planners realize the potential for toll revenue from I-35W, Whitley said.

Editorial: Light rail too expensive

Link to Editorial here.

Since the tolling authority, Alamo RMA, and the San Antonio transit authority, Via, are proposing to merge the agencies and use toll revenues to subsidize mass transit and light rail, this editorial is crucial to the debate.

Light rail isn't the track to the future

By Randal O'Toole - Special to the Express-News

As America's largest city without rail transit, some people want San Antonio to “keep up” by building light rail. You need to know only one thing: Light rail is really expensive.

I mean, really, really expensive. The average mile of light-rail line costs two to five times as much as an urban freeway lane-mile. Yet in 2007 the average light-rail line carried less than one-seventh as many people as the average freeway lane-mile in cities with light rail.

Do the math: Light rail costs 14 to 35 times as much to move people as highways.

The Government Accountability Office found that bus-rapid transit—frequent buses with limited stops—provided faster, better service at 2 percent of the capital cost and lower operating costs than light rail.

If light rail is so expensive, why are cities building it? Starting in the 1970s, Congress offered cities hundreds of millions of dollars for transit capital improvements. If they bought buses, they wouldn't have enough money to operate those buses.

So cities like Portland and Sacramento decided to build light rail—because it was expensive. Only light rail would use up all the millions of federal dollars. Other cities that wanted their share of federal pork soon began planning light rail, too.

How successful is light rail? In 1980, before Portland began building light rail, 9.8 percent of the region's commuters took transit to work. Today, it is 7.6 percent.

Since 1980, Portland has spent more than $2.3 billion, half the region's transportation capital funds, building light rail. Yet light rail carries less than 1 percent of Portland-area travel. That's a success?

In 2002, Dallas opened a new light-rail line, doubling the number of miles in the city's light-rail system. The new line attracted some rail riders, but the region lost more bus riders than it gained rail riders.

This often happens because rail's high cost forces transit agencies to cut bus service. When Los Angeles started building rail transit to white, middle-class neighborhoods, it cut bus service to black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The city lost more bus riders than it ever gained in rail riders, and an NAACP lawsuit forced the city to restore buses and curtail its rail plans.

Is light rail good for the environment? Hardly. Dallas and Denver light-rail lines consume about as much energy and emit about as much greenhouse gases per passenger mile as the average SUV.

Engineering, construction, and rail car companies make huge profits from light rail. Their political contributions promote new rail lines. Siemens Transportation donated $100,000 to Denver's light-rail campaign and was rewarded with a $184 million railcar contract.

Some people say San Antonio should build light rail because Dallas and Houston have light rail. To paraphrase American mothers, if Dallas and Houston jumped off a cliff, should San Antonio jump as well?

Taxpayers lose because their money is wasted on rail when buses could do the same thing for less. Transit riders lose when transit agencies cut bus service to pay for rail. Commuters lose when money spent on rail, which does nothing to relieve congestion, delays projects that actually can reduce congestion.

Light rail is a giant hoax that makes rail contractors rich and taxpayers poor. San Antonio should be proud to be America's largest city that hasn't fallen for this hoax.

Public meeting on tolling authority, transit merger a JOKE!

Link to article here.

Details offered on bus, toll agency

Details in the latest version of a plan to merge the city's bus and toll-road agencies, aired at a public hearing Thursday, have VIA Metropolitan Transit doing the swallowing.
And a firewall that only voters could dismantle would prevent the super agency from using sales tax funds and bus fares to subsidize any of some 70 miles of planned toll roads now on the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority's books.

But if the fused agencies ever build a toll road and pay back the bonds, ongoing toll fees could then help pay for light rail or other transit projects without a public vote.

“We will find a way to build a (toll) road,” Alamo RMA Chairman Bill Thornton said at a joint meeting of the two boards prior to the hearing. “In 20 years, we'll have a cash flow that everybody will envy.”

VIA board member James Lifshutz said he wants to make sure the sales tax and bus fares aren't raided to foot some of the costs for toll roads.

“At the end of the day, toll roads need to finance transit and not the other way around,” said Lifshutz, an advocate for developing light rail.

No need to worry about that, Thornton said, because transit never generates surpluses.

“Twenty years from now, transit will still be subsidized,” he said. “The revenue box is going to be subsidized forever.”

Meshing the agencies also won't guarantee a public vote on toll roads as officials had said in December, when the idea was to pull them into an Advanced Transportation District passed by voters in 2004. Campaign promises at the time forbid ATD spending on tolls or rail without such votes.

Under VIA's umbrella, a toll-road vote would be needed only if local sources such as a sales tax were used, not any state money, said attorney Tim Tuggey, who's drafting state legislation to merge the agencies.

“That (promise) was tied to the ATD vote and ATD money,” said Tuggey, a former VIA and ATD chairman who now advises the Alamo RMA.

The ATD, with a board membership identical to VIA's, would also be blended into the overarching agency.

The ATD collects a quarter-cent per dollar sales tax, with 1/8-cent spent on city streets and state highways and the rest on buses, while VIA oversees a half-cent for buses.

The super agency might also get a chance to ask voters to enact other local taxes and fees. A city-county Transportation Task Force last week called for a change in state law to make it happen, and in coming months might recommend an election to raise the sales tax.

Ballot language, not yet written, could tag those new funds to help pay for projects ranging from light rail to toll roads.

Three speakers at the hearing supported the proposal to merge the agencies while two voiced doubts. Among concerns is that a draft bill still isn't publicly available.

“What are we supposed to comment on,” toll critic Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom said later. “It's insane.”

Just before the hearing, Tuggey outlined what the legislation would do, saying:

The 11-member VIA board would pick up two more seats, with the new members initially coming from the board of the subsumed Alamo RMA.

The city and county would each appoint an extra member to the board, six and four, respectively. Suburban cities would continue seating two.

Other board rules would stay the same — two-year terms, eight-year cap on service and ethics obligations.

The VIA, ATD and Alamo RMA boards, San Antonio City Council, Bexar County Commissioners Court and the Texas Department of Transportation would all have to agree.

Letter to Editor about Governor Perry’s eminent domain farce

The letter below was written by Linda Lancaster whose entire family on her mother's side has land and corn-producing farms in the path of TTC-35 east of Temple. She contacted Governor Perry's office about his feigned new-found love of private property rights and said that if the Trans Texas Corridor was a regular road for public use that she couldn't really argue if it were indeed for public use, but because Perry wants to seize our land and turn it over to a for-profit private tolling company, that is using the power of eminent domain for economic development. She rightly cannot understand how the State can seize someone's business (farm) and turn the property over to someone else's business (toll company). And, as in Arlington, she fails to understand how they can tax hotels/car rental businesses and make that tax go towards building someone else's private business (Cowboys stadium).

Our answer to Linda: The reason we cannot understand such hypocrisy and exploitation is due to the scope and depth of corruption in government today. The average Texan is beginning to understand how special interest politics (where one special interest exploits both the taxpayers and fellow businesses for their own personal gain by simply greasing the palms of politicians to get pet projects and laws passed) will rob them of their own property and their ability to make a living or to pass on a heritage. That's what needs to stop, but it won't without a Texas-sized tax revolt!

Dear Editor:

To see Gov. Perry use Susette Kelo for a photo-op in several newspapers while claiming to value property rights makes me physically ill. Mrs. Kelo is the public face of eminent domain abuse in America. Mrs. Kelo fought her town's plan to seize her home and land to turn over to private developers wanting to build condos, retail shops, and a resort hotel in Connecticut. Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court, whose shameful 5-4 decision (Kelo vs. New London) in 2005 opened the floodgates for local/state governments to take land and hand it over to private developers. This is pure "Robin Hood" in reverse -- take from the poor and give to the rich.

It is our dear Gov. Perry who is behind the biggest land grab in Texas history. His Trans Texas Corridor private toll road is scheduled to seize 580,000 acres from Texas landowners. Our state will seize land and farms from owners, turn it over to a private for-profit tolling company, then let overtaxed drivers pay back the money in exchange for building the toll roads. This plan is not dead yet; it has simply undergone a name change and a public relations makeover. Mr. Perry's "Toll Roads Across Texas" and eminent domain plans are alive and well.

Now that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for the governor's office, our dear Gov. Perry has become a "fan" of strengthening eminent domain laws (the same ones he vetoed in 2006). You're much too late, Governor. You sit silent while land and homes are seized all across the great state of Texas for condos, retail shops, stadiums, private toll roads, and other forms of PRIVATE development. It is obvious that you favor private developers, businesses, and lobbyists over your constituents. Our forefathers' 5th Amendment definition of "public use" was meant for roads, bridges, schools, etc., not playgrounds for the rich and famous. You are selling off our entire state. What's next, the Alamo? You should be ashamed to say you value property rights, farmers, and our Texas heritage. What a laugh!

Linda Lancaster
Arlington, TX

Perry insults toll opponents as stupid

Analysis of Governor Rick Perry's interview with the Dallas Morning News about transportation below is provided by Susan Ridgway Garry of ACRE, a grassroots group of farmers opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor.

January 26, 2009
By Susan Ridgway Garry of ACRE

Dear Friends:

Beginning with Perry’s “vision” of the Trans-Texas Corridor criss-crossing our state’s valuable farming and ranching land with 4,500 miles of quarter-mile swaths of concrete and rail, Gov. 39% has expressed his disdain toward us rural residents and our property. During a small meeting at the very beginning of the Corridor process, Perry’s TxDOT officials referred to the Corridor as a totally “green fields” project, the kind that the big road contractors like. Left out of the equation was the fact that the green fields in question already belonged to Texas farmers and ranchers. This has never bothered Perry, as he introduced the “quick take” process to condemn land for the Corridor and vetoed HB 2006 eminent domain protection.

In a recent interview with Dallas Morning News Transportation Writer Michael A. Lindenberger, it is obvious that Perry still doesn’t get it! The entire transcript is here

Much of the interview concerns North Texas and the North Texas rail plan, but some of the comments reveal Perry’s general philosophy, if you can call it that.

Perry’s vision is misunderstood by stupid constituents

First, he implies that his constituents are stupid. About transportation, he says, “This is an issue that too many people don’t understand.” He claims he wants “a relatively unbiased intellectual discussion about transportation infrastructure...” Try to think “Perry” and “intellectual” at the same time; it’s impossible.

As the people who have been studying and fighting Perry’s plans for the last few years know, more and more Texans do understand the issue and disagree with Perry’s approach. Also, Perry and his TxDOT have been doing everything they can to quash any discussion about transportation.

Perry says, “I don’t have an entrenched opposition to allowing people at the local level deciding how they are going to build their transportation infrastructure . . . there is no fairy that comes in the night and build these big projects.”
This tells us that Perry’s approach to local level decisions and regionalism is that the decision has already come down from on high that there will be a “big project,” and that he will pretend to listen to what the local people think about it.

To Perry, local people controlling their own destiny means listening to what Perry tells them is going to happen

He repeats that one of his three principles on transportation is “regionalism. . . . The folks at the regional level will decide what the appropriate user fee is to build that infrastructure.” He says that he supports local people “controlling their own destiny.”

This is just the opposite of what his TxDOT has done all the way through the Corridor project. Perry and TxDOT have withheld information from local areas and from citizens who have filed open record requests. They were required to hold certain meetings. They tried to get through this process without very many people finding out about it and submitting comments.

It was due to local groups along the Corridor routes and their local media that so many citizens knew about hearings, attended, and commented. True local organizations are the 391 commissions that have been formed by local governments along the routes of the Corridor. Perry and TxDOT have been trying to confuse the public by forming TxDOT groups with similar names but that do not have the actual power that the 391 commissions have. The last thing that Perry wants is local people controlling their own destiny.

Perry says rural people shouldn’t be penalized to help urban areas, but that is exactly what he intends with the Corridor, even though the Corridor wouldn’t actually be the help that urban areas need.

In regards to the gas tax, Perry says, “Does the guy in Van Horn need to be paying for the roads in Dallas? No. But I do have a problem with forcing someone whose transportation needs are being met to pay for somebody’s transportation needs that are not being met.”

Taking a farm in Williamson County for the Corridor IS forcing someone to pay, big time, for somebody else’s transportation needs.

Perry and his TxDOT have tried to take away the choice to drive or not to drive on a toll road. Perry tells Lindenberger, “This is the beauty of (the reliance on toll roads). My dad says, ‘I ain’t never going to drive on a toll road.’ You know what? He doesn’t have to. That’s the beauty of what we have created here. For those who for philosophical or any other reason don’t want to drive on a toll road, they don’t have to. It’s the beauty of choice.”

With Perry’s non-compete clause in toll road contracts prohibiting building or maintaining roads a certain distance from a toll road, this DOES mean that drivers don’t have a choice. They have to drive on a toll road, or NO road, or a dangerous crumbling road. TxDOT’s violation of the legislative intent that free lanes not be converted to toll lanes also takes away choice. There is no “choice.” Perry thinks that his constituents are so uninformed that they don’t know this.

A truly chilling account from Perry on the origins of the Trans-Texas Corridor idea

I can’t do better than to just quote Perry:

“An analogy would be, I had laid out in my mind’s eye, and even made it public, that this is the big mansion that I want to build. Here are the house plans for this really magnificent place I want to build for my family and the people I love.

“Well, you start the process and there are a lot of changes that occur, for whatever reason. Your wife didn’t like that bedroom being there, she wanted … way too big a game room and not big enough utility room . . . whatever. All these things that go on in people’s real lives, that’s what went on with this.”

Brilliant! Comparing what the landowners in the path of the Corridor have gone through the last several years to a couple building a house is a stupid analogy! And if anyone should not be mentioning mansions, it is Perry, since it was on his watch with the decreased security at the Governor’s mansion, that the people’s beautiful historic mansion was almost destroyed.
Perry implies that we owners of farms are stupid

Perry said, “I laid out a very broad-based, 50-year plan—and a lot of times people missed the 50-year part of it, they thought, ‘They are going to build 4,500 miles in 10 years and, oh my God, my farm is gone.’”

So, first, according to Perry, us stupid farm owners misunderstood the 50-year part. It should be perfectly fine with us if the state and a foreign corporation take the family farm away from our children and grandchildren in 50 years.
Second, it is not necessary for him to take the Lord’s name in vain.

And, thirdly, for those of us who saw our farms fall within the Master Plan from Cintra, the Spanish corporation, it was indeed, “My farm is gone.”

Perry implies that people are not going to be paying attention to this issue anymore without the Trans-Texas Corridor name, and that we don’t remember and don’t care that he tried his hardest to take our land away.

He says, “Is the name still around? Are the same people that were mad two years ago still mad today? I would suggest to you no.” I would suggest to him not only yes, but heck yes!

Perry denigrates grass-roots volunteer efforts—if we weren’t having an impact, he wouldn’t lower himself to talk about us.

Lindenberger raises two important points related to the impact of grass-roots efforts against Perry and the Corridor. First, he says to Perry, “It seems clear that something fell apart politically for you in 2006, when you faced strong opposition in your re-election campaign [thus resulting in Gov. 39%], and then in 2007 when lawmakers rebelled at the idea of bringing foreign companies to Texas to build and operate toll roads—for a profit.”

Then, Lindenberger also points out, “Among the most persistent complaints among the grass-roots opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor has been your relentless push for not just toll roads, but for privatization, too. Among the criticism has been the observation that you have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the same companies that went on to win contracts to build some of these roads. Is that a fair criticism?

Perry totally reverses the order of what happened, as pointed out in the question. The sequence is that Perry received hundreds of thousands of dollars and then the companies won road contracts.

Perry turns the question around and responds, “People contribute to my campaign because they like my philosophy and they like what I implement.”

Then he once more insults some of his constituents, knocking down the straw man of not building any roads at all. “If the grass-roots toll groups . . . had substantial influence, we wouldn’t be building any roads at all.” And Perry is so vindictive and petty, he has to make an uncalled-for attack on former Austinite Sal Costello, who worked tirelessly against toll roads and the Corridor on a volunteer basis: “Sal Costello had to move out of the state, it got to be such a poor way to make a living.”

Sal did not make a living out of it; he put his own money and time into the fight and had a lot of success. He was the David against the Goliath of Perry and his contributors. Lindenberger points out in a note:

Costello, founder of a group called Austin Toll Party, is credited with helping stop some taxpayer-funded roads in Austin from being converted to toll roads. His blistering attacks made him a prolific anti-toll road gadfly. He announced earlier this month he had moved to a small town in Illinois and given up what he called his costly “obsession” with campaigning against toll roads.

Attacking volunteers—giving big contracts to big contributors—Is this any way to run the state? If Perry thinks that it is an attractive trait to publicly attack citizens volunteering to make the state a better place and rural residents who are simply trying to save their farms and ranches, he is sadly mistaken. It is Perry and his big contributors who are “making a living” out of this—a rather large living, when private corporations get in the position, through their influence on the Governor, to wield the power of the government against private citizens.

Transportation agencies may merge, allowing vote on toll roads

Voters may get say on toll roads
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
December 20, 2008

Talks are gaining steam to abolish San Antonio's fledging toll-road agency and give voters a long-demanded say-so on toll roads.

Shuttering the five-year-old Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which still is several years away from opening a toll road, would be a byproduct of a still-sketchy idea to merge the agency and VIA Metropolitan Transit into the existing Advanced Transportation District.

Voters approved the ATD and its quarter-cent sales tax in 2004 to expand bus service, upgrade city streets and build highway lanes. The district, which follows the city's boundary, also can construct and operate toll roads and light rail.

Amid the bureaucratic wrangling lies a catch. Promises made during the ATD referendum forbid spending on tolls or rail without additional public votes.

“That was a valid pledge,” insists attorney Tim Tuggey, a former VIA and ATD chairman now advising the toll agency.

Giving the public a vote on toll roads is the right thing to do anyway, say a bevy of toll supporters now advocating the consolidation of the agencies.

“After all these years, I've just come to the point, if they want it, fine, if they don't, fine,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “I believe people ought to get what they ask for.”

Toll critics aren't sure whether to smile or frown.

The result could be ugly if funding isn't tied to specific projects and limited to a time frame, said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

“Yes, we want the public vote,” she said. “But I don't want a public vote to be a sweetener to a really bad deal before opening the door to a big Pandora's box.”

Sales tax revenues traditionally used for transit could end up subsidizing toll roads, Hall said. Or tollway profits could shift to another side of town to help pay for a light-rail line.

Tuggey, who's writing possible legislation to create the superagency, maintains voters would have to sign off on mixing different piles of money.

“This is not an end run to get toll roads,” he said.

The merger idea bubbled into the public spotlight this week after germinating a month ago in behind-the-scene talks among members of a city-county task force. The group is drawing up regional transportation goals.

Piecemeal authority of too many agencies has hobbled planning and financing the city's roads and transit, officials argue. Also, speaking with one voice could help tap transportation funds that soon could flow more freely from Washington.

“If we're going to be in the hunt for what we think is going to come down the line, we have to get organized sooner than later,” VIA board member Mary Briseño told the task force, which she sits on. “We don't have time to just kick this around. We need to be bold.”

Many hoops remain — enough to foster concerns on how the agencies should be meshed.

“I want to see it in black and white before I make a decision,” VIA board and task force member Linda Chavez-Thompson said. “The devil is in the details. Where exactly does the power and authority lie?”

Other task force members say the challenges can and must be met.

“I think there's a real good chance of it,” Terrell McCombs said of the possibility. “We need to do this if we're going to take the next step to the future.”

Tuggey, working pro bono to craft an enabling bill, laid out key issues to work out:

•The jurisdictions to collect and allocate ATD and VIA sales tax revenues — VIA levies a half-cent — would have to remain independent unless voters later say differently.

•The ATD board — with five members appointed by the city, three by the county and two by suburban cities — might expand to give the county two more seats and the governor a pick. On the tollway panel to be phased out, the county fills four seats and the governor selects the chairman.

•The tollway agency's agreements with the state, including a $12.4 million loan and $18.7 million left from a grant, would have to be transferred.

Bill Thornton, who chairs both the task force and the toll agency, urged officials to press on with the enormous chore.

“This isn't baby steps, it's huge,” he told the task force Wednesday. “Let's aim toward getting something on paper.”

Sidebar

Important Information

Editorial: Texans at transportation crossroads

Zaffirini Opposes Risking State Pension Funds to Finance Toll Roads

Interchange an excuse NOT to fix 281 north

Ft. Bend Commish: Stop spending stimulus money on toll roads

Commission approves 70% of stimulus funds for DOUBLE TAX toll roads

Houghton’s new low…calls TURF & its members “bigots”

Grassroots Lobby Day a success!

Stimulus funds for toll roads a DOUBLE TAX rip-off!

Thorton LIES! Said 281 non-toll if got stimulus money, then still tolls

Non-toll alternative proposed for 281

Blatant taxpayer-funded lobbying by local govt for transportation tax hikes

No free ride for TxDOT in the Texas House

Local option tax no good without sunset, accountability

"Merger" nothing short of hostile takeover of Via by RMA

Cintra to takeover I-820; collect $6.50 ONE WAY in tolls!

Editorial: Light rail too expensive

Public meeting on tolling authority, transit merger a JOKE!

Letter to Editor about Governor Perry’s eminent domain farce

Perry insults toll opponents as stupid

Transportation agencies may merge, allowing vote on toll roads

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