Citizens call for immediate resignations of TxDOT's top brass

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lawmakers call for TxDOT to cease using taxpayer money to lobby for toll roadsCitizens call for immediate resignations of TxDOT leadership

San Antonio, TX, Tuesday, September 4, 2007 – Several Texas lawmakers, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, and State Representatives Joe Farias, David Leibowitz, Nathan Macias and concerned citizens stood shoulder to shoulder to call for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to cease and desist from using taxpayer money to lobby for toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor. The citizens went a step further and called for the immediate resignations of TxDOT’s top brass. Both also called for TxDOT to immediately install the original gas tax funded improvement plan for U.S. Highway 281 and drop all plans to convert that existing state highway into a toll road.

“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 US 281 at four times the cost (and double the number of lanes),” demanded Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, who also sits on the San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Adkisson listed other failures in transportation policy, including the failure to index the gas tax, accelerate other modes of transportation, implement creative solutions like contraflow, repair Texas being a donor state giving away more of our gas taxes than we get back despite being asked to bear the burden of NAFTA related traffic, and illegal lobbying (Texas Government Code Chapter 556) by TxDOT.

Representative Nathan Macias (R- Dist 73) also insisted TxDOT install the gas tax improvement plan for US 281 saying it is DOUBLE TAXATION to toll an existing highway and noted that the highway department was cherry-picking, “There’s money in them thar hills, and TxDOT is comin’ after it.” He also pointed out that every major artery used by his constituents in the Texas Hill Country is slated to become a toll corridor including, I-35, US 281, I-10, and SH 16. Macias sits on the House Transportation Committee and led the charge AGAINST SB 792 which allows the highest possible tolls. He challenged TxDOT’s cost escalation for the 281 and 1604 projects that have doubled and even quadrupled in some estimates. “The math just doesn’t add up.”

Representative Joe Farias (D-Dist 118) told how he introduced an amendment to put Loop 1604 and US 281 under the two-year private toll moratorium, SB 792, but explained how the Senate stripped it out. He’s gravely concerned with the economic impact to his constituents who struggle to put gas in their cars much less pay tolls, too. Farias has been threatened by a highway lobbyist for introducing that amendment.

Representative David Leibowitz, (D-Dist. 117), who also sits on the San Antonio MPO, called for the board to pass a resolution to stop TxDOT from illegally spending taxpayer money to push tolls and is also asking the Attorney General for an opinion to aid in that effort.

“I have never voted for a single toll road bill in my time in the Texas House,” shared Leibowitz as he described how he expressly placed 1604 under the moratorium through legislative intent in the House journal and now he finds that TxDOT and the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) are flouting that intent and are still trying to involve private entities in tolling that highway. He also shared concerns about the disproportionate share Texas is having to pay for NAFTA.

All encouraged citizens to seek accountability at the ballot box since the vast majority of the Legislature followed the Governor down the path to toll roads (versus indexing the gas tax), which will result in “the largest tax increase in Texas history” according to Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson.

“The citizens support lawmakers’ efforts to put accountability and sanity back into transportation policy,” said Founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF), Terri Hall. “With U.S. Senator 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. Senator John Cornyn and U.S. Congressman Charlie Gonzales adamantly opposed to it, the people may get relief on the federal level first.”

Hall echoed the calls to revert back to the gas tax funded plan for improvements to 281 and stop the tolling of our 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!” fumed Hall surrounded by dozens of concerned citizens.

“It’s vitally important the public is made aware that several existing state highways and interstates are slated to become toll corridors, I-35 (between San Antonio and Dallas), I-10 (in Houston and San Antonio), 281, 1604, Bandera Rd., and others. If TxDOT and the politicians who enable them have their way, it won’t stop there,” believes Hall.

“TxDOT plans to take every single lane on existing highway US 281 and convert them into toll lanes. The only free lanes will be frontage roads, not highway lanes. The same is true for 16 miles on Loop 1604. When TxDOT already has a plan and the money to install the needed improvements on 281 without tolls and REFUSES to do so after thousands of citizens and many lawmakers have asked them to, it’s clear we have a highway department that’s out of control and not acting in the public’s best interest. In fact, they’re more interested in enriching private road contractors leaving the traveling public left holding the bag,” voiced Hall.

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Hutchison, Cornyn, Gonzales all oppose plan to toll existing interstates!

Link to article here.

Hutchison wants to ban tolls on Texas’s interstates
Hutchison wants to block Texas from levying fees on U.S. highways
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Houston Chronicle, Austin Bureau
September 1, 2007

AUSTIN — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, considered a possible future contender for Texas governor, said Friday she’s filing a bill to ban states from converting existing interstate highways into toll roads.

Hutchison, joining objections of bipartisan lawmakers in Austin and Washington, said she will “vigorously” block the Texas Department of Transportation from ever levying tolls on federal highways.

“I intend to immediately introduce as free-standing legislation my amendment that the Senate passed in 2005 to specifically prohibit states from tolling existing interstate highways,” the Republican said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this year, Texas transportation officials sent a letter to Congress seeking a change in federal law to let states “buy back” interstate highways and levy tolls on them.

Such a tolling plan, under a state law passed in 2005, would require a vote of county commissioners and local voters.

Texas’ other U.S. senator, fellow Republican John Cornyn, concurred with Hutchison.

“I think it’s a bad idea, and I don’t support it,” he said Friday in an interview.

Gov. Rick Perry, a big proponent of toll roads, has said he opposes tolling existing roadways unless local voters want them.

Hutchison and U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, said Friday they’ll oppose the state’s effort to change federal law.

“Texans should never have to pay twice for a highway, and I will fight any such efforts,” Hutchison said reacting to news reports detailing TxDOT’s federal legislative agenda, “Forward Momentum.”

Gonzalez issued a statement calling the initiative an “alarming proposal” that he said would place an “unnecessary fiscal burden” on citizens.

Agency spokesman Chris Lippincott defended the plan this week as a solution to an estimated $86 billion shortfall in needed highway funding for Texas.

Lippincott said charging tolls on interstate highways would help clear congested roadways and lead to cleaner air.

Yet, state Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas, predicted state lawmakers will never allow such a toll system.

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, also registered objections, saying the nation is in serious trouble if it has to sell off its highway infrastructure, especially to private companies which TxDOT proposes could manage resulting toll roads.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “It’s just taxation upon taxation upon taxation.”

Anti-corridor Duncan Hunter wins first GOP straw poll

Hunter wins Texas’ first GOP straw poll
By ANGELA K. BROWN
Sept. 1, 2007
Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas — California congressman Duncan Hunter won Texas’ first Republican Party Straw Poll on Saturday in a low-turnout event that lacked the top-tier presidential candidates.

Hunter got 534 votes, or 41 percent of the vote. Former Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson, who is expected to announce his candidacy next week but was not at the event, came in second with 266 votes, or nearly 21 percent. Texas congressman Ron Paul came in third with 217 votes, or 17 percent.

Crowd support seemed split between Hunter and Paul, whose grass-roots supporters waved signs and chanted his name throughout the day. Other candidates attending were Chicago businessman John Cox, who got 10 votes; counterterrorism expert Hugh Cort of Birmingham, Ala., who got three votes; and tool-and-die maker Ray McKinney of Savannah, Ga., with 28 votes.

Each of the other absent but better-known candidates received less than 7 percent of the vote. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came in fourth with 83 votes; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani got 78 votes; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received 61 votes; and Arizona Sen. John McCain garnered eight votes.

Others who didn’t attend, Kansas senator Sam Brownback and Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, each received six votes.

Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee who is serving his 14th term in Congress, said his message of strong national security seemed to resonate with poll voters. He played a leading role in the construction of a 14-mile double fence on the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego and co-authored legislation signed by President Bush that would extend the border fence to 850 miles.

“I think we go on to great things, and we’re going to carry this message for a strong America,” said Hunter, who won the straw poll in Arizona and came in a close third in South Carolina.

The Texas straw poll is only for party activists, and those casting ballots must have been a delegate or alternate to a recent GOP state or national convention. Last month’s Iowa Republican straw poll, in which Romney won, was open to any voter who pays for a ticket.

Texas GOP officials had said they expected 2,000 people to vote Saturday, but only 1,300 did.

The low turnout and top-tier candidates’ absence in Texas didn’t seem to bother Debbie and Wayne Turner of Waxahachie. Wearing matching American flag shirts, the couple said they were eager to attend the historic event — even though Wayne Turner, who supports Thompson, and his Giuliani supporter wife didn’t get to meet their favorite candidates.

“This group here is the cheerleaders, and we’re passionate about it,” said Wayne Turner, who wore a black cowboy hat with “Fred Head” around the brim and carried a sign that read, “Run, Fred, run!”

The event kicked off with large screens showing images of the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and soldiers in the war zone, as a recording of country singer Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten?” played.

Some speakers acknowledged that electing a Republican to the White House in 2008 would be challenging because of momentum of the Democratic presidential candidates. Several criticized one of the frontrunners, New York senator Hillary Clinton.

Texas senator John Cornyn said the best GOP candidate should be selected because “obviously we’re going to be flying into a bit of a headwind on the national level.” He said some Republicans have lost sight of the party’s core values, such as national security, limited government and keeping taxes low.

“If we regain our vision … we will also regain and earn the endorsement of the people,” Cornyn said.

Meanwhile, war protester Cindy Sheehan spoke at a rally outside the convention center, where several hundred people gathered. Sheehan recently announced she is running as an independent for the congressional seat held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

“I’m here in opposition to the Republican straw poll,” Sheehan said before her speech. “The war will be a big issue (in the election), and I don’t see any of the major candidates talking about bringing the troops home. They’re playing politics with our troops’ flesh and blood and innocent Iraqis’ flesh and blood.”

The Texas primary will be March 4.

Hutchison comes out fighting against tolling existing interstates!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 31, 2007
CONTACT: Geoff Embler or Matt Mackowiak

Sen. Hutchison will “Vigorously Oppose” Any Effort to Toll Existing Highways
Believes Toll Plan is Double Taxation which she Cannot Support

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison today said she would vigorously oppose any effort by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to toll existing interstate highways.

“I will vigorously oppose any effort by the State of Texas to buy back existing interstates and convert them into toll roads,” Sen. Hutchison said. “Texans should never have to pay twice for a highway and I will fight any such efforts.”

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

Sen. Hutchison has long fought against tolling existing interstate highways, and successfully passed an amendment in the 2005 highway bill which would have prevented states from tolling interstate highways that have already been paid for, but House conferees did not agree to it.

“I intend to immediately introduce as free-standing legislation my amendment that the Senate passed in 2005 to specifically prohibit states from tolling existing interstate highways,” Sen. Hutchison said.

Sen. Hutchison is a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which funds the U.S. Department of Transportation, and is a member of the Senate Republican Leadership.

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Mexican trucks to roll into U.S. due to NAFTA & increase excuse for new trade corridors

Link to article here.

Mexican truckers must speak English
Authorities begin enforcing a 1971 law as the U.S. opens its roadways
Associated Press
September 1, 2007

HARLINGEN — Interstate truck and bus drivers across America may find themselves pulled off the highway if state troopers or vehicle inspectors find they can’t speak English.

The requirement has been on the books for decades, but enforcement has begun before Mexican trucks are allowed in the U.S. interior as of Sept. 6.

“We have found people in violation of this for a number of years and we’re working feverishly to correct it,” said John Hill, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Since 1971, federal law has said that commercial drivers must read and speak English “sufficiently to understand highway traffic signs and signals and directions given in English and to respond to official inquiries.”

Hill said the language deficiency was found mostly in the commercial zone that varies from 25 miles to 75 miles north of the Mexican border.

Since inspectors there are bilingual and Mexican truckers are not allowed past that zone, it hasn’t been an issue.

But after more than a decade of legal wrangling, U.S. highways are opening up.

The North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 called for Mexican and U.S. trucks to travel freely throughout one another’s nations, but the provision was stalled by labor unions and environmental groups’ arguments that the trucks are unsafe.

A pilot program allowing a limited number of already approved Mexican trucks to pass the border zone was set to begin as early as today, but Hill said no trucks will pass beyond the border zone pending a final report by the inspector general. The program is now set to take effect Thursday.

Mexican truckers, meanwhile, said they were prepared to leave merchandise in Mexican warehouses if U.S. authorities insisted on fines for not knowing English in the border zone.

“We have been talking with U.S. authorities,” said Luis Moreno Sesma, president of Mexico’s national chamber of cargo haulers.

“The law says that the operators should know English to cross the border, but we have said they should have special consideration for the border guys,” he said.

The language requirement is part of a long checklist — including criminal background and drug and alcohol tests — that carriers must pass to go into the interior.

U.S. commercial drivers going into the Mexican interior, part of the reciprocal agreement, will have to speak Spanish.

MORE OUTRAGE: The rich get FREE toll tags in Dallas!

View the news report here.

If this doesn’t demonstrate that these toll plans are special lanes for the rich and powerful, then I don’t know what does. Considering that tolling authority board members who decide on toll rates (ie – TAX HIKES) to be imposed on all of us exempt themselves, the self-interest is obvious! You can bet that the lawmakers who voted to allow these taxes will also be exempt from living under the toll taxes they impose on us, just like they get the best health plan in the world, and the best retirement plan in the world. What’s good for the goose ought to be good for the gander, but not when it comes to politics. Are you angry enough to vote them out? Because until you are, you’re going to keep getting fleeced under this insidious good ol’ boy system.

Some Drive On Tollway For Free

Click here for a .pdf file listing people who have a free TollTag.
Click here for a .pdf file listing the NTTA’s rules about who gets a free TollTag.

(CBS 11 News) DALLAS Some very rich and powerful people are getting free TollTags – for life — with virtually no limits on how many times they can ride for free.A CBS 11 investigation found Dallas resident Jere Thompson with a free TollTag. He lives in a $1.4 million house, is CEO of a local electric company, and years ago served on the board of the North Texas Tollway Authority [N.T.T.A.]. According to records obtained by CBS 11, Thompson had more than 1200 transactions on the Dallas North Tollway in a recent 12 month period.

All of them were free.

Mr. Thompson told us he believes he’s entitled to it for his years of service as a former NTTA board member.

The NTTA is a quasi-governmental agency and is funded with money from bonds and tollway revenue. But ask some people who don’t get a free TollTag, like Dallas grandmother Margaret Diehl, and they’ll say, “I don’t see any reason why they can’t pay like the rest of us.”

According to Clayton Howell of the NTTA, the reason Thompson doesn’t pay is because it’s board policy that every former and current NTTA board member gets a free TollTag for life.

In addition, elected officials such as Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and State Representatives Burt Solomons and Jim Jackson each get one too – but only until their terms are up.

The NTTA also issues a free TollTag to all of its roughly 800 employees.

Certain NTTA retirees also get a free TollTag for life.

If you have a free TollTag, there appears to be no set limit on the number of times you can use it. The NTTA says it monitors each tag to ensure there is no abuse, but would not define what constitutes abuse. Also, the NTTA does not audit the free TollTags to ensure each tag is being used only by the authorized user.

To get a free TollTag, you only need to fill out a form. One person makes the decision based on board policy.

In a recent 12 month period, the NTTA allowed one million free transactions. About 350,000 of those were for emergency vehicles. The rest were not.

Randy Johnson, who fought the tollway expansion, believes free TollTags for former board members and public officials is a “courtesy… you give them a free pass and they might help you out down the road.”

When CBS 11 analyzed tollway records, we found the three public officials who received toll tags–Congresswoman Johnson and State Representatives Solomons and Jackson–all worked on matters involving the tollway. Only Congresswoman Johnson called us back, saying, “I don’t have to tell you my business.”

We also found Dallas resident David Laney with a free TollTag. He has a home and rental property in Dallas worth more than $3 million. Laney is a former NTTA board member, former chair of the Texas Transportation Commission, and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Amtrak. Laney had 856 Tollway transactions in a recent 12 month period. When we asked if he deserves a free TollTag, he said “Yes.”

After persistent questions from CBS 11, the NTTA revoked former State Senator Robert Cain’s free TollTag. CBS 11 discovered the NTTA was violating its own policy by allowing Cain to have one. Cain left office in 2003, but remained on the list of people with free TollTags.

The NTTA also announced it is raising tolls, so those of us who do pay for tolls will soon pay more.

In June, the Harris County Toll Road Authority in Houston area took away the free TollTags it provided for employees, saying the policy no longer made sense.

Want to see the list of people who have a free TollTag? Click here to see it in .pdf format.

We asked the NTTA for a copy of its policy that governs free TollTags. Click here to download it for yourself as a .pdf file.

WOAI Talk Radio Interstate Toll Exclusive Prompts Outrage & U.S. Senate Action

Link to WOAI stories here and here.

WOAI radio in San Antonio has shut us out for many months but this week they launched the Joe Pags afternoon talk show and had Joe Krier, President of the San Antonio Greater Chamber of Commerce, San Antonio Mobility Coalition, and a pro-toll group Texans for Safe Reliable Transportation, on the air promising no existing lanes would be tolled, then days later they “break” a story about a secret plan where TxDOT lobbied Congress to do just that.

Not sure where they’ve been all year, but we reported the news of TxDOT lobbying Congress to remove all limits to tolling interstates and their proposed buy back scheme that would give private corporations tax breaks on toll income in January. The Legislature was briefed on it in February! So when you read Senate Transportation Committee Chairman John Carona feign outrage, remember that. Who’s he kidding? A housewife in San Antonio knows this but not the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman?

Well, we ought to feel vindicated as news of what we’ve all known since Ric Williamson uttered this now famous quote, “In your lifetime, most existing roads will have tolls” (Houston Chronicle, Oct. 11, 2004)…the plan is to turn all our existing roads into toll roads and DOUBLE TAX, even TRIPLE TAX us to use them. What’s most shocking in this media frenzy is the pretense of outrage on the part of elected officials.

Gimme a break…TxDOT has been converting our existing state highways into tollways all over the state, with two interstates highways slated to be tolled (I-35 throughout the state and I-10 in San Antonio and Houston), and they have done NOTHING to stop it! They all hide behind tough rhetoric, then give the green light to TxDOT to play a game of semantics and pretend that if they bulldoze our existing highways and do an elaborate and ghastly expensive re-arranging of the pavement, that they are somehow not tolling existing roads. It would be laughable were it not so serious.

“Outrage” is Reaction to 1200 WOAI News Toll Exclusive
Local, state officials vow never to allow TxDOT to toll existing highways

Friday, August 31, 2007
Reaction to the 1200 WOAI news exclusive report Thursday that the Texas Department of Transportation has a secret plan to turn all of the state’s Interstate highways into toll roads has been immediate and statewide, with ‘outrage’ being the least impolite word that is being heard to describe the reaction of officials and lawmakers.”I was disappointed to be once again blind sided in having to learn about this idea through the media, instead of from TexDOT,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, one of several local officials who has been assuring citizens that existing roads would ‘never’ be tolled. The entire officials 1200 WOAI news spoke with said they had never heard of the TexDOT memo until 1200 WOAI’s report brought it to their attention yesterday.”Going back and trying to toll already existing highways, in this case interstates, is outrageous,” Senator John Corona, (D-Dallas), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said when asked about the 1200 WOAI news report. “People have already paid for that.”

The 1200 WOAI news exclusive has now been copied by newspapers across the state.

Joe Krier, President of the Greater Chamber of Commerce and a leader in the toll road battle, said he had never heard about the report until 1200 WOAI news brought it to his attention, but it doesn’t change his basic support for toll roads.

“If other people have a better way to fund these roads in the short term, we’d be glad to hear it,” Krier said.

But toll road opponents jumped on the 1200 WOAI news report as evidence that TexDOT ‘cannot be trusted.’

“They want to shift all of our current highways into tollways, and double tax us for the rest of our lives,” said Terri Hall of TexasTURF, an anti toll road group.

“You can’t trust them,” Hall said. “One minute they’re telling you, ‘no, we have no intention of tolling existing roads,’ and then the next minute they’re sending reports to Congress asking for that very thing. I don’t think you can trust the agencies that are trying to toll our roads at this point. You can’t believe a word they say.”

The internal memo suggests that Texas state tax dollars could be used to ‘buy back’ the toll roads from the federal government, getting around a federal law that prohibits putting tolls on roads paid for with federal dollars. Not only would tolls then be collected on existing Interstates, but the companies that would collect the tolls would get tax breaks from Texas taxpayers.

“The deception of going back and trying to toll already existing, already paid for highways is wrong headed,” Carona told 1200 WOAI news.

Many local officials pointed to state laws which prohibit any tolls being added to existing roads without a vote of the local county commissioners court, and the voters.

“That TexDOT would now pursue the tolling of existing interstate lanes is unwise, unreasonable, and poor public policy,” Wolff said.

_________________________________

1200 WOAI Interstate Toll Exclusive Prompts U.S. Senate Action
Hutchison vows to introduce a bill to prohibit tolling of Interstates, entire TexDOT tolling plan in jeopardy
Friday, August 31, 2007
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison today vowed to ‘immediately’ introduce a measure that would prohibit states from tolling existing Interstate highways under any circumstances.It’s in response to that 1200 WOAI news exclusive Thursday, which has now been copied by other media statewide, revealing a secret Texas Department of Transportation plan to ‘buy back’ the federal equity in Interstates to get around a federal prohibition against tolling any highway paid for by federal tax money.”I intend to immediately introduce as free standing legislation my 2005 amendment that the Senate passed to prohibit tolling of existing Interstate highways,” Hutchison said.

The 1200 WOAI news report is sparking an anti TexDOT fervor across Washington D.C.

Congressman Charlie Gonzalez called TexDOT’s toll plan ‘alarming.’

“The public should never be charged to use public highways which were built with their tax revenue,” Gonzalez said. “Toll roads create an unnecessary fiscal burden on citizens, and I will oppose any federal plan to facilitate their construction by utilizing the federal highway system.”

The 1200 WOAI news report appears to have possibly fatally damaged TexDOT’s toll road initiatives, especially the already controversial Trans Texas Corridor.

Even the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the group that makes long term transportation plans, said today it has done all of it’s work ‘under the premise’ that tolls will only be assessed on new lanes.

“The MPO has not supported the tolling of existing highways or existing lanes,” MPO Policy Board Chair Sheila McNail said. “Such a measure will not be implemented in the MPO planning area.”

Many citizens who have called or been interviewed by 1200 WOAI news indicated they were on the fence about the toll issue, but now feel strongly that toll road should be opposed.

Obituary: Trans Texas Corridor

Link to article here.

Obituary: Trans Texas Corridor
By Roy Bragg
Express News
August 31, 2007
The Trans-Texas Corridor, a plan so flimsy and badly conceived that it attained the believability of an urban legend, died of its own greed and hubris Thursday.

Death came quietly to the ballyhooed plan — which had proposed spending billions of tax dollars to convert existing, state-built highways to toll roads and augment them with unnecessary superhighways — with the revelation that highway officials just wanted more money.

The stated goal of the TTC was to handle imaginary gridlock 50 years in the future. The case for the TTC, however, was argued with faulty data, questionable reports, inexplicable anecdotes, and diversionary arguments.

Death not reported immediately

The boondoggle actually died in December, when the Texas Department of Transportation came up with a cockamamie plan to buy back existing federal interstate highways and turn them into toll roads. The move would require Congress’ approval, and the agency was lobbying for it.

News of the plan didn’t surface until recently.

The December plan didn’t call for new roads. Rather, it unmasked the real goals of the TTC — squeeze money out of a citizenry whose lives revolve around highway travel. Drivers, in other words, were a captive audience. Tolls don’t require voter or legislative approval, and are essentially taxes without oversight.

TTC’s timely death comes after the controversy over the $9 million “Keep Texas Moving” advertising campaign. Polly Ross Hughes wrote about it today on MySA:

“It’s less than 50 cents a Texan,” Transportation Department spokesman Chris Lippincott said in defense of the ad campaign. “We could sit down and buy them a cup of coffee for that kind of money.”

As of this writing, Lippincott hasn’t bought coffee for me or anyone I know.

Truth Be Tolled documentary filmmaker, Bill Molina, featured in Trinity's Alum Mag

Bill Molina ’84

Getting the Show on the Road

By Donna Parker

Bill Molina ’84 is an award-winning Hollywood cinematographer who toiled on film and episodic television shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, but now he is focused on ZIP codes closer to his Texas roots.

A recent winner of the Worldfest Houston Film Festival Platinum Remi Award for his feature documentary Truth be Tolled, Bill tellsthe story of foreign companies poised to make a fortune off the Trans-Texas Corridor and by charging tolls on existing Texas roadways already paid for by taxpayers.

“I never saw myself as a political activist. I just got really tired of seeing the direction our country is taking. When this issue of tolling our existing roads without a public vote came up, I got involved – not as a filmmaker – but as a concerned taxpaying citizen. There is a story to be told here not only about the double taxation of our roads but more importantly the TTC and the largest forcible eminent domain acquisition in U.S. history.”

Last year, Bill attended a public meeting on a proposed San Antonio toll road and noticed no one from the TV press was reporting on the debate or the other obvious toll issues.

“I picked up a video camera and started shooting these public meetings and became more annoyed that there was little or no press coverage. At one meeting, there were 800 people and I was the only one documenting the event with a camera. I ended up producing a documentary in order to share the truth with the public.”

Bill is currently retooling the film for a premiere in San Antonio later this month.

“My entire focus right now is this documentary. I’ve put my career on hold to produce this film. This is something for which people need to wake up and get involved. What’s at stake is far more than just a toll road.”

Always passionate about filmmaking, Bill also minored in speech and drama while at Trinity and credits several professors who served as mentors and jump started his career path.

“Steve Gilliam, department of speech and drama, was a great influence because he was very concerned about his students and gave us artistic freedom to be ourselves and accomplish what we could. Also, my advisor, David Thomas, department of communication, was instrumental in encouraging me to finish my first student film, Revelation, which was honored by the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences) student competition, leading the way to University Film and Video grant for my next film project.”

Bill says the turning point in his professional life in Hollywood was directing his first feature film Where Truth Lies, starring his idol, Malcolm McDowell.

“That was a trip in itself…to have Alex sitting in my car discussing Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange.”

The other star was Kim Cattrall (of Sex and the City fame) and Bill almost blew that first meeting when he got caught in traffic, showed up late, and then couldn’t produce his wallet to pay for the dinner.

“I walked out of the restaurant thinking my career was over, but Kim called back within an hour and agreed to do the movie,” laughs Bill.

“Although I’m still star struck by Hollywood, I know that there are so many other important issues in the world and I just needed to produce a film that would actually make a difference.”

You may contact Bill at the following email address:
stormpictures@earthlink.net

For more information on his documentary, Truth be Tolled:
http://www.truthbetolled.com/

TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads

Link to articles here and here. Well, we ought to feel vindicated as news of what we’ve all known since Ric Williamson uttered this now famous quote, “In your lifetime, most existing roads will have tolls” (Houston Chronicle, Oct. 11, 2004)…the plan is to turn all our existing roads into toll roads and DOUBLE TAX, even TRIPLE TAX us to use them. What’s most shocking in this media frenzy is the pretense of outrage on the part of elected officials.

Gimme a break…TxDOT has been converting our existing state highways into tollways (281, 1604, 121) all over the state, with two interstates highways slated to be tolled (I-35 and I-10 in San Antonio and Houston), and they have done NOTHING to stop it! They all hide behind tough rhetoric, then give the green light to TxDOT to play a game of semantics and pretend that if they bulldoze our existing highways and do an elaborate and ghastly expensive re-arranging of the pavement, that they are somehow not tolling existing roads. It would be laughable were it not so serious.

We posted the news of TxDOT lobbying Congress to remove all limits to tolling interstates and their proposed buy back scheme that would give private corporations tax breaks on toll income in January. The Legislature was briefed on it in February! So when you read Senate Transportation Committee Chairman John Carona feign outrage, remember that. Who’s he kidding? A housewife in San Antonio knows this but not the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman?

TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Plan includes buying interstates and charging drivers a toll
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Houston Chronicle & Express-News, Austin Bureau
Aug. 31, 2007

AUSTIN — The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to “buy back” parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.The 24-page plan, outlined in a “Forward Momentum” report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.

“I think it’s a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas,” said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.

“I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly be opposed to such an idea,” he said. “The simple fact is that taxpayers have already paid for those roadways. To ask taxpayers to pay for them twice is untenable.”

The report not only advocates turning stretches of interstate highways into toll roads, but it also suggests tax breaks for private company “investment” in such enterprises.

Along with that, it calls for altering the tax code to exempt toll road owners from paying income taxes.

The agency’s attempt to influence Congress comes in on the heels of its multimillion-dollar advertising campaign touting the lightning-rod Trans-Texas Corridor plan and other toll roads.

With an estimated price tag of $7 million to $9 million, the “Keep Texas Moving” campaign comes even as transportation officials warn of an $86 billion shortfall for needed highway construction.

“It’s less than 50 cents a Texan,” Transportation Department spokesman Chris Lippincott said in defense of the ad campaign. “We could sit down and buy them a cup of coffee for that kind of money.”

Lippincott said he’s surprised by the reactions, noting the agency discussed the issue at four public meetings and sent a link to the draft report last December to all members of the Texas Legislature.

Besides, he said, state law would prevent the conversion of interstate highways into toll roads unless such a plan gained votes of county commissioners and taxpayers in a referendum.

Anti-toll road activist Sal Castello, the Austin-based founder of the TexasTollParty.com, said he’s frustrated by the “schemers and the scammers” who “never stop” divisive toll road proposals despite widespread opposition and fretted that a required referendum could be creatively worded to disguise the nature of toll road conversions.

Carona said he objects to the agency’s attempts to persuade Congress to allow federal highways to turn into toll roads because the interstate system was built as part of the national defense.

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said the report appears to recycle ideas that led the Legislature this spring to pass a moratorium on construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a mammoth toll plan that’s the cornerstone of Gov. Rick Perry’s highways building proposal.

“This is not only double taxation, it is a violation of the trust that should exist between citizens and government,” she said. “Existing Texas highway lanes built with our tax dollars should not be converted to toll roads and taxed again.”

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the report in no way contradicts Perry’s repeated promise on highways that “if it’s free today it will be free tomorrow.”

That still holds true, he said, unless local voters say otherwise.

Meanwhile, “Texas will work to educate Congress of the importance of including reasonable and efficient funding solutions, such as tolling, in the next (highway funding) reauthorization bill,” the department’s report promises.

Next week Democratic state Reps. Joe Farias and David Leibowitz of San Antonio will join Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde, at a condemned gas station in San Antonio to air objections to the transportation department’s tolling ideas and ad campaign.

“TxDOT has crossed the line on a number of fronts in recent weeks, and elected representatives are prepared to fight,” said Terri Hall, founder of Texans United for Reform and Freedom, a grass-roots group to promote nontoll solutions to Texas’ transportation needs.