Senate Transportation Committee and Senate Finance Committee held a joint hearing in Austin today to probe TxDOT’s supposed funding shortfall for 2008. The Legislature wasn’t even out of session 6 months before TxDOT fired-off letters to legislators telling them they planned to cut billions in already committed/funded projects. The sparks flew back and forth during the heated “discussion” that seemed more like a public flogging of TxDOT than a committee hearing. Here’s just a flavor…

Senator Steve Ogden, Chair of Senate Finance Committee, on TxDOT’s balance sheet: “This is really screwed up. Y’all need to redo your sheet.”

Senator Tommy Williams: “TxDOT has poor internal controls…I don’t have confidence in anything TxDOT is telling this committee.”

Senator Kirk Watson: TxDOT’s either “political or incompetent.”

Senator Judith Zaffirini: “TxDOT is an agency in turmoil and chaos. This (blaming Legislature for TxDOT’s own incompetence and poor planning) disdainful and awful behavior by some agency staff is at best intellectually dishonest.”
_______________________________

The senators put the screws to TxDOT for three hours, and something remotely resembling the truth managed to emerge at the other end. The end result is that the Legislature ought to be exploring TxDOT’s “credibility gap” instead of its ginned-up funding gap. Fed-up like the taxpayers, the senators are tired of being lied to by a state agency over which they have oversight, tired of being lectured to by the Governor (who rejects ANY affordable transportation funding option besides selling off our freeways to his buddies), and tired of being blamed for TxDOT’s incompetence. Now let’s hope they finally mean it when they say TxDOT needs fixing!

TxDOT is up for sunset review in 2009, so it’s the Legislature’s golden opportunity to clean house at this “agency run amok.”

Though much transpired at the hearings today, here’s the summary of the juicy stuff. TxDOT had to admit that it put out false information that misled both the public and legislators about the claimed $4.2 billion “shortfall” (which acting Chair Hope Andrade later revised the term “cuts” to more correctly mean “delays”) and the reasons for it.

At the end of the day, TxDOT admitted to repeated accounting errors (overstating the 2008 shortfall by $3 billion), that they welcomed an audit “so we can know what’s going on” inside their own agency, and that they haven’t “cut” spending, but are rather just moving money around.

Senator Ogden brought up a good point when he stated that the Legislature gave TxDOT $7.5 billion MORE money this two-year budget over the last, so he questioned why are they cutting projects? TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz then admitted they are making “cuts” based on future projections of shortfalls in 2015, not shortfalls in this immediate 2-year budget cycle. In plain English, they’re making “cuts” now in order to advance the Governor’s political agenda of selling off our highway system to the highest bidder.
It’s good thing only a small cabal of ordinary citizens and taxpayers were there or TxDOT would have been run out on a rail! The most heated discussion of the day came when Senator Zaffirini asked TxDOT for the talking points it sent to the various district engineers who sent letters announcing the cuts in December 2007. TxDOT produced a different letter, but Zaffirini read the initial talking points TxDOT leadership sent out that blamed the U.S. congress and the state legislature, not TxDOT’s own overcommitment to projects it couldn’t fund due to the poor planning and chaos inside its own doors. Saenz admitted there are three divisions, forecasting, management, and the one that pays the actual bills, where neither knew what the other was doing.

Senator Watson summed it up best when he said: “So TxDOT’s either being political or incompetent.” But when the dust settled, all of them were more worried about the billions in lost contracts for the highway lobby than they were about the taxpayers held hostage by TxDOT’s incompetence and man-made congestion crisis.

The second half of the day was the first meeting of the study committee on private toll roads as required by SB 792, the private toll moratorium bill. The Governor’s 3 appointees rabidly pushed the MOST expensive option of privatization of our public infrastructure (bringing in the world’s top privatization guru, Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation) while the others were consumed with understanding market valuation.

To refresh you memories, TURF fought hard to strip the market valuation language from SB 792. This language never appeared in ANY bill the entire 80th session until Governor Perry got a hold of it (though Committee Chairman Senator John Carona,/span> credited Senator Williams for actually authoring that section). It’s a way to skirt around the federal law prohibiting the public sector from competing with the private sector to drive up the price of a public project.

Market valuation REQUIRES BY LAW that all toll projects undergo a determination of how much money the government can make off the road by analyzing the “value” of it the way Wall Street would. It’s called asset monetization and it translates into the highest possible toll rates, because instead of keeping the toll as low as possible, they determine how to get a BIG up-front payment just like the private toll roads. They figure out how much additional bond money they can milk out of one set of motorists in order to fund projects for other motorists. It’s Robin Hood applied to roads! The very thought of calling the public’s highways “assets” for government to sell off on the open market is OFFENSIVE and an economic disaster waiting to happen!

So when you hear a toller call toll taxes a “user fee,” think again. It’s another deception geared at making you think you’re paying a more direct tax tied to your actual usage of something rather than taking from one to give to another (which is EXACTLY what they criticize the gas tax for doing, making one part of the state help fund roads for other parts)! Regardless, this method of tolling is a targeted, discriminatory, purposely bloated tax, designed to be a government cash cow without the private toll road controversy.

Interestingly, one of the authors of the bill actually asked TxDOT (and agency with NO credibility) how market valuation works when he was the one who authored the bill!

Ream the taxpayer

One of the Governor’s appointees, former Transportation Commissioner John Johnson, essentially cautioned the 6 legislators on the committee to NOT consider their constituents, but rather to “keep the big picture in mind.” What big picture is he referring to? Selling the public’s freeways to the highest bidder for maximum profit.

Then, when the conflict with federal law was mentioned, Poole of the Reason Foundation, suggested TxDOT could petition the feds using an “SEP 15” (or special experimental program) process to WAIVE THE LAW allowing public agencies to compete with the private sector (which results in jacking up the cost to motorists)! OUTRAGEOUS! No one even blinked at the suggestion that they try to skirt the LAW!!! Note it was the lobbyist who knew the loopholes, not the policymakers. It further indicates who’s writing our laws, doesn’t it? We’re lambs being led to the slaughter, folks. WAKE-UP!

In addition, Senator Carona said TxDOT had a lot of explaining to do in regards to their admission (thanks to the evidence uncovered in our lawsuit) they broke the law by hiring registered lobbyists, yet didn’t breathe a word of it at these hearings. Why? “Because it’s pending in court.” Someone should have told Commissioner Ted Houghton that before he
admitted it ON CAMERA!

Our government isn’t serving us, representing us, nor looking out for the public interest. Our Legislature and Governor are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce crowd, the Reason Foundation, and road contractors.

Start our taxpayer revolt on March 4. Go to the voting booth and work your way down the list….throw the bums OUT!

View TTC-69 public hearing schedule here.

Link to PDF of TTC-69 FACT SHEET outlining what TTC-69 is and why the state is building it here.

Link to PDF of TTC-69 PUBLIC COMMENT GUIDE with suggestions for public comment on the project here. Comments are due March 19, 2008. TxDOT has made it clear ONLY comments specific to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) will become part of the OFFICIAL LEGAL record. So knowing the areas appropriate for public comment are VITAL!

Link to article here. We all knew why Via suddenly did a 180 and began voting with TxDOT FOR tolls rather with the PEOPLE and voting against…TxDOT’s bullying tactics and promises for a piece of the private sector pie got them to sell out the citizens real fast. Shouldn’t surprise us that government teams up with government to rip-off the taxpayer. Self-interest is getting uglier by the minute…

Private sector may hold key to VIA plans for rapid buses
01/30/2008
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News

VIA Metropolitan Transit’s upcoming experiment with rapid buses, the agency’s rubber-tire answer to light rail, will involve asking private investors to help foot the bill for easing gridlock on the car-crazy Northwest Side.The idea is to parlay what 14,000 passengers a day, perhaps many of them suburban commuters, would bring to businesses on corners like Babcock Road and Medical Drive.

Seven acres of grassland and scrub trees on the southwest corner of that busy intersection will be home to a transit station serving as a terminus for a rapid-bus line, connecting the sprawling South Texas Medical Center to downtown, city officials said Tuesday. Two acres were set aside for commercial development.

But officials aren’t sure what type of venture might end up there, or even if it will be designed more for pedestrians than cars. Market studies and developer interest will have a lot to say about that.

“We’re just not far enough into the process yet to have details,” VIA President John Milam said.

A friendlier pedestrian environment is just what’s needed around the Medical Center campus, said Dr. James Andry, who’s renovating a building across the street into a sleep lab and office. Better sidewalks and shuttle buses could help, he said.

“Look here, you can’t even cross the street so easily,” he said, pointing across Babcock Road. “People don’t walk enough in the Medical Center, that’s for sure. Everything is so spread out.”

After voters rejected a light-rail plan in 2000, VIA changed course and decided to make buses work more like rail.

There’s no specific plan yet, but agency officials say options include articulated buses that bend in the middle, sheltered transit stations, real-time message boards, ticketing without fare boxes, dedicated bus lanes and technology to hold or trip traffic signals.

“It’ll be like light rail but on rubber tires,” VIA Chairman Eddie Herrera said Tuesday.

The agency’s first rapid buses could run through the Medical Center, on Fredericksburg Road and along Interstate 10 to a planned Westside Multimodal Center near the University of Texas’ downtown campus.

The $99 million project, about half-funded with federal grants and the rest locally, is expected to be fully designed and built by 2012. The high-tech buses could shave travel times by a third and boost ridership up to a fourth as they whisk riders between the city’s two largest job centers.

Though rapid-bus systems are babes compared to light rail and don’t have the same reputation for cultivating higher-density walkable developments or for attracting white-collar commuters, VIA officials will look for ways to make money from the extra traffic they hope to generate.

One proposal calls for additional taxes on new development along the rapid-bus line — through a tax increment-financing district. Another plan, the one touted Tuesday, is to carve out chunks of land next to bus stations and partner with developers to build there.

The transit station at Babcock Road and Medical Drive — with a 60-seat lobby, canopies outside and 128 parking spaces in the back — will be VIA’s first effort to rope in such private investment. The agency will seek proposals to get the best value.

The station could open in two years, replacing the transit facility in the Medical Center. It later would become the terminus for the rapid-bus line, which officials say would ease congestion in the heavily traveled area.

“It will be the nucleus of the Medical Center transportation,” District 8 City Councilwoman Diane Cibrian said as she stood on a mowed carpet of brown grass.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Terri Hall, Founder/Director San Antonio Toll Party & TURF
PHONE: (210) 275-0640
EMAIL: terri@satollparty.com / terri@texasturf.org
WEB: www.SATollParty.com /www.TexasTURF.org

(San Antonio, TX, January 29, 2008) As if US 281 traffic snarls aren’t bad enough due to TxDOT’s man-made congestion through signal light manipulation, now TxDOT, the tolling authority, or the County has shut down a favorite bypass route Timberwood Park residents use to avoid the back-up at the lights on 281.

“I’ve received several emails from supporters alarmed at the road closure. There is no rational reason to close a relief artery for residents other than the dreaded non-compete clause associated with the 281 toll road,” says Terri Hall, Founder/Director of San Antonio Toll Party.

Residents of Timberwood Park have been taking Evans Road to and from 281 since it goes right to Borgfeld (Evans Rd. turns into Canyon Gulf) and cuts out five stoplights between Borgfeld and Evans.

The road was called Dal-Cin and the two-lane section across Borgfeld still bears that name. The new four-lane Canyon Gulf winds through developments that are barely populated and still largely under construction.

However, this weekend the road was closed off. It’s obvious from this photo that it’s not a temporary closure either.

“I can see parts of bumpers where people have already hit these posts, probably at night because it is very dark out here,” said one resident.

“This is a four-lane road just yards from a fire station. If there is a fire in the new development, the fire trucks will now have to wind their way down Timberline and other two lane roads through Timberwood Park in order to help anyone.”

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) confirmed at the December 3 Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting that the US 281 toll project will, in fact, have a non-compete clause. A non-compete clause is where the ARMA agrees not to expand any roads surrounding the tollway so as not to “compete” with the toll revenues. So eliminating or clogging free alternatives is the goal of a non-compete agreement in order to maximize toll revenues.

“Either the tolling authority is getting prepared to implement the non-compete even before any contract is signed, or the County (headed by a pro-toll Judge) has decided to put the screws to residents snarling traffic so badly they cry ‘uncle’ and beg for the toll road,” thinks Hall.

Link to article here.

Drivers to See Major Toll Hikes
By Dennis Cauchon
USA Today
01-28-08

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(San Antonio, TX, January 27, 2008) At Tony Kosub’s campaign kick-off yesterday, San Antonio Toll Party Founder, Terri Hall reminded supporters of the many toll tax hikes Frank Corte loaded onto his constituents, market-based tolls among them.

Express-News Columnist Jaime Castillo said this about market-based tolls once he caught wind of them in the Governor’s counterfeit moratorium bill, SB 792: “If you want to raise funds for other projects, keep jacking up the toll price until drivers cry ‘uncle,’ and then back it off a penny or two” (Express-News, July 22, 2008).

Corte voted for this new scheme where traditional toll taxes based on the actual cost of construction and bond debt were replaced with market-based tolls based on the nebulous concept of “whatever customers would be willing to pay.” This doesn’t bode well for Corte in a heavily Republican district who sent him to Austin to lower taxes and limit government.

Another tax grab Corte supported is the complete conversion of US 281 into a tollway. According to the Federal Register published August 30, 2007, every single freeway lane will be converted to a toll lane on US 281, with access roads as the non-toll lanes. Converting freeways to tollways without a public vote has since been outlawed (HB 2702), but Corte has not only voted to allow this freeway conversion (repudiated by the entire South Texas Congressional delegation), he’s refused to step-in.

“The road improvements and overpasses to 281 have been paid for with our gas taxes since 2003. Here we are FIVE years later, and it hasn’t been fixed, why? Because Frank Corte is part of the leadership in Austin that puts one man’s agenda, Rick Perry’s, above the best interest of the Party and of Texans,” Hall emphasized.

“Corte voted to give TxDOT unprecedented power so that Texans won’t get ANY new lanes, or ANY congestion relief unless they pay a double tax, a toll tax,” Hall noted.

The full text of Hall’s speech is below:

This is an exciting day for the San Antonio Toll Party for two reasons:
1) We have a candidate to unseat a pro-toll incumbent in District 122

2) We have a candidate who actually inspires us! That candidate is Tony Kosub.

He’s a man of incorruptible character, who’s genuine and sincere in his convictions, and who actually cares about people. His life’s work is investing in our children as a middle school teacher and coach. He doesn’t just talk; he lives what he believes.

I first met Tony Kosub at one of our events a number of years ago, and Tony not only took it upon himself to get educated and involved in fighting tolls roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, he began to take an interest in the larger fight against overbearing, abusive government, an escalating tax burden, and out of control government spending while “we the people” had to keep tightening our belts. Tony Kosub desperately desired to remedy the growing problem of the disconnect between us and our elected representatives, particularly in his own backyard, District 122.

Let me give you a glimpse into just how bad that disconnect is with Frank Corte. After thousands of emails, phone calls, meetings with constituents, and even traveling to Austin during the session, it became abundantly clear that Frank Corte refused to represent his constituents, showing stubborn indifference to the most egregious highway robbery, tax and spend feeding frenzy ever to hit his district…the complete conversion of the 281 FREEway into a tollway in a DOUBLE TAX NIGHTMARE for our lifetimes.

The road improvements and overpasses to 281 have been paid for with our gas taxes since 2003. Here we are FIVE years later, and it hasn’t been fixed, why? Because Frank Corte is part of the leadership in Austin that puts one man’s agenda, Rick Perry’s, above the best interest of the Party and of Texans.

Corte claims to be a conservative. His record on taxes demonstrate, he’s NO fiscal conservative. He voted to increase a host of taxes, but the largest tax increase of all will be paying a new toll tax on roads we’ve already built and paid for, like 281, 1604, and I-10…all in District 122. He voted to give TxDOT unprecedented power so that Texans won’t get ANY new lanes, or ANY congestion relief unless they pay a double tax, a toll tax.

We’re already feeling the pain at the pump with gas prices at record highs and no end in sight. Frank Corte is on the energy committee and has taken plenty of money from the energy industry yet Texans couldn’t be farther from energy independence than we are right now, on his watch.

Tony Kosub is not only a fresh face for District 122, but he’s also a problem solver. He comes from the people and understands the economic stress that both business and families are under and he knows how to relieve it…by returning to the principles we know will work. The principles of less government (starting with reining-in government spending), lower taxes, and greater accountability to the taxpayers…starting with TxDOT, of course, an agency full of waste, fraud, and abuse who has already recklessly taken Texas into a toll tax slush fund road building frenzy, but that now has also clearly crossed the line by illegally hiring lobbyists on the taxpayer’s dime!

I know you’ll agree, that it’s time for change in Texas. It’s time to throw off politicians who defend government instead of their constituents, who refuse to listen to the people who pay the bills, and who represent the status quo even to the detriment of citizens. We CANNOT keep sending the same ol’ career politicians to Austin and expect different results. We need new leadership.

It is with great confidence that the San Antonio Toll Party gives our endorsement to Tony Kosub. I can’t think of anyone more equipped for the task ahead of him, who has the values to get us headed in the right direction, and who has the uncompromising conviction it will take to resist the forces of big government and the tax and spend mentality that has taken over Austin.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my privilege to introduce you to the next State Representative for District 122, Tony Kosub!

Jan. 27, 2008, 10:51PM
Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor plan is a hard sell
Officials pitch his proposed road network in packed, skeptical area meetings

By RAD SALLEE and ERIC HANSON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Gov. Rick Perry’s ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor plan, and his advocacy of toll funding for future roads, hit the skids in a skeptical Legislature last spring. The road shows no signs of getting any smoother as state transportation officials try to sell the plan to Houston-area audiences.

“This will wipe me out,” Dee Bond told a panel of corridor advocates at a town hall meeting in Rosenberg last week.

The panel, which included Texas Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes of Houston and Steve Simmons, deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, was there to explain and gather comment on a segment of the planned Interstate 69/TTC through Fort Bend County.

“How is this in my best interest?” Bond asked, to a hearty round of applause.

“We don’t know where that roadway is going,” Simmons replied, adding, “We don’t know for sure if that roadway is going to be built.”

Diane Coan of Louise, in Wharton County, suggested the decision to build the corridor should be put to the public.

“Why don’t we just take a vote? Do we want this road or do we not want this road?” she said.

As proposed, I-69/TTC would run west of U.S. 59 from Texarkana to Corpus Christi, then split and head to the Mexico border at Brownsville and Laredo. Extensions would enter Houston from the north and west to serve the port and area industry.

As envisioned by Perry, the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor would be a network of these broad corridors linking major cities, with toll roads for cars and trucks, rail tracks for freight and passenger trains, and space for pipelines and power lines.

The most advanced of these projects, TTC-35, is projected to run from Oklahoma to Mexico east of Interstate 35, but no construction contracts have been signed for either TTC-35 or I-69/TTC.

Months of hearings to come

TxDOT has designated a consortium led by the Spanish company CINTRA as first in line for TTC-35 work. Two private developer teams are competing for I-69/TTC.At the Rosenberg meeting, another speaker asked if existing highways such as U.S. 59 simply could be widened instead of building the massive superhighway.

Simmons said it is difficult and costly to acquire right of way to expand highways that pass through numerous built-up areas.

“We can’t widen 59 without taking a good chunk of the town,” he said.

Earlier in the week, similar meetings in Hempstead and Huntsville were jammed with residents and local officials who questioned the need for the project and the motives of its supporters.

The town hall meetings will continue through the month and be followed by two months of formal public hearings on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

In Hempstead, corridor opponents reported a crowd of 800, filling the available parking space and the building, causing some residents to be turned away.

The Huntsville meeting drew such an audience that a second meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Walker County Fairgrounds.

The Huntsville Item reported that more than 400 people attended the earlier meeting and that, for safety reasons, some 250 in an atrium could not enter.

At the Rosenberg meeting, which drew about 350 attendees, many wore anti-Trans-Texas Corridor stickers on their shirts or hats. The panel fielded questions from people who had filled out cards before the meeting.

A diverse coalition

Perry, TxDOT and the commissioners say that tolls are the only adequate way to fund most future road projects without increasing motor fuel taxes.Others say that increasing the tax and indexing it to the cost of road building could meet the state’s needs indefinitely.

Critics of the idea say that most of the state’s highway network is not congested except in cities and that road segments needing relief can be addressed individually.

The first parts to TTC-35 expected to be built are bypasses around Dallas and Austin, both growing urban areas where the interstate is congested.

Besides opponents of tolling, corridor plans have raised hackles with such disparate groups as farmers and ranchers who do not want their land divided, merchants who fear loss of business to new routes and others who oppose trucks from Mexico doing business in the United States, or the long-term leases of U.S. highways to foreign companies.

The House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said this today…

“The American people believe Washington is broken. Middle class families see the cost of living rising. They see more and more of their hard earned dollars being eaten up by college costs, health care costs, housing costs, food costs.”

“With all this happening in their daily lives, they’re watching the news — and they see politicians in Washington WASTING their money. While families are struggling to make ends meet, they look up and see politicians using taxpayer money to build monuments to themselves … funding hippie museums … letting entitlement spending spiral out of control. ”

The price of gasoline and threat of toll roads all over Texas (and the country) are part of what’s leading to a cumulative restlessness among the grassroots to throw the bums out. Let’s do it March 4 and then again in November.