Link to article here. In such an obvious tax grab, Houstonites can only get access to congestion relief if they have 3 or more people in their cars or if a single occupancy driver PAYS A TOLL for 100% paid for lanes. It’s all about big government show-me-the-money revenue-generating schemes.

TransCore has $38.7m construction, $8.46m/yr ops for 5 HOV-HOTs Houston TX
Posted on Thu, 2009-10-22 23:26
Toll Road News

TransCore has announced $81m worth of contracts with Houston METRO for conversion of five HOV corridors to HOT Lanes. Houston Metro board approved the contracts back on March 19 but we missed it. By any standard it’s a major toll systems contract, involving 52 toll points and some 47 access/egress points on five highways that involve occupancy verification for HOVs and dynamic pricing for tollpayers.

TransCore won the contracts in competition with Raytheon and ETC.

One contract is for $38.7m to design, provide and install a High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lane system in the middle of five radial freeways in the Houston metro area. The other contract is for five years of operations and maintenance at $8.46m/year for a total of $42.3m.

There’s a separate contract for civil construction works for $8.94m with ISI Contracting, making upfront capital costs $48m. 80% of this is coming from federal grants.

The HOT Lanes will be:

– I-45S Gulf Freeway 12 toll points

– US59S Southwest Freeway, 12 toll points

– I-45N, North Freeway, 11 toll points

– US290, Northwest Freeway, 10 toll points

– US59N, Eastex Freeway, 7 toll points

All are single lanes, reversible, closed at night and weekends, designed principally to provide extended peakhours congestion avoidance.see hours of operation table below

Dynamic pricing

US290 already has some toll equipment since its central lanes have been operated as HOT lanes at a flat toll rate of $2/trip since 2000. Toll equipment there will be upgraded. All five corridors will get dynamic pricing and be operated with tolls adjusted to manage traffic density and maintain minimum 50mph (80km/hr) speeds and 1500 veh/hr/lane throughput.

The Houston area already has 2×2 toll lanes on I-10 Katy Freeway to the west of downtown, operated by Harris County Toll Road Authority.

Brandnames

The five Metro HOT Lanes will get readers to read the eGo sticker tags (ISO 18000 6B) deployed under the brandnames EZ Tag and TxTag.

EZ Tag is the transponder issued by HCTRA, while TxTag transponders are issued in Central Texas (Austin area) and northeast Texas (Tyler).

Metro will issue its own transponders, brandname to be determined.

Video tolling will also be supported, vehicles without a transponder or a good transponder account will get their bills in the mail. That will be marketed under the sign “PAY BY MAIL”.

see signage nearby

Most of the operations costs contracted for will be the back office including accounts, billing, and customer service including a HOT Lanes webpage and other outreach. Also included is monitoring lane operations by video and other sensors, incident management and opening, closing and  reversing of lanes.

Toll revenues will belong to Metro.

ARGOs

Access points will have a total of 107 gates, 67 of them electrically powered and controllable nearby or remotely at the TranStar traffic management center, or by automatic operation according to a timing plan. All these gates will have 24 hour video coverage at the traffic management center.

Some are already in use as part of HOV operations, others must be supplied.

The gates have their own acronym ARGO – automatic reversible gate operation. A car that gets entangled in a closing gate will be an “ARGO Incident.”

Old eyeballed occupancy checking and cruiser pullovers

Each access point will divide into an HOV lane and a toll lane.

The HOV lane will have a monitoring booth for random visual checks of vehicle to see they have the required number of occupants for the free ride.

Enforcement staff at the booths will work by radio with police in cruisers downstream. There will be pullover zones for police to stop offenders and issue citations.

The contractor will supply a communications system between the eyeballers and the cops.

However the contract does provide for one location on US290 where the holy grail of automatic occupancy checking equipment can be pursued via tesing. TransCore is to nominate an experimental system for this location.

The design-build contract requires TransCore tobegin HOT Lanes operations by the end of 2010 and have the whole five highway system operating by th fall of 2011.

Conversion to HOT lanes is expected to increase utilization of the lanes by at least 50%, earn some net revenues and improve travel times and air quality.

Metro is a regional public transit authority that runs buses throughout the Houston region and more recently trolleys. The HOT lanes have their origins in exclusive bus lanes built in the 1980s. They were progressively converted into simple HOV or carpool lanes, then in a couple they charged a toll for HOV2 with HOV3+ free.

see http://www.ridemetro.org/Services/HOV_HOTLanes.aspx

COMMENT: this is a long overdue project that will make use of an underused system of HOV lanes.

Pity they can’t combine it with a widening to a minimum 2-lanes per direction.

We’re skeptical about single toll lanes because their speeds and throughput are set by the slowest motorist.

Slugs forming queues behind them hardly allow the kind of service that a toll should buy.

HCTRA set the standard for toll lanes in the region with the 2+2 lanes on the I-10.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-10-22

Link to article here.

Prop 11 stirs eminent domain debate

10/17/2009

By KELLEY SHANNON  / Associated Press

A proposition banning governments from taking Texans’ property for private development is last on the Nov. 3 ballot but is getting ample attention from the Republican candidates for governor, farmers and anti-toll road activists.

Prop 11 would ban state government from taking private property and giving it to a private developer to boost the local tax base, its supporters say. Property could still be seized if it’s used by the government or the public at large or to eliminate “urban blight,” according to the proposed language approved by two-thirds margins in the Texas House and Senate.

The proposed constitutional amendment, one of 11 on the November ballot, also would limit the Legislature’s authority in granting eminent domain power in the future.

With early voting beginning Monday, Gov. Rick Perry is on the same side as the Texas Farm Bureau and his Republican primary opponent, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, in promoting the proposition even though the Farm Bureau and Perry have been at odds over private property rights in connection with Perry’s now-dead plan to build a Trans-Texas Corridor toll road across the state.

For Perry, it’s a chance to cast himself as a protector of private property before the March primary.

“I hope you’ll work with us. We’re going to be very actively engaged in drawing attention to Proposition 11,” Perry told the Texas Association of Realtors last week. He said the proposed amendment would require public “ownership, use and enjoyment” of property.

“So they can’t turn and hand it over to somebody in the private sector,” he said.

Look for Perry to campaign for the proposition this coming week.

Hutchison also plans to promote it at campaign events. She recently won the farm bureau’s endorsement after opposing Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor, which would have seized private farm and ranch land for government use. Prop 11 wouldn’t stop governments from seizing property for public roads.

Hutchison said Prop 11 is an important step toward protecting private property rights and “is the beginning of Texas’ badly needed eminent domain reform that I will help finish as governor.”

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and a long list of state officials are taking part in a campaign to win passage of the proposition.

Opposing Prop 11 is Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a property rights, anti-toll road group. The proposed amendment leaves loopholes for seizing property for economic development and does not address questions like diminished access to land that remains after an eminent domain seizure or relocation assistance for people displaced from their land, said Terri Hall, founder and director of TURF.

“I think it’s wide open for lots of chicanery,” Hall said. “They can take your land for who knows what (reason).”

The Texas Farm Bureau’s 421,000 members want even tougher eminent domain laws, including one to address diminished access, and got crossways with Perry over his 2007 veto of a bill that rural property owners said would have protected them from eminent domain for private uses.

Perry said he rejected the measure because it was loaded up with “personal interest legislation” and high costs for taxpayers. He said he didn’t like that the bill would have expanded damages a landowner could recover to include reduced access to property when other nearby property is condemned — that provision the farm bureau still wants.

Much of the November ballot proposition is already in Texas law, but adding it to the state constitution could give it teeth, said farm bureau president Kenneth Dierschke.

“When it comes to safeguards protecting private property, Texas laws have been lacking,” he said. “Texas Farm Bureau has fought for years to enact meaningful reforms of our eminent domain laws, but for years political games have stood in the way.”

The proposition comes as a response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed government to seize property for economic development projects, not just for public uses like roads. The court ruling allowed states to set their own laws governing such eminent domain.

Prop 11 is the last one listed on the November election ballot, but Republican Rep. Frank Corte of San Antonio, who pushed the proposal, said ballot order won’t deter interested voters.

Texas voter turnout is typically low in an off-year elections in which only propositions are on the statewide ballot. Houston is expected to see a larger turnout than many places because of its open mayor’s race.

Other proposed constitutional amendments would set aside money to develop more top-level research universities; help to establish a Veterans Administration hospital in the Rio Grande Valley; and mandate public access to Texas beaches.

Early voting runs until Oct. 30.

___

On the Net:

Texas Secretary of State’s Office at http://www.sos.state.tx.us

Prop 11 is window dressing for eminent domain reform
By Terri Hall
Express-News/Houston Examiner
Sunday, October 18, 2009
We’ve been down this road before…lawmakers write a convoluted amendment to the Texas Constitution that comes back to haunt us when we find out what politicians will do with it once we leave the polls. Proposition 11 is one of those amendments. We witnessed Governor Rick Perry weaken this legislation all through the 81st Legislature to reduce the amendment to a virtually meaningless attempt at eminent domain reform.

You have to ask yourself, if Rick Perry vetoed REAL eminent domain reform in 2007 (HB 2006), why would Perry stage a photo-op ceremonial signing of this constitutional amendment in front of the Alamo in 2009 when it didn’t even need his signature? Because it’s not genuine eminent domain reform. His show-boating is because he’s running for re-election, and he knows that veto of HB 2006 cost him the Farm Bureau’s endorsement.

Why did Perry veto the bill? Because it would interfere with his Trans Texas Corridor that is slated to gobble-up massive swaths of private property (4 football fields wide, biggest land grab in Texas history) and give it to foreign corporations in sweetheart deals with guaranteed 12-19% annual profits by charging Texans hefty tolls to use what should be a public road!

The logical course of action by the Texas Legislature would have been to dust off HB 2006, introduce the same bill again, and pass it early in the session so the Legislature could override the expected gubernatorial veto. But that’s not what the Legislature did. They allowed Perry and his cronies to use eminent domain reform as a bargaining chip all session long (to re-authorize the controversial contracts called CDAs that sell our Texas highways to foreign companies). Meanwhile, he and the special interests chipped away at the strength of the private property protections originally found in HB 2006.

So Prop 11 is Perry’s fabricated version of eminent domain reform to serve as penance for his veto. But once one examines the language, it’s clear it doesn’t remotely resemble genuine property rights protection as he claims it does.

So many flaws, so little time

What are the flaws of Prop 11? Economic development isn’t defined. Public use isn’t clearly defined nor limited. Good faith negotiations for offers of “adequate compensation” (the current constitutional language) aren’t required. Urban blight isn’t defined, and even though the legislative committees writing the bill couldn’t accurately discern the voluminous entities that currently have eminent domain powers, Prop 11 continues to allow the Legislature the power to grant yet more undefined “entities” the power of eminent domain for “public use,” which Perry ensured still included privatizing Texas roads to benefit foreign entities.

Proposition 11 says: “The constitutional amendment to prohibit the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property for public use unless the action is for the ownership, use, and enjoyment of the property by the State, a political subdivision of the State, the public at large, or entities granted the power of eminent domain under law or for the elimination of urban blight on a particular parcel of property, but not for certain economic development or enhancement of tax revenue purposes, and to limit the legislature’s authority to grant the power of eminent domain to an entity.”

It states property cannot be taken using eminent domain UNLESS it’s for public use for “entities” granted the power of eminent domain OR for the elimination of urban blight, but not for “certain economic development or enhancement of tax revenue purposes.”

The loopholes in that language are so wide you could drive a truck through them! Any true eminent domain reform that would protect us from the Supreme Court Kelo case would include:

– Strong definition of public use limiting eminent domain for ANY economic development and tax enhancement purposes
– Good faith negotiations (prevent entities from low-balling landowners and forcing them to hire expensive lawyers to get fair market value)
– Compensation for diminished access to a landowner’s property
– Limit the granting of eminent domain to any further entities without a vote of the people
– Relocation assistance for displaced landowners
– Ability to buy land back at original cost after 10 years if the State doesn’t use it

State lawmakers could have hit a home run and FINALLY delivered TRUE eminent domain reform. But they let Perry and politics get in the way of protecting YOUR property rights, and as usual, settled for scraps from the master’s table. The authors of the bill even admitted upon final passage that this amendment falls short, and that there’s still a long way to go on eminent domain reform. They expect us to choke down a milquetoast amendment that’s little more than window dressing so that they can claim some level of victory? Thanks, but no thanks!

If Texans vote for this amendment, it’s likely no further private property rights reform will EVER happen, especially if Rick Perry remains the Governor. We must demand protection from the eminent domain abuse that the Kelo case wrought. We’ve been waiting for 3 years, and would have had it in 2007 had Perry not wielded his veto pen. When over half the states have passed laws or changed their constitutions to protect landowners from the eminent domain abuses of Kelo, our politicians have left Texans vulnerable.

Insist on authentic private property protection and vote NO on Prop 11. It’s hazardous to your freedom!

Link to blog here.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Cronyism and the Corridor

posted by paulburka at 3:07 PM

Texas Monthly blog
This is a scary story. The Statesman reported yesterday that Governor Perry is removing Linus Wright, a former Dallas school superintendent, as chair of the board that oversees the $88 billion Teacher Retirement System and will replace him with a current board member who is also a member of Perry’s campaign finance team, Dallas real estate investor R. David Kelly. (Wright succeeded Jim Lee, who was one of three co-chairs of the Perry fundraising apparatus; Lee had resigned in the wake of news reports that he had run up six-figure gambling debts in Las Vegas.)

The removal of Wright occurred just a few days after Perry had announced the death of the Trans-Texas Corridor. The juxtaposition of events reminds me of the old Mark Twain line: “Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.” The concern is that the governor’s office has installed a crony as chairman who will urge the board to invest retirement system funds in toll roads as a means to pump money into funding-starved TxDOT. Perry appointees who don’t go along–as we have learned in the case of board of regents and the Forensic Science Commission–are likely to find themselves replaced.

I’m not just being an alarmist here. Remember, in the summer of 2008, Perry, Dewhurst, and Craddick signed a letter agreeing to work together to find a way to pay for new roads. An earlier Statesman story about the agreement said:

One prong of the plan would create a Transportation Finance Corporation to allow state investment funds — including the state employee and teacher retirement systems, among others — to directly invest in state transportation projects. Combined, the two state systems manage $135 billion in assets.

But TRS and ERS officials “took a cautious view of investing in state projects in testimony this year before the Senate Finance Committee, saying a mandate to invest in Texas infrastructure could conflict with their duty to find the best return on investment for retirees.”

Toll roads are highly questionable investments. Their success depends entirely on the accuracy of traffic forecasts, which can be influenced by consultants who tell roadbuilders (and pension funds) what they want to hear. The industry newsletter TOLLROADS NEWS reported on October 9 that a major toll road in South Carolina is insolvent and about to default:

US Bank, trustees for the bondholders of Connector 2000 Association, the owner of the Southern Connector tollroad in Greenville South Carolina have issued an official notice that they expect a default Jan 1, 2010 with insufficient funds being available from the pike to make debt service that’s due.

Here’s another story of a toll road that failed to make projections, also from TOLLROADS NEWS. This one is in Jackson, MS. It never even got to the starting gate:

Mississippi DOT (MsDOT) have announced “suspension” of the procurement process for a private sector concession to build the state’s first tollroad in the modern era – Jackson Airport Parkway. The concession financing depended on federal TIFIA loan support which is only provided if the rating agencies provide an investment grade rating to senior debt.

Three shortlisted potential concessionaires told MsDOT they couldn’t get the needed investment grade ratings for their loan financing, an official told us, so they were not able to make proposals which were formally due next week – Sept 15.

A statement from MsDOT quotes Executive Director Larry L (Butch) Brown as “disappointed” but saying that the parkway “project, like many other greenfield toll road projects, is suffering from general economic weakness and tight credit markets which limit the amount of credit and capital available for new transportation projects.”

Brown is quoted further: “The private sector needs to demonstrate that it can deliver meaningful savings versus a traditional MDOT financing and delivery plan. For example, unless private sector bidders can genuinely deliver construction cost savings, operational savings, or financing savings, the numbers just don’t work. In this economy, revenue projections are under pressure and investment grade ratings for the project’s senior debt are difficult to obtain.“

Trust funds should be invested conservatively — or, at the very least, in ventures that are medium-risk, not in toll roads and startups related to the governor’s Emerging Technology Fund, which, along with the Texas Enterprise Fund, suffered a $200M decrease in funding as punishment for Perry’s questionable wheeling and dealing. It will be very tempting for the governor to get Kelly to back his pet projects from the Emerging Technology Fund. These startups are likewise high-risk.

I don’t believe for a moment that Perry or TxDOT have given up on the Corridor. This paragraph from a 2008 article in the Star-Telegram is all you need to know:

Speaking on a conference call from Iraq, where he is visiting troops with other governors, Perry said highways that would run parallel to north-south I-35 are still needed. The state’s commitment to building roads is what attracts many companies and jobs to the state, he said.

* * * *

The thing I find most interesting is that Perry removed Wright and replaced him with a crony in the middle of a governor’s race. What does that tell us? I think it says that he is supremely confident and he is going to do whatever he feels like doing and doesn’t care what the media (much less bloggers) are going to say about it. He had to know what people were going to say about his replacement of Wright, especially coming on the heels of his evisceration of the Forensics Commission, and he did not care. Rick Perry is one tough guy. Don’t think I don’t admire that.