SAMCO promises PR campaign to push tolls: "The cavalry is coming!"

Posted on April 13, 2006 by Terri Hall

Both Terrell McCombs and the San Antonio Mobility Coalition (Joe Krier’s SAMCo) have been running around asking for money from the BIG spenders in town for a PR campaign to push tolls. Guess what? SAMCo is partially funded with your TAX money, so what they’re doing is taxpayer-funded lobbying and it needs to stop NOW!

Vic Boyer, SAMCo’s Executive Director sent out the email below to supporters recently and said this of the coming PR campaign to push tolls on a public who clearly doesn’t want them at yesterday’s RMA meeting: “The cavalry is coming!” (listen here) Hmmm…Whose cavalry? Not the cavalry known as a public vote to bury these toll plans once and for all….no, they won’t allow a little thing like accountability to the voters to take place. How ’bout a cavalry of elected officials to protect the public from this tax grab…no, the highway lobby will see to it that won’t happen either. The promised coming tidal wave of billboards, radio ads, and direct mail pieces will be a massive public misinformation campaign. This is nothing more than the highway lobby kicking it into high gear as the GOP did (Read article about it here.) to push the selling of a public toll road in Indiana to Cintra-Macquarie, the same two foreign companies bidding on our toll starter system on 281/1604!

Oh, and Mr. Boyer mentioned in SAMCO’s 2006-2007 Strategic Plan that a Bexar County employee, Leilah Powell, is heading up a “working group” to frame the message of this campaign. More taxpayer-funded lobbying. Had enough? Read the first article in a series in the Express-News about lobbyist influence peddling in Texas, including lobbying against the taxpayer and consumer here.

TIME LAUNCH OUR OWN CITIZEN TRUTH CAMPAIGN! DONATE NOW!
Time to donate to the cause, folks. If you know of those with the means to give generously, send ’em to our donate page!

Vic Boyer’s email…

SAMCo Members and Partners:

I want to personally thank everyone who took time to
provide testimony on the proposed US 281 toll lanes
the past two evenings and who participated in
Wednesday’s South Chamber toll debate. A few
observations:

1) Outstanding job by Bill Thornton and Joe Krier at
Wednesday’s debate. Definitely kept making the point
that the Toll Party has no alternative plan!

2) Great editorial by David Hendricks (attached) and
somewhat more balanced coverage by the news media than
has been the case in recent weeks.

3) Turnout at each public meeting was about two
hundred, perhaps three-quarters being against tolling
judging by the applause. Much less than the 400-500
that attended similar public meetings two years ago
(also at Reagan High School) on the toll starter
system. The Toll Party failed to generate the kind of
numbers we anticipated. Opposition still appears to
be primarily from individuals who drive in from the
north of San Antonio.

4) SAMCo’s testimony is attached.

5) Thank you Terrell McCombs for handling the media at
both events.

6) Thank you Greater Chamber, Hispanic Chamber, North
Chamber, and Real Estate Council for your
contributions and testimony.

7) Thank you Leroy Alloway for all the prep work for
the debate.

8) Individuals can still provide supportive comments!
I’ve attached a PDF of the comment card that can be
mailed or faxed back within 10 days following the
hearing. Please distribute to friends, employees,
business associates.

Again, thanks.

Vic

Here was my response to Mr. Boyer’s break with reality:

281 Meetings –
As usual, you underestimate our influence. If you think 550 people (See Express-News article stating 550 people attended meetings.) means these meetings weren’t well-attended, then nothing I say can sway you. Plus, the number of people attending these public meetings has little to do with the actual number of people opposed to this project and you know it. We add members daily from all over Bexar County (over 80% of our membership lives in Bexar County). Those who spoke out against the toll plans were residents in the corridor and some from other parts of Bexar County. Only some lived in Bulverde/Spring Branch. Also, many folks are not comfortable with public speaking and will always defer to other methods of communication. We’re 2,500 strong and we’re working stiffs whose time is scarce and can’t necessarily make these meetings. We also know it was no coincidence TxDOT announced the cancellation of the Zachry contract days before the public meetings to try and fool the public into thinking the toll plans were off the table. Most folks have already surmised TxDOT ignores the public comment so we’ll submit our comments through other avenues like email rather than waste our time at the meetings.

Hendricks article-
If you call a biased commentary like David Hendricks’ puff piece (Link to this “article” here.) for the road lobby balanced reporting, then perhaps you need to look-up the word “commentary” since it has nothing to do with objectivity or balance. It’s opinion, period.

Debate-
Seems you attended a different debate than we did since we repeatedly offered non-toll solutions, particularly the ORIGINAL FUNDED PLAN for 281! You can claim the opposite to your membership, but it doesn’t change the reality that the pro-toll camp has no arguments, no studies, nor research to support why we should pay a toll for a road and improvement plan that’s ALREADY PAID FOR nor anything to justify that paying twice as much to build a toll road is the solution to not having the funds to build a free road. In fact, the arguments your camp makes aren’t even true. It’s not a user based tax and our presentation proved it.

When every toll plan on the books uses gas taxes; it’s not a user tax. When TxDOT has admitted ON CAMERA and elsewhere that they plan to use toll revenues from 281 to build toll lanes on 1604; that’s not a user based tax. And we both know, TxDOT is far from being out of money. In fact, their budget grew from $6.1 to $7.5 billion from 2004 to 2005! Last year’s federal highway bill has become the poster-child for government waste and overspending with 6,000 earmarks including a bridge to nowhere in Alaska and a parking garage for a local PRIVATE university!

Mr. Alloway needs to do some better research if this was the best you could do. TxDOT’s own records show they are sitting on funds and withholding them to build double tax toll roads. It’s misplaced priorities and overcharging us for new construction (which only benefits your membership) that’s led to this mess. I have more and more folks in the private sector business community sharing with me on the record what our group of concerned citizens already knows: that TxDOT pays 2-3 times what the private sector pays their contractors.

We look forward to the truth continuing to reach the fine citizens of this region. The elites at the top always underestimate ordinary citizens and would prefer to believe we’re a bunch of out-of-towners stirring up trouble in Bexar County. We’re thankful you underestimate us as you prop up your plans with straw man arguments that will ultimately fail.

Good Day!
–Terri

TxDOT could learn lessons from school finance

Posted on April 13, 2006 by Terri Hall

I stumbled across this article on DallasBlog.com about school finance and several key issues jumped out at me that relate to a similar bureaucracy…our Department of Transportation!

Here’s the short list of the principles mentioned that need to be applied to TxDOT:
1) The problem isn’t that we’re taxed too little, it’s the out of control spending!
2) Zero based budgeting where every expense is justified before a single new tax is levied upon us.
3) Present true alternatives to taxpayers and let us decide!
4) Restrain the growth of government spending to the increase in population plus inflation.
5) Taxpayers do not have to adopt and fund every project that the TxDOT bureaucracy claims they need. In fact, they need to be held accountable since bureaucracies don’t usually fix themselves!

NOT SO HARD, AFTER ALL
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 at 09:38AM
By Tara Ross
DallasBlog.com

Next week, the Texas legislature will meet in special session—yes, again—to discuss Texas’s continuing school finance problems. In particular, the legislature will be asked to review a recent proposal from the Texas Tax Reform Commission, headed by John Sharp.

This author’s views on the Sharp plan are no secret. The proposal does not attempt to address the problem of out-of-control spending in our public schools. Instead, it assumes that all requested spending is necessary, and it goes to great lengths to provide new, sneakier routes by which Texans, who are tired of paying property taxes, can be taxed. The proposal doesn’t even pretend to get rid of the much-hated property tax. It merely reduces the tax by 1/3.

Elected officials often claim that a solution to the school finance problem is difficult to identify. I beg to differ. The solution is not even remotely difficult to find. Indeed, the solution is in plain sight, right in front of our noses.

Problems arise only in finding a critical mass of legislators with enough spine to enact the solution that is plainly warranted.

What is this easy-to-find solution? Controlling spending. Plain and simple. We don’t even have to reduce spending (although I think we should). We simply need to reduce the rate at which we are increasing spending.

I’d be willing to bet that most readers of this blog are unaware of an option that was presented to the Sharp Commission by Tim Dunn, a Board member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Free Market Foundation.

Dunn notes that the Texas sales tax-based system has been collecting revenues at a rate that is two percent higher than the state’s combined rate of growth in population and inflation. If we were to restrain the growth of government spending to the increase in population plus inflation, we could use this extra two percent of revenues to buy down the property tax rate.

According to Dunn, we could eliminate the M&O property tax completely in about 15 years.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. None of you have heard about this presentation. If you had, the Sharp plan wouldn’t stand the smallest chance of passing. What Texan would choose to keep at least 2/3 of this M&O property tax (to say nothing of the expanded franchise and cigarette taxes) if presented with an alternative of eliminating the M&O property tax completely over the course of a little more than a dozen years?

A few cynical readers will tell me, at this point, that spending caps of this sort are a pipe dream. Or they will say that my plan might cause schools to be underfunded, and, as good parents, we can’t do that to our children.

I agree that education is vitally important. I disagree that education will worsen if spending is reduced.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation has performed some calculations that prove my point. Let’s take a zero-based budgeting approach to education spending and determine how much is really needed to adequately provide for schools’ basic needs: Teachers, school administrators, educational aides, special education, facilities, and classroom supplies. Even if you give teachers a generous pay raise to an average of $60,000 per teacher, TPPF has determined that you could finance these basic classroom needs at an annual cost of a little over $4,500 per student.

But wait. Texas currently spends about $10,000 per student. Question: Where, exactly, is the rest of our money going?

I don’t doubt that at least some of the extra expenditures are justifiable. But Texas taxpayers should demand that the education bureaucracy justify this extra $5,500 per student—and we should do so before we expand the type and number of taxes that are levied in our great state. Being good parents does not mean that we have to automatically endorse any budget that the education bureaucracy claims to need. To the contrary, responsible parents have a duty to hold educators accountable for using education funds wisely. This diligence will result in improved education for our children.

Texas taxpayers should urge their state legislators to reject the underlying assumption of the Sharp Plan. Texas’s school finance woes will not be solved if we focus on our “tax problems.” We will solve those problems only if we go to the root of the issue: Our spending problem.

Like I said, identifying the school finance solution is easy. Standing up to education lobbyists? That will take courage. I look forward to seeing which of our elected officials are up to the challenge.

Article originally appeared on DallasBlog.com (http://dallasblog.com).
See website for complete article licensing information.

Expose

Posted on April 12, 2006 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

Hats off to Express-News reporters Sandberg and Guckian for the courage to take on this very controversial issue with candor and truth-telling. It’s astounding and really nothing we haven’t already seen in this fight against tolling Texas. Our freeways have clearly been hijacked by the highway lobby and one glance at this article demonstrates it! I hope at least one article in this four part series shows the money trail on the toll legislation…it’s so obvious and it’s all on our web site for anyone to see (The money trail with more here.). The road builders gave handsomely and they got their legislation that will pay them handsomely for the next 50 years for freeways already built and paid for!

Here’s just a taste of the story…

Lobbyists’ money talks — softly, but it’s heard
Web Posted: 04/12/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Lisa Sandberg and Kelly Guckian
Express-News Staff Writers

AUSTIN — Telephone giant SBC spent as much as $7 million last year hiring 112 Texas lobbyists — and ended up with a new law that allowed it to charge what it wants for no-frills phone options, and made it easier to offer television service.

Insurance interests have contributed more than $3.8 million in the past five years to the campaigns of the 18 legislative committee members who oversee insurance laws — and wound up with a homeowners’ bill in 2003 widely seen as favoring the industry.

No one has proof that SBC’s well-funded campaign to overhaul the state’s telecommunications law, or the funneling of campaign contributions by insurance interests, led to victory at the Capitol.

But even the state’s best-paid lobbyist says it would be naive to suggest that big bucks aren’t effective.

Superlobbyist Russell “Rusty” Kelley knows special interest money often prevails. He represents those interests — and sometimes finds himself pitted against consumers.

“There isn’t a level playing field,” he said.

Last year, he earned between $4.4 million and $5.5 million representing 63 clients — and in turn donated $143,000 to legislators and state officials. He knows that to remain influential, he has to spend generously on candidates who later will, Kelley hopes, support his interests.

Kelley says he’s not aware of any quid pro quo connecting money with legislation. Rather, the influence of the lobby is more subtle.

“If you’re asking me if I’d give money if I didn’t do what I do, the answer is obviously no,” the 58-year-old Kelley said.

Welcome to the world of lobbying, where in Texas anywhere from 1,300 to 1,700 special interest representatives try to woo, sway and educate lawmakers into supporting their clients’ pet causes.

For four days beginning today, the San Antonio Express-News will focus on the Texas lobby, tracking the money it spends and the influence it yields.

A review of thousands of state records shows legislation often is introduced by powerful lawmakers after lobbyists spend lavishly on their campaigns and entertain them.

Some of the most influential lobbyists once were legislators themselves, and often gain direct access to former colleagues right after leaving office.

Lobbyists work behind the scenes and they don’t talk publicly about what they do. “It’d be the kiss of death,” one lobbyist said over pizza at a trendy restaurant in downtown Austin.

As most states and the federal government consider various reforms to tighten lobbying restrictions, the lobby in Texas has grown increasingly powerful.

For the rest of the story…Link to article here.

Other stories in the series:
Swarming Capitol paid off for SBC
Lobbying didn’t let up when CHIP was down
‘Clean elections’ might wash away money’s imprint
Politicians cool to taking cash out of politics

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Ontario drops lawsuit against Cintra; Cintra agrees to mitigate its aggressive toll collection tactics

Posted on April 6, 2006 by Terri Hall

Read Driscoll’s blog.

Cintra is known as the most expensive toll operator in the world. The lawsuit by the Province of Ontario affirms this. The lawsuit has recently been dropped as Cintra has agreed to mitigate some of its AGGRESSIVE toll collections tactics. This is who YOUR government is inviting in to control our publucly owned infrastructure in 50 year deals. Read on….

Toll giant gets a break
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
April 06, 2006

Things are looking better for Cintra — a Spanish company eyeing a 47-mile toll project in San Antonio — now that it has settled legal disputes plaguing its cash cow in Ontario.

The Province of Ontario recently agreed to drop its lawsuits over Cintra’s toll increases and aggressive collections for 407 ETR, according to TOLLROADSnews.

In return, Cintra will offer toll discounts for frequent users and truckers, hold off on collection agents and credit reporting while dispute resolution processes are under way, give customers better information on appeal options and add new lanes 10 years ahead of schedule.

For more details, see this statement from the Ministry of Transportation and this statement from Cintra.

Within days, Cintra stock began climbing, Bloomberg reported.

“We view this as very positive for Cintra,” an analyst is quoted as saying. “In our view 407 ETR is one of the world’s premier toll roads due to its freedom in setting prices.”

It’s certainly the premier toll road for Cintra, which has more than a dozen highway concessions in six countries. The firm owns 53 percent of the 407 ETR operation and last year reaped 40 percent of its total revenues from the highway, the Bloomberg story said.

Sydney-based Macquarie Infrastructure Group and Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group own the rest. Macquarie and Cintra have also teamed up to run the Indiana Toll Road and the Chicago Skyway, but are competing in San Antonio to take over proposed toll lanes on Loop 1604 and U.S. 281.

Meanwhile, tolls on 407 ETR aren’t expected to be raised again until next year, Ontario officials say.

RMA flat out misstates the FACTS to San Antonio Manufacturers Association

Posted on April 4, 2006 by Terri Hall

Terry Brechtel and I were asked to make presentations to the Board of the San Antonio Manufacturers Association today. Each side was given 15 minutes to present (though she took close to 10 minutes of extra time).

Here’s a few of the blatant falsehoods Ms. Brechtel told this group of businessmen:

1) She said the RMA is a subdivision of Bexar County. Not true, they’re a subdivision of the STATE created by HB 3588 toll legislation (See first page of Comptroller’s report on RMAs where it states clearly they’re established by the STATE legislature in 2003.). This is an effort to give the illusion of local control.

2) She said toll lanes were NOT being studied for I-10 when they are (see news article here that clearly states they are Link here. ).

3) She says it would take a 36 cent local gas tax increase just to fund entire Loop 1604 and 281 improvements. Hogwash! Our entire federal and state highway systems were built with our current 38.4 cents in federal and state gas taxes, so I fail to see how one project, 47 miles of toll lanes, on EXISTING FREEways (right of way already purchased and nearly already completely graded) requires a 36 cent gas tax increase! The problem isn’t lack of funds, but being overcharged! The toll starter system began with a cost of $450 million, then went up to $650 to $850, to $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion in just 3-4 months’ time last summer! Perhaps the remedy is to scale the project back to just what’s needed, leave the existing lanes where they are (instead of bulldoze them to make way for extra toll lanes than originally planned), build it as free lanes, get rid of the $54 million of toll equipment, and reduce the 25-35% administration cost of collecting tolls!

4) She also distributed the doctored photos that make it appear as though the new toll lanes will be built in the existing median of 281 and Loop 1604 without disturbing the existing lanes. Not true! Our supporters went out an measured the existing median on 281. It’s 38 feet wide. Standard lanes in TxDOT’s own documents show one lane is 12 feet wide. Six lanes (72 feet) cannot fit into a 38 foot median!

The lies, deception, and half truths come from one side of the toll road fence, and it ain’t from ours!

Trans Texas Corridor route released: 521 miles of toll road takes private Texans' land & gives to Cintra-Zachry for a 50 year monopoly

Posted on April 4, 2006 by Terri Hall

Star-Telegram link here.

Click on the maps to view where the corridor will go. That’s where you can see where the corridor joins I-35 from San Antonio to Laredo.

There are better ways to relieve I-35 truck traffic without taking 2,400 square miles of private Texans’ land and handing it over to a foreign toll operator! For instance, TxDOT could double deck I-35 for much less money and take no new right of way. Read on to see our current Governor’s vision, which is to take our land and grant foreign companies monopolies over our publicly-owned infrastructure displacing nearly 1 million people, and pave over parks, historic sites, landfills, and aquifers.

NOTE: They are planning to toll EXISTING portions of I-35 from San Antonio to Laredo! Does TxDOT have any credibility left? They along with Mr. Krier and others continue to state NO EXISTING lanes will be tolled, and yet here it is in black and white! These corridor plans are clearly a conversion of a free road to a toll road and it puts one of the key trade routes in Texas and America under the control of a foreign company! That means, what you drive on today for FREE will require a 50+ year toll tax to Cintra-Zachry to drive to Laredo if VOTERS DO NOT STOP GOVERNOR PERRY’S plan to pave and toll Texas!

Path of Trans-Texas Corridor toll road becoming clear
Tue, Apr. 04, 2006
By GORDON DICKSON
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

More than 2,400 square miles of prime farm land, 13 square miles of parks and 63 landfills are potentially in the path of a proposed toll road from North Texas to Laredo, according to an environmental study released Tuesday.

Nearly 1 million Texans live within the proposed route. At least 46 threatened or endangered plant and animal species call it home, too.

Those are among the details in a draft environmental impact study released by the Federal Highway Administration.

The document brings Texas Department of Transportation officials closer to their goal of opening the futuristic, tolled highway by 2015. A private team, Cintra Zachry, has been hired to plan the $6 billion road. The mission is to relieve congestion and move much of the heavy truck traffic from the Interstate 35 corridor across the state.

Many bureaucratic steps remain, including about 50 public hearings that are tentatively scheduled across the state this summer to give residents a closer look at the road’s projected path. Meetings in the Fort Worth area likely will be in June, a TxDot official says.

Texans who want to read the environmental study can access it online at www.dot.state.tx.us — but be warned, including appendices it’s about 4,000 pages long. But residents can click on maps and see how close their property is to the route, which has now been narrowed to a width of about 10 miles.

It closely follows Interstate 35 and Interstate 35E east of Dallas.

Other facts:

• The toll road would be 521 miles long. Most of it would be new road, but the project also would incorporate a portion of existing I-35 from San Antonio to Laredo.

• Of the 980,667 people who live in the path, 48 percent are minorities and 24 percent are below the poverty level.

• The route includes five federally recognized historic sites of 23 acres or greater.

• The route would traverse three major and six minor aquifers.

Pump prices hit heights not seen since October

Posted on April 4, 2006 by Terri Hall

Link to Houston Chronicle article here.

Pump prices hit heights not seen since October
Ethanol switch affects 30 Dallas stations
April 3, 2006
Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON – The fuel pain worsened for Americans last week as the retail price for gasoline shot up an average 9 cents to the highest level since October, the government said on Monday.

The national average price for regular unleaded hit $2.59 a gallon, up 26 cents in the last month and 37 cents higher than a year ago, based on the Energy Information Administration’s survey of service stations.

Los Angeles topped the survey of major cities, with gasoline at $2.78 a gallon. Denver had the most affordable price at $2.50. It was up 12.2 cents at $2.57 in Houston.

And the EIA is worried about local gasoline supply disruptions this summer as oil refiners switch from using the water-polluting fuel additive MTBE to corn-based ethanol.

About 30 Valero branded service stations in the Dallas area were out of gasoline late Monday, after two gasoline terminals in that area ran dry over the past several days.

Valero Energy Corp. spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said about 60 Valero stations had been without fuel early Monday after a Valero terminal went dry for about half a day Sunday.

Brown said the Valero terminal had experienced a surge in demand after a terminal owned by another company emptied its tank as part of a switch from one kind of gasoline to a blend containing ethanol.

The Energy Department’s forecasting arm said two weeks ago gas prices had hit a short-term peak of $2.50 a gallon. That appeared to be the case after pump prices fell about about half a penny the following week.

The new jump in fuel costs mirrors a rise in crude oil prices. World oil prices rose Monday, briefly topping $67 a barrel, because of the uncertain outlooks for supplies out of Iran and Nigeria. Light, sweet crude for May delivery settled 11 cents higher at $66.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

On Monday, gasoline futures fell 2.11 cents to close at $1.8632 a gallon, while heating oil futures were essentially unchanged at $1.8622 a gallon. Natural gas rose 3.4 cents to $7.244 per million British thermal units. London Brent rose 93 cents to $66.84 a barrel.

Chronicle reporter David Ivanovich contributed to this story.

Majority don't want toll lanes on 281, angry citizens said at new public meetings

Posted on April 3, 2006 by Terri Hall

Express-News article link here.

Most at meetings down on toll roads
Web Posted: 04/01/2006 12:00 AM CST
Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

If it were up to people willing to voice their opinions at public meetings, toll lanes would never get built on U.S. 281.

Dozens of speakers unloaded their grievances about the toll-road plan to raucous applause from hundreds of residents at two meetings this week.

If the Texas Department of Transportation wants to widen U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Comal County, they can cancel projects in other parts of the city to come up with the money, two out of three people said in a questionnaire sent back to TxDOT this month.

“How many other ways can we say no?” said real estate agent Nancy Strack, who spoke at Thursday’s public meeting at Bush Middle School. “Are you listening to us?”

About 550 people attended the meetings at two North Side schools, and a majority of more than 50 speakers lashed out at TxDOT’s proposal to rebuild U.S. 281 into a tolled expressway with free frontage roads.

Critics who stepped to the microphone Thursday outnumbered toll advocates 3 to 1, and many were hot.

“I’m outraged, absolutely incensed by TxDOT’s refusal to admit that there are other options other than toll roads,” Mike Gravett said. “It’s absolutely appalling.”

Proponents, who also got some applause — though much lighter — argued that tolls are the best way to speed up needed highway projects.

“I’ve wasted enough of my life,” John Houston said. “I’m an expert at sitting in traffic. I’m tired of it. Enough is enough. We need to do something about this.”

Many opponents said TxDOT should have built five overpasses at intersections on U.S. 281 as planned several years ago. The agency has $84 million in gas tax funds to build four overpasses and three miles of express lanes and frontage roads.

By tolling the express lanes, officials said they could get additional money decades sooner to help pay for three more overpasses, four more miles of toll express lanes, toll ramps at the Loop 1604 interchange and new toll lanes for Loop 1604.

“We can fix any one problem but we can’t fix all the problems without doing something different,” said David Casteel, TxDOT’s head engineer in San Antonio.

Most critics and advocates agree there is a traffic problem on U.S. 281.

About 91,000 cars a day traveled the highway just north of Loop 1604 in 2004, up from 8,600 in 1980, according to TxDOT. Nine people were killed and more than 700 injured in crashes on a seven-mile stretch from 1998 to 2001.

Three out of four people say the highway should be expanded, indicates a TxDOT questionnaire given to neighborhood groups, businesses and government officials with a stake in the project.

If more money is needed to widen U.S. 281, then other projects should be canceled, 65 percent of the 97 respondents said.

And forget about raising taxes or waiting up to 25 years to get the work done, 71 percent said.

“No one thinks the do-nothing solution is acceptable,” said Clay Smith, TxDOT’s planning engineer in San Antonio. “Everybody said do something.”

Work on the first three miles of U.S. 281 was scheduled to begin in January, but federal officials pulled their environmental clearances after a lawsuit was filed that says impacts hadn’t been studied enough.

Now state officials are redoing their environmental evaluations, which could last two to seven years and cost up to $2.8 million. Work will be pushed back two to 11 years, finishing between 2010 and 2019, and inflation might run the project cost up 5 percent a year.

Majority don’t want toll lanes on 281, angry citizens said at new public meetings