Link to article here.

Perry's budget compact should dictate adjustment to gas tax
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
November 5, 2012

Texas Governor Rick Perry recently announced his support for ending diversions to the state motor fuel tax, a practice that’s starved traditional road funds and allowed him to push tolling and road privatization. So why now? Attempting to shore up his conservative credentials after being attacked for smoke and mirrors ‘balanced’ budgets, a massive business tax hike, and wasteful special interest slush funds like the Texas Enterprise Fund during his run for president, Perry added halting the raid of gas taxes for non-transportation purposes to his Texas Budget Compact, calling it a matter of truth in budgeting.

Link to article here.

Spain's empty highways lead to bankruptcy

Like the housing bubble, pumped up until it burst in 2008, and its speculation-funded phantom airports, the folly of Spain's road-building boom too is now being laid bare in vast stretches of tarmac.

Link to article here.

This project is a TOTAL fraud upon the public. The private corporation getting this golden goose isn't putting in ONE dime of its own money. It will be 100% paid for with public money, yet Virginians will be charged a DOUBLE TAX toll to use the lanes. Public private partnerships are a BIG RIP-OFF and corporate welfare for special interests with political connections. Look who's applauding the deal, certainly the average commuter...

U.S. 460 toll project to begin in 2014
Tolls would be $3.69 for cars and $11.72 for trucks for the 55-mile stretch between Petersburg and Suffolk.
By: PETER BACQUÉ | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: October 16, 2012

Nearly two decades in the making, construction should start on the $1.396 billion U.S. 460 project in 2014, with the road opening in 2018, according to the state's Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships.

Drivers will pay $3.69 for cars to use the 55-mile road between Petersburg and Suffolk and $11.72 for trucks.

The road-user fee is 6.7 cents a mile for cars and 21.3 cents a mile for trucks. The fee will be collected electronically — by E-ZPass — making charging a toll figured to the cent practical.

Link to article here.

What will Romney do with transportation policy?
By Terri Hall
October 21, 2012
Examiner.com

When it comes to political candidates, the axiom ‘you are what you eat’ can be tweaked to -- ‘you are who you surround yourself with.’ According to Politico, presidential candidate Mitt Romney is gettin’ cozy with former Bush transportation staff who are shaping the former governor of Massachusetts’ future road policy.

What advice is he getting?

Forget addressing the gas tax or finding an affordable way to sustain public roads and keep the program financially solvent, just keep relying on tolling and public private partnerships.

Link to article here.

Perry calls for end to gas tax diversions - Really?
By Terri Hall
October 20, 2012
Examiner.com

After starving & raiding the gas tax for his entire administration, Texas Governor Rick Perry has finally decided to get on board with ending diversions of our state gas tax for non-transportation purposes. Conservatives have been crying foul for over a decade to end the raid of our gas taxes for things that have nothing to do with transportation. So while this is a welcome announcement, it’s a bit late in the game.

Gas tax diversions are part of the reason there’s a structural shortfall in funding for roads. Twenty-five percent of the state motor fuels tax goes to public schools per the Texas Constitution, which represents approximately $750 million a year. Perry and the Texas legislature have habitually raided an additional five to ten percent on top of the education diversions for things that have nothing to do with transportation like pensions, enhancing employee benefits in the Attorney General’s Office and for computers in the Comptroller’s Office. These non-education diversions topped $1 billion a year in the last budget.

Link to article here.

Shelton Requests Criminal Investigation of Davis, NTTA

State Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, on Wednesday called for a criminal investigation into his election opponent, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and the North Texas Tollway Authority that contracts with Davis’ law firm.

The San Antonio City Council has indefinitely extended its loan to the Alamo RMA until they can repay it. This guarantees toll roads without a public vote.

Compare this to what they said last year... Watch the 'flip-flop'! Where is the public vote and study the City Council promised?

Mitt Romney taps Bushies for transpo advice
By: Kathryn A. Wolfe
October 11, 2012 03:14 PM EDT
Politico

Mitt Romney isn’t talking much about roads, runways or bridges — but behind the scenes he’s engaged a brain trust of transportation advisers who are.

The people advising him — though Romney’s campaign stresses that the team is informal — read like a who’s who of senior policymakers from President George W. Bush’s Department of Transportation. The agency at that time was heavily focused on privatization and maximum involvement of the private sector.

For the most part, the entire presidential campaign has been relatively quiet on the transportation front. Romney has talked about his desire to cut subsidies for Amtrak, and President Barack Obama has echoed his past positions — using the “peace dividend” to pay for more infrastructure investment, boosting transit and promoting high-speed rail.

How corporations are crippling U.S. prosperity

By David Worthington | October 15, 2012, 7:21 PM PDT
Smart Planet.com

A dearth of competition in major U.S. industries and a government that’s policy making has been severely corrupted by moneyed interests has led to depressed wages and stifled innovation, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist says in a new book.

In essence, you’re being ripped off, and those responsible are taking everyone’s money while assuming very little risk.

David Cay Johnston was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting the inequalities and loopholes that exist in the U.S. tax code and exposing corporate tax evasion. His latest work, The Fine Print: How Big companies Use “Plain English” to Rob You Blind, examines his findings about how the U.S. economy has strayed away from capitalism and into “corporate socialism,” where the free market, its engine of prosperity, has stalled.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) just announced that it inked a deal with Spanish toll operator, Cintra, for yet another toll project in North Texas -- this time on Interstate 35 W in Fort Worth. That brings the total toll projects in the hands of a single company in Dallas-Ft. Worth alone to five: Hwy 121, Hwy 183, I-820, I-635 and now I-35W. These chokepoints represent some of the most congested roads in the Metroplex, and four of the five were handed to Cintra without competitive bidding.

The LBJ project on I-635 is a standalone toll project, but the North Tarrant Express development agreement known as a public private partnership (P3) involves the other four highways, which were all awarded to Cintra in one master comprehensive development agreement with each highway subsequently negotiated using ‘facility agreements.’

Toll agency ponders dollars for 281, 1604

By Vianna Davila, Express-News

Published 12:26 a.m., Friday, October 12, 2012

Despite a steady erosion of expected funding over the years, San Antonio’s tolling agency may have enough money to fund a toll system on Loop 1604 and U.S. 281, officials say.

The project would cost more than $700 million, which could be partly funded by $130 million the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority has in hand.

The RMA then could leverage that money in a couple of ways, officials said — for instance, by issuing toll bonds — to finish out the total project cost.

New Texas 130 section to open Oct. 24

By Ben Wear

Austin American Statesman - October 11, 2012

The southern 41 miles of the Texas 130 tollway will open on the afternoon of Oct. 24, according to a Facebook post Thursday from the company that built the four-lane road under a long-term lease with the Texas Department of Transportation.

The road, which runs from the southern end of the existing Texas 130 at Mustang Ridge to Interstate 10 near Seguin, will remain free to drive until Nov. 11, Seguin Mayor Betty Ann Matthies said in a video on the SH 130 Concession Company’s Facebook page. After that, it will cost cars and two-axle trucks about 15 cents a mile to drive the road, Matthies said. Larger trucks will pay up to five times that figure, depending on the number of axles.

At 15 cents a mile, the 41 miles will cost $6.17. The rates were set in a 2007 contract between TxDOT and the concession company, and are allowed to increase annually at a percentage tied to growth of the state’s gross domestic product.

There's nothing innovative about this toll road. It uses the same financing structure that brought us the subprime mortgage crisis -- a public private partnership where government teams up with private corporations in an arrangement that guarantees the private entity's profits. Solyndra was another. They use schemes like non-compete agreements that limit and even prohibit the expansion of free roads surrounding the tollway in order to guarantee congestion on the free lanes and drive more traffic to the toll road. So just as Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun -- and corporate cronyism and corruption in government is certainly not 'innovative.'

Innovative toll road is only a partial fix

Express-News Editorial Board

Updated 12:40 a.m., Wednesday, October 3, 2012

If you are driving from the San Antonio area to a destination on Interstate 35 north of Austin, or vice versa, then the option of paying a toll to bypass the capital's traffic might be attractive. It might be especially attractive if you can legally travel 85 mph on a portion of the toll road.

That's the option drivers will have sometime in the next month or so, thanks to an innovative public-private partnership that will complete Texas 130 from I-35 near Georgetown to I-10 just east of Seguin.

Link to article here.

Difficult birth is right. Ben Wear nails it here when he expects there to be a rise in 'civic blood pressure' when people figure out they're being charged a toll to use EXISTING right of way. The toll authority is using TAX money to build the toll lanes, but will charge you again to drive on them -- a DOUBLE TAX! The whole thing a pure taxation scheme, and our legislators have given these unelected toll boards the ability to enact taxation without representation. They fully expect the public blowback, but since they get to blame it on unelected boards insulated from the wrath of taxpayers, they happily sell us out -- EVERY time.

However, Ben Wear is wrong about Austinites 'accepting' the toll roads. Ask anyone if they enjoy paying hundreds of extra dollars in transportation taxes just to get to work -- it's like a pay cut for heaven's sake! Though some have succumbed because they have little choice, others are voting with their pocketbooks. Only one of the Austin toll projects is in the black, the rest are being bailed out by every Texan. So EVERYONE is paying for these toll roads, but only the select few can afford to drive on them. The red ink is certainly not a ringing endorsement of toll roads. They're failing, and we all know by now how the public feels about bailouts...