Link to article here.

Tolling Texans: Toll projects spread as state funds lag
By Aman Batheja
Texas Tribune
November 30, 2012

The first major toll road in Texas, which opened in 1957, was a 30-mile, six-lane stretch of highway between Dallas and Fort Worth. A drive from one end to the other cost 50 cents.

By 1977, tolls had generated enough revenue to recoup the cost of the road’s construction. The tollbooths were dutifully removed. Drivers know the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike today as Interstate 30.

Fast forward 35 years and I-30, while still free, is surrounded by billions of dollars in road projects featuring toll roads or lanes. It is a similar story on a smaller scale in the state’s other urban centers as well as in some communities along the border with Mexico. As public officials across fast-growing Texas look for ways to build more roads amid a lack of public financing, toll revenue or investment from private firms hoping to collect that toll revenue are repeatedly emerging as the antidote.

Washington Post

Seventeen years ago, Virginia passed what was said to be one of most progressive pieces of legislation in the country. The Public-Private Transportation Act would help build road in the tax-averse state by shifting some of the cost and management to the private sector.

The result has been 14 miles of adjusted-toll HOT lanes on Interstate 495 in Northern Virginia, proposed extensions to tunnels in Hampton Roads, superhighway connectors in the Richmond area and a planned $1.4 billion road linking Suffolk to Petersburg.

But just how much oversight is there in such public-private partnerships? Hardly any, argues James J. Regimbal Jr., a transportation analyst in a new report published by the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center.

Link to article here.

So now the Chinese are taking over Canadian oil & gas companies to ship oil back to China. While the Chinese buy-up rights to more oil & gas, Americans continue to pay record high gas prices in part because of Obama's bans on offshore drilling and other regulations choking efforts to increase domestic oil production. Meanwhile, America continues to buy much of its oil from foreign companies, often hostile to U.S. interests. Just wait till we have to buy oil from the Chinese who already hold our debt.

Cnooc Said to Agree on Canada Demands for Nexen Takeover

Cnooc Ltd. (883), China’s biggest offshore oil and gas producer, has accepted management and employment conditions set by the Canadian government as it seeks approval for its $15.1 billion takeover of Nexen (NXY) Inc., according to two people familiar with the matter.

A consumer group that has written extensively on the pros and cons of public-private partnerships wants Gov. John Kasich and his state-hired consulting firm to think long and hard before deciding to lease the Ohio Turnpike to private investors.

The national Public Interest Research Group and its Ohio affiliate have released eight questions they want to see answered before the consulting firm KPMG makes a recommendation later this year concerning the fate of the turnpike.

Link to article here.

Texans for boycott of first foreign-owned toll road
By Terri Hall
November 12, 2012
Examiner.com

Today marks the first day Spanish toll operator, Cintra, starts charging Texas commuters tolls to use SH 130. San Antonio-based Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) and Austin-based Texans for Accountable Government (TAG) object to Texas’ first foreign-owned toll road, especially since SH 130 is part of the original Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 (see it here). Though Cintra invented an innocuous sounding name, like the SH 130 Concession Company, make no mistake, a Spanish company, Cintra, controls and operates SH 130 for the next HALF CENTURY -- and some say it represents a multi-generational theft of public assets.

These controversial contracts called public private partnerships (P3s) will usher in the new railroad robber barons of our time -- private toll companies operating state-sanctioned monopolies and charging Texans a premium to drive. This is about our right to travel being trampled on by well-connected special interests with ties to the Texas Governor Rick Perry's office.

Link to article here.

Change in public HOV policy smooths way for private toll roads
By Terri Hall
November 8, 2012
Examiner.com

It’s been a long time coming, but don’t tell Dallas and Ft. Worth commuters that.

North Texas officials say the days of a free ride on HOV lanes were numbered from the beginning, but most area commuters don’t know that and haven’t a clue what’s coming outside the handful who happened to catch the poorly attended public meetings on the proposed increase in occupancy requirements for a free ride to go from two people (HOV+2) to three (HOV+3). Officials are also considering allowing single occupancy vehicles (SOV) to use HOV lanes -- if they pay a toll.

So, first, the county wouldn't bring this to San Antonio voters to decide, because they knew they'd lose the vote as they did in 2000. So then they snagged ATD sales tax money that's supposed to fund roads to put in an unpopular downtown streetcar to benefit a handful of developers. When it became clear they'd be sued for using ATD money for streetcars, the same thing as light rail, which they promised voters ATD money wouldn't fund, now they're switching the pots of money to avoid a lawsuit, but still trampling on taxpayers by bypassing voters and ramming it down people's throats.

It's clear this plan was hatched in a backroom with a handful of powerful officials, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, Transportation Commission Chairman Ted Houghton, TxDOT Executive Director Phil Wilson, and Via Bard CHairman Henry Munoz. The MPO Board was completely left in the dark as were the taxpayers -- no pubic notice or hearing or opportunity for debate. Just the usual railroad job...