Link to article here.

I would differ on their solution…certainly get some safer design standards for toll roads already built (and not yet paid for), but the SAFEST solution is to stop building toll roads, to take tolls off toll roads that are already paid off, and especially to STOP shifting our FREEways into UNSAFE tollways!

Also remember, there is NO WAY to collect tolls 100% electronically without LOSING LOTS OF MONEY. Those who have to pay cash, out of towners, tourists, etc. may not have an electronic tag, so booths of some kind are still necessary. Former Executive Director of the Alamo RMA Tom Greibel said they would send out of towners a bill in the mail to collect fees to keep the system electronic. Is that how we’re going to welcome tourists…welcome to San Antonio, now that you’ve left, here’s your toll bill??? People just aren’t going to pay it. What bond company would allow all that revenue to go unpaid?

So there is STILL a safety issue because there will have to be a mix of toll booths with the electronic system. TxDOT is lying when they say there will be no toll booths and that their system is ALL electronic. They said the same thing in Austin yet a toll road there is set to open with behemoth toll booths (read about it here) and they also recently advertised in the classifieds for toll booth operators (February 4, 2006 in Austin American Statesman)! Also note in the article below how the driver must still slow to have their tag read by the toll tag reader (in Houston, you still have to slow down and get in the EZ PASS lane; you cannot maintain highway speeds and go through the EZ PASS lanes)…so this notion of toll lanes being a non-stop whiz to your destination just aren’t true!

Design Standards Proposed for Toll Plazas
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
6:43 PM PDT, April 18, 2006

WASHINGTON — The most dangerous place on the highway is the toll plaza, say federal safety investigators who are urging changes to reduce accidents like one that claimed eight lives in Illinois.

Though highway safety issues such as drunken driving, seat belt use and air bag deployment are debated, studied and regulated, toll plaza safety has been virtually ignored.

“Toll plazas have been designed for 50 years without national design standards,” Dan Walsh, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said during a Tuesday hearing on the Illinois crash.

More toll plazas are being built and old ones are being retrofitted for electronic toll collection, he said.

“The need for standards is paramount,” Walsh said.

The NTSB recommended Tuesday that federal highway officials develop design standards to reduce the number of crashes at toll plazas. Those may include guidelines on signs, pavement markings, lane width or rumble strips.

The recommendations resulted from the investigation of a chain-reaction crash on Oct. 1, 2003, that killed eight people near Hampshire, Ill.

A speeding Freightliner tractor-trailer slammed into the back of a small bus that had nearly stopped at an interstate toll plaza about 50 miles west of Chicago.

The Freightliner slammed into the bus, pushing it into another truck and causing a five-vehicle pileup. Killed in the crash were eight of the 22 passengers in the bus, which carried a group returning from a garden tour.

The safety board blamed the inattentive Freightliner driver.

Investigators also said that traditional toll booths, where drivers pay attendants or throw money into an automatic coin machine, increase the danger of rear-end collisions because drivers must stop suddenly.

NTSB investigators said:

* 49 percent of all interstate accidents in Illinois are at toll plazas, and three times as many people die in them as in accidents on the road itself.

* 30 percent of all accidents on the Pennsylvania toll highway system happen at toll plazas.

* 38 percent of all crashes on New Jersey toll highways are toll plaza accidents.

Introducing electronic toll collection lanes, though, can make the problem worse.

Mohamed Abdel-Aty, associate professor at Central Florida University’s department of civil and environmental engineering, studied the Orlando-Orange County Expressway system in Florida.

Between January 1994 and June 1997, 31.6 percent of total crashes occurred at the 10 main toll plazas and 46.3 percent at the 38 toll booth ramps, Abdel-Aty found.

Introducing E-PASS electronic toll collection lanes beside the regular lanes increased the accident rate at the busy Holland-East Mainline Plaza, he found.

“It’s the mixture of E-PASS lanes and other lanes — the confusion from nonfamiliar drivers — that’s causing most of the rear-end collisions,” Abdel-Aty said.

One key to preventing crashes at toll booths, he said, is separating drivers who have to stop from those who don’t. Drivers also need signs and lane markings that give them enough time to get into the proper lane, he said.

The Federal Highway Administration is expected to finish a study on best practices for toll plazas this summer, NTSB investigators said.

Connecticut abolished all of its toll booths> in 1989 after a crash six years earlier when a tractor-trailer rig plowed into cars at the Stratford toll plaza, killing seven and injuring many more.

“That got the legislature saying, ‘We’ve hated these things for years,'” said Connecticut transportation department spokesman Chris Cooper. “Clearly we felt there was a safety issue.”

The state, though, is considering reinstating tolls as a way of raising money for new roads and easing congestion. Connecticut has applied for federal money to study a concept in which vehicles with electronic toll cards would slow slightly as they pass under an overhead transponder system. A cash lane would be separate from the flow of traffic.

“It would be like getting off at a rest stop,” Cooper said.

Thirty states have toll facilities and 20 have none, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

On the Net:
National Transportation Safety Board: http://www.ntsb.gov

See Dallas Morning News link here.

Mr. Perry claims he’s against BIG government and BIG spending yet state spending had gone up some $40 billion during his tenure, $20 billion in just the last year. Once again, we find that what politicians say and what they do are two different things. Perry can waste his time and money with these out of state “appearances,” but he won’t be able to hide from his record of growing government, increasing state spending, and raising our taxes (a whole new toll tax on driving). His days are numbered since a taxpayer revolt is well underway! See why we endorse Carole Keeton Strayhorn for Governor here.

Is Perry angling for shot at VP?
Moves to raise national profile may spark new clash with Hutchison
Thursday, April 13, 2006
By WAYNE SLATER / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry had very different messages about federal spending in recent appearances before two very different groups.
To Senate budget writers in Washington, he pleaded for $2 billion to compensate the state for hurricane relief.

Four days later, Mr. Perry drew cheers from a Republican gathering in Tennessee when he lambasted big-spending government where “deficits explode, entitlement programs take over.”

His appearances point up the dual strategies of a governor who insists he’s focused on Texas as he approaches re-election while allies work to burnish his national credentials as a potential vice presidential nominee. The out-of-state events not only have heightened his profile but they also have created behind-the-scenes tension with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s backers. They see her as a more likely choice for vice president on a GOP ticket in 2008.

“She’s going to be on the short list of whoever our nominee is going to be,” Dallas businessman and Republican fundraiser Jim Francis said.
Perry political adviser Dave Carney declined to talk about anything beyond the current Texas race. But as a measure of the effort to market Mr. Perry on the national stage, the governor and Mr. Carney met last year with a top Washington operative to discuss writing a book to showcase the governor’s conservative bona fides.

Gov. Rick Perry has made a number of out-of-state appearances that have heightened his national profile.

“There have been a lot of conservative leaders and politicians who have been successful as book authors, starting with Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich,” said Craig Shirley, whose firm markets books for major political figures. Mr. Shirley said he had lunch with the governor and Mr. Carney, where they discussed the process of writing, publishing and promoting a book.

“When they came to me, they already had the idea of writing the book,” he said. “I offered some suggestions about topics and publishers and things like that.”

He said Mr. Perry – who succeeded Gov. George W. Bush in 2000 when Mr. Bush became president – would have strong appeal among national conservatives because of his views on taxes and social issues.

Mr. Shirley added that it was clear Mr. Perry wanted to win re-election first before publicly expanding attention beyond Texas. Texas’ long history of producing national political figures stems from its size and rich source of campaign contributions as well as a penchant for rough-and-tumble politics that prepares candidates for national campaigns Mr. Carney said the only thing the governor is concentrating on is his run this year for another term in Texas.

“While it’s flattering for people to talk about it and think about it, I just don’t see that down the road,” Mr. Carney said. “He’s clearly focused on one thing now, and that’s the special session [on school finance] and re-election.”

Book is often a preface
Writing a book is often seen as a prelude to seeking high office. Mr. Bush published his autobiography, A Charge To Keep, after his 1998 re-election as governor. Others who’ve written books in advance of a presidential bid include Republican John McCain and Democrats John Kerry, Al Gore and John Edwards.

Texas Democrats reject the likelihood of either Mr. Perry or Ms. Hutchison as VP candidates. But both camps appear to be positioning themselves as contenders. Mr. Perry spoke in February to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and to a meeting of Southern Republican governors in March in Memphis, Tenn. There, he met with potential GOP presidential candidate Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senate majority leader.

“He’s a very attractive candidate and he’s a true conservative, someone who will be on various folks’ lists,” said Bill Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union, which sponsored the Washington event.

Mr. Lauderback, a former economic development agency official from Texas who has known Mr. Perry since the 1980s, said he intends to invite Mr. Perry to speak again next year to the high-profile conservative conference. Mr. Carney denied any conflict between Mr. Perry’s appeal to the Senate Appropriations Committee for federal funds and his appearance later before the GOP group in Memphis denouncing runaway government spending. He said the request for hurricane relief was good stewardship as governor and his pitch to the Republican leaders “was just standard rally-the-troops” rhetoric.

This month, Mr. Perry appeared in Houston with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who may run for president. Mr. McCain has signed a campaign contribution solicitation letter for Mr. Perry, saying, “Texas leads the way in advancing a strong Republican message that is a model for America.”

Hutchison strategy
Meanwhile, Hutchison allies have what one associate calls “a full strategy in place that’s ongoing to be vice president,” including aggressive political fundraising and national appearances.

Ms. Hutchison’s decision against challenging Mr. Perry’s re-election was based in part on the belief that she would be better positioned for the national ticket by avoiding a risky, politically bloody battle for governor. Mr. Francis, the Dallas fundraiser and Hutchison supporter, said Republicans probably will be looking for a woman to balance the ticket if Democrats pick Hillary Rodham Clinton as their presidential nominee.

“If you look at who’s got good national exposures, who’s already up to snuff on the issues, you basically end up with Kay Bailey Hutchison and Condi Rice,” Mr. Francis said, referring to the secretary of state. Former state GOP Chairman Fred Meyer touted Ms. Hutchison as an appealing figure on a future national GOP ticket.

“One of the best things about Kay is her ability to phrase positions and state positions in a way that does not alienate people who don’t agree with you,” he said.

Generally, Ms. Hutchison is seen as being more moderate than Mr. Perry on some social issues, such as abortion. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who knows Ms. Hutchison and Mr. Perry, said each has a good record on controlling taxes and spending. And he said either one would be an asset to the Republican Party.

“If you’re talking about who might run for president or vice president, who might be in the Cabinet or play a key role, both of those names are going to be up there,” he said.

“So yeah,” he said, looking ahead to the next presidential sweepstakes. “You guys get two bites at the apple.”

Lawmaker to work for firm linked to Toll Road lease
BY PATRICK GUINANE
pguinane@nwitimes.com
317.637.9078

INDIANAPOLIS | A state lawmaker who last month helped legislation to lease the Indiana Toll Road pass by the barest of margins is going to work for an Indianapolis law firm connected to the $3.8 billion deal.

State Rep. Luke Messer, R-Shelbyville, the former executive director of the Indiana Republican Party, was not seeking re-election and will leave the General Assembly when his term ends this fall. On Monday, he joins the lobbying arm of Ice Miller, one of the state’s largest legal firms.

“Actually, I did not know they represented anyone in connection with the Toll Road,” said Messer, one of 51 House Republicans who voted to authorize the lease.

“I voted on it based on the merits and based on the fact I think it’s the best thing for the state,” said Messer, adding that his job search didn’t start until after Legislature adjourned March 14. “I can say with complete faith the two things were completely unrelated.”

This week the state signed a lease with Cintra-Macquarie, a Spanish-Australian consortium that offered $3.8 billion upfront for the right to run the 157-mile road and collect tolls until 2081.

The state expects to pay roughly $25 million in legal and consulting fees related to the highly complex deal. Ice Miller attorneys are charging the state hourly rates ranging from roughly $100 to more than $300, State Public Finance Director Ryan Kitchell said.

The biggest slice of the consulting work went to the Chicago office of Goldman Sachs, which will receive $19.5 million. Kitchell said he did not yet know the size of Ice Miller’s bill, but said the firm is giving the state a 15 percent discount.

Ice Miller also has a $900,000, one-year contract to help the governor’s office build a new Indianapolis Colts stadium and expand the Indiana Convention Center.

Messer said he will stay away from state policy issues until his House term is over.

No state law prevents former legislators from immediately lobbying past colleagues. House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, has said he wants the House to focus on ethics reforms in 2007, but he has not offered specifics.

Click here to go to Driscoll’s blog chock full of links to supporting articles.

Little faith in toll roads
Toll roads are not the answer, according to Councilman Chip Haass.
April 14, 2006
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News blog

Haass kicked off a blog this week and in one post made a pitch for a city bond referendum that would emphasize traffic congestion and drainage projects.

“In my gut, I know one of the ideals which separate SA from other similarly populated cities is our relatively short commutes,” he wrote. “Right now, the public works department has a back log of over 1 billion in street congestion and drainage capital improvement projects. What are we doing to get ahead of this scary curve?”

But …

… the real interesting part came after several people posted encouraging comments. Haass responded yesterday:

“I really am scared of what the future holds. I know toll roads have received a lot of publicity recently. Certainly, they are not the answer.”

And …

“We have to study the big picture. I really believe strengthening our major arterial system around the highways will take pressure off the need for vehicles to use highways. Also, if we continue to increase levels of downtown and urban housing, then light rail will work here.”

Can this be?

Last August, as a board member of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Haass voted with a majority to not pursue an independent review of about 70-miles of planned toll roads. That landed him on San Antonio Toll Party’s official de-elect list.

“When the chips were down, he didn’t come through,” Terri Hall said on her blog.

Until then, Haass had been hailed as a hero by toll critics who quoted him in their flyers. The quote, said at a City Council meeting in reference to officials keeping negotiations with toll companies secret, was, “You could not convince the constituents of San Antonio that this is a good deal.”

And what about …

… this stuff about more arterial roads and light rail?

Former city planning director Dave Pasley, who sounds like he speaks much more freely nowadays, suggested just that four months ago in a guest column, which toll foes have heartily embraced and repeat often.

The North Side needs more roads, not necessarily bigger roads, he said. And it would be great if politicians had the spine to limit development on the recharge zone or if more people wanted to live in transit-oriented, high-rise developments.

“While we are waiting for hell to freeze over, I suggest the City Council assign two tasks to the new city manager,” Pasley said.

“1. Complete the Wurzbach Parkway ASAP.”

“2. Make San Antonio developers provide a network of arterial streets as they do in Phoenix.”

So…

… has Chip been talking to Dave lately?

Link to article here.

So this is where our gas tax is going, eh? Here’s more evidence that we’re NOT taxed too little, our politicians spend too much, AND they’re mismanaging our hard-earned gas tax dollars with unnecessary pork for things like courthouses totally irrelevant to transportation. NO ONE can justify making us pay a whole new lifetime of toll taxes for roads when we just had a federal highway bill with 6,000 earmarks and now $4 million for a Historic Courthouse Preservation Program! Sick to your stomach yet? We’re gettin’ fleeced!

Texans still haven’t finished working to pay our annual tax bill yet (and we won’t until April 19, see article here), GASP, and our politicians and bureaucrats are already forcing a new toll tax that increases our transportation costs 25-100 times higher than the penny per mile we pay in gas tax (see article here), without a vote of the people, when gas is edging close to $3 a gallon! Time to clean house, my fellow citizens, we need a taxpayer revolt at the ballot box or we’ll be taxed into poverty to drive on roads we’ve already built and paid for!

Texas courthouses in grant limbo
Web Posted: 04/14/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Roger Croteau and Zeke MacCormack
Express-News Staff Writers

NEW BRAUNFELS – Federal help to restore some of Texas’ landmark county courthouses is up in the air, and the question mark hanging over the money might affect a number of San Antonio-area projects. The Texas Historical Commission is awaiting a federal decision to allow grants to pay for the work. So are dozens of counties across the state that hope to tap into the Historic Courthouse Preservation Program, a pool of up to $4 million in federal transportation money.

“I’m hoping that in the next two weeks we will get some kind of indication,”said Larry Oaks, the commission’s executive director. “We need some kind of definitive statement from the Texas Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

“I am hearing, informally, that there is a strong expectation they will recommend support on that,” he added.

Recognized by architecture groups for their designs, Texas courthouses – many built more than a century ago – also have been noted for deterioration from age and neglect.

The restoration project planned for the Comal County Courthouse in New Braunfels includes retaining the bell set.
Texas started the Historic Courthouse Preservation Program in 1999, and by 2003 $145 million had been allocated to fix up the dilapidated historic structures around the state, including those in Bexar and Atascosa counties.

But in 2005, under heavy budget constraints, the Legislature eliminated state funding for the program. Instead it directed the Texas Department of Transportation to set aside $80 million in federal money in the Transportation Enhancements Program for the courthouses. But restoring old courthouses sounded like a stretch to federal highway officials, who raised questions about it last year. The Federal Highway Administration provides that money for “enhancing the travel experience and contributing to quality of life,” such as visitors centers, roadside historic markers, landscaping projects and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Historic preservation is included in a list of 12 possible categories, but the project still needs to relate to transportation somehow.

Barron Schlameus, past president of the New Braunfels Conservation Society, said it’s important to preserve historic courthouses because they “symbolize the whole community.”

“Just as we treasure the Capitol in Austin, I think it’s important to see
the same thing in our county,” he said.

Officials in Comal, Kendall, Gillespie and Medina counties are wondering when or if their projects will be funded. Bexar and Atascosa counties completed their restorations in 2003 before the funding was switched to federal transportation money. In Medina County, local officials are hoping for a grant to fund 80 percent of a planned $4.5 million courthouse renovation.

“I don’t think they are going to let this program – that has gotten so much recognition and plaudits for the state of Texas – fall in the trash basket,” said Medina County Judge Jim Barden.

Kendall County is looking for about $1.2 million to restore its historic courthouse.

“I don’t know what their problem is,” said Kendall County Judge Eddie Vogt. “It has held up all of the courthouse renovations.”

Architect Barry Wagner, who is working on the Kendall and Gillespie applications, said he is confident the program will get funded one way or another.

“It may not be this biennium, but I think the funding will be there eventually,” he said. “We are not shutting down our projects. The counties are just going to continue on and get in position to try to qualify whenever that next round of funding occurs.” Comal County also is moving forward on preparing its master plan and application for a $7 million courthouse renovation. Oaks said more than 70 counties have master plans and another 100 or so courthouses need restoration.

He said it appears two scenarios are most likely. The preferred one is that the Federal Highway Administration decides all courthouse preservation projects qualify. If that does not happen, the Historical Commission would have to select a few courthouses it feels have the strongest relationship to surface transportation and submit each one for review consideration independently.

“We are trying to get them to take the position that they all qualify so we don’t have to submit each one individually,” Oaks said. “There are a lot of arguments about why they are related to transportation. I think the strongest is that if you go around Texas today and ask people who leads their county, they usually say ‘the road commissioners.‘

“Historically, the responsibility for all the roads was handled by the county commission and all of that planning was done in the courthouse,” he said.

Originally, the Transportation Enhancement Program required that projects show a “direct relationship” to surface transportation. But the law was changed a few years ago and all that’s required today is a “relationship” to
transportation.

“It was like a father-son relationship,” Oaks said. “Now all it requires is like second cousins twice removed. That is the intent of Congress and these buildings clearly meet it.”

Comal County Commissioner Jan Kennady said she is ready to make an argument that the Comal County Courthouse restoration would be related to transportation.

“We’ll find a way to say ‘yes, it is,'” she said. “We’ve got a road outside, so I guess we’re as related as any other one.”

Link to Driscoll’s blog here.

A traffic and revenue study for a proposed tollway up in Austin (Hwy 183, I believe) essentially states that the toll roads aren’t viable if gas reaches $3 a gallon in the next 40 years. Well, here it is and yet the Governor and his Transportation Commission are forcefully leading us down a path to economic disaster tolling 73 miles in San Antonio and even more in Austin and other metro cities not to the mention the Trans Texas Corridor toll road. It’s grossly irresponsible to press ahead with such OBVIOUS and dire warning signs that show toll roads will fail with such high gas prices (with no end in sight) since most folks cannot afford to pay a toll when they’re foregoing necessities just to pay for gas.

Gas prices, temperatures and tempers
by Pat Driscoll
Express-News blog
April 14, 2006

Motorists continue to pay increasingly more for gas, which could surpass $3 a gallon by the time summer sizzles in, and automakers are duking it out with oil firms over who to blame for troubles …

Gas shot up another 16 cents a gallon at Texas pumps over the past eight days, up a whopping 60 cents in seven weeks, according to AAA. Regular unleaded is averaging $2.75 statewide and $2.67 in San Antonio.

Funny thing, the Energy Information Administration said earlier this week that U.S. prices could average $2.62 a gallon over the next six months, but as they spoke the nation’s average climbed beyond that and some stations were charging more than $3.

“Crude prices pushed near the all-time record high of $70.85 earlier this week amid concerns that shipments from Iran, Nigeria and Iraq were in jeopardy,” said Rose Rougeau of AAA Texas. “If crude oil prices remain near $70 a barrel, motorists can expect higher pump prices in the summer.”

Other problems include dwindling gas supplies, refineries catching up on maintenance delayed by last year’s hurricanes, logistics involved with switching the additive MTBE with ethanol and costs to reduce sulfur in fuel.

An analyst told Bloomberg that he expects gas to reach $3.50 a gallon in some places. Another said $5 is possible if another hurricane like Katrina or Rita, which shut almost a third of U.S. refineries, rips through the nation’s belly again.

“We are in a world of hurt,” one said.

U.S. automakers are also in a world of hurt — they’re losing big bucks as buyers shy away from SUVs and large cars. Meanwhile, oil companies are reaping record profits, and that has set up an interesting scenario.

On Monday, a Chrysler spokesman accused oil executives of being greedy and indifferent by blowing exorbitant profits rather than reinvest windfalls to lower fuel costs, the Detroit News reported. The attack referred in part to an ExxonMobil ad that asked why the fuel efficiency of cars hadn’t changed in two decades despite huge efficiency gains after the 1970s oil shock.

Environmental activists couldn’t help but enjoy the turn of events.

“I’m happy to watch,” A Sierra Club spokesman told the Detroit News. “Each industry is right — that the other is to blame for a big part of the problem.”

News Day article on stadiums.

Do we need anymore reasons to doubt that special interests run this town, feast your eyes on this article from NewsDay about the losing proposition of sports stadiums for taxpayers. Judge Wolff, we dont’ need your stadium, we need better planned, more cost-effective NON-TOLL infrastructure. If you can scrounge up $200-300 million for a sports stadium (Express-News article on Wolff’s deal-making skills here.), then I’m sure you won’t have any trouble shifting those newfound funds to 281 and the interchange at 281/1604 and perhaps even the completion of Wurzbach Pkwy that’s been promised for the last 15 years.