Author: Terri Hall

Coalition Opposed to CDAs, P3s & More Toll Roads

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April 17, 2017

The Hon. Governor Greg Abbott
The Hon. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick
The Hon. Speaker Joe Straus
The Hon. Members of the Texas State Legislature

Thank you for serving the great State of Texas! We understand that you have an enormous job as you work to address significant challenges and numerous issues critical to our state.

Please be advised that a broad coalition of leaders of grassroots groups across Texas and citizens stand with us in strong opposition to HB 2861 and all related bills that approve any type of Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs) or public private partnership toll projects. A signed statement detailing this significant block of opposition is attached; however, we, and the signers of this letter, do not stand alone in our opposition to CDAs and P3s.

The opposition is actually bi-partisan and spelled out in both the state Democratic and Republican Party Platforms. 2016 Texas Democratic Party Platform, page 13: “We oppose foreign-owned U.S. toll roads that require Americans to contribute to the balance-of-trade deficit when they travel on local roads.” On page 21 of the 2016 Texas GOP Platform, you will find:

Toll Roads — We believe that tolls should come off the road when the debt is retired, and if debt is ever restructured or refinanced, the pay-off date needs to remain the same or receive voter approval in order to extend the toll tax longer. Maintenance should then revert to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). We oppose public-private partnerships, specifically regarding toll projects. We oppose conversion of existing roads or lanes to toll roads.

Toll Road Funding — We oppose the use of taxpayer money to subsidize, guarantee, prop-up, or bail out any toll projects, whether public or private, and we call upon both state and federal lawmakers to adequately fund our highways without hidden taxes, tolls, or raiding emergency funds.

Additionally, in campaign ads and again when addressing the September 23, 2015, Transportation & Infrastructure Summit, Governor Greg Abbott said his plan for transportation, which calls for ending diversions, “adds billions for new road construction without raising taxes, fees or tolls. We pay for it by ensuring that money dedicated to roads will be spent only on roads.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the legislature, while we may not agree on everything, authorizing CDAs should be one thing every legislator abhors. A plank opposing such toll projects appears in BOTH the GOP and Democratic platforms for good reason – CDAs are the most expensive, oppressive, and anti-liberty type of toll project. Evidently, our Governor is not fond of this funding scheme either.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions, concerns, or suggestions.

Sincerely,

Terri Hall – Founder/Director
Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom (TURF)
Texans for Toll-free Highways
(210) 275-0640

 

JoAnn Fleming – Executive Director
Grassroots America – We the People PAC
(903) 360-2858

 

Coalition of Texas Grassroots Leadership & Citizens
Opposed to CDAs, P3s & More Toll Roads

April 17, 2017

The Hon. Governor Greg Abbott
The Hon. Lt. Governor Dan Patrick
The Hon. Speaker Joe Straus
The Hon. Members of the Texas State Legislature

A strong coalition of grassroots leaders and their members from across Texas urge you to oppose HB 2861 and any legislation that contains a Comprehensive Development Agreement or public private partnership toll project. Frankly, we were shocked – based on the public’s hostility toward toll roads and the Governor’s well-documented opposition to more toll roads, that HB 2861 would get a hearing before a SINGLE toll road reform bill! We respectfully lay out the following reasons we strongly oppose continuation of these schemes:

Issue #1: Eminent domain for private gain.

> Texans are vehemently opposed to eminent domain for private gain. While these private toll corporations do not have the direct power to condemn land, they gain access to the governmental power of eminent domain for their private, for-profit toll projects. Public-private partnerships blur the line between public use and private use and give cover for what amounts to private, for-profit ventures under the guise of a public use — a road. This erodes and threatens the property rights of every Texan and cannot be tolerated in a free society.

Issue #2: Require massive public subsidies that amount to corporate welfare.

> Every Texas CDA has required public money. Examples: SH 130 – $430 million federal TIFIA loan. I-635 – $490 million in state gasoline taxes, plus $1.4 billion in federally backed TIFIA and PABs. North Tarrant Express/I-820/SH 121 & 183 – $590 million in state gasoline taxes, plus $1 billion in federally backed TIFIA and PABs. SH 288 – $17 million in state funds, plus $657 million in federally backed TIFIA and PABs. (SOURCE: Federal Highway Administration, Office of Innovative Finance Support, Project Profiles)

When the taxpayer is footing the majority of the bill and then is asked to repay their own money back with interest, plus profit for a private toll company, it’s offensive, enormously expensive, and Texans have said ‘No!’ from the beginning. This is corporate welfare on a massive scale with the private equity firms putting in a tiny fraction of their own money and the majority of funding still coming from taxpayers.

Issue #3: Punitively high toll rates.

> There is no cap on how high toll rates can go in a CDA arrangement. No elected official approves the toll rates — they’ve outsourced that job to unelected bureaucrats at TxDOT. The state simply gives a green light to a toll rate ‘methodology’ that imposes dynamic pricing, which allows tolls to rise and fall based on the level of congestion on the roadway. This gives private companies free-rein permission to charge whatever they want in order to maintain the arbitrarily chosen speed and performance requirements (usually 50 MPH). If that means the toll is $1 a mile in peak hours, then that’s what they’ll charge! Once that contract is signed, no elected official can step-in to give taxpayers relief from such punitively high toll rates. This kind of legislature-endorsed highway robbery hurts families and small businesses!

Commuters in the Metroplex already report having to pay $30-$40/day to take the North Tarrant Express and LBJ toll lanes to get to work in peak hours. This is an unacceptable level of taxation, and it’s the fastest ticket to destroying the Texas economic miracle. CDAs allow elected officials to outsource the business of tax hikes to a private company that the public cannot hold accountable. It’s the biggest taxation without representation scheme to hit public infrastructure since the railroad robber barons!

Issue #4: Gotcha provisions that come back to haunt commuters. These corporations have an army of lawyers to ensure their investors get a return on their investment, so aside from the public subsidies, they find creative ways to further socialize every potential loss through compensation events, non-compete clauses, manipulation of speed limits on free routes, and adverse event triggers.

Texas taxpayers are also paying to subsidize truck toll rates to get truckers to take these toll roads ($18.7 million/yr, per TxDOT Minute Order #114528, March 2016). While the subsidies only technically apply to TxDOT’s section of SH 130, it still provides indirect relief to the private section of SH 130 by increasing the number of truck toll payers. Private equity firms also force taxpayers to pay for other losses like uncollectible tolls, and they use the state as their toll collector – giving them access to the power to block vehicle registration for failure to pay a toll.

Giving that kind of power to private corporations that the people cannot hold accountable gives up the state’s sovereignty over our public infrastructure and critical corridors that are the very lifeblood of the Texas economy — like Interstate-35 that has segments that run through Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio in HB 2861. No elected official should ever vote to cede control of our public infrastructure and hand the keys of the Texas economy over to private corporations simply because they want to get a project built.

Prioritize the new Prop 1/Prop 7 funding that the voters overwhelmingly approved, and get these major bottlenecks fixed without harming commuters and WITHOUT RAISING TAXES through tolls, as Governor Greg Abbott promised in his Texas Clear Lanes Initiative (Press Release, September 2015).

(SOURCE: SH 130 segments 5 & 6, I-635, and North Tarrant Express CDA contracts.)

Issue #5: Excuses, excuses, excuses — ‘CDAs are the only way to fund the big projects’

Through Prop 1 and Prop 7 and ending non-education diversions, TxDOT now has approximately $5 billion more in funding per year. The people were promised if they voted for Prop 7 in 2015, there would be plenty of funding for transportation. No more toll roads and no more debt is what we were promised. To refresh your memory about the promises, we encourage you to review the Texas Infrastructure Now Investing in Our Future website at https://www.infrastructuretexas.org/prop-7/

Yet, the very next legislative session after the passage of Prop 7, we’re still being told none of the major projects can be fixed without more debt and tolls, particularly CDAs. This is in direct contradiction to what the Governor (and other officials) promised and what the voters voted for when they approved Prop 1 & Prop 7. One of our strongest and most well known grassroots leaders has even gotten a call from a member of the Transportation Commission asking her if she could support either raising the gas tax or more low interest debt!

At the local level, we hear even more excuses. For instance, Garland elected officials testified before the House Transportation Committee April 12, stating there was ‘no way’ to get LBJ E done without a CDA. Yet, Senator Bob Hall’s bill, SB 84, would utilize the state’s portion of the sales tax adjacent to the highway to pay for the road improvements on LBJ E. But rather than support his Expiring Revenue Enhancement (ERE) bill and coming to Austin to advance this solution that doesn’t raise taxes, local officials came to Austin to advocate for increasing taxes and putting the power to impose toll taxes in the hands of a private company the taxpayers cannot hold accountable. This is outrageous!

We respectfully remind you that in October 2014, the Texas Legislative Council documented that the cost to build Texas roads actually DOUBLED from 2003 (pre-toll road era) to 2013, while the national highway cost increase over the same period was just 12%. This demonstrates just one more reason special interests continue to push tolls despite public opposition. Tolls drive up the cost to build, necessarily putting more money into the pockets of road builders at great expense to Texas taxpayers. By continuing on this path, the price tags on these big projects are made to look so out of reach that it causes legislators to cave to tolls because they perceive it’s the only way to get a project done. By rejecting this toll-debt-increased cost spiral, you can help put the cost of road building back in line with the national average and force project costs to return to more reasonable levels!

We, the undersigned, understand the tricks and the excuses, and many of us have read the Sunset Advisory Commission’s most recent report on the Texas Department of Transportation. From any reasonable person’s analysis, the report is damning in its acknowledgement of what we already know: — TxDOT has a reputation for “persistent over-time and over-budget highway projects.” The Report flatly states, “As currently structured, TxDOT’s project development process is not meeting expectations and is not prepared to effectively handle the influx of new transportation funding projected to double over the next decade.”

Knowing this, it is utterly amazing that TxDOT has been allowed to consume all of the Prop 1/Prop 7 funds on low priority projects and thus put lawmakers in a box to push CDAs and force them to cast a bad vote to raise taxes in order to get Texas’ most congested roads fixed.

Not using Prop 1/Prop 7 as the Governor promised and as the voters intended is a violation of the public trust. We ask you to decisively act to protect taxpayers from further betrayal and misuse of billions in new road funds by first rejecting HB 2861.

We thank you for your service to the great state of Texas. In order to keep Texas an economically sound and an attractive place to live, work, and raise a family, the legislature must protect Texans from this oppressive level of taxation, restrictions on freedom to travel, and loss of sovereignty over public infrastructure that occur with CDAs. Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

 

Sincerely,

Terri Hall – Director, Texas TURF & Texans for Toll-free Highways

JoAnn Fleming – Executive Director, Grassroots America – We the People PAC

Trayce Bradford – President, Texas Eagle Forum

Julie McCarty – President, Northeast Tarrant Tea Party

Melissa Cubria – Executive Director, Cubria Consulting & former Director of TexPIRG – Austin, Texas

Thomas Korkmas – President, TFIRE

Peter Batura – Vice President, TFIRE

Rebecca Forest – President, Women on the Wall

Alice Linahan – Vice President, Women on the Wall

Ann Lieber – Founder, Collin County Citizens Against Tolling, GOP Precinct Chair 214, Prosper, Texas

Suezette Griffin – President, Clear Lake Tea Party

Dean Wright – Director, New Revolution Now & The Austin Tea Party

Pat Tibbs – Montgomery County Tea Party PAC

Tom Fabry – President, Frisco Tea Party

Barbara Harless – North Texas Citizens Lobby

Russell Ramsland – Founder, Park Cities/Preston Hollow Leadership Forum, Dallas, Texas

George Pangborn – President, Highland Lakes Tea Party, Burnet, Texas

Dottie Barnes – Founder, Conservative Society of Navarro County

Carol Doucet – Founder, Conservative Society of Navarro County

Jackie King – Founder, Conservative Society of Navarro County, Corsicana, Texas

Dennis & Barbara McKee – Kaufman County TEA Party

Dwayne Collins – Edom Tea Party

Chuck Zollars – Abilene Tea Party

Barb Stauffer – Garland Tea Party, Garland, Texas

Judy Kent – President, Republican Women of Northeast Texas — Camp, Franklin, Morris & Titus counties

Ray Myers – Chair, Kaufman County Tea Party

Stacy McMahan – Executive Director/President of East Texans for Liberty

Suzanne Guggenheim – Programs & Events Chair, Corpus Christi Tea Party

Laura Pressley, Ph.D. – Texas Election Integrity, Austin, Texas

Gary Gentz – Henderson County Tea Party

Michael Chambers – American Freedom Defenders, Houston, Texas

JP Fowler – Hunt County Tea Party

Maggie Wright – Founding member/past president/present board member of Texas

Pam Farris – San Antonio Tea Party, San Antonio, Texas

Gary Brewer – San Antonio Tea Party, San Antonio, Texas

Nicole Williams – Williamson County Republican Precinct Chair #162, Texans for Accountable Government Steering Committee Member

Vince May – Libertarian Party of Texas, Transportation Committee Member

Bill Eastland – Tarrant County Precinct Chair, Former SREC, SD9

Eugene Ralph – Vice President, Game Chaingers, Dallas, Texas

Jeremiah Hunter – Chairman, We-the-People Longview Tea Party

Bob Brewer – Homeland Owners Association, Tyler, Texas

Sarah Stevick – Former City Council Member and Mayor of Bulverde, Texas

Ginger Russell – Director, Texans for Homeschool Freedom

Sue Evenwell – SREC SD1, Mt. Pleasant, Texas

Donald Rutledge – Allen, Texas

Paul Van Zandt – Arlington, Texas

Linda Patterson – Austin, Texas

Michael Kleinman – Austin, Texas

Thomas Price – Austin, Texas

Jill Moody – Bandera, Texas

Michael & Yvonne Tait – Boerne, Texas

Barry A. Schlech, Ph.D. – Conservative Activist, Burleson, Texas

Leland Stewart – Converse, Texas

Martha Estes – Hempstead, Texas

David & Janice Carter – Galveston, Texas

Judy Brady – Salado, Texas

David & Tracy Spear – Red Oak, Texas

Susan Peabody – Northeast Tarrant Tea Party, Grapevine, Texas

Dave & Jill Robbins – Waco, Texas

Kerry Wooster – Brazoria, Texas

Mary Dockery – Bulverde, Texas

Brian Vilders – Cibolo, Texas

Don Dixon – San Antonio, Texas

Mellany Lamb – Flower Mound, Texas

Mary Vance – Kyle, Texas

Joline Tate – Garland Tea Party

 

Michael Olcott – Co-founder, Parker County Conservatives

Joseph Salema – Little Elm, Texas

Greg Billingsly – Southlake, Texas

Barbara Croft – Dayton, Texas

Fred Marvin – Dallas, Texas

Kim Rimmer – Cedar Hill, Texas

Brian Phillips – Garland, Texas

Greg Milner – La Porte, Texas

Bill Bala – Lindale, Texas

Wes Brumit – Longview, Texas

Timothy Davis – New Braunfels, Texas

Annette Bennett – Fredericksburg, Texas

Joseph & Carmelita Schultz – Round Rock, Texas

Kelly Gramza – Rowlett, Texas

Harvey Hild – Seguin, Texas

Stephen Van Gaasbeck – Attorney at Law, Helotes, Texas

Michael Leah – Helotes, Texas

Lynn Laurence – President, Jack Laurence Corporation, San Antonio, Texas

Marti Amos – San Antonio, Texas

Mitch Huff – San Antonio, Texas

Steve Arellano – San Antonio, Texas

Lupe Gonzales – San Antonio, Texas

Richard Keoughan – San Antonio, Texas

Ellen Koontz Moore – San Antonio, Texas

Mel & Linda Borel – San Antonio, Texas

Terry Ullman – San Antonio, Texas

John Eakin – Helotes, Texas

Steve Dana – San Antonio, Texas

Rick Doucette – San Antonio, Texas

Col. Bob & Karen Throckmorton – San Antonio, Texas

David Astwood – San Antonio, Texas

Kevin Honeyager – San Antonio, Texas

Benedict LaRosa – San Antonio, Texas

Warren Wagner – San Antonio, Texas

Milton Turner – San Antonio, Texas

Susan Moore – San Antonio, Texas

Michael Murphy – San Antonio, Texas

Debra Eaton – San Antonio, Texas

George Booth – San Antonio, Texas

Marie Hughes – San Antonio, Texas

Robert Lopez – San Antonio, Texas

George Pavlik – San Antonio, Texas

Dave Ramos – San Antonio, Texas

Kris Biedenharn-Ressel – San Antonio, Texas

Bob Haag – San Antonio, Texas

Brad Holt – Bulverde, Texas

Nancy Demel – Spring Branch, Texas

Monroe & Pauline Frerich – Spring Branch, Texas

Michael Holt – Spring Branch, Texas

Bret Jamison – Spring Branch, Texas

Roger Hall – Spring Branch, Texas

Kay Dunn – Waxahachie, Texas

Rede Beitman – Wylie, Texas

Jody Quimby – Texas

Susan Lucas – Texas

Mary Smith – Arlington, Texas

Kim Ingram – Ft. Worth, Texas

Thomas Marburger – San Antonio, Texas

Jim Sipiora – Arlington, Texas

Susan Z. Marburger – San Antonio, Texas

Richard Davey – Honey Grove, Texas

Pat Tibbs – President, Montgomery County Tea Party, Magnolia, Texas

Kathryn Monette – Southeast Texas Tea Party, Grand Prairie, Texas

Cathie Adams – Editor of Eagle Forum Report, former Chairman of RPT, former TEF President

Craig Cosgray – President, Marengo Films, Spicewood, Texas

Annette Bennett – Fredericksburg, Texas

Sam Anderson – Flower Mound, Texas

Liz Theiss – Stop the Magnet, Houston, Texas

Bill Bingham – Bryan/College Station Tea Party, Bryan/College Station, Texas

Mike Dail – Chairman of Board – American Stewards of Liberty, Mason, Texas

Josie D Schoolcraft – President, Cherokee County Texas Republican Club, Jacksonville, Texas

Sarah Lipsett – San Angelo TEA Party

Karen Albright – Freestone County TEA Party, Fairfield, Texas

Jan Shedd – Kaufman County Tea Party, Kaufman, Texas

Carroll Maxwell – President, Collin County Conservative Republicans, McKinney, Texas

Matt Long – President Fredericksburg Tea Party

Michael Najvar – Conservative Activist, Gonzales, Texas

Susan Najvar – Conservative Activist, Gonzales, Texas

Marty Rhymes – White Oak, Texas

Julie Turner – Texas Patriots PAC, The Woodlands, Texas

LaDaune Ashley – Liverpool, Texas

Ruth York – Tea Party Patriots of Eastland County, Cisco, Texas

Lyleann McClellan Thee – President, San Angelo TEA Party, San Angelo, Texas

 

Secret agreement handed private toll firm control of public roads

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How sad that this happened just days before we celebrate Texas Indepenence Day, March 2.

City hands control over public roads to private firm
By Terri Hall
March 1, 2017

In a stunning betrayal of open government, the Cibolo City Council voted 6-0 to approve a 50 year development agreement with Texas Turnpike Corporation (TTC) granting it the exclusive right to build, operate and maintain what’s been dubbed the Cibolo Parkway — a tollway linking I-35 to I-10 through mostly rural farmland northeast of San Antonio. The agreement was negotiated behind closed doors and was kept secret from the public until it was approved last night.

Even worse, the city council gave TTC the rights to develop a project the taxpayers have already paid for, the expansion of FM 1103, the city’s primary connection to I-35. By doing so, they’ve granted a private corporation a virtual monopoly over the existing non-toll competitor to its private toll road. TTC can intentionally slow down the free option to force more cars onto its for-profit toll road by manipulating speed limits, access points, and stop lights. It’s a developer’s dream and a commuter’s worst nightmare.

The city tried to reassure residents there is no non-compete clause, prohibiting or penalizing the city from building any competing free roads. The agreement may still bind the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the county from expanding free roads. But who knows since no member of the public could see it before the council voted on it? So while the city touts it’s protected taxpayers from a non-compete provision, it handed TTC control of the adjacent competing free lanes of FM 1103, achieving a form of a non-compete out the gate.

The agreement offers no way out for the city, except an eventual buy out opportunity after the road gets built. But those buy out agreements are just as thorny as these complex development contracts. Most private toll road developers require the public entity to pay them for any future loss in toll revenue, often making it more expensive to buy them out than the original cost to build it.

One has to wonder how any elected official could green light approval of a project before a toll feasibility study has been performed, the environmental review complete, or final route selected. It’s worse than putting the cart before the horse, it’s putting special interests above the public interest. The company insisted on having an irrevocable agreement in place with the city before it invested $10-$12 million for the feasibility study. Nice work if you can get it, but what about the taxpayer?

No formal public hearings were hosted by TxDOT to notify residents of the proposed project, so unless you happen to look at the city council agenda every two weeks, a resident had no way of knowing what just happened, much less have the ability to stop it since the majority of it was done behind closed doors with a private entity.

Throwing landowners under the bus
Cibolo has become a bedroom community of San Antonio, but before homes stacked the landscape, Cibolo’s roots were decidedly agricultural with farming and ranching dating back to Texas’ days as a republic. The mayor and council weren’t afraid to show their intentions when public discussion about this possible private toll road began to surface last year. Their primary interest is in economic development, which is code for flipping farmland into a commercial tax base. The city acted so desperate for new economic development, it signaled to TTC that it would sell out its current residents for the promise of a higher tax base from its new ones.

The southern boundary of the city that was most recently annexed occurred over the objection of many landowners. Now their worst fears have been realized as a private developer who cozied up to the mayor and council got himself an iron clad contract to mow them over and change their way of life. Roads are disruptive to the native landscape and often split farms in half. Many will not be able to continue farming or even have the ability to access the other side of their property without an overpass (built at the developer’s expense, which isn’t going to happen in most cases). That’s the city’s intent – to drive out the farmers and welcome in big box stores generating lots of sales tax for it to spend. New residents, more traffic, and, they hope, more riders for the toll road.

Eminent domain for private gain
The city has agreed to use eminent domain to take land from its residents and confer it to a private entity for private gain, not for a legitimate public use. While the road is open to the public (so is a mall or restaurant) if they pay a toll, this arrangement is for a private toll road whose corporation will use the city’s police force to become its private toll collector and speed enforcer.

John Crew Public WerksWhile the politicians argued eminent domain would only be used as a last resort, that’s the club TTC’s CEO John Crew needs to get landowners to sign over their land in negotiated settlements. We’ve seen it used prolifically — sign on the dotted line for the amount we’re offering or we’ll take it with eminent domain and pay you even less.

Numbers don’t add up
In town of just 25,000 residents, it’s hard to conceive of how any toll road could be profitable. The city must be banking on literally hundreds of thousands of new residents to make the numbers work. Cities with populations over a million and lots of urban congestion have toll roads that can’t pay for themselves. It just doesn’t add up that this little city will provide enough users to pay back $125 million plus interest, plus profit over 50 years. No elected official has any control over the eventual toll rates that will be charged. So there is no cap or limit. While the consultants tried to say the free market would keep rates in check, roads by their very nature are a monopoly. Just ask the residents in Ft. Worth and Dallas who are paying a private Spanish firm in excess of $20/day in tolls to get to work if they think that’s market rate or reasonable.

But numbers and data don’t matter. The city council seems to think they’re getting something for nothing — even if the toll road goes bankrupt, they get it back at a fire sale price. But the private company knows how to make money even when a toll road goes bankrupt. They put in very little of their own money and borrow the rest. The developer makes their money on the front end so that when it goes south, it’s the bond holders who are at risk, not the developer. If the road goes into bankruptcy, the road will remain operational, but control then gets handed to the bond investors in bankruptcy court where a bunch of the debt gets written down and off the books and the investors hire another operator, starting the process all over again. Control does not revert back to the public or the city. Only if the city exercises its buy out option would the residents get it back under public control.

Taxpayer money in play
The city manager and its lawyers bragged the city had no financial risk in the deal, yet, ironically, the city had to hire extra legal and engineering consultants to review the agreement, which is, of course, at taxpayer expense. There’s more to come since next up is negotiating the formal operating agreement. Policing of this private toll road will also be done by city police. While the developer is supposedly responsible for paying to hire the extra personnel, who is responsible for those public employees’ pensions, benefits, etc.? I’d bet money it’s the taxpayers. Who will collect the tolls and what enforcement does the private company have access to? If it’s anything like the SH 130 tollway, TxDOT does the toll collection and state law allows a user’s vehicle registration to be blocked for failure to play tolls, even when it’s for a private toll road.

The city, like TxDOT, loves to claim the road and right of way is still technically owned by the city and hence the public, but that’s only so the private toll company can use the public’s policing and enforcement powers for its for-profit toll enterprises. For tax purposes, these corporations show ownership and depreciate it like an asset.

Then there’s the tax money it would take to buy out the private developer at some point in the future. No matter how you slice it, Cibolo residents just got sold out by their elected officials. They’ve lost control of FM 1103, the ability to determine the toll rates, the route, the exits, the overpasses, the toll collection procedures, and a whole bunch more. Taxpayers will be paying for extra consultants and legal haggling for the foreseeable future. Accountability at the ballot box will now be your only recourse. Sadly, there are no remaining pain-free options.

Tolls aren’t necessary, do what the public voted for

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Link to Op/Ed here.

Use Prop 1, Prop 7 funds to fix Loop 1604 without tolls
By Terri Hall
Founder, Texans for Toll-free Highways
February 28, 2017
San Antonio Express-News

Much in the same way taxpayers got the message about tolls being inevitable on US 281 and I-10, the Express-News editorial told our community, ‘Tolls are necessary, deal with it.’ Taxpayers don’t appreciate being told what to do, especially when it comes to the long arm of government reaching into our wallets. Contrary to the narrative, tolls are no longer a ‘user fee’ where only those who use the toll lanes pay for them. When $326 million in our gas taxes will be used to subsidize the construction of toll lanes inside Loop 1604, everyone will pay for them. But only the select few who can fork over up to $23 a day in tolls will be able to use them.

That’s right. The plan calls for dynamic tolling where the toll rate changes in real time and can reach the maximum during peak hours, which is $.50/mile. So if you need to drive all 23 miles during rush hour, you’re looking at $23/day in new toll taxes to use lanes your gas taxes helped pay to build. That’s double taxation and warrants a taxpayer revolt. Tolls, once imposed, tend to never disappear. If it’s one thing a government bureaucrat won’t give up, it’s an unaccountable revenue stream in the hands of unelected boards. They can always find a use for your money.

Local elected officials are banking on voters having a short memory. They want you to forget about passage of Prop 1 and Prop 7 that together with the end to most gas tax diversions will boost the highway fund nearly $5 billion more per year. A recent report states that an additional $80 billion in new road funds will be available in the next 10 years. Yet the Express-News says there’s still not enough money, and you miserly taxpayers should agree to a gas tax hike, tolls, and anything else they can dream up to steal your money, like the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority’s agenda to secure another hike in your vehicle registration fee. This is AFTER the $10 fee hike Bexar county elected officials got passed in 2013.

Let’s not forget Governor Greg Abbott’s campaign promise to fix our roads without raising taxes, fees, tolls, or debt. He unveiled his Texas Clear Lanes Initiative last year promising Prop 1 and Prop 7 funds would go to the most congested roads across the state. Yet the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (AAMPO) chose to spend our community’s new funds on lower priority projects so that they can profit off of the congestion on the north side and impose tolls. In fact, Loop 1604 on the south and east side of town will get Loop 1604 expanded without tolls, while north side commuters are told ‘tolls are necessary, deal with it.’

Taxpayers should not stand for a targeted, discriminatory toll tax to be imposed on the north side against their will. The AAMPO votes on it March 27. Make your voices heard.

DOUBLE TAX: Alamo board votes to use gas taxes to put tolls on Loop 1604

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On January 23, the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (AAMPO) board, comprised of local officials, voted to grant $326 million in YOUR federal gas taxes to plop toll lanes down the middle of Loop 1604. TxDOT can’t toll anything without the MPO’s blessing, which the MPO just granted.

The toll rates are dynamic and change in real time ranging from 18 cents a mile up to 50 cents per mile – you pay the max during peak hours! The toll lanes would stretch 22.8 miles from Bandera Rd. on the west side to I-35 on the east side (see Express-News article on it here). The excuse is there isn’t enough money to fix all our roads without tolls, despite voters giving TxDOT $5 billion more PER YEAR in NEW funds to prevent tolling.

TxDOT made sure they used up all the new funds on low priority projects instead of fixing the most congested corridors FIRST, as Gov. Greg Abbott directed them to do. Governor Abbott also campaigned saying NO MORE TOLLS! The local MPO board doesn’t care about your state government trying to restrain taxes. They want a network of toll lanes on ALL San Antonio freeways (as its managed lane report revealed at this meeting) so buses and REGISTERED carpoolers get a fast ride while making solo drivers PAY MORE to get anywhere.

What does HOV require?

HOV means High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. Yesterday, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (or ARMA, the unelected toll authority) admitted only carpools pre-approved by their government agency get a free ride in these HOV-transit-toll managed lanes. So only government-approved co-workers going to a specific daily business destination get approval for a free ride, not you and your family hopping in the HOV lanes on the way to soccer practice.

ACTION ITEM

This isn’t going to STOP unless we make it STOP, despite promises from Abbott or any other politician.

Contact your elected officials and tell them STOP using our gas taxes to build toll roads. If a road is expanded with tax money, it should stay a FREEway!

1) Contact San Antonio city councilmembers here.
2) Contact Bexar County Commissioners here.
3) Find out who your U.S. senators, U.S. congressman and state representative and state senator are here.

(NOTE: The federal officials have allowed these local MPOs to spend federal gas taxes on toll roads and use incentives to keep tolls coming, so do your STATE officials. )

WHO ARE THE CULPRITS?

The only two courageous ‘nay’ votes were Selma Councilman Kevin Hadas and New Braunfels Councilman Ron Reaves.

Elected officials who voted to spend your gas taxes on toll roads were (it was a voice vote but here’s the best list we have):

Kevin Wolff, Bexar County Commissioner
Ron Nirenberg, San Antonio City Council
Shirley Gonzales, San Antonio City Council
Roberto Trevino, San Antonio City Council
Kevin Webb, Comal County Commissioner
Kyle Kutscher, Guadalupe County Judge
Don Keil, Seguin Mayor
Chris Riley, Leon Valley Mayor
Ron Cisneros, Boerne City Council

No shows –
Tommy Calvert, Bexar County Commissioner
Chico Rodriguez, Bexar County Commissioner
Ray Lopez, San Antonio City Council

The rest of the 23 member board is comprised of unelected bureaucrats who always vote to increase your taxes through tolls.

Boerne Councilman Ron Cisneros (who’s trying to get a promotion and is running for Kendall County Commissioner) actually attacked MPO Board members trying to stick up for the taxpayer and reject double taxation. Kudos to Selma Councilman Kevin Hadas for calling tolls what they are – a new tax that grow government bureaucracy.

Cisneros said he didn’t mind paying tolls. Well, what about everyone else who can’t afford it, or those who don’t want any form of double taxation or who simply don’t want another unaccountable tax or bureaucrats trying to social engineer people out of their cars and onto buses? He represents taxpayers, not himself, on this board.

Note to Trump: Key states tossed pro-toll incumbents

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Link to article here.

Trump take heed: Toll roads a factor in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas election
By Terri Hall
November 9, 2016
Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research

With the historic election of Donald Trump to the American Presidency, it signals a total repudiation of the political establishment by the working class. You could call it the election of the American worker. But analysts would be remiss if they failed to overlook how toll roads played a part in several races in key states.

One of the most notable races is for governor in North Carolina — must-win state for Trump that went red. Yet, Republican Governor Pat McCrory is in a nail biter photo finish to retain his seat in a state that went Republican last night. The very real threat by Democrat Roy Cooper who claimed victory Wednesday morning, though most still believe the race too close to call, is in part due to McCrory losing support among his base thanks to his approval of the controversial public private partnership (P3) toll project on Interstate-77 in Charlotte.

Citizens lost their battle in the courts and the legislature to stop the state from handing the public’s vital interstate over to the control of a private, foreign corporation in a 50-year deal.

Then, the focus turned to Governor McCrory to cancel the contract. Cooper, the current Attorney General, said in the Charlotte Business Journal in August that McCrory would have “to admit now that he cut a bad deal for North Carolina. He should stop stalling and cancel this contract that never should have been signed to begin with.” McCrory didn’t budge to his own peril.

In Florida, another must-win state that went red for Trump, former House Transportation Committee Chairman, Congressman John Mica lost his seat to newcomer Stephanie Murphy. While some blame his defeat on redistricting bringing in more minority voters to his suburban district, Mica lost touch with his base due in part to his longstanding support for toll roads, particularly P3s. Mica brought tolls to I-4 using congestion pricing, forcing drivers to pay a premium to drive during peak hours. The hidden tax hurts suburbanites harder than urban dwellers since they experience longer commutes and pay more in tolls. He failed to stop the toll bloodletting when taxpayers revolted. So the untold story in this race is about the rise of the middle class worker struggling to make ends meet amidst stagnant wages, staggering health premiums, and ever growing taxes.

In Texas, a state without which no Republican can win the White House, Dallas State Representative Kenneth Sheets also became tone deaf to his conservative base on toll roads. The Dallas-Ft.Worth metroplex is ground zero for toll managed lane projects and soon will boast the largest managed lane network in the country. Taxpayers are none too happy. Though Sheets didn’t go all-in for tolling, he cozied up to the establishment, played footsy with too many controversial bills, scored poorly on legislative report cards, and lost his base. As a result, Sheets lost his seat to Democrat Victoria Neave, who said tolls are a hidden tax and should not advance without local support.

Now back to Mr. Trump. Days before the election, Trump announced his plan to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure without raising taxes by harnessing the private sector. Voters in these key states know that’s code for P3s and toll roads. They’re not fooled into thinking tolls are not a tax. Their pocketbooks have already been sufficiently raided enough to know the dangers of handing the sovereignty over our public roads to private for-profit companies who are given a blank check to charge punitive tolls during congested periods.

Trump’s anti-free trade message resonated because it hurt the American worker. Tolls likewise, hurt the American working class — and hard. Considering these three must-win states for a Republican president just tossed incumbents over toll projects, voters trust Mr. Trump will read the tea leaves and advance a transportation vision and policy that’s pro-freedom, pro-taxpayer, and pro-worker. Voters need to watch closely who he appoints as Transportation Secretary.

Former governors like Rick Perry made road privatization and tolls the centerpiece of his transportation policy for 14 years, and he’s vying for a position in the new Trump administration. Perry would be a disastrous choice considering Texans just elected a new Governor Greg Abbott who campaigned against toll roads and has made a marked departure from privatization. Americans expect Trump to surround himself with like-minded advisers who will set a course consistent with his campaign message. Millions will be watching and waiting.

BOMBSHELL: Senators find out tolls charged on roads that are paid for

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Sparks fly as senators discover numerous toll roads with no debt on them, prompts call to remove tolls
By Terri Hall
September 15, 2016

It’s not often that the very sleepy subject of transportation offers a fiery discussion, but yesterday’s Senate Transportation Committee meeting did not disappoint. In a rare olive branch extended to grassroots anti-toll advocacy groups, Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and Texans for Toll-free Highways, Chairman Senator Robert Nichols invited them to address the committee about one of its interim studies – a study on the elimination of toll roads.

Just the title evokes strong emotions on both sides of the issue, and those emotions were in plain view Wednesday. Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Executive Director James Bass laid out the numbers of how much it would cost to retire tolls on roads built with state funds. Let me say that again, toll roads that were built with state money. That means gasoline taxes and other state funds were used to build the road, but Texas drivers are being charged again, through tolls, to use it — a double tax scheme.

An early pay-off would cost $24.2 billion, while the existing debt as of January 1, 2016, was $21.6 billion. That’s what building roads with debt begets. It costs far more than paying cash, anywhere from 40% more to 100% more. TxDOT now spends over $1 billion a year in payments to cover its debt. If the toll bonds stay on course to the final pay-off dates, the cost mushrooms to $39.9 billion.

The use of public funds to, in essence, bail out toll projects that cannot pay for themselves with the toll revenues only, was the subject of much consternation by the conservatives on the committee. Senator Lois Kolkhorst has twice authored the bill to make tolls come off the road when the debt is repaid. She was quick to jump in and grill Bass on the Loop 375 Border West Highway toll project in El Paso.

Bass called it a unique financial arrangement, and Kolkhorst, visibly irritated, responded, ’Well, explain that ‘unique’ arrangement.”

First, the entire project is paid for state funds. Not one penny of debt is owed, yet drivers will be be charged tolls to use it (it’s currently under construction). The project is jointly owned by the state and the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority (or RMA), even though the RMA put no funds into the project. In fact, the state gave them $500 million in Texas Mobility Funds which granted the RMA ownership in proportion to that dollar amount, and the state paid the $130 million balance of the $630 million project with gasoline taxes. So the state gave away over 80% ownership to an unelected toll authority who will reap over 80% of the toll revenues for a 100% paid for highway.

It’s no wonder the senators suffered from shock.

“So we paid the RMA for their ownership. That’s a pretty good deal,” Kolkhorst quipped sarcastically.

“Let me get this straight. The state of Texas put money into a project and then gave half of the ownership to an RMA where they will forever in perpetuity get half of the revenue?”

Bass corrected her and said it was actually more than half the ownership and revenue.

“So this is what I don’t understand and this is the problem. The road is paid for. Now we’re going to create a toll road for the people of El Paso, and I’m just going to say this okay, because all of that is tax money, and that’s worse than I’ve ever seen…this is not right,” Kolkhorst expressed with frustration.

“At what point do you say, we shouldn’t toll this because it’s paid for? At what point do we say there’s no debt on this road, it’s paid for, and, by the way, you get to pay for it again, AND to add insult to injury, the people that paid for it never get the money back? Does that make sense to anybody in this room? This is what frustrates lawmakers like me when we try to give TxDOT money… It’s more expensive to build a toll road, so we paid more for it than we would have it had been non-tolled,…so enough!”

Senator Bob Hall echoed her frustration and pursued it further, “There are numerous toll roads that have no debt on them, and they’re still being tolled.”

Camino Columbia in Laredo, Cesar Chavez in El Paso, SH 130 (the state-operated northern 49 miles from Georgetown to Mustang Ridge) and SH 45 in the Austin area, the Katy Freeway managed toll lanes and the entire Metro High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in Houston, parts of the Grand Parkway around Houston (segments 1-2A), the DFW connector, and the I-30 managed toll lanes (in fact most all of the managed toll lanes) in Dallas all have no debt and should have the tolls come down immediately. Every one of those lanes was built with state and federal funds, no debt is owed, and yet officials charge tolls simply to profit off of congestion and as a means to manipulate people and traffic.

Hall keyed in on Bass’ statement that several of the toll managed lane projects in Dallas-Ft. Worth had no debt and charged tolls to ‘control traffic through pricing.’ That’s a staggering admission for a highway department run by a conservative governor who prides himself on lowering taxes and taking on government overreach.

Hall insisted TxDOT drop such a punitive approach that seeks to control people, punish and discriminate against the poor, and use something that’s cheaper to implement and doesn’t cost the driver anything, like today’s technologically advanced ramp metering.

Senator Don Huffines chimed in with similar sentiments concluding tolls “are segmenting society between those who can afford tolls and those who can’t and it’s bad policy.”

Public testimony brought in the taxpayers’ perspective and gave a glimpse into the rage over tolls being charged on roads that are paid for. The GOP platform has a plank to remove tolls when the debt is repaid as well as a plank opposing the use of any public funds to build, subsidize or otherwise bail out toll projects. The Democratic platform also opposes toll roads. That’s the tip of the iceberg, though. A group of outraged citizens are preparing a class action lawsuit over the abusive toll collection practices that are are imposing fines and fees that financially ruin people and that allows unelected toll authorities to impound vehicles and block vehicle registration.

Many Texans are paying upwards of $300 a month in tolls just to get to work. Since the privatized toll projects opened, one has gone bankrupt, SH 130 (segments 5 & 6), and two in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex use dynamic or ‘congestion pricing’ (where the toll is based on the level of congestion) to soak the traveling public, charging up to $50 a day in tolls.

Perhaps the most surprising concessions of the day came from Nichols’ himself. Known as the most ardent opponent of removing tolls in order to keep paying for road maintenance, Nichols actually advocated removing tolls from the Camino Columbia toll road. Tolls are generating ten times the cost of maintaining it.

Taking tolls off Camino Columbia would “to me, be a no brainer…you could pull the tolls down tomorrow if you wanted to,” suggested Nichols.

Nichols also asked TxDOT to study the effectiveness of HOV lanes. HOV lanes have come under fire as many of them now have a toll element for single occupant vehicles known as High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes, which are highly underutilized and actually make congestion worse on the surrounding general purpose lanes. He suggested the Department look at pre-HOV traffic data and post-HOV traffic data to actually see whether or not HOV lanes have successfully changed behavior and encouraged more carpooling or simply captured those who were already carpooling.

If it hasn’t actually successfully changed behavior, “I have a real problem with it,” expressed Nichols. “Police have more important things to do than count heads in an HOV lane.”

The research is virtually unanimous already. According to Jack Mallinckrodt’s study The Best Evidence of HOV Lane Effectiveness, he determined, “In all the known complete transportation modeling studies that have quantitatively evaluated (overall congestion and/or polluting emissions), optimal performance occurs in the natural, unrestricted Mixed-Flow operational mode. In all these cases, any attempt to preferentially restrict the natural free distribution of traffic, whether by HOV or HOT (High Occupancy Toll) operation, made overall congestion and emissions worse… And the findings are essentially unanimous in saying that under typical conditions, maximum transportation benefit…is afforded by unrestricted, mixed-flow, rather than HOV operation.”

HOV/HOT lanes may very well be on the ropes in Texas. House Transportation Committee Chair Joe Pickett shares Nichols’ distaste for HOV lanes calling them ineffective and a waste of capacity in a growing state. Pickett also argues they make congestion worse, which studies confirm, like the one recently conducted by Inrix that concluded congestion on the general purpose lanes got worse after the HOT lanes opened.

This is good news for congestion weary, toll weary commuters who are tired of being the guinea pigs of urban planners, who delight in imposing road scarcity to manipulate people out of their cars and into a bus or carpool. Conservatives clearly got the message that tolls play into the hands of social engineers who want to control the populace, and that tolls are abusive and double taxing Texans, which threatens the sustainability of the Texas economic miracle.

Give Doug Miller the boot!

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We endorse Kyle Biedermann for Texas House District 73. Kyle earned an ‘A’ rating from anti-toll watchdog Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and signed onto the anti-toll pledge and legislative priorities for Texans for Toll-free Highways.

Time to oust pro-toll Doug Miller
Incumbent for Texas House District 73
Average grade on Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) Transportation and Property Rights Legislative Report Card is a ‘D-‘

Miller voted to allow (HB 1112, in 2011) unelected toll bureaucracies to keep tolls on our roads even after they’re paid for (hence perpetual taxation), and to authorize Robin Hood ’system financing’ for toll roads that take toll revenues from one corridor to pay for another so that it’s no longer the user of the road paying for the road, but stealing from Peter to pay Paul, which is socialism for roads. The bill also allows multi-leveraged debt, which is what necessitated the $1 trillion Fannie Mae mortgage bailout. So Miller approved building roads, in essence, with credit cards that’s the equivalent of taking out a second mortgage on our highway system.

Miller voted for, SB 1110 (in 2013), that heists property taxes (through appraisal increases) for transportation projects and expands the use of Transportation Reinvestment Zones (TRZ) from strictly FREEways to toll roads, rail, transit, and dedicated bike lanes. So Miller wants your local property taxes to be used to bail out toll roads that can’t pay for themselves. Don’t count on your property tax bill going down when unelected boards obligate your taxes to bail out loser toll projects for a half century.

The bill also allows unelected toll bureaucracies to grab LOCAL sales tax in the ‘zone’ for STATE highway projects. So TRZs allow state officials to pass its obligation to properly fund and maintain the state highway system onto LOCAL taxpayers while they spend our gasoline taxes on non-road uses. This is also how state and local officials do an end run around voters for bond elections and empower an unelected toll authority to issue bonds that obligate generations of Texans to pay for toll projects and other things they don’t approve of.

Miller also voted for SB 1730 (in 2013) that authorizes nearly two dozen highway projects to be sold-off to private toll operators in sweetheart deals for a half century. These public private partnership contracts erode state sovereignty over public infrastructure, permit eminent domain for private gain, allow private corporations the power to charge punitively high toll taxes without limit to use public roads, contain non-compete clauses that penalize or prohibit expansion of free routes, and dole out taxpayer money to guarantee the private firm’s losses along with other taxpayer guarantees to ensure the private developer never loses money on the deal. Such deals cost DFW commuters up to $24 a day to get to work using a 10-mile private toll lane on I-635. In fact, Miller authored an amendment (amendment #3) to sell-off SH 16 between Fredericksburg and Kerrville to one of these foreign corporations!

Miller chairs the Special Purpose District Committee that authorizes Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs). This is the primary means for private developers to gain access to eminent domain for private gain. MUDs are being used to heist land across the Hill Country, and rather than shield landowners from these abuses, Miller facilitates it. Developers reward Miller by filling his campaign coffers. That’s how he’s fueled his nasty million dollar re-election campaign.

It’s past time for Miller to get the boot!

Vote for Kyle Biedermann on May 24.
Polls are open from 7 AM – 7 PM.

Villalba dogs anti-toll senators over LBJ East

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Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something else happens that still manages to shock you. Well, this mean-spirirted editorial by State Rep. Jason Villalba and Dallas Councilman Adam McGough takes toll road politics to a whole new level. Read this outrageous hit piece that actually claims the survival of the Dallas area as a ‘world class city’ depends on a toll lane on I-635 East. Our response is below it.

ACTION ITEM
Support our anti-toll Good Guys! Send in a Letter to the Editor in support of Sen. Bob Hall and Sen. Don Huffines for their efforts to secure a non-toll LBJ East.
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Link to editorial here.
EDITORIAL: Villalba and McGough: Stop stalling the LBJ 635 East Project
By Jason Villalba and Adam McGough
Dallas Morning News
April 4, 2016

When running for political office in North Texas, whether for State Senate, the Texas House or the Dallas City Council, one quickly learns there is a single issue that unifies all citizens, political parties, business leaders, chambers of commerce, rotary clubs and community groups. To a person, all agree there is a current and growing need for more robust and efficient transportation infrastructure in Dallas County and all of North Texas.

Nowhere is this problem more salient than on Highway 635 from Central Expressway to Interstate Highway 30. The congestion, disrepair and clumsy layout of the primary transport artery in the north east quadrant of the county becomes evident after driving just a few minutes on that roadway.

As Dallas continues to grow at a pace that eclipses the rest of the state, our elected officials must endeavor to immediately find and implement solutions that address these needs in a way that works for all of our citizenry and our businesses. In the age of righteous indignation and well-intentioned fealty to ideological shibboleths, Dallas simply cannot afford to stand athwart the progress that is such a vital component of our growth and survival as a world class city.

And yet, certain of our officials continue to do just that. Anger and good intentions may win at the ballot box, but they will not fund the projects necessary to keep our highways running smoothly and efficiently.

No Texan, including the authors of this editorial, wants to utilize tolled roads to address our transportation shortfalls. We recognize that the hard working people of Texas pay their taxes to the state and that the state owes them a duty to find a way to provide the necessary services of government, including transportation. A tolled highway can, in some cases, become an additional tax on drivers.

But with respect to the proposed plan to create seven new lanes (each way) on Highway 635 from Central Expressway to IH-30, a project often referred to as the LBJ 635 East Project, the toll lanes are managed. This means you will only drive on a tolled lane if you choose to do so, similar to the Disney Fast Pass, which allows visitors to the theme parks to pay a fee to save a place in line. If you want to skip traffic at a busy hour or take advantage of a guaranteed travel speed to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a managed toll lane will give you that opportunity. If you aren’t in a rush, you can choose not to pay. That is not a tax. That is Texas-style freedom.

The experts with the Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation Council tell us that without the managed toll lanes, the LBJ 635 East Project will either never get completed in its current proposed form or will take more than twice as long to complete than currently projected. Yet, State Senators Don Huffines and Bob Hall, neither of whom have any particular expertise in transportation, have fought vociferously and adamantly to oppose any project whatsoever that contains a tolled component. These principled positions might be admirable if they were not so detrimental to those who are impacted every day by such inaction. The lack of construction sound walls and the presence of unwieldy and severe congestion on 635 East make it one of the most unpleasant and dangerous stretches of highway in the region.

The citizens of Dallas should be outraged at this intransigence. We should be well on our way to getting the transportation infrastructure our great city needs. And yet here we stand, into the second quarter of 2016 and eight short months until the next legislative session, and not one shovel of dirt has been moved to fix one of Dallas’ most pressing problems.

The time is now for real and courageous leadership on the issue of transportation in Dallas. The authors of this opinion piece and many other elected officials in the region stand with you, the people of Dallas, Garland and Mesquite, and we demand that the LBJ 635 East Project, in its current proposed form, be approved and initiated immediately. We ask you to call your senator, state house representative or city council member and urge them to approve the proposed changes or to explain to you why they oppose progress for Dallas. This issue is simply too important to wait on the sidelines while the just-say-no caucus finds its way.

Jason Villalba is a Republican representative in the Texas House and can be reached at jason.villalba@house.state.tx.us Twitter @jasonvillalba. Adam McGough is a Dallas City Council member. Reach him at adam.mcgough@dallascityhall.com.

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TURF response

Unlike Villalba and McGough, anti-toll champions, Senator Bob Hall and Senator Don Huffnes, are actually working to fix LBJ East without raising taxes rather than hide behind the empty propaganda of a politcially motivated editorial. Shame on the Dallas Morning News for allowing such an attack piece to run in its paper without at least giving the other side equal time on the same page.

These two senators campaigned against toll roads and won their races against entrenched incumbents who supported and voted for toll roads. Huffines even knocked out the former Senate Tranpsortation Committee Chair, John Carona. They stand with Governor Greg Abbott who also campaigned with the promise to fix our roads without raising taxes, fees, or tolls, and he was elected by a wide margin over his pro-toll opponent, Wendy Davis. So it’s clear what the voters want and it ain’t more toll roads.

Elected officials have a duty to represent their constituents and to keep their campaign promises. Villalba and McGough claim that these senators are somehow causing some sort of delay in fixing Interstate 635 East (from US-75 to I-30) yet few have worked harder to prioritize this project and secure funding for expansion of I-635 E and to do it without tolls.

Villalba neglects to mention that the Texas Senate made Prop 7 a priority and passed it early last session as one of Governor Abbott’s emergency items. However, the House dragged its feet and delayed passage until the final days of the session. Together with Prop 1 and finally ending many of the diversions of the state gasoline tax to non-road purposes amounts to the largest infusion of road funding in Texas history. TxDOT said it needed $5 billion a year to stop having to resort to toll roads, and thanks to our great new senators Bob Hall and Don Huffines, TxDOT now has $5 billion a year more in the state highway fund for non-toll projects.

Building and maintaining roads and infrastructure is one of the core functions of government, and it’s clealry a top priority for both senators since they both sit on the Senate Transportation Committee. Villalba, however, is the one with no transportation experience. He’s never sat on the House Transportation Committee or lifted a finger to help stop the toll onslaught or address transportation issues as a House member. In contrast, Senators Hall and Huffines promised to fight toll roads and that’s exactly what they’re doing.

Villalba and McGough also claim tolls are needed in order to fund I-635 E. Yet the Texas Department of Transportation’s traffic and revenue studies show that tolls are insufficient to fund the proposed tolled portion of this project. So pushing tolls on I-635 E is a double tax scheme since tolls are not remotely economically feasible and tax dollars are needed to make any toll scenario work. That’s double taxation and it’s unacceptable.

Villalba and McGough whine that “elected officials must endeavor to immediately find and implement solutions that address these needs in a way that works for all of our citizenry.” Yet, toll lanes are designed to price the vast majority of drivers out of the lanes, so tolling is not a solution that ‘works.’

Let’s not forget who the real beneficiary of a tolled I-635 E is — Cintra. Cintra operates and collects the enormously expensive tolls on I-635 W that, conveniently, feeds right into the proposed toll lanes on I-635 E.

In fact, such ‘congestion pricing’ actually bases the toll rate on the level of congestion, not the actual cost of building the project or retiring its debt. So during peak hours, Texans pay a premium to drive.

Tolls don’t equal ‘progress,’ or ‘Texas-style freedom,’ but rather they represent Rick Perry’s failed toll-leveraged debt model that allows big spending politicians like Villalba an easy way out of fiscal restraint, which would be funding priorities instead of more waste. All citizens, not just the elites deserve equal access to our state highways. Advocating a runaway tax on Texans is far from ‘courageous leadership,’ it’s tired political rhetoric from the past to cloak an economically unfeasible toll project as the silver bullet to traffic problems.

Straus, Wolff try to rewrite toll road history in San Antonio

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Straus, Wolff attempt to rewrite history on toll roads at election time
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
February 16, 2016

It’s always interesting to watch politicians try to re-write history when election time rolls around. A case in point is State Representative Joe Straus, Speaker of the Texas House, and Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff. Both have supported tolls in the past and they’ve put up persistent roadblocks to removing tolls from San Antonio road projects, but now they’re taking credit for expanding US 281 without tolls. Of course, this was after a total rebellion from the grassroots and residents in the corridor for over a decade. We heard repeatedly why we had to ‘accept’ tolls, why it was a ‘done deal,’ and why these powerful men ‘could do nothing about it.’

It wasn’t until Governor Greg Abbott campaigned against toll roads and advanced the largest infusion of new road funding in Texas history during his inaugural first year in office that either Straus or Wolff actually made a major effort to expand area highways without tolls — and that was largely due to the fact that grassroots anti-toll groups like Texans for Toll-free Highways advocated and won protections for taxpayers in the legislation prohibiting the new funding from being used on toll projects. That’s when the dominos started to fall.

Well, voters, it’s time to say ‘baloney’ at the ballot box and call their bluff. Early voting starts today in the Texas primary and runs through Friday, February 26. Election day is March 1. Both Straus and Wolff have strong anti-toll challengers. In House District 121 to unseat Straus, grassroots candidates Sheila Bean and Jeff Judson are making a strong run at the Speaker. Both are opponents of toll roads, and tolls will be an issue in that race. Incumbent Kevin Wolff, also has a strong anti-toll challenger with Ret. Lt. Navy Commander Michael Koerner seeking to unseat one of the members of a political family dynasty in Bexar County — the Wolffs. Tolls will also be an issue in the race. All three challengers face an uphill battle, but at a time when voter outrage with the political landscape — local, state and national — is at an all-time high, a perfect storm just may be brewing — enough to unseat these two entrenched incumbents of the political class.

Straus is arguably one of the most powerful men in Texas politics as Speaker. All House bills are controlled by his committee chair appointees. No legislation passes without his approval. Even if you get your bill out committee, it can again be stymied by the House Calendars Committee, stacked with Straus lieutenants, where bills go to die by not being placed on the House calendar for an actual floor vote. Straus has been the regular target of conservative challenges both during the election of a Speaker by House colleagues and on the ballot box for the State Representative seat. Straus has repeatedly blocked key conservative legislation like Abbott’s ethics reform, banning sanctuary cities, and even delayed the passage of Abbott’s road funding bill until the very last minute, watering it down and placing a sunset date on the vehicle sales tax fund transfer where it expires just one year after it kicks in.

Straus’ committee chairs over House Transportation have repeatedly blocked anti-toll reform bills, like making the tolls come off the road when it’s paid for to prevent perpetual taxation, removing loopholes that allow free lanes to be converted into toll lanes, and blocking the use of gas tax and other public funds from propping up toll projects that aren’t financially feasible.

Wolff sits on the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, or AAMPO, charged with deciding what area road projects are funded with tolls. He’s repeatedly voted to toll 281, Loop 1604, I-10, I-35 — literally dozens of toll projects across the Alamo city. He twice allowed funds to be stolen from 281 to fund Loop 1604 as a freeway, forcing tolls to stay on 281. Over one billion in uncommitted funds have come through the AAMPO since the citizens have challenged area toll roads, yet Wolff and Straus never fought to insist the previously allocated non-toll funding for 281 be restored or that those funds be prioritized to remove tolls from AAMPO plans.  Wolff even told voters they could ‘fry me for it later’ when he voted to keep tolls on 281, despite new funding making non-toll possible. He allowed the 281 funds to be taken for Loop 1604 to appease his liberal Democrat colleagues on Commissioners Court.

Both Straus and Wolff support the latest version of the 281 debacle, too. Rather than return 281 to a complete non-toll expressway, they simply removed the toll element and kept the controversial conversion of two existing main lanes into HOV-bus lanes, that few cars will be able to access. So they’re shrinking highway main lane capacity from six lanes down to four.

They extol the virtues of the project and repeat the toll authority’s lie that they’re ‘doubling’ capacity on 281. Yet, all they’re actually ‘adding’ are frontage roads, not highway main lanes, and in fact, they’re taking away lanes by converting two lanes into the HOV-bus lanes. AAMPO officials, Via, and TxDOT admit the purpose of this road diet is to force Stone Oak, Fair Oaks, and Boerne commuters out of their cars and onto a bus.

While I-10 will also include an HOV-bus lane, that corridor will see a net increase of actual highway main lanes from four to eight, with two of those new lanes being the HOV-bus lanes. But no such luck for 281 users. Their misery will be made permanent, thanks to Kevin Wolff.

Wolff supports his father, County Judge Nelson Wolff’s, liberal attempts at behavior modification by forcibly imposing the HOV-bus lane conversion on 281 and the addition of an HOV-bus lane on I-10 because he won’t stand up to his dad and his love affair with unpopular Via projects. Nelson Wolff’s big government policies will hijack one of the remaining bastions of freedom Texans have enjoyed since the dawn of the highway program — freedom of mobility. Now a government bureaucrat will control when and how you can access highway lanes built with your tax money.

Straus and his staff defend the HOV-bus lane conversion on 281 to try and fool constituents into thinking they’re getting new highway capacity, when, in fact, they’re having two main lanes open to all cars today taken away and turned into restricted lanes controlled by Via. So even with the addition of overpasses, there will still be congestion in the 281 corridor for our lifetimes. Straus has also failed to deliver road funding to the Alamo city. Cities our size, like Ft. Worth, get triple the road funds of San Antonio, year after year, on Joe Straus’ watch. He promised to end the diversions from the state gasoline tax for several sessions but never got it done until Abbott made it a priority.

San Antonio deserves and must insist on more responsive, fiscally responsible leadership. Thankfully, voters have the opportunity to send these entrenched establishment politicians packing on March 1.

For a complete list of Texans for Toll-free Highways endorsements, go here: http://tollfreehighways.com.

HOV lane conversion on 281 in Alamo city will shrink capacity

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Link to article.

Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff makes erroneous statements in this News 4 story. The Alamo Area MPO’s own consultant said HOV lanes have done nothing to increase carpooling or alleviate congestion. Ginger Goodin of the Texas Transportation Institute testified before the MPO last month that HOV-bus lanes are designed to change behavior and get people to switch modes of transportation.

Then there’s Wolff’s claim that the 281 project will add 6 new lanes. The only new lanes they’re building are FRONTAGE ROADS, not general purpose highway lanes. There are NO NEW highway main lanes whatsoever in this project, and, in fact, the HOV lanes will convert two of the six existing general purpose lanes (open to all cars) into an HOV-bus restricted lane, actually shrinking existing capacity and leaving only 4 non-HOV lanes when today there are six.

The public has a right to know how congested this corridor will continue to be when they’re promising one thing and delivering another.

Millions set aside for highway improvements
By Emily Baucum
New 4 WOAI-TV
February 9, 2016

SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County leaders set aside millions of dollars Tuesday to help revamp two major highways: Loop 1604 out west, and Highway 281 on the far north side.

It’s all part of a nearly billion-dollar plan to improve roads in growing parts of town.

The plan no longer includes toll roads but it does include something else we’ve never seen in this area: carpool lanes.

Drivers on the far west side already know progress on Loop 1604 takes patience.

“It was just stop-and-go traffic,” driver Shanara Guishard said.

Work is underway to expand the highway and add overpasses.

“You’re always stuck waiting in traffic,” driver Jeremy Duran said.

Bexar County is one of several agencies putting money into the pot.

Commissioners set aside $52 million to revamp Loop 1604 from Highway 90 to Culebra, and they paved the way for improvements stretching all the way to Bandera.

“So you’ll have a full divided highway from Highway 90 to I-35,” Commissioner Kevin Wolff said.

Commissioners also set aside $48 million to revamp Highway 281 from Loop 1604 north to the county line. Construction will hopefully start in early 2017.

“Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Parkway, you will see a total of six new lanes,” Commissioner Wolff said. “Two of those will be HOV lanes.”

They’ll be the first carpool lanes in our area, and he says research shows they should relieve congestion.

“All the data says the HOVs should work,” Commissioner Wolff said. “But we also have the ‘get out of jail free’ card: if it doesn’t, we’ll just turn it into a general purpose free lane.”

Both projects will take a couple of years to complete. Commissioner Wolff says if they cost more than expected, TxDOT would be the agency on the hook.