Editorial: What if Perry signs toll road bill & no new funding comes?

Link to blog here.

Finally a prominent member of the press who gets it! This is going to hurt all of us and our already fragile, stretched-to-the-limit incomes and economy.

What if Perry signs the toll road bill but doesn't add transportation funding to the 'call'?
By Rodger Jones
Dallas Morning News
May 31, 2013

Gov. Rick Perry has a bill on his desk to open up more projects to what planners call comprehensive development agreements, for deals with private companies to build roads in return for tolling rights. It’s how LBJ is being built with the Spanish company Cintra as partner.

The bill, SB 1730, would allow CDAs for a slew of new projects statewide, including I-35 E/US 67 south of town, SH 114 in Dallas County, SH 183 in Dallas and Tarrant, Loop 12 from 183 to I-35E, and Loop 9 in Dallas and Ellis counties.

If you think tolls are everpresent now, just think about the highway map of the future.

I bring this up because as anyone knows in the metro area, taking toll roads to and from work every day add up to another major utility bill. It’s a big hit on the family’s wallet. The DMN’s Tom Benning wrote this morning about the next round of NTTA rate hikes and how the pennies add up.

Toll rate hike for DFW commuters

Link to article here.

This is following their recent 32% rate hike in 2009 and another 6% in 2011. It's set to go up automatically every two years.

Dig Deeper, Drivers: Tolls Going Up July 1
By BJ Austin
May 30, 2013
KERA News.com

Drivers on North Texas toll roads will pay more starting July 1. Michael Rey, with the North Texas Tollway Authority says the 5.6 percent increase is part of a 2009 plan to raise rates every other year.

“It’s a way to keep things reasonable for travelers so they know what’s ahead; there aren’t big jumps in the toll rates," Rey explained. "These are incremental increases. For somebody who uses the toll roads for $40 a month, which I think is pretty representative, you’re talking about an extra $2.50 per month.”

$12 million windfall: Bexar County fee hike could subsidize toll roads, transit

NOTE: HB 1573 is a $10 vehicle registration fee hike that only applies to Bexar County. Unlike the other local fee hike bills, this is the ONLY ONE that does NOT require voter approval! It is specifically administered by the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (RMA), the local toll authority -- so it will undoubtedly be used to SUBSIDIZE toll roads.

None of the Bexar County toll projects are toll viable. That means there is not enough projected toll payers to cover the cost of construction and retiring the debt. Rather than scrap the ill-conceived, unsustainable toll roads, the RMA sought another source of revenue to SUBSIDIZE its toll projects so that all vehicle owners will be paying for the toll project but only those who can afford to pay tolls will actually be able to use it!

The RMA can also operate parking structures, intermodal hubs, transit projects and systems, and RAIL projects. So this fee hike can be used to fund all of these types of projects, without a public vote. It can also be used to subsidize Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff’s unpopular street car system.

This $12 million a year in new revenues gives the RMA a healthy revenue stream it then bond against -- meaning MORE debt for Bexar County residents.

Sen. Donna Campbell, with the help of Jeff Judson, amended the bill to keep the ATD Board from getting access to the funds, however, the RMA can operate a street car as well. So she voted for a tax hike that can go to fund both toll roads and street cars when she ran opposing both.

Fee increase could yield $12 million for Bexar County roads
By Vianna Davila, Staff Writer
Express-News
Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The state Senate approved a substitute bill Tuesday that would authorize the optional collection of a motor vehicle registration fee of $10 that would yield $12 million for Bexar County road and bridge projects annually.

The bill now will be sent back to the House for consideration. Friday is the last day the House can act on Senate amendments.

Even if the substitute is approved in the House and signed into law by the governor, Bexar County commissioners still would have to vote to invoke the fee, which would be on top of existing vehicle registration fees.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said it's not clear if commissioners would decide to do that or when, but this bill “would give us that option.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/texas_legislature/article/Fee-increase-could-yield-12-million-for-Bexar-4536533.php#ixzz2UureeVww

Maryland toll hikes: Second one in last 18 months

Link to article here.

Toll hikes on top of a gas tax increase...a double whammy for struggling Marylanders.

The Summer Of Toll Increases
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Robert Lang
WBAL.com

As the summer travel season starts this weekend, motorists can expect higher gasoline taxes, and higher tolls starting July 1.

The 4-cent-a-gallon increase in gasoline taxes will take effect, as part of the transportation funding bill Governor Martin O'Malley signed into law last week.

Money from that tax is used to pay for roads, bridges and mass transit.

However, the state's toll roads, bridges and tunnels are run by the Maryland Transportation Authority and are funded through toll hikes.

TxDOT seeks 'rule change' to pursue new P3s, after law failed to pass

Link to article here.

TxDOT is seeking to do P3s using a 'rule change' after the bill to authorize the 'availability payment' type of P3 failed to pass. So its up to its old tricks - when all else fails, break the law. The first P3 in Texas is already in danger of going bankrupt, and only public subsidies are bumping up the traffic on SH 130. So now TxDOT wants to make the public subsidies permanent by using ALL Texas taxpayers' state highway money to pay back these private toll operators for the benefit of Rick Perry's buddies (courtesy of the crony-capitalist infested highway department).

TxDOT May Sweeten Pot to Draw Private Funds to Projects
By Aman Batheja
May 30, 2013
Texas Tribune

In its first meeting after a legislative session in which requests for transportation funding fell billions of dollars short of requests, the Texas Transportation Commission voted Thursday to open the door to allowing private firms to take on a larger role in some road projects.

“We’re trying to stretch our resources as far as possible,” TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson said.

The five commissioners voted unanimously to consider amending the agency’s rules to allow for a new kind of public-private partnership for the agency in which TxDOT would share financial risk with private entities on a project and even agree to reimburse them from the state highway fund if needed to ensure they make a profit. TxDOT will accept public comments on the rule change until July 15. Afterward, the commission will consider adopting the proposal.

TX lawmakers pushed more tolls, debt over cash

Link to article here.

On Roads, Legislature Backed More Tolls, Debt Over Cash
By Aman Batheja
May 30, 2013
Texas Tribune

Texas political leaders entered this legislative session hopeful they might transform the state’s approach to funding transportation. After a decade of relying largely on borrowed money and tolls to expand the state’s highways, finding new revenue made economic sense, many lawmakers said.

But when the regular session ended Monday, the Texas Department of Transportation wound up with a fraction of the additional funding it requested. And legislators passed measures advancing toll projects and making it easier for communities to pay for road work on credit.

Confab in Germany pushes more P3s in U.S.

Read more here.

This shouldn't surprise anyone that the special interests, including foreign interests, are hot to get their mitts on U.S. infrastructure. Most have destroyed their own countries road systems and economies with these public private partnership boondoggles that are now seeking taxpayer bailouts, so naturally they're comin' after America's vast road infrastructure for more. Texans have adamantly opposed P3s and the sale of their public infrastructure since they first got word of it, and they haven't suddenly changed their minds because foreign leaders want a piece of our wallets.

Foreign leaders back private development of transportation projects
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Bb Gordon Dickson
Star Telegram

LEIPZIG, Germany — Ministers from 54 nations last week opened the door to worldwide expanded private development of toll roads, rail lines and other projects.

It’s a potential investment that could amount to several trillion dollars over the next decade or so, several officials said.

But the declaration of support for so-called public-private partnerships also raises many questions about whether corporations will wield too much control over public roads — or whether public entities could be exposed to financial risks in these agreements.

Two state leaders seek oil & gas taxes to fund roads

Link to article here.

These tone-deaf politicians just don't get it. We collect $4 billion in existing road taxes (from gas taxes and vehicles sales tax) that isn't being allocated to roads and is being spent on funding general government. Yet the only options they push involve grabbing new revenues - money Texas needs for a emergencies. Dedicate existing road taxes to roads before we heist more tax money just to placate budget writers who prefer a spending spree...

Senators devise another road-funding plan: use oil and gas taxes
By Kate Alexander and Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Looking to dredge up more money for transportation, two leading state senators hope to pass a measure that would ask voters to direct close to a billion dollars a year in oil and gas taxes to highways rather than the state’s rainy day fund.

The idea from Sens. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, first surfaced at the tail end of the regular legislative session, which came to a close Monday. But it was too late to get House buy-in, so the senators are pushing to persuade Gov. Rick Perry to add the issue to the agenda for the newly called special session.

Brawley resigns over concerns with toll roads

Link to article here.

Brawley cites concerns with toll roads as one of the reasons he resigned. Says tolls are another way of taxing and they make consumers pay twice.

Rep. Brawley resigns as Chair of House Finance Committee
by WCNC.com Staff
May 22, 2013
WCNC.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Republican House member from Iredell County, Representative Robert Brawley, has resigned as the Chair of the State House Finance Committee.

Representative Brawley resigned as the Chair of the Finance Committee via a letter to Thom Tillis, the Speaker of the House.

Foxx downplays tolling, but fan of P3s

Link to article here.

There's clearly a disconnect here. You can't be a fan of public private partnerships and NOT be a fan of tolling...but we do hope he holds to his word that tolls are antithetical to prosperity and ought not to be the primary means of fixing our congested highways.

DOT appointee Foxx downplays interstate tolling as a funding solution
By David Tanner,
May 22, 2013
Land Line Magazine

President Obama’s choice to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation, Anthony Foxx, says interstate tolling should be used only to add new capacity and should not be viewed as a solution to the shortfalls facing the Highway Trust Fund. Foxx faced questions from a Senate committee on Wednesday, May 22, as part of his confirmation process to become DOT secretary.



The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, led by Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and ranking member John Thune, R-SD, questioned Foxx about how he would run the DOT and help solve challenges involved with infrastructure funding.

 Foxx told the committee he would rely on his experience as the current mayor of Charlotte, NC, to make difficult choices and be accountable for the tough road ahead. 



N.C. passes road improvement plan

Link to article here.

It's as if South Carolina is channeling the Texas legislature...inaction and taking the short-term easy way out -- more debt -- rather than face the road funding shortfall and properly fund roads with taxes collected.

Road improvement plan approved in S.C. Senate
By Tim Smith
Greenville Online
May 23, 2013

COLUMBIA -- Major bridge and road projects could be funded statewide under a road plan approved by the Senate that could spend $500 million on the state’s crumbling infrastructure.
The plan surfaced Thursday during budget debate and was approved with bi-partisan support as a budget amendment.

The amendment, introduced by Sen. Nikki Setzler, a Lexington County Democrat, would send $50 million via the state Department of Transportation to the State Transportation Infrastructure Bank, which could then issue bonds for as much as $500 million, senators told GreenvilleOnline.com.

MoPac lane closures begin

Link to article here.

MoPac lanes closing nightly to prepare for project to add toll lanes
By Ben Wear
American-Statesman Staff
May 20, 2013

MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) will see the first lane closures beginning this week as part of a two-plus year project to widen the expressway and add a toll lane in each direction between Lady Bird Lake and Parmer Lane.

The work, surveying and soil sampling, will cause rolling lane closures between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.
The only daytime activity, likely to happen next week, will be some helicopter flyovers at relatively low altitudes that, while potentially distracting to drivers, will not close lanes. Officials with the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, which will build and operate the $200 million express toll lane project, said the flights, part of the surveying work, will be about 500 feet above the road.

CBO: Federal Highway Trust Fund bankrupt in 2015

Link to article here.

The year 2015 looks to be the year of armageddon for road funding at both the federal and state level. Texas lawmakers have been warned for nearly a decade that the state highway fund has NO more money for ANY new capacity beyond 2015. In fact, TxDOT is behind $1 billion/yr just for road maintenance and $3 billion/yr behind for new construction fro a total of $4 billion. There will be no easy way forward to fund roads at the federal or state level when it all hits the fan in 2015, but it won't be from a lack of warnings...our politicians are just plain derelict in their duty to fund this core function of government.

Just how screwed is the Highway Trust Fund?
April 24, 2013
Ryan Holleywell
Governing.com

The Highway Trust Fund won't be able to meet its obligations come 2015, according to a statement by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to the House Budget Committee.
Federal lawmakers, the report says, would have to cut transportation spending by 92 percent or raise the gas tax by more than 50 percent in order to bring revenue and spending in line.

The Highway Trust Fund, which gets its money from taxes on gasoline and motor fuels, is the source of money for federal spending on highways, bridges, roads and transit. The fund has struggled for years to remain in the black -- ever since federal transportation spending started exceeding the dedicated taxes used to pay for it.

Virginians protest tolls on I-395

Link to article here.

Virginia Residents Protest Against Toll Roads
Virginia residents protest latest plan to convert freeway lanes into a toll road.
April 8, 2013
The Newspaper.com

About 100 residents of Alexandria, Virginia gathered Saturday to protest the conversion of the Interstate 395 high occupancy vehicle lanes into a toll road. The Concerned Residents of Landmark, a group representing eight homeowners associations in the area, are concerned that the plan includes building an elevated ramp that will raise freeway traffic up to the level of nearby homes, within 75 feet of some buildings. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) chose to end the toll road at the Landmark location instead of running the toll lanes all the way to Washington, DC because the city of Arlington filed a lawsuit that blocked the toll road from extending north through the city.

"VDOT has shirked its moral and legal duty to ensure its planned actions cause no harm to surrounding environment," the group explains on its website, Delay the Ramp. "In its rush to build, VDOT arbitrarily and without careful analysis selected the Turkeycock Run location, not because it was the best site, but because it was convenient and VDOT wanted to make up for time lost fighting the Arlington case."

Obama taps former Charlotte Mayor as new head of transportation

Link to article here.

Apparently the only qualifications needed to head the U.S. Department of Transportation is a penchant for ill-conceived, taxpayer-subsidized transit boondoggles. Only 1% of Americans use mass transit to go about daily living. America's highways, used by 99% of Americans for daily living, are not being properly funded. Yet the talk we hear from this new appointee emphasizes transit boondoggles - that usually heist scarce road dollars. The Obama Administration has made it clear it has an anti-car agenda and wishes to engage in social engineering to tax people out of their cars (tolls, carbon taxes, restrict highway expansion) and into mass transit.

Obama taps Charlotte Mayor as Transportation Secretary
By Hazel Trice Edney
May 1, 2013
Houston Forward Times

President Obama has made his first nomination of an African-American to his cabinet this term, winning accolades from some African-American leaders.

Charlotte, N.C. Mayor Anthony Foxx, nominated as Secretary of Transportation this week, will now go under scrutiny by the U. S. Senate, which has to confirm all presidential cabinet members.

Another Aussie toll road goes bankrupt

Link to article here.

Once again, Texas should learn from others' mistakes. Toll roads are unreliable, unaffordable, and unsustainable as a method of road finance. There simply aren't enough people with enough money to pay tolls on a daily basis for basic mobility.

Australia: Another Toll Road Goes Bankrupt
Another Australian toll road joins the worldwide list of failed projects.
May 7, 2013
The Newspaper.com

Transportation officials in the United States and around the world remain fascinated with tolling public-private partnerships as a method of financing roads, but tolling continue to prove itself an unreliable choice. Last week, the Rivercity Motorway Group's bankruptcy administrators began soliciting bids for the Clem7 toll road in Brisbane, Australia.

The 4.2 mile tunnel links five major area roads at a cost of $8.10 per round trip -- a proposition few residents found worthwhile. A bankruptcy judge with the Federal Court of Australia explained the problem.

Traffic cameras turn America into surveillance society

Link to article here.

America’s Roads Have Been Turned Into A Revenue Generating Surveillance Grid
By Michael Snyder
Investment Watch Blog.com
May 9, 2013

What do speed traps, parking tickets, toll roads, speed cameras and red light cameras all have in common?  They are all major revenue sources for state and local governments.  All over America today there are state and local governments that are drowning in debt.  Many have chosen to use “traffic enforcement” as a way to raise desperately needed revenue. 

According to the National Motorist Association, issuing speeding tickets raises somewhere between 4.5 billion and 6 billion dollars in the United States each year.  And the average price of a speeding ticket just keeps going up. 

Today, the national average is about $150, but in many jurisdictions it is far higher.  For example, more than 16 million traffic tickets are issued in the state of California each year, and the average fine is approximately $250.  If you are wealthy that may not be much of a problem, but if you are a family that is barely scraping by every month that can be a major financial setback. 

Meanwhile, America’s roads are also being systematically transformed into a surveillance grid. 

Spanish toll traffic down, calls to suspend all tolls

Link to article here.

Considering Spanish companies dominate public private partnership toll concessions in Texas, shouldn't be learning from the plight of the Spanish people who cannot afford to travel these privatized toll roads and the whole system is in danger of going bankrupt? Who's going to bail it out? Cash-strapped taxpayers and an already struggling government?

JUST ANOTHER TOLL STORY
Mark Nolan / 2013-05-16
TheLeader.com

On numerous occasions in the past, we have reported on the financial state of the companies running the toll roads around Spain, with reductions in use and the subsequent losses incurred, but information released this week shows that the picture is not likely to improve any time soon, with many groups calling for the suspension of all tolls on the Spanish highway network.

Traffic using the toll roads has reduced by 30% in 2012, with 16,631 vehicles using the system, on average, each day, a figure comparable to that of fifteen years ago.

New penalties await toll violators

Link to article here.

New Penalties For Toll Road Violators Await Gov. Perry's Approval
By Shelley Kofler
May 28, 2013
KERA News.org

Thousands of North Texas drivers could have their vehicles impounded or their registration blocked under Senate Bill 1792, legislation Governor Perry is expected to sign.

The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) says there are at least 75,000 vehicles that have each traveled the area’s toll roads without paying 100 or more times.

That adds up to some real money for the NTTA, about $45 million dollars a year that’s not available to use on road projects or to factor into the rates all toll road users pay.

In the past the NTTA has tried to shame the chronic violators, who they call scofflaws, into paying. They’ve published their names.

Judge in VA rules tolls are taxes

Link to article here.

Virginia judge rules tolls are taxes
By David Tanner
Land Line Magazine
May 2, 2013

A circuit court judge in Virginia has ruled that the state DOT cannot impose tolls on two existing tunnels to pay for construction of a third tunnel or freeway improvements that accompany the Elizabeth River Crossing Project in the Hampton Roads region.



Portsmouth Circuit Court Judge James Cales Jr. ruled in favor of a group of individual plaintiffs on Wednesday, May 1.

The group consists of business owners and area residents, including numerous truckers and small trucking companies who filed a lawsuit in July 2012 against the Virginia Department of Transportation and a contractor hired to complete the Elizabeth River Crossing Project.



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