Author: Terri Hall

Chronicle: Gov. Perry's massive toll road boondoggle

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Link to article here.

Though Mr. Casey seems fine with toll revenues subsidizing everyone else’s free roads (versus the tolls going to that highway only then ceasing when the road is paid for) and for making those who cannot afford the tolls second class citizens relegated to frontage roads, he’s exactly right on Governor Perry’s push privatize our highways in what can only be described as a MASSIVE boondoggle to benefit his campaign contributors and road contractor friends. However, even the Houston model (or traditional turnpike model) has now been replaced with the “Perry public tolling model” called “market valuation.” No longer will tolls be kept as low as possible, now the tolling entity has to BY LAW charge market-based tolls which includes “profit” (except this is government profit) just like Perry’s privatized dream. Mr. Casey and Houstonites need to realize this MAJOR shift in policy is coming to a road near them thanks to SB 792…

For whom the toll bills
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 12, 2007

With all the madness in the world, I meditated Tuesday on two matters of great gratitude.

One is that through vigilance and good fortune we have, so far, gone six years without another major attack on U.S. soil.

The other is that I wasn’t one of the Texas officials who was forced to attend a workshop in Austin in which PR flacks would try (under a $20,000 contract) to teach me techniques for selling Gov. Perry’s massive toll road boondoggle.

It was a small part of a $7 million to $9 million campaign that will include feel-good ads pushing Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor.

Magic word didn’t work

Given the growing uprising in both the Legislature and the public, that may not be enough.It would have been much wiser for Perry just to consult Harris County officials on how to do toll roads right.

It looks like Perry was caught by surprise by the hostility to his plan. He seems to have thought that by invoking the magic word “privatization” he could lull Texans into thinking we were getting something for nothing.

Under Perry’s plan, private corporations, including at least one from Europe, will build the roads at little or no cost to Texas taxpayers.

It’s a politically powerful idea, playing on the popular notion that the private sector is always more efficient than the public sector.

Harris County’s better way

That’s such a tantalizing tenet of current political theology that Harris County last year paid for a set of studies that looked at whether it should sell its toll roads.Based on the results of the studies, commissioners voted unanimously not to sell.

The two Democrats and three Republicans agreed that privatization isn’t always better. And this is one of those cases.

The Houston approach is superior to Perry’s in at least three ways:

• Despite recent hikes in tolls, drivers will pay considerably less per mile than they would on a privatized road.
The reason is simple. The private sector can’t build or maintain the roads appreciably more cheaply, and their operating costs are higher.

For one thing, corporations must pay federal taxes. For another, they must pay their shareholders.

What’s more, their job is to maximize their profits. Unlike the Harris Toll Road Authority, they will make substantial political contributions and hire the best lobbyists to persuade state officials to let them charge whatever the traffic will bear.

TxDOT’s Web site promoting the governor’s plan offers this as reassurance: “If it is too expensive, motorists will not use the road.”

• Private sector profits go to shareholders and highly paid executives. Harris County toll road profits are used to pay for nontoll streets and roads.
Currently, $40 million a year in tolls go to non-toll road projects. In effect, those who are able and willing to pay for the speed and convenience of toll roads are subsidizing the “free” streets.

I’d much rather have part of my toll go to other streets I will drive than to wealthy Spaniards, or to wealthy Texans, for that matter.

• Before they will invest hundreds of millions in building roads, private companies want and get noncompete provisions. You would, too.
By contrast, Harris County has consistently built free access roads parallel to its toll roads.

If you don’t have an EZ Tag to get on the Westpark Tollway, you can do pretty well traveling Westpark Drive.

“That’s the way we’ve made toll roads politically acceptable here,” said Art Storey, Harris County infrastructure director.

Elected officials have to worry about such things.

Hutchison amendment bans tolling some existing interstates

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We applaud Senator Hutchison for attempting to begin the long process of reining-in not just our rogue state agency, TxDOT, but also many of her colleagues who told her stopping managed lane projects (adding new toll lanes to existing corridors to “manage” congestion, which is also a DOUBLE TAX) was a non-starter.

That said, this amendment does little overall to stop any current toll projects in the works throughout Texas. The State can still bulldoze our existing interstates to its heart’s content and re-arrange the pavement to make way for toll lanes down the middle. They call them “new lanes” but they’re using our existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes. So it’s still a DOUBLE TAX. The State can also continue to toll existing STATE highways, all or in part, unabated.

Then when you consider TxDOT’s tricks to replace those “existing lanes” with frontage roads or to narrow the width of the existing lanes (after they destroy them then re-build them, taking twice the construction time as a freeway and more than double the cost), it will slow down or manipulate traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people on the tollway, this amendment is a start, but doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental concerns of taxpayers. When the Texas A&M Study says we don’t need toll roads, it’s confounding that some politicians still march ahead over the people’s objections! This battle is far from over and Hutchison vows to continue to fight this DOUBLE TAXATION in its many forms. We surely hope so!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 11, 2007

Sen. Hutchison Protects Texas Taxpayers From Double Taxation on Existing Highways
Senate Passes Hutchison Amendment to Ban Tolling Existing Highways in Texas for One Year
WASHINGTON — Texas’ senior Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R–TX) today passed an amendment to H. R. 3074, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill, that protects Texas taxpayers by placing a one-year moratorium on tolling existing highways in Texas. The FY 2008 THUD bill, which passed the Senate today by a vote of 88-7, would be effective through September 30, 2008. The Senate version will now need to be reconciled with the House-passed bill in a conference.

“Today we protected Texas taxpayers from paying twice for a highway,” Sen. Hutchison said. “I will continue pushing for a permanent prohibition of tolling existing highways.”

If enacted, Sen. Hutchison will have protected Texas for one year, but she is committed to addressing this issue on a more comprehensive basis in the 2009 Highway Reauthorization bill. Sen. Hutchison’s amendment preserves the Texas State Legislature’s authority over this issue in Texas.

During the 80th session of the Texas Legislature the state House and Senate approved a measure that would place a two-year moratorium on building toll roads in Texas.

“Sen. Hutchison is a hero to every Texas driver,” State Sen. and former Texas Transportation Commissioner Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) said. “Her amendment is the right thing to do and I strongly support her position.”

Last week Sen. Hutchison filed S. 2019, a bill to prohibit the tolling of interstate highways that have used federal funds in their construction, and the next day four Members of Congress filed companion legislation, H.R. 3510. The House bill was filed by Reps. John Peterson (R–PA), Phil English (R–PA), Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX) and Ciro Rodriguez (D–TX). Sen. John Cornyn (R–TX) cosponsored Sen. Hutchison’s bill.

Efforts to toll newly constructed lanes or new highways would not be prohibited in Sen. Hutchison’s amendment that passed the Senate, or in S. 2019 or H.R. 3510.

“I’ve long believed that if local communities and the state want to come together and build a toll road, they should be able to do it,” Sen. Hutchison said.

Earlier this year the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) declared they will lobby Congress to allow for the “buy back” of existing federal highways in Texas for the purpose of tolling. In February TxDOT released their legislative agenda in a report called “Forward Momentum,” which seeks changes in federal law that would allow such buybacks for the purpose of tolling interstate highways, pending approval by local governments.

“I deeply thank Sen. Hutchison for being a voice of reason on this issue,” State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R–Brenham) said. “Asking Texans to pay twice for the same road violates the trust that should exist between people and government.”

Sen. Hutchison passed a similar amendment as part of the 2005 Highway Bill, which passed the Senate but was stripped in conference by the House of Representatives.

“The purpose of having an interstate system is so that we could have seamless and free transportation into every State of our Union,” Sen. Hutchison said.

The text of Sen. Hutchison’s amendment can be found here: http://hutchison.senate.gov/resources/FY08_KBH_THUD_Amdt.pdf

Sen. Hutchison is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has jurisdiction over all of the Appropriations bills, including THUD.

–END–

Texas Toll Ban Added to Transportation Bill

WASHINGTON (AP) – The transportation spending bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday includes a ban on tolls for existing Texas roadways.

The Texas toll ban is attached to the $106 billion spending bill approved by the Senate 88-7. The bill also includes an amendment banning Mexican trucks from U.S. roadways, which was passed late Tuesday.

The toll ban amendment authored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is in addition to a two-year moratorium imposed on construction of new toll roads by the Legislature during this year’s session.

Building new toll roads or lanes in Texas would not be prohibited by the amendment.

The Senate bill now heads to conference committee to be reconciled with the House version.

President Bush has threatened to veto the final bill because of its cost.

©2007 Associated Press.

U.S. House files companion bill to Hutchison's to stop the tolling of existing interstates

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Link to article here.

The bill is HR 3510 with identical wording to Hutchison’s amendment attached to an appropriations bill yesterday. This is a stand alone bill (versus an amendment that will end when the appropriations bill ends next year) to put a permanent end to a total conversion of an existing interstate into a toll road. The bill would also keep TxDOT from buying back an existing interstate from the feds with the intent of tolling it.

That said, it does little to stop any current toll projects in the works throughout Texas. The State can still bulldoze our existing interstates to their heart’s content and re-arrange the pavement to make way for toll lanes down the middle. They call them “new lanes” but they’re using our existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes. So it’s still a DOUBLE TAX. The State can also continue to toll existing state highways all or in part unabated.

Then when you consider TxDOT’s tricks to replace those “existing lanes” with frontage roads or to narrow the width of the existing lanes (after they destroy them then re-build them, taking twice the construction time as a freeway), it will slow down or manipulate traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people on the tollway, this bill is a start, but doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental concerns of taxpayers. When the Texas A&M Study says we don’t need toll roads, it’s confounding that some politicians still march ahead over the people’s objections!

House bill would block highway tolls
By Gary Martin
Express-News, Washington Bureau
09/12/2007

WASHINGTON — House lawmakers from Texas and Pennsylvania filed a bill to block proposals in their respective states to toll federal highways to provide revenue for repair and construction, officials said Tuesday.The House bill is a companion to legislation filed in the Senate by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who has vowed to stop efforts in Austin to “buy back” federal highways and levying tolls on state taxpayers.

“Tolling existing freeways — the lifeblood of moving goods and services — is bad public policy, and states like Pennsylvania and Texas would incur irrevocable economic damage,” said Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez and Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, both San Antonio Democrats, joined Peterson and Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., in co-sponsoring the House bill.

Rodriguez signed on one week after meeting with Ric Williamson, the Texas transportation commissioner, in Washington.

Williamson met with federal lawmakers, urging them to relax current laws that prohibit tolls on U.S. highways.

The state is seeking revenue to make up an $86 billion shortfall preventing Texas from improving highways.

Williamson, a Republican, has proposed buying back federal highways and turning them over to private entities to levy a toll that would produce money to improve and expand infrastructure.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Williamson say a decision to toll an existing highway or road should rest with the local taxpayer, not federal officials.

Decisions on how to use existing highways “would be better made in San Antonio and San Angelo than in Washington,” said Chris Lippincott, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesman.

Pennsylvania also is eyeing plans to toll Interstate 80, as well as other revenue enhancing measures being studied by Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat.

“The real problem is, we don’t have sufficient resources and our infrastructure is falling apart across the country,” Rodriguez said.

But Rodriguez said the state should not penalize Texas taxpayers and make them pay twice for federal roads that were built with public funds.

“Those roads have already been paid for,” Rodriguez said.

Hutchison and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, are opposed to the state’s tolling existing federal highways. Hutchison vowed to block any effort to lift current prohibitions to the practice.

The entire South Texas congressional delegation opposes the state plan.

Rodriguez said he asked Williamson to list the state’s most dire transportation needs.

If those issues cannot be addressed in supplemental spending bill, the state could be forced to wait until Congress takes up the reauthorization of the transportation bill next year, Rodriguez said.

Bush funds NAFTA highways, so who's lying to whom? I-10 & I-69 through TX declared trade corridors

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Link to article here.

Considering VP Dick Cheney and others repeatedly deny that NAFTA Superhighways are in the works, here’s yet more evidence that they’re alive and well and being funded by the Bush Administration. When 19 state legislatures have passed resolutions against them, and the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed an amendment de-funding them, it’s abundantly obvious who’s lying to whom. George Bush, Rick Perry and their corporate, globalist cronies have sold out their fellow Americans, eroded our sovereignty, stolen representative government with backroom deals, all in the name of international trade to benefit Wall Street. See a similar announcement about I-10 & I-69 becoming trade corridors (aka – NAFTA highways) on TxDOT’s web site.

Bush administration allocates $66M to ‘NAFTA highways’
by Mike Sunnucks
The Business Journal
September 10, 2007

The Bush administration announced Monday it is granting $66.2 million to reduce congestion and improve freight flow on several so-called NAFTA highways.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is allocating the money so it can work with state and local governments and the private sector on six interstate highways, with projects including the addition of bypasses and trucks-only lanes. Five of those highways connect to or run near the Mexican or Canadian borders:

– Interstate 15, which runs from San Diego through part of northwest Arizona all the way to the Canadian border.
– Interstate 10, which runs near the Mexican border from California through Arizona to Florida.
– Intestates 95, which runs from Florida through the northeastern U.S. to Canada.
– Interstate 5, which runs from the California-Mexico border through Oregon to the Washington-Canada border.
– Interstate 69, which free-trade backers hope to turn into a NAFTA superhighway, connecting an existing freeway between Indianapolis and Canada to a proposed highway running south into Texas and splitting to connect with Mexican border crossings at Laredo, Brownsville and McAllen.
– The only nonborder highway getting grant money from the Bush administration is Interstate 70, which runs mostly through the Midwest.

The USDOT said Monday the money will be used to study transport options, such as bypasses of major cities and trucks-only lanes.

Supporters say improving such routes will enhance North American trade and commerce. Critics worry that such border-to-border corridors will make it easier for foreign goods to get into the U.S. unchecked and that increased truck traffic will damage animal habitats and air quality.

“These routes are unlikely to alleviate congestion for the long term and will result in further habitat fragmentation and degradation, as well as increased air pollution in areas in or near the proposed expansions and especially where they propose new roads,” said Sandy Bahr, state coordinator for the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group.

Schlafly: U.S. self-government in peril due to SPP, NAFTA superhighways

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U.S. self-government is in peril
By Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum
Monday, September 10, 2007

It’s now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos – President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon – finalized and released the “North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza.”

The “Plan” – that’s what they call it, with a capital P – is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable “North American” bureaucrats.

This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005, when Bush announced the “International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.” He was then speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.

We might have thought that idea had some merit because the influenza partnership called for “transparency in reporting of influenza cases in humans and in animals” and the “sharing of epidemiological data and samples.” That’s very different from the Security and Prosperity Summit, where transparency has always been conspicuously avoided like the plague.

This year’s Security and Prosperity Summit in Canada morphed the Influenza Partnership into the North American Plan. Now we discover that the Plan is not only about combating a flu epidemic but is far-reaching in seeking control over U.S. citizens and public policy during an epidemic.

The Plan repeatedly features the favorite Bush word “comprehensive” – it calls for a “comprehensive, coordinated North American approach.” The Plan would give authority to international bureaucrats “beyond the health sector to include a coordinated approach to critical infrastructure protection,” including “border and transportation issues.”

The Plan is a wordy 44-page document, much of which sounds innocuous. It is helpful to exchange information about disease and take precautions against letting foreign diseases enter the United States.

However, self-government and sovereignty are at risk when control over these matters is turned over to a newly created North American body headed by the representative of another country. It’s an additional problem when the entire Plan is a spin-off of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an arrangement created in secret solely by White House press releases, without Congressional approval or even oversight.

The 2007 Plan acknowledges that it is based not only on the Influenza Partnership, but also on the guidelines, standards and rules of the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Trade Organization, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Plan sets up a “senior level coordinating body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human pandemic influenza under the Security and Prosperity Partnership.” The Plan identifies this Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body as “decision-makers.”

The Plan then (ungrammatically) states: “The chair of the Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body will rotate between each national authority on a yearly basis.” Thus, a foreigner will be the “decision maker” for Americans in two out of every three years.

What powers will this foreign-headed coordinating body exercise? The Plan suggests that these include “the use of antivirals and vaccines; … social distancing measures, including school closures and the prohibition of community gatherings; … isolation and quarantine.”

Will this foreign-headed coordinating body respect the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble”? Or will the rules of the Plan, Security and Prosperity Partnership, World Health Organization, World Organization for Animal Health, World Trade Organization and NAFTA take precedence?

In evaluating the Plan, it is instructive to recall the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, an anti-epidemic plan launched by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Oct. 23, 2001. Designed to be passed by all state legislatures, the model bill was primarily written by Lawrence O. Gostin, a former member of U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s discredited Task Force on Health Care Reform, and was promoted by the Bush administration during its first year.

The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act would have given each governor sole discretion to declare a public health emergency and grant himself extraordinary powers. He would have been able to restrict or prohibit firearms, seize private property and destroy it in many circumstances, and impose price controls and rationing.

Governors would have been given the power to order people out of their homes and into dangerous quarantines. Children could have been taken from their parents and put into public quarantines.

Governors could even have demanded that physicians administer certain drugs despite individuals’ religious or other objections. The Emergency Health Powers Act was based on the concept that decision-making by authoritarian bosses and unelected bureaucrats is the way to go in a time of crisis.

The proposed Emergency Health Powers Act roused a nationwide storm of protest because it was an unprecedented assault on the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens, as well as on the principle of limited government, and so it never passed anywhere in its original text. Will similar totalitarian notions now bypass legislatures and be forced upon us by Security and Prosperity Partnership press releases?

Tolls in Comal County? Commish says no, but toll plans say yes!

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Link to Herald-Zeitung article where Comal County Commissioner claims there will be no tolls on his watch, but toll plans say otherwise. here.

See Herald-Zeitung article below.

No tolls in Comal County? Think again. The Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 Development Plan discloses that the State plans to toll I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas. Considering both I-35 and US 281 will be tolled in the near term in Bexar County and shortly thereafter through Comal County, county residents will not be insulated from toll roads. Interstate 35 is one of the primary arteries Comal County residents depend on to get to work as is US 281. As much as we’d like to think tolls stop at the county line, drivers who depend on these corridors will still pay BIG!

The article below entitled, Toll lanes in county? ‘Not on our watch,’ states that SB 792 exempted 281 and 1604 from the PRIVATE toll moratorium. This is inaccurate. SB 792 specifically includes 281 in the private toll moratorium and since the contract linked 281 and 1604 together in the same bid, both projects CAN NO LONGER BE HANDED TO A PRIVATE FOREIGN COMPANY. That is a HUGE victory for the taxpayers! However, the PUBLIC tolling entity in Bexar County is moving ahead with 281 & 1604 as a toll project.

Overall, the privatization of our public infrastructure is far from over. The U.S. Department of Transportation just announced that I-10 from California to Florida and I-69 from Texas to Michigan are eligible to become privately financed, tolled trade corridors (see it on TxDOT’s web site).

They have the plan, the money, and the clearance to fix 281 WITHOUT tolls

Secondly, in the article, TxDOT Engineer Greg Malatek falsely claimed he hasn’t heard any non-toll options coming from toll opponents. Even a cursory glimpse of the www.TexasTURF.org web site shows a prominent tab called “Non-toll Solutions.” On the home page of www.SATollParty.com it also displays a section “Non-toll Alternatives” and the animated presentation focuses almost entirely on an alternative to converting existing freeway US 281 into a tollway. TxDOT has the funding for a non-toll improvement plan for overpasses and the expansion of US 281.
It’s inexplicable that they delayed the desperately needed fix out there when they had the money in hand and the environmental clearance to begin building those overpasses in 2003. TxDOT could plainly see that the stop lights gave them the opportunity to hi-jack an existing highway and turn it into a toll road replaced by frontage roads with permanent stop lights. It fools the public into thinking it’s an apples to apples trade-off. Instead, it’s a ghastly expensive re-arranging of pavement that tolls an existing freeway.

TxDOT’s failure to even acknowledge the gas tax plan and their failure to inform the public about this option has allowed them to deceive people into thinking the ONLY way to get the fix is to toll it. TxDOT is pushing the plan that puts money in their pocket while remaining silent about the gas tax plan which wouldn’t.

Why should anyone have to pay a toll when they have the plan, the clearance, and the money to fix US 281 as a freeway? There is no justification for tolling that freeway other than greed and to tap the vein of 281 users to fund other road projects politicians won’t fund through the gas tax. Over 90% of the public feedback in their own environmental studies showed people opposed tolling, and citizens insisted the gas tax plan alternative be used in it’s place.

Texas does not need a single toll road to solve congestion

Then, a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M released last year revealed Texas does not need a single toll road to solve congestion. While TxDOT clings to false figures saying they’d have to raise the gas tax by as much as $1.40 a gallon, in contrast, the TTI Study showed all that’s needed is indexing the gas tax to inflation. Mr. Malatek and TxDOT also know this, but they continue to use scare tactics and ultimatums to push the MOST EXPENSIVE OPTION…toll roads. How expensive? Compare 1-3 a mile we pay now in gas tax to 30 cents or more a mile in tolls (per TxDOT’s studies and toll roads in Austin). Just a 20 mile, one-way commute would mean over $3,000 a year in new toll taxes PER COMMUTER!

State Auditor says can’t trust TxDOT’s figures

Twice this year, the State Auditor caught TxDOT lying about their figures. The first report showed they cooked the books and purposely miscoded expenditures “engineering” when in fact they had spent it on public relations! The second report found that nearly half of TxDOT’s “funding gap” is pure FICTION and cannot be substantiated with a single sheet of paper!

Given the fact that TxDOT has adamantly claimed they’re not tolling existing freeways, only to find out that they lobbied Congress to do just that (as evidenced in TxDOT’s report “Forward Momentum”), our highway department’s repeated and brazen misstatement of facts has shredded any credibility they had left.

It’s time to clean house at TxDOT and remove every single politician who voted to toll and that failed to rein-in this agency run amok!
Toll lanes in county? “Not on our watch”
By David Saleh Rauf
The Herald-Zeitung
September 9, 2007

State transportation officials moving forward with toll road projects in San Antonio have no plans to build toll lanes on U.S. 281 in Comal County.

The Texas Department of Transportation was recently given the green light by Federal Highway Administration officials to continue with an ambitious U.S. 281 toll road project that stretches from Loop 1604 to Comal County. But the U.S. 281/1604 toll project ó which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars ó and TxDOT’s push to convert existing highways into tolled lanes, will not cross into Comal County, officials said.

“Not going to happen,” said Pct. 2 Commissioner Jay Milikin. “Not on our watch.”

State transportation officials announced their plans to move forward with toll lanes on U.S. 281 in San Antonio just five days before local TxDOT representatives held a public hearing on a project slated to improve 6.8 miles of U.S. 281 in Comal County.

Less than two weeks later, reports surfaced that TxDOT had been pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing them to purchase portions of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads, which has put a spotlight on the U.S. 281 issue in Comal County. Since then, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX, has filed legislation that would block TxDOT’s move to acquire existing roads and convert them into tolled lanes.

The possibility of tolled lanes to fund construction of new roads, such as the proposed outer loop around the city, still is a possibility in Comal County, said TxDOT area engineer Greg Malatek. But local TxDOT officials said they will not turn existing highways into tolled lanes in the County.

“Right now, commissioner’s court has made it loud and clear … they don’t want to see toll roads on any existing roadway,” Malatek said.

Milikin said the county has reached an agreement with local TxDOT officials that will prevent them from pursuing toll road projects on existing highways in Comal without Commissioners’ Court approval.

Commissioners have rejected prior attempts by TxDOT to toll existing highways to help fund road improvement projects within the county, Milikin said.

In turn, Commissioners’ Court reached an agreement with TxDOT to front a portion of constructions costs to help improve U.S. 281 and a segment of Texas 46. As part of the pass-through agreement, the county has agreed to loan the state $16 million for each respective project. Milikin said the state will pay back the principle of the loan over a four-to-five-year period, but the county will “eat the interest.”

“I don’t like using county tax payer money to subsidize the state, but that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Milikin said. “Without the pass-through agreement, we were looking at 15 to 20 years before those improvements would be made on 46 and 281.”

While commissioners in Comal have guaranteed that no toll roads will pop up on existing highways within the county anytime soon, in San Antonio and other portions of the state toll road projects are moving forward, despite a so-called two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts.

Senate Bill 792, over which Gov. Rick Perry threatened to call a special session at one point, left exemptions for nearly every toll road project that had already contracted with private developers, including the U.S. 281/1604 project in San Antonio.

Several state lawmakers who voted against the measure, including Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde, have since banded together to oppose TxDOT’s latest $7 to 9 million public relations campaign aimed at promoting toll roads. The “Keep Texas Moving: Tolling and Trans-Texas Corridor Outreach,” which began in June, has drawn criticism from some state lawmakers and anti-toll road activists for wasting valuable gas tax dollars to promote toll roads.

“They’re trying to use a $9 million blitz campaign to sell toll roads,” said Rep. Joe Farias, D-San Antonio, who along with Macias and Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, held a press conference last week calling for an end to TxDOT’s press campaign.

“If anything, the biggest thing is that as far toll roads go, the folks oppose who toll roads we’re really not hearing any other options to stop congestion in San Antonio,” Malatek said.

U.S. 281 Expansion in Comal County

• What: Upgrading 6.8 miles of U.S. 281 in Comal County from 2-lane, undivided sections to 4-lane divided roadway.

• Where: Between FM 311 and FM 306 on U.S. 281.

• When: Construction to begin in 2010; could take up to 3 years.

• How Much: $55.4 million

US DOT announces plans to privatize 6 interstate highways to advance international trade

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Link to the US DOT web site here. So for all the establishment, globalist media calling NAFTA Superhighways “conspiracy theory,” feast your eyes on the government’s own documents that show it’s real and in plain view. Those promoting privatization of our existing tax-funded highways and building massive new trade corridors to benefit multi-national global corporations have come up with new names for the NAFTA superhighways: “corridors of the future” and “high priority corridors.” No matter, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, September 10, 2007
Contact: Ian Grossman
(202) 366-0660
DOT 95-07

U.S. Department of Transportation Names Six Interstate Routes as “Corridors of the Future” to Help Fight Traffic Congestion
I-95, I-70, I-15, I-5, I-10, and I-69 selected

The U.S. Department of Transportation today announced six interstate routes that will be the first to participate in a new federal initiative to develop multi-state corridors to help reduce congestion.

“We are using a comprehensive approach to fighting congestion along these major interstate routes. What we are doing represents a real break from past approaches that have failed to address growing congestion along our busiest corridors,” said Deputy U.S. Secretary of Transportation Thomas J. Barrett.

Today’s announcement follows a year-long competition to select a handful of interstate corridors from among the 38 applications received from public and private sector entities to join the Department’s “Corridors of the Future” program aimed at developing innovative national and regional approaches to reduce congestion and improve the efficiency of freight delivery. The selected corridors carry 22.7 percent of the nation’s daily interstate travel.

The routes will receive the following funding amounts to implement their development plans: $21.8 million for I-95 from Florida to the Canadian border; $5 million for I-70 in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio; $15 million for I-15 in Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California; $15 million for I-5 in California, Oregon, and Washington; $8.6 million for I-10 from California to Florida; and $800,000 for I-69 from Texas to Michigan.

The proposals were selected for their potential to use public and private resources to reduce traffic congestion within the corridors and across the country. The concepts include building new roads and adding lanes to existing roads, building truck-only lanes and bypasses, and integrating real-time traffic technology like lane management that can match available capacity on roads to changing traffic demands.

The Department and the states will now work to finalize formal agreements by spring 2008 that will detail the commitments of the federal, state, and local governments involved. These agreements will outline the anticipated role of the private sector as well as how the partners will handle the financing, planning, design, construction, and maintenance of the corridor.

# # #

Fact Sheets:

Map of US higlighting the corridors described above.

Texas governor, Mexico agree to extend Trans-Texas Corridor

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NAFTA Superhighway plans advance south
Texas governor, Mexico agree to extend Trans-Texas Corridor
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
September 10, 2007

Official Mexican government reports reveal Mexico has entered discussions with the state of Texas and top officials in the Bush administration to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico, with a plan to connect through Monterrey to the deep-water Mexican ports on the Pacific, including Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas.

The official website of the Mexican northeastern state of Nuevo León contain multiple reports that José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, has actively discussed with numerous U.S. government officials, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the extension of the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico to create what’s called a “Trans North America Corridor.”

In an August trip to Mexico, Perry made news in U.S. media by calling the idea of building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border “idiocy.”

Largely unreported in the American press were meetings Perry held in Mexico with Gonzáles Parás in which the two discussed extending the corridor into Mexico.

In their private meetings, the pair thoroughly discussed extending TTC-35 into Mexico, according to a report on the government’s site.
In an interview prior to Perry’s visit, Gonzáles Parás made it clear the extension of TTC-35 into Mexico would be a discussed during Perry’s time there.

“We have had interaction with the governor of Texas,” Gonzáles Parás said. “We have had a very productive relationship with Rick Perry, who is also interested in what we can do to continue that which is known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, that in reality is the corridor of North America, the Trans North America Corridor, that includes railroads, bridges, passenger automobile highways, and truck highway lanes.”

Gonzáles Parás further explained the extension of TTC-35 into Mexico would connect through Monterrey, a city which he suggested would function as a hub for truck-freight traffic. Monterrey is the capital of Nuevo León.

“One of the themes that merited the most attention on the part of the two governors was the development of the infrastructure needed for the competitive development of the region as it relates to developing the Trans-Texas Corridor in connection with the project we call the Corridor of Northeastern Mexico,” the Nuevo León government website reported Gonzáles Parás saying Sept. 1, at the conclusion of Perry’s visit.

Gonzáles Parás is reportedly pursuing plans to establish Monterrey as an “inland port” where international container freight cargo, largely delivered into Mexico via the Mexican ports on the Pacific, could be transported via a Trans North America Corridor into the United States via Laredo, Texas.

Once on I-35, the Mexican trucks transporting the Chinese containers could travel north, heading toward U.S. inland ports, such as WND has previously reported are being established by the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio in San Antonio and in Kansas City by the Kansas City SmartPort.


NASCO’s original homepage in June 2006 opened with a map highlighting the I-35 corridor from Mexico to Canada.

On May 24, Gonzáles Parás announced during his recent meetings in Austin, Perry had agreed the envisioned Trans North America Corridor would pass through Laredo and connect with San Antonio, just as Mexico ultimately planned to extend the superhighway south into Colombia.

“We have also worked in Monterrey to create an inland port, a metropolitan center for moving rapidly the commercial traffic from Monterrey to the inland port at San Antonio,” Gonzáles Parás said in the state-published interview.”For this strategic project to be accomplished, we have been working with the federal government in Mexico and well as holding discussions with the secretary of transportation and the secretary of state in the United States.”

WND has previously reported similar comments made by Gonzáles Parás at a Feb. 22 press conference in Mexico that first announced Transportes Olympic had been selected as the first trucking firm to cross the border in the Mexican truck-demonstration project.

In speaking to the group assembled at the company’s headquarters, Gonzáles Parás announced the Trans-Texas Corridor was not just the NAFTA Superhighway, but “the Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America,” uniting Mexico, the United States and Canada.

He next announced the time had arrived to declare a North American Economic Community.

Gonzáles Parás explained the Trans-Texas Corridor was more accurately known in Mexico as the “Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America.”

“I want to let you know how much we in this border state of Nuevo León have been working with our neighbor state of Texas,” he said, “making agreements which permit us to enrich what in Texas is called the ‘Trans-Texas Corridor,’ but what we in Mexico know as the ‘Logistical Corridor of North America.'”

“We – Canada, the United States and Mexico – have to perfect this Logistical Trans-Corridor of North America for our mutual benefit,” Gonzáles Parás continued.

He expanded his vision of a Logistical Corridor of North America to include the construction of a train and truck corridor that would cut through the heart of North America.

WND has previously described as a new NAFTA Superhighway, the first segment of which is the planned four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor which the Texas Department of Transportation plans to build parallel to Interstate 35.

WND has also reported that at the recent Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) third summit held in Montebello, Quebec, President Bush and Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper ridiculed the idea that SPP might result in the creation of a North American Union or NAFTA Superhighways.

These reports in Spanish published on the Nuevo León government website suggest that discussions about extending TTC-35 into Mexico are much further advanced that have been admitted by the Bush administration or reported upon in the U.S. mainstream media.

Letter to Editor: Toll plans put special interests over public good

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No toll roads
Houston Business Journal
Letter to Editor
If there’s an ounce of dignity and integrity, and the need to do the right thing, we must speak out against the Central Texas and Trans-Texas Corridor toll road plans.

Contrary to Gov. Rick Perry, the Capital Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Texas Department of Transportation and other special-interest entities, the toll plan is not in the best interest of Texans.

The majority of Texas residents do not want toll roads. But officials — elected and otherwise — continue to push aside the will of the people they serve. Any reasonable person must be able to see that toll roads merely are another form of regressive taxation.

While we’re told that there are options in place for those who do not want to pay the tolls, the reality is quite different.

All Texas consumers will pay tolls, whether they use the toll roads or not. We will all pay tolls many times over in purchasing goods and services from businesses that will use the toll roads.

Inevitably, businesses pass along such costs to their consumers. In addition, many of the roads slated for tolls already have been paid for with tax dollars. How many times should we pay for the same road?

Toll roads are nothing more than special-interest profiteering.

Toll plans should be eliminated because they are not cost-effective, not necessary, and the people of Texas don’t want them.

Special-interest officials must not determine the direction of our transportation needs.

Texans must decide what is in their own best interests — or at least the plan should be part of a public referendum.

Peter Stern, Driftwood, Tx.

TxDOT under fire…from the concerned citizens of TURF!

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TxDOT under fire
By JOANN LIVINGSTON
Daily Light Managing Editor
Saturday, September 8, 2007

  • 12th in a series

    Transportation was a hot subject during the recent legislative session – and it continues to be so in the interim.

    This week, several Texas lawmakers, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and state Reps. Joe Farias, David Leibowitz, Nathan Macias and others held a press conference in San Antonio in protest against current transportation policy and the Texas Department of Transportation.

    Key among their concerns are recent reports the state agency has launched a public relations plan to promote the Trans-Texas Corridor and to lobby for toll roads. Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom founder Terri Hall is among those criticizing TxDOT for using tax dollars to promote the TTC and tolling.

    During the San Antonio press conference, the group also called for TxDOT to install the original gas tax-funded improvement plan for U.S. Highway

    281 and drop plans to convert that roadway into a toll road, with Hall saying citizens on hand called for the “immediate resignations of TxDOT leadership.”

    Hall said TxDOT intends to make some interstates into toll corridors, including Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Dallas and Interstate 10 between Houston and San Antonio and also is looking at highways 281, 1604, Bandera Road and others around San Antonio.

    “If TxDOT and the politicians who enable them have their way, it won’t stop there,” she said, saying, “TxDOT plans to take every single lane on existing highway U.S. 281 and convert them into toll lanes. The only free lanes will be frontage roads, not highway lanes.”

    According to www.keeptexasmoving.com, TxDOT’s Web site relating to toll roads, Texas’ population has increased 57 percent in the past 25 years, with road use up by 95 percent.

    That’s a problem, the agency said, when state road capacity grew only 8 percent. TxDOT further notes on its Web site that the state’s population is estimated to increase another 64 percent during the next 25 years, with road use to increase 214 percent.

    “Without new funding methods, state road capacity will only grow 6 percent,” the agency says on its Web site.

    According to a TURF press release, Adkisson, who sits on the San Antonio Metropolitian Planning Organization, said, “TxDOT should begin (improving its relations with the public) by installing the overpasses and improvements at an estimated cost of $100 million and already paid for by our gas taxes instead building the hugely intrusive $400 million toll plan for U.S. 281 at four times the cost (and double the number of lanes).”

    Adkisson said the state’s transportation policy has failed in several areas by not indexing the gas tax and by not accelerating other forms of transportation. Creative solutions such as contraflow should be implemented and Texas should cease being a donor state that gives away more of its gas taxes than is returned, he said, saying the state is bearing the burden of NAFTA-related traffic.

    Macias, Farias and Leibowitz discussed their work during the legislative session relating to control over the toll road and TTC issues – and how that work was subsequently altered. All three encouraged voters to seek accountability at the ballot box in the next election so as to affect needed changes.

    During the press conference, Macias characterized tolling of an existing highway as the same as double taxation – and questioned TxDOT’s cost escalations for certain projects.

    Farias said amendments he tried to put into the two-year private toll moratorium bill, Senate Bill 792, were stripped out, adding that he’s concerned with the economic impact of tolls on economically-disadvantaged constituents.

    Leibowitz, who also sits on the San Antonio MPO, said he is calling for that board to pass a resolution against TxDOT’s public relations campaign and said he will ask state Attorney General Greg Abbott for an opinion on the issue.

    “I have never voted for a single toll road bill in my time in the Texas House,” said Leibowitz, who also shared his concerns that Texas is paying a disproportionate share of the NAFTA cost.

    Hall noted more lawmakers are becoming involved with the transportation issues.

    “The citizens support lawmakers’ efforts to put accountability and sanity back into transportation policy,” Hall said. “With U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison introducing a bill to prevent the tolling of existing interstates this week, calls from U.S. Congressman Ciro Rodriguez to investigate the tolling of existing interstates report, and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Congressman Charlie Gonzales adamantly opposed to it, the people may get relief on the federal level first.”

    Hall said she supports a move back to the gas tax-funded plan for improvements to 281 and a stop to the tolling of other existing highways.

    “TxDOT has breached the public trust and it cannot be repaired short of cleaning house at that agency. They’ve repeatedly sworn to our faces they’re not tolling existing roads and then lobbied Congress to do just that,” Hall said.

    TURF calls for investigation

    In another development this week, TURF has called for Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate the Texas Department of Transportation relating to a public relations campaign it is mounting.

    “Unaccountable, eminent domain abusing, runaway toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor,” TURF founder Terri Hall said. “It’s not just smarmy, it’s illegal.”

    In a recent press release, TURF criticizes the agency for disregarding input from Texans, including more than 13,000 people who spoke during hearings on the TTC.

    “Apparently they lack the intellectual capacity to understand one of the most basic words in the English language (‘no’),” the release reads, with Hall adding, “To add insult to injury, they patronize us further by thinking we just haven’t gotten the message or that we somehow don’t understand their cash-cow, land-grabbing, double-taxing toll road policies, therefore they need to spend our money to further indoctrinate us into submission.”

    TURF’s disagrees with TxDOT’s plans to spend up to $9 million on its public relations campaign – which started June 1 – to promote the TTC.

    “The politicians who are ramming this down our throats need to realize they can’t escape the long arm of the law, especially Ronnie Earle’s. Tom Delay couldn’t and neither will they,” Hall said.

    “The citizens of Texas believe the Texas Department of Transportation is illegally using taxpayer money to wage a cleverly cloaked public relations campaign to push the wildly controversial Trans-Texas Corridor and toll road proliferation,” the complaint reads as filed by TURF, which notes the agency’s public relations campaign includes direct mail, billboards and employee training.

    “It’s not only an inappropriate and wasteful use of our gas tax dollars by an agency perpetually claiming it’s out of money for roads, but it’s illegal for a public agency to take a policy position and use the public’s tax money to sell them something using an under-handed PR campaign,” the complaint reads.

    TURF’s complaint also notes that a state auditor’s report issued earlier this year found “mismarking” of funds on expenditures relating to the TTC, with some expenditures marked as engineering instead of as an actual expense of public relations.

    “Please open an investigation and prosecute this agency for its repeated illegal activities,” the TURF complaint reads. “The people of Texas want justice. When Ken Lay cooked the books at Enron, he was sent to jail. The same needs to happen with those guilty of breaking the law at the highway department.”

    Hutchison’s response

    In response to the tolling controversy, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has filed legislation that would prohibit the tolling of existing federal highways across the country.

    “My bill will protect drivers from paying tolls on roads that were already paid for by taxpayers,” Hutchison said in a statement about her legislation, S. 2019.

    The legislation’s intent is to “prohibit the imposition and collection of tolls on certain highways constructed using federal funds,” by blocking the U.S. Secretary of Transportation from approving tolls on existing federally-funded highways. Under current law, states can apply to the U.S. Department of Transportation to place tolls on existing federal highways.

    In a press release from her office, Hutchison said she would “vigorously oppose” any effort by Texas Department of Transportation to toll existing interstate highways through the use of buy backs.

    Earlier this year, TxDOT officials said they intended to lobby Congress to allow for the buy back of existing federal highways in Texas for the purpose of tolling. Hutchison’s legislation specifically disallows states to place tolls on any federal highways they buy back from the DOT.

    “I will work with members of the Texas Congressional delegation and the state legislature to ensure that Texans are never asked to pay a toll of an existing interstate highway,” said Hutchison, who serves as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which sets the budget for the federal Department of Transportation

    In February, TxDOT released its legislative agenda in a report called “Forward Momentum,” which seeks changes in federal law that would allow such buy backs for the purpose of tolling interstate highways, pending approval by local governments.

    S. 2019 is similar to a previous effort by Hutchison to block the use of tolls on existing interstate highways as part of the 2005 Highway Bill.

    The amendment passed the Senate but was stripped in conference by the House of Representatives.

    Cities fight to stop TTC

    The cities of Bartlett, Holland, Little River-Academy and Rogers recently formed the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission to fight the TTC.

    “This is one issue all four cities are united behind to save our rural way of life,” said newly elected president Mae Smith, who is mayor of Holland. Other members of the board include Arthur White, mayor of Bartlett; Ronnie White, mayor of Academy; the Rev. Billy Crow, mayor of Rogers; and Ralph Snyder, a business owner from Holland.

    “The purpose of this commission is to give us a voice in this process. It’s our land that the Texas Department of Transportation and our governor want to take and we are not going to let them pave us over and ignore the concerns of our communities,” Snyder said.

    The commission reports the TTC would take from 5,000 and 7,500 acres in Bell County alone, while taking in another 50,000 acres of farmland between San Antonio and the Texas-Oklahoma border. The Texas Legislature created the TTC in 2003 “and ever since, landowners have been fighting to protect their rights,” according to a press release from the commission.

    The commission was formed using Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, which allows cities and counties to form regional planning commissions to work together to develop plans for their local region and to force the state agencies to coordinate with their activities.

    Under Chapter 391.009(c), TxDOT is required to coordinate with commissions to ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level.

    “TxDOT must coordinate with us before they can implement their plans in our region,” said Ronnie White, commission vice president. “The TTC is driven by greed and has no respect for our rural way of life.”

    The commission says that under state law, TxDOT will be required to work with it and coordinate the agency’s plans with the local group before any land is taken or any construction begins.

    “If not, they are in violation of the state statute and we are prepared to take them to court if necessary,” Smith said.

    The individual cities have also requested that the Environmental Protection Agency reject the Draft Environmental Impact Statement submitted by TxDOT, because the agency did not coordinate with local government as required under the federal law.

    Waller County rejects proposal

    Waller County commissioners announced at a meeting in early August that they had been approached by TxDOT officials and Gary Bushell, a lobbyist for the Alliance for I-69 and the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway Coalition, with a plan to route the TTC along the proposed path of the Prairie Parkway, which had been recently discussed as a thoroughfare from Highway 290 between Waller and Prairie View (James Muse Road), to I-10 and Woods Road.

    Waller County commissioners rejected the proposal, according to a press release from Citizens for a Better Waller County.

    “For folks that think that the Trans-Texas Corridor is not going to happen – this is a major wake up call,” said Don Garrett, president of the citizens group. “Not only does it show that TxDOT and Gov. Perry are going forward with the plans for the TTC-69, but that they still have Waller County dead in their sights for the path of this 1,200-feet wide mobility monster.

    “Although there is a two-year moratorium that prevents TxDOT from signing a contract with a private company to build the TTC-69 under Senate Bill 792, that doesn’t mean that they can’t proceed forward with selecting a pathway for it,” he said.

    Garrett said he encourages people living in Waller County to stay aware of TxDOT’s plans.

    “An express toll road that is a 1/2 of a mile wide going through the dead center of Waller County would devastate it. It will change life as we know it in Waller County for generations to come,” Garrett said. “This move by TxDOT shows that they are still trying to route this thing through the middle of our county, despite the fact that nobody in Waller County wants it here.

    “We are not opposed to a rational approach to solving our future transportation needs, but are adamantly opposed to a system that primarily benefits Wall Street and foreign investors,” he said, saying the organization has confirmed TxDOT representatives have met with Fort Bend County officials in regard to routing TTC-69 through Fort Bend County toward Waller County.

    According to information from the organization, Prairie Parkway has been on the county’s thoroughfare plan since 1985 and has been updated because of development to Houston Executive Airport and expansion plans for I-10 and Highway 290. The route also will provide additional hurricane evacuation capabilities for coastal residents.

    “TxDOT saw an opportunity with the proposed Prairie Parkway to piggyback the TTC on top of it. It’s now up to the citizens of Waller County to let TxDOT know what they think about that,” Garrett said.

    A final route for TTC-69 is pending release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and additional hearings.

    “It is more important now than ever that people pay attention to what is going on around here,” Garrett said. “The TTC is alive and well and TxDOT is hoping that folks are asleep at the wheel when they show up with bulldozers.”