Toll violators: TxDOT to impound vehicles

Link to article here.

Is this really the best use of our law enforcement officers? It's likely to cost more to contract with law enforcement to collect the unpaid tolls than the cost of the tolls themselves.

Watch out, toll scofflaws: TxDOT may impound your car
By Andra Lim
Austin American Statesman
Friday, March 21, 2014

ROUND ROCK — Each month, Charles Ackridge is supposed to make a dent in the $40,000 or so a court decided he owed for thousands of unpaid tolls.

The Austin man sent his one and only payment, about $350, in 2009. But for years he’s taken the Texas 45 and Texas 130 tollways to get around town.

TxDOT plans to soon try a new way of reeling in the top toll scofflaws like Ackridge. It will partner with law enforcement agencies to impound cars that have racked up at least 100 violations within a year but continue to drive on tollways. A vehicle wouldn’t be released until the owner made good on the toll bill.

360 Tollway Project to convert free lanes to toll lanes in DFW

Link to article here.

Another example of TxDOT slapping tolls on your existing FREEway and downgrading your free lanes to permanent frontage roads. Note TxDOT is footing the bill for the project with tax money (so it could be a FREEway, not a tollway - no one should pay a toll to use a road that's paid for with their tax money) and the tolls will be paying it back. Traditionally, tolls pay back toll revenue bonds (which is NOT taxpayer money - if the toll traffic doesn't show up, the bond investors lose, not taxpayers). Wake-up DFW, you're going to have to pay tolls just to leave your driveway in short order if you don't rise up and stop this theft of your public highways!

360 Tollway Project Moving Forward
By Tim Cosec
NBCDFW.com
Tuesday, Mar 11, 2014

The Texas Department of Transportation is moving forward with plans to make a portion of state Highway 360 a toll road. The toll road would stretch from Sublett Road in Arlington to U.S. 287 near Mansfield.

Mansfield resident Elizabeth Rizzo has no problems taking SH 360 during the afternoons so she and her daughter can get frozen yogurt. During the morning and evening commutes, though, she goes out of her way to avoid it.

Driver charged with $6,000 in tolls on 495 Express Lanes

Link to article here.

You think dealing with government toll road bureaucrats is a nightmare, wait till you deal wiht a private company that the public cannot hold accountable says you owe them heaps of money and if you don't pay, you won't be able to drive.

Driver charged with $6,000 in tolls on 495 Express Lanes
By Ari Ashe
WTOP.com
March 13, 2014

MCLEAN, Va. -- A Fairfax County, Va. man who commutes on the 495 Express Lanes each day was sent a court summons and told he'd have to pay $6,000 in tolls, penalties and fees, WTOP Ticketbuster has learned.

Todd Metheny commutes from Springfield to McLean. He says the trip often took more than an hour on the Capital Beltway, but now takes less than 20 minutes on the 495 Express Lanes. But in January 2013, a problem with his E-ZPass account caused an overdraft in his account.

"I got a letter in the mail saying, 'We weren't able to charge you for the toll, shame on you. Take care of it immediately. Future violations will result in administrative penalties.' But by the time I got it, the future already happened," says Metheny.

Toll road on 45SW greeted with more opposition

Link to article here.

Decision on SW45 Toll Road could come next week
A decades old idea to connect more of south Austin to Mopac has new life.
By Chris Sadeghi
KXAN.com
March 11, 2014, 8:22 pm

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A decades old idea to connect more of South Austin to MoPac has new life.
Travis County Commissioners could vote as early as next Tuesday on a $15 million item to go forth with the Southwest 45 Toll Road.

The proposal would build a 4-lane toll road connecting FM 1626 to MoPac.

Supporters believe the highway would divert traffic off Brodie Lane and FM 1626, two roads providing a back road way onto MoPac for drivers in south Travis County and those coming north from Hays County.

Should Michigan create toll roads to pay for pothole damage?

Link to article here.

Politicians are increasingly turning to toll roads as their get out of jail free card to generate revenue for a host of 'potholes' in their road budgets. Taxpayers MUST insist only tolls pay for toll roads, not general taxpayer money. Taxing certain toll road users to pay for the road needs of others is a form of socialism. Tax money should pay for potholes, and politicians need to prioritize their budgets to ensure these basic core functions government are properly funded without deceptive taxation schemes like toll roads.

Should Michigan create toll roads to pay for pothole damage?
Michigan Auto Law.com
March 8, 2014

As our roads become ever more pocked with deep potholes, many drivers are wondering what to do as they bump along.

Road crews have been working overtime to repair the giant potholes that are appearing everywhere.  As immense piles of snow from the most miserable winter I can remember melt and then freeze again and again, there are more and bigger potholes causing all sorts of havoc. This includes everything from flat tires to major car damage to serious automobile accidents as people dodge the  potholes and steer into into oncoming traffic.

And now there’s pending legislation that would allow Michigan to spend $100 million more this year, in part to repair the influx of potholes due to the extreme winter season.

State and government officials are warning of a pothole emergency.

But the additional $100 million – which would be added to the $230 million portion of the state transportation budget for the roads – is good and bad news for road agencies, according to a recent story on Detroit CBS Local, “Michigan Panel Plans $100M For Plowing, Potholes.”

Under the legislation, Michigan road agencies would receive emergency help. Keep in mind, Detroit,  Grand Rapids, and Flint have all had record-breaking winters this year, according to the National Weather Service. But the aid would come from  funding that would have otherwise been allocated to longer-term road projects instead of to pothole maintenance, says CBS News.
And everyone has an opinion.

How do you want to deal with fixing the potholes?
How does this get paid? Should tax payers be responsible via the state budget? Or should the state go as far as to consider making toll roads to help pay for the extensive pot hole damage?
Let us know by making a comment below, or on our Michigan Auto Law Facebook page.

Where the heck do potholes come from, anyways?
According to MDOT, there’s a good explanation:
Potholes occur when snow and ice melt as part of Michigan’s seasonal freeze-thaw cycles. The resulting water then seeps beneath the pavement through cracks caused by the wear and tear of traffic.

As the temperatures cool to freezing at night, the water becomes ice and expands below the pavement, forcing the pavement to rise. As the weight of traffic continues to pound on this raised section – and the temperatures once again rise above freezing – a shallow divot occurs under the surface and the pavement breaks, forming a pothole. A pothole is typically fixed by cleaning out the loose debris and filling it with hot and cold asphalt patch.

You can report a pothole to the state by calling (888) 296-4546. FYI, most state roads begin with M, I or US designations (e.g., I-75, M-28, US-23, etc.).

Pothole safety tips
While we’re discussing the major annoyance, and in some cases serious threat from potholes,  our attorneys wanted to share some tips on how to avoid car accidents caused by  potholes.
Next to an actual car-on-car accident, the sound of your vehicle making a hard hit on a pothole is one of the most unforgettable, off-putting noises you will ever hear. You also have to think about your car’s tires, chassis, suspension and rims — all of which can be compromised after a serious encounter with a pothole.

The good news is, you can follow these simple safety tips to avoid an accident caused by a pothole:
    1.    Do not veer into another lane of oncoming traffic to avoid a pothole. Very similar to the danger posed by deer (don’t veer for deer), you have to consider it is a lot worse to drive head-on into an oncoming semi truck or car going the speed limit, than it is to hit that pothole.
    2.    Beware of puddles. There can be massive potholes looming under puddles, sometimes even large enough to do severe damage to your vehicle.
    3.    Grip your steering wheel tightly. Firmly hold your steering wheel at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, for optimal control of the vehicle, as a pothole can send enough of a shock through your steering system to propel your car into the next lane.
    4.    Don’t brake: It might sound counter-intuitive, but hitting your brakes just before a pothole is dangerous. Instead, slow down as much as possible if contact is inevitable and let off the brakes the moment before you hit the pothole, allowing the car to absorb the blow.

Colorado thinks it's immune from anemic toll traffic

Link to article here.

Of course, every government thinks their toll road or toll project is immune from the obvious drop in traffic on toll roads across the country. With gas prices headed back to $3.50 a gallon or higher, there simply will never be enough people with the kind of disposable income needed to make any of these toll roads financially solvent without taxpayer subsidies. If taxpayer money is being used, then the road should be a free road, not a toll road.

Toll roads causing problems, but Colorado says it's immune
By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post
March 9, 2014

Colorado's controversial plunge into public-private partnerships to oversee and collect tolls from local highways comes as credit agencies and other states are struggling with the arrangement, mostly because America's driving boom could be over.

"The constant increase we saw in driving up until 2005 shows no sign of returning," said Danny Katz, director for the Colorado chapter of the nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which released a study last year saying people ages 16 to 34 drove 23 percent fewer miles on average in 2009 than they did in 2001.

The apparent end of what that study calls the "driving boom" is causing problems for tolling projects from California to Texas, where reality is failing to match projections of growth in traffic and revenue. Some states, including Illinois and Indiana, are offering set payments to supplement toll projects.

Colorado officials insist they've built in safeguards for taxpayers in case traffic revenue doesn't meet expectations.

The state's recent 50-year agreement with Plenary Roads Denver — a six-company consortium — for the maintenance and tolling of U.S. 36 between Denver and Boulder includes no contractual guarantee for a minimum level of revenue, say officials with the Colorado Department of Transportation.

That means if toll revenue on the 21-mile stretch of U.S. 36 is lower than expected, the state carries no liability while Plenary Roads Denver will still be responsible for paying off loans and operating and maintaining the highway for 50 years.

That same deal is likely to be struck as Colorado looks to toll portions of Interstate 70 in east Denver and in the mountains, as well as C-470.

"We think we have struck a unique arrangement that carries little or no risk for us and the taxpayers," CDOT spokeswoman Amy Ford said.

Toll revenue from the new express lanes on U.S. 36 could reach $2.5 million in 2015 and more than $16 million annually within two decades, according to CDOT projections.

Plenary Roads Denver will collect tolls and use most of the revenue to pay off construction debt and cover the cost of maintaining the managed lanes.

Traffic to grow
Ford said the U.S. 36 project shows CDOT is adapting to the new realities of driving. The corridor will be fully "multimodal" with an express toll lane in each direction that will serve a dozen bus-rapid-transit stations. The project will also include bike lanes for commuting to work and home, Ford said.

"The tolling will be just part of the project and not the whole," she said.

As many as 100,000 commuters travel the U.S. 36 corridor each day. But that number is expected to grow as employment expands. Daily car counts are projected to reach about 117,000 by 2015.

Chris Johns, senior vice president and portfolio manager for Kirkpatrick Pettis Capital Management, said the busy nature of U.S. 36 should keep it immune from the driving downswing.

"That's a pretty crucial junction in the Denver metro area, and it attracts a tremendous amount of traffic," Johns said. "It's unlike many toll roads because for many people this is the only option to get from Denver to Boulder."

Other factors such as the recession and increased gas prices surely play a role in decreased driving. But Katz and others also point to broader changes, including technology, working from home and a population shift from suburban to urban areas.

"You can debate the reasons or that driving would return should the economy rebound quickly," said R. Richard Geddes, associate professor and director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy. "But there has still been a real shift in behavior, and I believe this is causing a real concern for bond-rating agencies toward some of these toll projects."

Having success
Some $27 billion was invested in private toll-road projects between 2003 and 2012 in the United States. Colorado has six, including E-470 along the eastern perimeter of metro Denver.

Post-2008 toll projects appear to be on more solid financial ground, say experts, mostly because of better traffic projections. The U.S. Department of Transportation this month said total vehicle miles will increase by 1.36 percent to 1.85 percent each year through 2030.

But credit agencies are taking USPIRG's per capita numbers seriously, downgrading companies and issuing warnings to investors to be leery of toll roads because of anemic traffic numbers.
Traffic on the San Joaquin Hills toll road in Orange County, Calif., is half of what was projected, while Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the company overseeing a recent toll-road extension in Austin, Texas.

And in San Diego County, the private company that built and operated the South Bay Expressway went bankrupt when vehicle miles didn't reach expectations.

"Toll roads with meaningful untolled competition, especially those designed to relieve congestions, could be vulnerable because their value would diminish with lower traffic growth," warned Fitch Ratings last year.

E-470, which opened in 1991, is bucking the downward trend in traffic and is seeing its fourth straight year of traffic growth. The highway also recently saw its bond rating increase from BBB- to BBB.

In all, traffic — as measured by the number of toll transactions — grew 8.2 percent in 2013 over 2012, with transactions rising from 54 million to 58.4 million.

The rise in traffic, coupled with a 2013 toll increase, resulted in a 10.6 percent, $12.4 million increase to $129.2 million in toll revenue.

E-470 bucks trend
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan, who sits on the E-470 governing board, said the 75-mph toll road has shown it's a good alternative to congested public highways such as I-225 and I-70.

"Just think, if E-470 hadn't come along, there would be a traffic nightmare every day with people trying to get to the airport or trying to get to Douglas County," Hogan said. "E-470 fills that need for more alternatives."

A straight-shot alternative from Boulder to Denver was the reason U.S. 36 was built as a toll road in the first place, say officials.

"You really had to take U.S. 287 to Arapahoe Road and crisscross your way to Boulder," CDOT spokesman Bob Wilson said.

The road opened Jan. 21, 1952, to great fanfare. For the first two days, excited drivers traveled the length of the highway for free, from Baseline Road in Boulder to the Federal Boulevard exit to Denver.

It cut the route from Boulder to Denver by 7½ miles.

When the road officially opened for business, it cost 10 cents from Denver to Broomfield and 15 cents from Broomfield to Boulder.

Gross toll revenue was $365,447 in 1952 and $431,576 in 1953.

The toll road was so popular that in 1967, drivers paid off the highway's construction costs 13 years ahead of schedule.

"I remember sitting in the back seat of my family's car, and my dad would give me a dime and I'd flip it into the coin collector by the toll booth," Wilson said. "It was fun. It was a good memory for a little kid."
____________________________________________________________________

17%: Projected growth in daily car count on U.S. 36 by 2015, up from today's 100,000 to 117,000

8.2%: Increase in use, based on total trans-actions, on the E-470 toll road, from 54 million in 2012 to 58.4 million in 2013

Texas sends home two lawmakers that supported red light cameras

Link to article here.

Texas Voters Reject Red Light Camera Candidates
State legislators most responsible for red light cameras in Texas lose primary elections.
The Newspaper.com
March 6, 2014

Two of the figures most responsible for the spread of red light cameras in the Lone Star State lost their jobs Tuesday. Texas state Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) and state Representative Linda Harper-Brown (R-Irving) were both defeated in Republican primary elections. Rodney Anderson, a one-term state representative, took out Harper-Brown with 53 percent of the vote. Tea Party candidate Don Huffines ousted Carona by 636 votes.

Harper-Brown's service to the photo enforcement industry is legendary. Over the course of eight years, the Texas House had consistently and overwhelmingly rejected bills to authorize red light cameras. Harper-Brown came up with a solution. When a bill dealing with commercial motor vehicle standards was on the floor in 2003, she snuck in a one-sentence provision allowing municipalities to issue "civil" citations for traffic crimes. Most House members did not notice the provision until it after it became law. They were furious at what they saw as an underhanded move, and the vote to strip Harper-Brown's language passed by a three-to-one margin. The state Senate blocked its repeal.

Port Authority appointees devised toll-hike plan to bolster image of NJ, NY governors

Link to article here.

Top Christie Port Authority appointees devised toll-hike plan to bolster image of NJ, NY governors
Sunday, March 2, 2014   
BY  SHAWN BOBURG
North Jersey.com

Years before they resigned amid a scandal over politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, Governor Christie’s top two executives at the Port Authority led a secretive campaign to quickly push through controversial toll hikes on the Hudson River bridges and tunnels by drowning out criticism, limiting public input and portraying the governors of New York and New Jersey as fiscal hawks who reined in an out-of-control agency.

At its heart was a plan to have the Port Authority, an independent bi-state agency, propose an enormous toll hike — a $6 increase that would bring the E-ZPass toll to $14 by 2014 — so that the governors could then scale it back. The smaller increases that were ultimately approved in 2011 — $4.50 over four years — allowed both governors to claim credit while they set the stage for each state to claim hundreds of millions of dollars to fund pet projects not directly related to the Port Authority.

Tolls are collected for round trip when entering New York.

It was a sleight of hand that began with a campaign-style operation that, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen people familiar with the operation, was run out of a conference room on the southwest corner of the 15th floor of the Port Authority’s Manhattan headquarters.
It was referred to as the “war room.”

Running the campaign were former Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni and his aide, David Wildstein, both central figures in the bridge scandal and its first political casualties.
Hanging from the door of the war room was a sheet of paper that warned: “Do Not Enter.” The room was accessible to very few of the agency’s senior staff, but not the New York-appointed executive director, who had fallen out of favor with Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Some of the more than one dozen people regularly inside the room — mostly Christie loyalists placed at the agency — were instructed not to reveal its secrets.

One outsider was granted access.

Maggie Moran, then an employee of a large regional labor union led by a Port Authority commissioner, helped mobilize hundreds of union workers who flooded public hearings that were scheduled at times and places that made it difficult for the general public to attend. Drawing from scripted messages, laborers wearing orange T-shirts spoke favorably of the toll hikes at the hearings, providing Christie with a talking point.

“There were more people who spoke in favor of the toll hike than against it,” Christie said after the hearings, not mentioning the union workers.

Weeks earlier, Christie held a meeting in his office where he instructed his aides at the Port Authority to float the higher number, a knowledgeable source said. And Christie and Cuomo’s top Port Authority commissioners — David Samson for New Jersey and Scott Rechler and Jeffrey H. Lynford for New York — also discussed the toll-hike plan with Wildstein and Baroni before it was released.

The findings by The Record, based on detailed interviews with eight people familiar with the operation, cast doubt on claims that the governors had no prior knowledge of the toll-hike proposal and suggest that it was intentionally inflated. The sources were varied, each with independent knowledge of the events that took place and were interviewed separately, providing similar accounts. They included people involved with the Port Authority and politics in New Jersey and New York. Cuomo’s office didn’t return requests seeking comment. Christie’s office declined to comment.

Toll hikes have always been politically sensitive, especially in New Jersey and in Bergen County, which sends a large number of commuters across the George Washington Bridge. Because of this, making a proposal seem more palatable by first floating an extreme alternative is not new. But all of the people interviewed, some of whom were familiar with multiple toll increases going back decades, said they had never seen such a secretive campaign by the Port Authority, one that excluded many of the agency’s professional staff and manipulated the public hearing process.

A New Jersey legislative investigative committee has issued subpoenas for records related to the toll increases as it looks into whether the Port Authority, an independent regional transportation agency with a $8.2 billion annual budget, was used as a political tool. The committee is primarily focused on the lane closures that gridlocked Fort Lee for five mornings in September and led to the resignations of Baroni and Wildstein in December.

There are commonalities in the circumstances surrounding the lane closures and the toll-hike rollout: a culture of secrecy, rank-and-file employees who feared for their jobs and the sidelining of the agency’s executive director, who is supposed to run the day-to-day operations. In both cases, Christie has said he had no prior knowledge of the planning.

Before Baroni and Wildstein took charge of the secretive campaign, some senior Port Authority staff had made the case internally for toll increases that were closer to the amount ultimately approved by the governors. Instead, what emerged from the war room was a proposal that one senior executive said was “outrageous” — an immediate $4 hike that would have pushed tolls for E-ZPass users during rush hour from $8 to $12 in 2011, and a $2 increase in 2014 that would have brought them to $14. The governors ultimately decided on a $4.50 increase achieved with incremental increases through 2015. Tolls would increase immediately by a $1.50 increase with annual 75 cent jumps through 2015.

“This notion that the organization had come up with this outrageous toll-hike proposal that the governors had to reject was nonsense,” said one former senior official from the agency.



Debt over WTC
The Port Authority, taking on growing debt due largely to construction of the World Trade Center, had been asking Trenton and Albany for the go-ahead to propose toll hikes as far back as late 2010, sources said. It seemed to agency officials like an ideal time: New Jersey had a popular governor who could afford to absorb the political backlash and New York had an incoming governor who could claim no ownership of the agency’s financial troubles.

Top agency officials decided they would pitch a $2 increase followed by another $2 increase in 2014, one source said.

Despite briefings sent to both administrations, the source said, it was difficult to get the governors on board. The agency’s executive director at the time, Christopher Ward, also had trouble selling the idea to Cuomo’s staff, who blamed him for sinking too much money into construction at the World Trade Center site, two sources said. Ward was appointed by Cuomo’s predecessor, David Paterson.

Then, in March 2011, a Wall Street ratings agency downgraded the agency’s financial outlook, a development that had the potential of leading to higher borrowing costs. A report by Moody’s Investors Service noted that Christie had proposed taking $1.8 billion from the Port Authority that had been destined for a cross-Hudson rail tunnel plan that Christie had killed. “This request raises concerns,” analysts wrote. The Christie administration was also in the middle of a patronage hiring binge, placing about 50 Christie loyalists, campaign contributors and Republican operatives at the Port Authority.

By late spring, financial pressure was building at the Port Authority.

Its top appointees, Baroni and Samson, met with Christie advisers on April 12, 2011, to discuss toll and fare increases, according to a source. Baroni, Wildstein and Samson also met in the governor’s counsel’s office to discuss increases again on July 13 of that year, the source said.

That summer at the Port Authority offices, Baroni and Wildstein set up the war room.
The small conference room has a long table, ringed by black-and-white photos of old Port Authority facilities, including one of the New Jersey entrance to the Holland Tunnel during the Depression. It is a rarely used space next to Baroni’s office and across the hall from two color photos of the governors hanging from a wall. Its position in the corner of the 15th floor means there is little foot traffic outside its door. Two desktop computers were brought in, along with a handful of laptops.

Senior staff groused at the secrecy around the room.

“All the Port Authority regulars who would have been included in the preparation of a toll increase, based on having prior experience with the process and the legal requirements, were excluded until their inclusion was absolutely necessary, and even then, only for discrete tasks like running financial models,” one former official said.

Another longtime senior executive recalled asking a subordinate, who had been called to the room, what he was working on. The subordinate answered that he was instructed not to tell his boss or anyone else. And a longtime janitorial worker who tried to get into the war room over a weekend to reach a leaky pipe was so forcefully admonished that he told others that he feared he would lose his job as a result, the same senior executive said.

Cuomo’s two new commissioners, Rechler and Lynford, however, were dispatched to the 15th floor and charged with digging into the numbers, a source said. They met with Baroni and Wildstein and, in turn, briefed two of Cuomo’s top aides, Larry Schwartz and Howard Glaser. Ward, the executive director, was cut out completely, although his name would appear on press releases touting the proposal. One former longtime senior executive said that the exclusion of the top executive was unprecedented.

Records show the two governors met for dinner at the Beacon Restaurant in Manhattan on Friday, July 29, 2011, one week before the proposal’s release. Christie has said he didn’t know the magnitude of the Port Authority proposal until after the dinner.

Days later, on Aug. 3, a knowledgeable source said, Christie held a meeting in his office with about five top advisers and Samson, Baroni and Wildstein. The source said Christie instructed the Port Authority officials to float the immediate $4 hike, and that he and Cuomo would reduce it to $2. Baroni, Wildstein and Samson declined to provide comment for this article.

Additionally, multiple sources said the governors would typically have been told about a toll-hike proposal from the Port Authority prior to its release.

“You are going to get sign-off from the governors before you go public with a proposal,” said one former senior official who was familiar with multiple past toll hikes at the Port Authority. “Anything gets pre-cleared with Trenton and Albany.”

The proposal was released late in the afternoon on the following Friday. Days before, according to one senior Port Authority executive, Baroni told the person, “We know we’re going to take heat for it, but it’s what the governors want.”

Baroni, who made it clear to staff that he was leading the effort to build support for the toll hikes, told several agency officials that it would be run like a political campaign. Unlike past toll-hike proposals, which were proposed months before they were approved, the vote was set for two weeks later.

Three days after the release of the proposal, Christie described his reaction to it as surprise: “I said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’ and they said ‘no,’ ” he said. “This is, unfortunately, a testimony to the mismanagement of the Port for years. We shouldn’t have to be in this kind of situation.”

Orchestrated backing
An intensive campaign began at the Port Authority.

Among those allowed in the war room was Dominick Fiorilli, a political operative who was installed at the authority by the Christie administration and given the title director of new port initiatives. Fiorilli worked in Christie’s office, as of Dec. 31 of last year as an aide to the governor, according to payroll records. Hunter Pendarvis, a former Christie aide; Jamie Loftus, a former campaign aide to Sarah Palin; and Andy Hawthorne, a director of marketing, were also allowed in the room, sources said. All were among the 50 Christie loyalists placed at the agency by 2011.

Long-term agency employees, such as general counsel Darrell Buchbinder, deputy general counsel Christopher Hartwyk and chief financial officer Michael Fabiano, also appeared in the room from time to time.

They all either declined to comment or did not respond to messages.

For nearly two weeks, there were three meetings each day: one in the morning, one in midday and one in the evening, multiple sources said.

“They drafted press releases, endorsement and comments for blogs and comments sections of news websites,” said one source familiar with the operation. “They also orchestrated the public hearings, picked the most inconvenient times and locations for the hearings and prepared testimony outlines for various speakers for the public hearings.”

Moran, the director of business development for Laborers International Union of North America, attended most of the meetings. Port Authority Commissioner Ray Pocino is a vice president for the powerful union, which endorsed Christie for reelection at his first campaign event, and he signed off on Moran’s involvement. Moran was also former Gov. Jon Corzine’s chief of staff and served as an adviser for Cuomo’s 2010 campaign. The union did not deny its inside access.

“LIUNA Vice President Pocino has an entire staff dedicated to supporting infrastructure investment and economic growth, so supporting the Port Authority fare increase was a no-brainer,” a LIUNA spokesman said in a statement Friday.

“Maggie [Moran], along with many other staff at the union, was involved in all aspects of building a coalition in support. We are proud of the role we played in the effort to finance infrastructure investment in our region.”

Their role was most evident at eight public hearings, all scheduled for one day. The hundreds of union workers, many of them organizers, showed up to hearings wearing orange T-shirts with the slogan “Port Authority = Jobs.” They were given talking points beforehand, and many repeated the same refrains, according to a review of transcripts posted on the Port Authority’s website.

Dozens also attended multiple hearings in different venues and posted comments in an additional online hearing, making sure their voices were counted more than once.

The Port Authority commissioners didn’t attend the hearings, scheduled on Aug. 16. Instead some of the Port Authority executives who were shut out of internal deliberations were assigned to run the hearings in out-of-the-way venues.

One longtime executive assigned to one called them “a sham.”

At an evening hearing in Staten Island, where tolls are exceedingly unpopular, former Borough President James Molinaro started the proceedings by standing on the stage of the school auditorium and lambasting the Port Authority.

A public-relations employee assigned to monitor the proceedings for the Port Authority waved to the hearing officer, chief operating officer Ernesto Butcher, and told him, “Bill Baroni is watching. He said to cut the guy off,” a person familiar with the exchange said. When Butcher refused to stop Molinaro from speaking, the public-relations employee approached Molinaro on the stage and asked him to end his comments, incensing the local politician.

“It was an example of the tight control, the electioneering, a campaign that did not speak to the real issues,” a person familiar with the episode said.

A report issued in September by the investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, concluded that the Port Authority’s toll hearings “did not provide sufficient, convenient, accessible opportunities for the public to comment on the proposal.”

$942M kitty
On Aug. 18, two days after the hearings and a day before Port Authority commissioners were poised to vote, the governors released a second joint statement saying they would support a smaller toll hike: $1.50 immediately, with 75-cent increases through 2015 for E-ZPass users.

“This is a responsible alternative that balances the infrastructure needs of the region with toll and fare payers’ economic realities,” the joint letter said. There was a hitch: The agency had to agree to bring in outside auditors.

At the hearing, Pocino, the commissioner whose union flooded the hearings, said he had “never been as impressed with any elected officials as I am today with Governors Cuomo and Christie.” He and the other commissioners voted yes without reservation.

“There was absolutely no conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety in Ray Pocino’s vote,” said LIUNA spokesman Rob Lewandowski. “He has always been a steadfast supporter of infrastructure investment, especially to improve the safety and efficiency of the region’s aging transportation system.”

By October, Ward, the executive director was out. Christie said he was responsible for years of mismanagement. The audit described the Port Authority as “dysfunctional” and laid out a series of reforms that officials said would turn the agency around.

What neither Christie nor the Port Authority mentioned publicly at the time of the toll-hike approval was that part of the agreement was that each state would get its own project slush fund out of the future toll money. The agency’s $27.6 billion 10-year capital plan, approved last month, includes $942 million for what is called a “regional bank” for both states to dip into over the next decade.

The regional bank program, used in the past for transportation and economic development projects only loosely related to the Port Authority, had not been in effect since 2008. The specific projects that are to be funded have not yet been identified, according to the plan.

Meanwhile, a motorist advocacy group, AAA New York, is suing the Port Authority to try to overturn the toll hikes. In the early stages of the lawsuit, the motorist group has zeroed in on communications between the governors’ offices and the Port Authority to try to understand the reason for the toll increases.

The Port Authority is, according to court records, refusing to turn over 339 records, including communications between agency officials and the offices of both governors, that it says are protected from disclosure because they were part of discussions that led to a policy decision.

Last month, the state legislative committee investigating the bridge scandal joined the hunt for more information about the toll increases. A subpoena was issued to the Port Authority requesting all correspondence between Christie’s office and the Port Authority from Jan. 1, 2011, to Aug. 9 of that year.

Pressure to lift ban on tolling existing interstates

Link to article here.

Taxpayers beware! Special interests and governments want to lift the ban on tolling existing interstates. There is no more a sweeping heist of your freedom to travel ever conceived!

Congress considers lifting toll ban to ease repair woes
By DANIEL C. VOCK of Stateline.org
Union-Bulletin.com
Saturday, March 1, 2014

WASHINGTON — Wisconsin is facing problems familiar to most states when it comes to paying for its roads and bridges. The gas tax is not bringing in enough money to meet its needs, the steady stream of federal transportation money may be in jeopardy, and voters do not want to pay more taxes.

The crisis was laid out last year in a 176-page report to Wisconsin lawmakers on the funding problems and the deteriorating road network. Legislators received another reminder in September, when Green Bay officials had to close a bridge that carries 40,000 vehicles a day because it was sagging. It took until January to fix and reopen the bridge.

Length of P3 deals questioned by congressional panel

Link to article here.

The best public private partnership is NO public private partnership.

Length of public-private road contracts questioned
By David Tanner, Land Line associate editor
Landline Magazine
March 5, 2014

Some public-private partnerships involving toll roads are only a few years into long-term contracts but are already falling short on traffic and revenue. Members of a U.S. House panel questioned the length of the contracts and urged accountability for so-called PPPs during a hearing Wednesday, March 5, on Capitol Hill.



The House Panel on Public-Private Partnerships, created by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and chaired by Rep. John. J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., discussed an overview of public-private partnerships and their effects on highway and transit projects.



Austin app gives toll refunds for carpoolers

Link to article here.

Who says Texas isn't like the liberal northeast and western U.S.? Austin, TX is already using an app that gives you a toll refund if you do what the government wants - carpool. If you don't meet the politically correct requirements for travel, you'll be paying an extra tax. If you partake in socially acceptable social engineering programs like carpooling to get a free ride on toll lanes, then you're allowing the government to control your freedom to travel. Oh, liberty, where art thou?

Note you have to have three people in your car to get the free ride. Gone are the days of just two...

Carpool app offers toll refunds
By Heather Kovar
KVUE.com
February 27, 2014

CENTRAL TEXAS -- For those who think tollways are too expensive, there is a way to get 100 percent of your money back on some of them.

It's a carpooling experiment to see if toll rebates can inspire people to ride share.

The free mobile app, Carma, matches drivers with riders. If you have one rider using the app, your toll will be discounted 50 percent. If you have two riders, your toll is free.

Aussie company defends U.S. toll road failures

Link to story here.

P3s remain an unmitigated disaster! Do you think paying $10 for a 13-mile trip is a good deal? No! Neither do Virginians...

Australian Tolling Firm Defends US Toll Road Failure
Capital Beltway high occupancy toll lane project loses $51 million in its first year of operation.
By The Newspaper.com
February 20, 2014

An Australian toll road company is getting defensive about its investment in an underperforming toll road in Virginia. Located just outside Washington, DC, the state and federal authorities poured hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds on what was supposed to be a showcase for public-private partnership innovation. Transurban charges up to $10 for a short 13-mile trip high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on the Capital Beltway, a proposition that far fewer motorists than expected have found worthwhile. Though the firm collects an average of $64,000 per day from drivers, this amount is well below projections. Transurban CEO Scott Charlton defended the plan with investors in a conference call last week.

"Traffic and revenue has remained below our project case expectations," Charlton admitted. "We've now completed a full review and the result is a reduction in traffic and an extension of our ramp-up profile."

More tolls for Hwy 183 in Austin

Link to story here.

Transportation planners could add lanes to Highway 183
By Ashley Goudeau
February 18, 2014
KVUE.com

AUSTIN -- Day and night, traffic on Highway 183 in Northwest Austin is thick.

"[It's] horrible on most days. Sundays [are] about the only day that traffic is light," said Sheryl Witschorke, who drives on the highway daily. 

Joshua Snipp agrees.

"I do a little bit of 183, a little bit of the side road. I get on until it starts to get bad, and then I get off the rest of the way," Snipp said.

Experts predict it's only going to get worse. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, every day an average of 187,000 people drive on Highway 183 near Braker Lane. With that much congestion, TxDOT officials say it creates delays for ambulances taking patients to Seton Northwest Hospital and other health care facilities.

Revolving door: LaHood subsidizes company then goes to work for it

Link to article here.

The revolving door keeps spinning...

Obama appointee subsidizes electric bus company, then goes to work for it
By Timothy Carney
Washington Examiner
February 26, 2014

Washington's green revolving door keeps on spinning.

President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has left the administration and joined the board of an electric bus company he subsidized and praised while in office.

Proterra Inc. makes buses that require no gasoline or diesel – they run on electricity and fuel cells.

You can see why electric buses would appeal to cities that want to clean the air and reduce fuel usage: City buses run a predictable number of miles a day, averting worries about dead batteries. Also, a fleet of buses creates economies of scale that can make recharging infrastructure economical.

Property rights trump in Keystone Pipeline in Nebraska

Link to article here.

Individual property rights trump Keystone XL in Nebraska
By Timothy Carney
February 21, 2014
Washington Examiner

Should a Canadian corporation be allowed to take land rights from a small Nebraska rancher? Should conservatives side with Big Government and Canadians over private landowners?

A court in Nebraska has put the brakes on the Keystone XL pipeline in a case that started with land rights. The plaintiffs were landowners in Keystone's path who didn't want to sell, and so became victims of eminent domain to benefit Keystone.

Alamo license plate money doesn't go to roads

Yet another diversion of money raised from our vehicles to non-road purposes. This revenue should be going to shore-up the enormous funding shortfall for roads, not get dumped into general revenue to get pilfered for non-road purposes!

Remember the Alamo while you drive
By Kolten Parker
February 5, 2014
Express-News

SAN ANTONIO — Attention, Alamo City faithful.

For the first time, a San Antonio-themed Texas license plate is available from the Department of Motor Vehicles that reads “ALAMO TX”. The vanity plate is a part of an auction held by MyPlates, which is under contract with the DMV, which includes 20 American city-themed license plates such as Chicago, Dallas and New York.

The bidding started at $1,000 Tuesday and runs through March 3. The winner of each plate will choose from 30 different plate designs and have the rights to the vanity plate for 10 years.

Read the rest of the story here.

Vandergriff opposes TxDOT turnback of state roads to cities

Link to article here.

Also see my article on how the City of San Antonio caved and took over state roads with next to nothing gained in return.

Transportation Commissioner Victor Vandergriff questions TxDOT proposal to send some state road upkeep to cities
By Tom Benning
Dallas Morning News
August 21, 2013

Texas Transportation Commissioner Victor Vandergriff said Wednesday that he has reservations about a transportation department proposal to transfer maintenance of nearly 1,900 miles of state highways to Dallas and other urban areas.

Vandergriff, an Arlington businessman, said he knows the Texas Department of Transportation must find ways to shore up its depleted coffers. And he said some roads would likely be better served under cities’ controls.

But Vandergriff expressed concern that many of the cities and counties being considered just don’t have the budget flexibility to absorb those roads’ maintenance costs: an estimated $165 million a year statewide.

“We’re going to have a pretty robust discussion about whether this is a wise move,” he said after a ribbon-cutting for the DFW Connector project in Grapevine. “For me personally, I question it.”
Vandergriff and the four other transportation commissioners are slated to explore the plan Aug. 29 at a meeting in Austin. No action will be taken, and TxDOT has invited city and county leaders to share their thoughts on the idea.

TxDOT notified cities and counties – in and around large, urban areas – of the cost-cutting “turnback” program in a letter last week.

In TxDOT’s Dallas district – which includes Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Rockwall, Kaufman and Navarro counties – the agency has identified 70 road segments that could be sent back to cities.
That nearly 265 miles of road includes 37 miles of Northwest Highway in Dallas, 11 miles of Cross Timbers Road in Flower Mound and six miles of Irving Boulevard in Irving.

Phil Wilson, TxDOT’s executive director, reiterated Wednesday that his agency is dealing with the realities of a budget that needs another $3 billion a year. And that’s even after the Legislature this year found TxDOT an extra $1.2 billion annually, pending voter approval.

Wilson, also at the DFW Connector ribbon cutting, said TxDOT started looking at roads that have evolved beyond their initial purpose. Many are state farm-to-market roads or other arterial roads that have grown into city streets that serve local traffic.

“These roads are not really about what TxDOT’s historic mission has been about: connectivity from city-to-city,” he said.

Wilson, who stressed that the conversation was just beginning, said cities could benefit in some ways from the increased local control. He said cities would have the final say over things like driveway access, speed limits and maintenance schedules.

But the Texas Municipal League has panned the plan, as has Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price. And Vandergriff’s position could signal broader opposition, especially since he said he’s already heard grumbling from a few other cities.

“It’s been generally negative,” he said.

SH 130 sheds traffic, bailouts ahead?

Link to article with hyperlinks here.

SH 130 toll traffic plunges, are taxpayer bailouts ahead?
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
February 4, 2014

The facts don’t lie, even if the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) does. Recently released traffic data for the privately-operated southern leg of SH 130 shows traffic dipping anywhere from 10%-15% year over year or even from month to month. Moody’s downgraded the bonds held by Spain-based Cintra to junk bond status as the SH 130 Concession Company depleted its cash reserves to make bond payments last year, predicting default as soon as June if a significant uptick in traffic doesn’t arrive -- and fast.

Speaking of fast, the tollway boasts the fastest speed limit in the country - 85 MPH - and yet even that isn’t enticing enough traffic to cover the company’s debt service payments. Amazingly, TxDOT still tries to maintain that SH 130 is relieving congestion on its main competing freeway, I-35 through Austin, though one wonders how. So few cars take the road, any relief on I-35 would be negligible at best.

City of SA caves, takes over state roads

Link to article with hyperlinks here.

TX Transportation Commission even opposes the turnback program. Read it here.

City caves, agrees to take over state roads
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
February 3, 2014

It’s unbelievable what politicians consider a good deal. The San Antonio City Council formally approved an inter-local agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to takeover maintenance on 21.8 miles on segments of nine state highways within the city: Broadway, Culebra, Eckert, Fredericksburg Road, Lone Star Pass, San Pedro, UTSA Blvd., and Hausman. In exchange, the city gets more space inside TxDOT’s Transguide building, property to complete its convention center expansion, $250,000 to fix roads at Lackland, a $150,000 Wurzbach Pkwy traffic study, and re-configuring Broadway into a ‘complete street’ with bike lanes and pedestrian walkways.

Those are seriously the priorities of the San Antonio City Council, not expanding north side freeways that are among the most congested corridors in the state. So the city takes on $2.5 million a year obligation in new road maintenance costs for state highways, for which there’s no money for in the existing budget, and what do we get in return? Basically, a one-time, short-term measly $350,000 and bike lanes and sidewalks on Broadway. San Antonio, we have a problem!
Let’s not forget TxDOT initially asked the city to takeover 129 miles of state highways to which the city correctly said ‘No.’

Burka: Gas tax diversions make mountain out of molehill

Link to blog here.

When Republican Joe Straus gets some heat for his ineffective leadership on transportation, who does he turn to? The liberal press and Capitol insiders that are so jaded to the political process they don’t see a problem with politicians raiding road funds for non-road purposes. Hope this makes your blood boil…

Read my article on Straus where I educate voters on the anti-toll choice in this House race - Matt Beebe.

Another Attack on Joe Straus
by Paul Burka
Texas Monthly blog
February 10, 2014

Joe Straus's enemies are out in force once again, trying to make a mountain out of a molehill -- namely, the issue of diverting gasoline tax revenue to other uses. Let me state unequivocally that diversions are a phony issue. They are not an affront to transparency.

The only diversion in the state budget that matters is the use of gasoline taxes to pay for the cost of operating the Texas Department of Public Safety, which amounts to a billion dollars every biennium, more or less. Yes, this is a diversion, but a necessary one. If budget writers did not employ the diversion, they would not have the funding to be able to fully fund DPS, and highway safety would suffer. The most recent attack on Straus is not very persuasive.

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