Author: Terri Hall

Perry pulls plug on Trans Texas Corridor…but another lives on

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By Terri Hall
Express-News / Houston Examiner
October 6, 2009

If you believe Rick Perry, today he’s finally conceded the death of the initial Trans Texas Corridor foreign-owned toll road, land-grabbing superhighway that would have paralleled I-35, called TTC-35. However, there’s LOTS more to this story.

Perry would have us believe the announcement was because of the lack of political support, but since when does he care a flip about whether his toll road policies have political support? Look no further than his veto of eminent domain reform legislation, HB 2006, and the private toll moratorium bill, HB 1892, passed by a supermajority of the Texas Legislature in 2007 for proof.

There’s never been grassroots support for his hefty toll tax increases nor the Trans Texas Corridor. The REAL reason Perry’s highway department, the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT), put the nail in the coffin of TTC-35 was because it was under the threat of a federal lawsuit by a local government commission, the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission, which was formed to stop TTC-35 dead in its tracks.

There’s nothing that puts more fear in a politician up for re-election than a messy, well-publicized federal lawsuit against one of his most controversial, polarizing policies. So rather than risk certain death at the polls, Perry opted for the death of his beloved special interest TTC-35. Of course, the Texas Farm Bureau’s endorsement of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison for governor played a role in the timing of the announcement.

Hutchison said in a statement today: “The Trans-Texas Corridor will not be officially dead until Rick Perry is no longer governor and his political appointees are no longer running TxDOT. Texans can’t trust Rick Perry when it comes to protecting their land from the government, ceasing to lease our highways to foreign companies or ending the Trans-Texas Corridor.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Trans Texas Corridor #2 still alive & well
To demonstrate the point that Texas isn’t safe from Perry’s policies until he’s kicked out of office, the Trans Texas Corridor plan #2, known as TTC-69/I-69 in the hands of Spanish company ACS, is still on the table.

“Officials said that project (69), which unlike the I-35 plan would mainly involve expanding existing highways, remains alive,” according to the Austin American Statesman on October 6, 2009.

When over 28,000 Texans went on the record AGAINST TTC-69, it goes to show Perry’s same ol’ stubborn indifference to the people of Texas in regards to the Trans Texas Corridor.

He throws the public a bone over here (saying the “TTC-35 is dead”) in order to distract from an equally controversial debacle over there (TTC-69) that threatens to damage the environment, private property rights, and the economic prosperity of thousands of Texans.

Bottom line: Texans can’t trust Rick Perry to keep his word or to truly KILL his destructive, detested toll road agenda. The only sure way to keep Texas safe is to give Perry the boot!

TxDOT accounting tricks use funny money, cause us to lose $100 million in highway funds

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By Terri Hall
Express-News & Examiner
October 4, 2009
The average Joe barely puts his toe into the morass of transportation funding woes, but when the un-elected highway department becomes a defacto taxing entity through tolling, Joe’s pocketbook will soon take note.

Since Rick Perry led Texas away from a pay-as-you-go system into a borrow-toll-and-spend-money-we-don’t-have regime, TxDOT’s “books” have been in a complete shambles (ie – its $1.1 billion “accounting error” last year that derailed dozens of promised highway projects). It takes an incredible skill in accounting, that TxDOT apparently lacks, to keep up with the cashflow to cover mounds of toll road debt and the increasing number of promises the agency just can’t seem to keep.

The accounting trick this time involves something called “contract authority,” where the highway department can put a certain amount of money in projects under contract before there’s actually money there to do it. Federal and state lawmakers encourage this game played with what amounts to Monopoly money, and no one is the wiser until it catches up with them. Like it did a few days ago.

The federal highway bill that passed in 2005 just expired on September 30. President Obama has several front burner bills, healthcare and cap and trade, ahead of any new transportation bill and Congress couldn’t even agree on a 3 month extension bill, so it punted and passed a one month bill that continues the current law until a new bill or another extension bill is passed.

So you may have heard that the feds made over $8 billion in “rescissions” (or cuts) to highway funds, and will require the states to return money to Washington. Texas owes the feds $742 million. I mean how could they give us the money we send to Washington only to take it back again? Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, actually the vast majority of the rescissions don’t involve REAL money. It involves this “contract authority” nonsense where the project gets “obligated” with funny money that doesn’t exist, and rescissions only affect funds that aren’t obligated yet.

So in reality, only about $100 million in REAL money is actually at stake. Sadly, TxDOT could have avoided the $100 million loss by simply making sure all the federal money was obligated. By its own admission, TxDOT knew it was coming and didn’t properly prepare for it. Now it has to return $100 million in desperately needed transportation dollars when it has been claiming we’re completely OUT OF MONEY for roads in a scheme to make us accept Perry’s toll-everything policies. Thanks to TxDOT’s failure to obligate the funds, the “we’re out of money” mantra is getting some legs.

Perry, whose political appointees run the highway department, is playing the blame game in the government version of Monopoly, but he’s got no one to blame but himself.

Former Bush Transportation guru lobbies to privatize & toll public freeways

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Link to article here.

The revolving door continues as former Bush Transportation Secretary Mary Peters leaves a public appointment to lobby against taxpayers for the MOST expensive transportation tax, public private partnership (PPP) toll roads and a vehicle miles traveled tax (charge by the mile). Shouldn’t surprise us Zachry, Trans Texas Corridor and toll road extraordinaire, is one of her first clients. How cozy!

Web Posted: 10/03/2009

Transportation mileage tax urged

By David Hendricks – Express-News
SAN MARCOS — With gasoline tax revenue plummeting as people drive less and vehicles become more fuel efficient, federal and state agencies must find a new tax to maintain and expand the nation’s highway and road system, former U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said here Friday.Peters said she favored a vehicle miles tax, or VMT, as a replacement to the decades-old gasoline tax, not as a supplement to it.

“The technology exists for it,” Peters told about 400 people attending the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Growth Summit at the San Marcos Convention Center.

A vehicle miles tax would be levied by navigational devices in vehicles. Mileage information would be read by other devices at gasoline stations. The tax rate could be adjusted to higher rates for driving in high-traffic corridors and/or for larger, less-fuel efficient vehicles.

The only problem with the VMT technology involves privacy, she acknowledged, since personal information about trips, times and dates would be recorded.

“Americans are driving less, using less fuel and therefore contributing fewer revenues to transportation even at a time when our needs are increasing substantially,” said Peters, who was transportation secretary from 2006 to 2009 under then-President George W. Bush.

The federal highway trust fund required extra allocations beyond gasoline tax revenues the past two years to remain solvent, she said.

“Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are taking increasing amounts of federal nondefense discretionary revenues, leaving transportation to compete for funding with education, health care and climate change. We won’t win that battle,” she said.

Peters urged Texans to be heard in the debate as Congress prepares a new transportation budget, especially since Texas receives back only 92.5 cents for every $1 in gasoline tax it sends to Washington. Alaska, in comparison, receives $6 for every dollar and West Virginia about $4.

“I’m sure some of you are frustrated sitting in traffic in Texas when some of the funds are being used to restore covered bridges in Vermont, some of which don’t even carry traffic,” Peters said.

Peters said the federal highway funding formulas need to change to allow states more flexibility in determining how to spend their allocations.

Better highways are needed to reduce congestion.

“Here in the San Antonio area, you waste 26,000 gallons of fuel per year and lose more than 27,000 person hours to delay, at a cost of more than $27 million a year,” Peters said.

The Transportation Department also needs long-delayed allocations to modernize the air-traffic control system, she said. Airliners can fly more direct routes under a satellite-based navigation system and avoid the delays under the current ground-based radar equipment, Peters said.

Since leaving office in January, Peters has started her own company, Mary E. Peters Consulting Group. One of her clients is San Antonio’s Zachry American Infrastructure, a Zachry Corp. company. Peters is helping the company raise awareness of public-private partnerships in transportation projects.

Feds to take back $742 million in highway funds

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Link to article here. See also this news report on the rescissions from Jim Grimes. Read TURF’s Examiner and Express-News article that explains this accounting trick here.

$742 million in road funds previously promised to Texas to be taken back
Friday, Oct. 02, 2009
By GORDON DICKSON
Star-Telegram

The government puts money for road work in one pocket, then takes it out of another. It’s the type of thing many motorists are no doubt tired of hearing, but it’s happening again.

Earlier this year, billions of federal Recovery Act dollars were sent to the states — including $2.25 billion to Texas — to speed up road improvements, improve congestion for motorists in clogged metro areas and boost the economy. Local officials were optimistic that, with the stimulus funding, long-delayed projects could finally get off the ground.

Now, in a separate move that may delay road work across Texas, the Federal Highway Administration, in an effort to balance its books, is taking back $8 billion in highway funds. The so-called rescissions includes the loss of $742 million in funds previously promised to Texas.

The action leaves North Texas road planners scratching their heads, wondering how they can keep projects on track.

“It really is a very strange situation,” said Amanda Wilson, spokeswoman for the North Central Texas Council of Governments. “We’ve obviously funded our highest-priority projects first, but then the stimulus funding came in . . . so we found the next tier of projects. But now, if they’re taking away money from the priority projects we funded, now those next tier of projects jump over them in line.”

The rescission affects federal dollars that haven’t yet been obligated. It comes after Congress failed to extend a federal transportation authorization law, originally passed in 2005, beyond its expiration date Wednesday.

At stake are projects such as the Southwest Parkway, a planned toll road from downtown Fort Worth to Cleburne, and the expansion of Northeast Loop 820 and Texas 121/183 — known as North Tarrant Express. But those projects, along with the makeover of Grapevine highways known as the DFW Connector, are generally thought to be safe from rescissions. Those projects depend on an investment from private developers or toll revenue, or both.

Even so, the $742 million in lost federal revenue has to come from somewhere, and state and local officials will spend the coming weeks figuring out which road jobs can be delayed — at least until Congress patches things up and passes a new, multiyear transportation bill.

Texas has returned $1.9 billion in federal funds during the past four years, a Texas Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.

Luckily, Texas didn’t count on receiving most of the $742 million in a timely fashion, so it doesn’t have to slam the brakes on existing projects, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the council of governments. Instead, it’s more likely that about $100 million in actual road work will be delayed, including perhaps $25 million or more in Dallas-Fort Worth.

“A lot of this money never existed,” Morris said. “It won’t affect the contracts of any jobs already awarded, but it will affect projects we were committed to in the next two years,” he said.

It really is a very strange situation.”

Amanda Wilson,
North Central Texas Council of Governments spokeswoman

Follow the money…$45 billion in lobbyists vie for $550 billion in federal dollars

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Center for Public Integrity has researched and identified all the lobbyists for transportation at the federal level in an interactive map which also shows what they are being paid. They’ve discovered $45 billion in lobbying is being spent for a share of the $500 billion federal transportation bill.

Link to the site here and see more below.

Mapping the Transportation Lobby

Help Us Find Projects in Your Area

By The Center for Public Integrity | September 17, 2009, 5:00 am |
The interactive map here plots the nearly 1,800 public and private groups nationwide that are lobbying on transportation. Most of these groups — primarily cities, counties, transit agencies, or development and construction interests — are looking for congressional help to fund projects like new highways and transit systems.

Hutchison's ban on tolling existing roads extended

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Article linked here.

9/19/2009
Congress Renews Ban on Texas Toll Roads
Federal transportation appropriations legislation renews prohibition on new toll roads in Texas.Kay Bailey HutchisonThe US Senate on Thursday voted to renew a prohibition on the tolling of existing freeways in the state of Texas. The measure was adopted as part of a larger $123 billion transportation appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010, which passed the House in July.

“None of the funds made available… by this act shall be used to approve or otherwise authorize the imposition of any toll on any segment of highway located on the federal-aid system in the state of Texas,” HR 3288 states.

The ban is not complete. It includes exceptions for new construction, continued tolling on existing toll roads as well as the conversion of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes into High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes. Under congressional rules, funding prohibitions placed on appropriations bills must be renewed every two years. The toll road ban was last enacted in 2007.

Because the provision was championed by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the issue has taken on a sharper political angle. Hutchison is looking to snatch away the Republican nomination from Governor Rick Perry, feeding on public opposition to tolling. Perry’s campaign took shots at Hutchison for attempting to thwart the governor’s plans to toll existing freeways and for inserting earmarks for state transportation projects into the bill. Hutchison’s campaign fired back.

“Once again, Rick Perry is putting political gamesmanship above the needs of Texas,” Hutchison’s campaign responded. “Hutchison voted to ban toll roads and the double taxation of Texans on federally funded roads. This vote also increases the amount of federal tax dollars that come back to Texas for transportation needs, including much needed money to relieve traffic congestion.”

Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill must be worked out before it is sent to the president. Both chambers approved the anti-tolling measure.

Article Excerpt:

Excerpt from HR 3288

Sec. 125. (a) In General- Except as provided in subsection (b), none of the funds made available, limited, or otherwise affected by this Act shall be used to approve or otherwise authorize the imposition of any toll on any segment of highway located on the Federal-aid system in the State of Texas that–

(1) as of the date of enactment of this Act, is not tolled;

(2) is constructed with Federal assistance provided under title 23, United States Code; and

(3) is in actual operation as of the date of enactment of this Act.

(b) Exceptions-

(1) NUMBER OF TOLL LANES- Subsection (a) shall not apply to any segment of highway on the Federal-aid system described in that subsection that, as of the date on which a toll is imposed on the segment, will have the same number of non-toll lanes as were in existence prior to that date.

(2) HIGH-OCCUPANCY VEHICLE LANES- A high-occupancy vehicle lane that is converted to a toll lane shall not be subject to this section, and shall not be considered to be a non-toll lane for purposes of determining whether a highway will have fewer non-toll lanes than prior to the date of imposition of the toll, if–

(A) high-occupancy vehicles occupied by the number of passengers specified by the entity operating the toll lane may use the toll lane without paying a toll, unless otherwise specified by the appropriate county, town, municipal or other local government entity, or public toll road or transit authority; or

(B) each high-occupancy vehicle lane that was converted to a toll lane was constructed as a temporary lane to be replaced by a toll lane under a plan approved by the appropriate county, town, municipal or other local government entity, or public toll road or transit authority.

Vehicle tracking tax…what will they tax next?

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9/14/2009
Federal Proposal Would Spend $154 Million on Vehicle Tracking Tax
Oregon congressman wants to spend taxpayer money to develop nationwide vehicle tracking and taxing technologies.

Rep. Earl BlumenauerA Member of Congress proposes to use taxpayer money to fund the development of technology to track motorists as part of a new form of taxation. US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) introduced H.R. 3311 earlier this year to appropriate $154,500,000 for research and study into the transition to a per-mile vehicle tax system.

The “Road User Fee Pilot Project” would be administered by the US Treasury Department. This agency in turn would issue millions in taxpayer-backed grants to well-connected commercial manufacturers of tolling equipment to help develop the required technology. Within eighteen months of the measure’s passage, the department would file an initial report outlining the best methods for adopting the new federal transportation tax.

“Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,” Blumenauer said in a statement on the bill’s introduction. “A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption. It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America’s deteriorating infrastructure.”

In 2006, the Oregon Department of Transportation completed its own study of how to collect revenue from motorists with a new form of tax that, like the existing fuel excise tax, imposes a greater charge on drivers the more that they drive. The pilot project’s final report summed up the need for a VMT tax.

“Unfortunately, there is a growing perception among members of the public and legislators that fuel taxes have little to do with road programs and therefore should be considered ‘just another form of taxation,'” the March 2006 report stated. “By itself, this situation appears to be preventing any increases in fuel tax rates from being put into effect.”

The money diverted from the fuel excise tax on non-road related projects must be made up for with a brand new VMT tax, the report argued. Merely indexing the gas tax to inflation or improvements in fleet gas mileage was rejected as “imprecise.” Instead, the report urged a mandate for all drivers to install GPS tracking devices that would report driving habits to roadside Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) scanning devices.

Blumenauer is a long-time advocate of bicycling and mass transit in Congress. Many of his largest campaign donors stand to benefit from his newly introduced legislation. Honeywell International, for example, is a major manufacturer RFID equipment. The company also happens to be the second biggest contributor in the current cycle to Blumenauer’s Political Action Committee (PAC), the Committee for a Livable Future. Another top-ten donor, Accenture, is a specialist in the video tolling field.

H.R. 3311 awaits a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee. A copy of the bill is available in a 170k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: HR 3311 (Congress of the United States, 9/14/2009)

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U.S. Senate returns raided highway funds with interest, may get derailed

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Highway Bill Extension Includes $20 Billion Trust Fund Boost
Texas Insider
September 17, 2009

Bill reimburses trust fund for interest not paid since 1999.

The Senate is expected to bring to the floor a bill that would extend the surface transportation law by 18 months and include a transfer of almost $20 billion from the general fund to the Highway Trust Fund.  The $51.5 billion draft measure — a consolidation of three Senate committee-passed bills — keeps the current law, governing highway, transit and transportation safety programs, going until March 31, 2011.

The revenue section, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Finance Committee, has been folded into the full extension bill, bypassing a panel vote.

The Senate legislation transfers $7.3 billion from the general fund to repay the Highway Trust Fund for money taken out over the years for emergency spending. The Senate bill also would reimburse the trust fund on interest it has not been paid since 1999.

To make up for the lost interest payments, the Senate bill takes $7.7 billion from the general fund for the highway account and $4.8 billion for the mass transit account.

Opponents argue that offsets should be included to cover the loss to the general fund, but supporters say it is money that is owed to the trust fund.

Fiscal conservatives may stand in the way of passing the bill by a voice vote.

Congress had a similar debate before the August recess when it was forced to pass a $7 billion transfer to the highway trust in order to keep promised transportation money flowing to states. The president signed the bill Aug. 7.

URL to article: http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=15450

Ohio fills in gap to proposed nationwide toll network

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To view a map that shows the multi-state network, view the original article here.

E-ZPass expansion connects Midwest and East Coast
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

September 16, 2009

The USA moves one step closer to a nationwide highway tolling system next month when the Ohio Turnpike joins a network covering the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

The move on Oct. 1 will enable drivers equipped with E-ZPass transponders to travel from Maine to southern Virginia and west beyond Chicago and pay tolls electronically without stopping at toll booths. It’s another sign of the spread of electronic tolling as a convenience for drivers and an increasingly common way to finance roads.

Ohio’s decision to join E-ZPass creates an uninterrupted 14-state toll system, the nation’s largest. “We finally filled the hole in the donut,” says George Distel, executive director of the Ohio Turnpike Commission. “You can travel from Chicago to the East Coast. … We will all be linked with the same technology.”

Ohio is late to the game because E-ZPass is more for customer convenience than congestion relief and because of the state’s $50 million cost, Distel says.

When E-ZPass becomes available on 241 miles of toll road across northern Ohio, the system will be used by 25 tolling agencies and 18.6 million vehicles, according to the E-ZPass Interagency Group.

Gas tax collections — long a chief way to maintain roads and build new ones — have lagged in the recession and because of cars that guzzle less gas. As road construction costs rise and traffic congestion mounts, tolling — especially the electronic version — has emerged in many states as a way to fill the gap.

Twenty states, mostly in the West, currently have no toll roads or bridges.

A nationwide electronic system serving all toll roads, tunnels and bridges could be a reality within 10 years, says Neil Gray, director of government affairs for the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which represents tolling agencies.

Existing technology makes it possible, but a major obstacle is forging agreements among tolling agencies to make sure toll revenue is distributed properly across state borders, Gray says.

More than 95% of the nation’s tolling agencies are served by E-ZPass or TransCore, which supplies technology for electronic tolling systems in Georgia, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington, says TransCore spokeswoman Barbara Catlin.

Technology exists to provide compatibility between TransCore systems such as TxTag in Texas and SunPass in Florida and E-ZPass, Catlin says. But the systems are unable to process each other’s transactions because there are no agreements yet among tolling agencies.

North Carolina, which broke ground last month on its first modern toll road — the 18.8-mile Triangle Expressway in the Raleigh-Durham area — hasn’t decided whether to use E-ZPass, TransCore or something else, says Reid Simons, spokeswoman for the North Carolina Turnpike Authority. “We are kind of stuck in the middle,” she says.

The Ohio Turnpike, which carries about 150,000 vehicles daily, is adding an incentive to encourage drivers of passenger vehicles to use E-ZPass. Drivers won’t see any rate hikes if they use E-ZPass, Distel says. But rates for drivers who pay cash will jump 40%.

Editorial: Leaving 281 off most congested list wreaks of politics

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Link to editorial here. Link to KTSA initial story on the blunder here.

KTSA reported the TxDOT blunder first. TxDOT’s response to them initially was essentially that it simply didn’t rank. Then, by the time the Express News printed a story on it, they were already acknowledging something was amiss. Now the Editorial Board is chiming in on what seems to be, quite obviously, politics playing a role in allowing 281 north of Loop 1604 to wither on the vine indefinitely. TxDOT and the RMA want to punish the citizens for daring to oppose their toll road agenda. It’s their way or interminable gridlock.

09/14/2009

Answers needed on TxDOT report

At first glance, it seems like a joke.The Texas Department of Transportation compiles a list of the 100 most congested road sections in the state, and what is widely believed to be the most congested road section in Bexar County doesn’t even make the list: U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line.

Eight roadways in Bexar County did make the list, including multiple segments of Interstate 35 and Interstate 10. The worst-ranked section locally — 10th on the statewide list — is a portion of Interstate 35 from U.S. 90 West on the Southwest Side to U.S. 281 north of downtown.

A TxDOT explanation of the congestion on this stretch of Interstate 35 notes: “A trip that takes 20 minutes in free-flow conditions will take approximately 33 minutes during rush hour.”

While that may be bad, many commuters can attest that the rush-hour congestion on U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 is much worse. So how is it possible that TxDOT failed to place it on the list?

The TxDOT methodology describes a multistep process of compiling a statewide database of major roadways, review by “transportation staff familiar with the local road network” and the calculation of congestion measures by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Perhaps the initial database was deeply flawed and failed to identify U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 for congestion problems. Even if this were the case, TxDOT experts who have familiarity with Bexar County roadways should have caught this glaring error as part of their review.

Either way, TxDOT — not the Texas Transportation Institute — flubbed the process. And the result is much worse than a joke.

Highway funds will naturally flow to the worst congested roadways in the state. Assuming the legal and environmental hurdles for construction on U.S. 281 are ever surpassed, it’s not even on the list of priority projects.

Local leaders should be outraged at the TxDOT report. Bexar County residents who suffer through bumper-to-bumper commutes on U.S. 281 deserve to know whether something more than incompetence on the part of the state’s transportation authorities is to blame.