See Pat Driscoll’s blog on the last time the Texas Toll Party was before the Transportation Commission.

Founder Sal Costello took Chair Ric Williamson to task on toll booths. Williamson insists they’re not in the toll booth business but as usual, TxDOT did a bait and switch. Just weeks ago WOAI radio had repeated reports on the classified advertisements in the Austin American Statesman for toll booth operators. Approximately 25 cents of every $1 goes to the administration cost of collecting tolls. Why would we want 25% or more of our hard earned tax dollars to go to toll booth adminstration? Toll roads cost more to build, more to operate, and more to maintain and they rely on permanent congestion on the free lanes in order to work…so who benefits from the toll roads? Government (creates a new government entitlement) and private corporations. Who’s the loser? All of us, the taxpayers!

Once again, our supporters eloquently demonstrate that there are alternatives to tolls, but our elected officials, government bureaucrats, and special interests at the Greater Chamber refuse to implement them. Tell them to stop selling the public good for private gain. Sign our petition here.

Read the Letters to the Editor here.

NOTE: It is interesting that the only Letter to the Editor in today’s paper that supports toll roads is from Brenda Vickery Johnson the president of Vickery & Associates. Vickery & Associates is a TxDOT contractor, and Ms. Johnson is on the board of the Greater Chamber and Joe Krier’s San Antonio Mobility Coalition (SAMCO). Too bad the newspaper did not disclose this information because it taints the “working mom” spin of her letter. I doubt that many other working moms are for tolls.

Comment from supporter who called in on Chris Duel’s Show on KTSA 550 AM to question Krier:

Chris,

I was the David call in Wed. night speaking with Joe Krier. I did not want to be combative on the air nor try to hog the time but I would like to point out that in typical politician fashion he did not answer the main question. I asked about what happened to the plans for a toll free three lane both sides, with feeder roads and overpasses where the five stoplights are that have been briefed to the residents of this corridor repeatedly over the past 4 – 5 years. The plans were drawn up and shown to the people who came to the public hearings. They were also told there was 44 million dollars ready to do the construction. What happened to it?

In, again typical politician fashion he cavalierly told me/us, the working stiffs, if we didn’t want to pay the toll then don’t use it. Sounds like a “let them eat cake” attitude. He obliviously didn’t understand the point that if the cost of going to and from work is too expensive and/or time consuming then you will lose workers and they will end up on the social security or unemployment rolls.

This is another case of the taxpayers being ignored and not being informed of what the politicians are doing with our tax dollars. He states that the idea of an increased gasoline tax has no political will in Austin but then how has the case been presented versus the much higher cost of the toll roads?

David

You’re right, David, if the voters were presented with the costs of improvements in tolls versus gas taxes, the public would see once and for all that tolls with NO CAP in the hands of a private company are infinitely higher than the gas tax system.

Interesting how Governor’s Perry’s Chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson, is responsible for diverting our gas taxes to non-transportation related projects during his time as a State Rep. on the House Appropriations Committee:

“Something else besides mounting traffic plagues I-35. With Texas’ economy and population seemingly stagnant two decades ago, legislators started diverting some state gas tax funds away from highways. That’s in addition to the fourth that had been going to education for more than 60 years.

‘I probably wouldn’t have done it if I could have looked in a crystal ball 20 years down the road,’ said Williamson, who now is chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission.”

Read the article here:

I-35: The road to trouble

02/19/2006
Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

Next time you’re in a bottleneck on Interstate 35 and want to cuss at someone, consider this:

Those most responsible probably aren’t within earshot.

They include former President Clinton, whose signing of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement paved the way for a surge in truck traffic; Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, who helped convince then-Gov. Ann Richards to pull support for high-speed rail plans; and Ric Williamson, who as a member of the state House Appropriations Committee in the 1980s played a key role in diverting state gas taxes, a third of which now don’t go to transportation.

Such are the politics of traffic jams. Some are caused by accidents; others by construction. But an examination of I-35 — How does a road get like this? — shows that many tie-ups are foretold by sometimes faraway and long-ago machinations of people, some who never or rarely drive the road.

Running 1,500 miles from Mexico to Duluth, Minn., I-35 is overloaded from San Antonio to Dallas, state officials say.

The worst stretch, from here to Georgetown, was branded the deadliest highway in Texas just a few years after NAFTA started, when more than 100 people a year were dying on it.

Move It!
Passenger rail in Texas

The problem is one that seemingly everybody saw coming but nobody was able to avert, though eventually it figured prominently in a Texas gubernatorial election.

“All we know is, we could look and see what was happening to I-35,” said David Laney, who was chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission from 1995 to 2001. “We knew that increasingly we would lose ground.”

And now, the best hope for frustrated motorists who use I-35 is a strange and paradoxical solution that might seem to come straight out of the politician’s handbook: Do nothing, or little, allowing the highway to become more clogged than ever.

Here’s why: Bond agreements for new toll roads usually forbid construction of competing highway lanes, thereby assuring I-35 always will be congested.

In fact, on the same day as one of Austin’s worst-ever traffic jams — caused by two wrecks last spring that closed the northbound lanes of I-35 for 18 hours — Gov. Rick Perry was at the Capitol presiding over the signing of a contract to develop plans for a tollway from San Antonio to Dallas.

So although some fixes for I-35 are on the drawing board — six additional lanes in San Antonio, a few in Austin, expanding a choke point in New Braunfels and adding two lanes from Waco to Hillsboro — the days of expanding the freeway are coming to an end. The widening needed to keep pace with population and traffic growth is physically or fiscally out of reach.

Almost half the state’s population lives within 50 miles of I-35, making it the most important highway in Texas, and forecasts indicate growth will top 50 percent in 20 years. Traffic on the freeway is expected to climb even faster.

“We’re struggling,” said Gabriela Garcia, spokeswoman with the Texas Department of Transportation. “We’re trying to catch up.”

Many of the motorists flocking to I-35 are commuters living or working in sprawling developments popping up along the corridor, but there also are truckers hauling goods because of skyrocketing trade with Mexico.

When Kaz and Kathleen Oreziak moved from Canada to San Antonio two years ago, their new neighbors offered some sage advice about I-35 between here and Austin.

The Oreziaks took the advice to heart and now avoid I-35 when they drive to Austin every month or so. Instead, they head up U.S. 281 and then east to Austin, slowing down for the curves in the rolling hills and stopping in the quaint towns.

They figure they’re not losing much time, if any. But if their trips take a little longer, so what?

“We just like the scenery,” Kathleen Oreziak said.

Cecil Cracraft of Missouri wiped some dirt off the fender of his rig and recalled the horrors he’s faced on I-35 in Texas. He’s been hauling groceries through the state once or twice a month for the past five years.

“I don’t know,” he said, getting serious. “I don’t know if I’ve seen the worst.”

First bad sign

More than likely, Cracraft hasn’t seen the worst.
By 2025, I-35 would need to be expanded to 18 lanes in Austin, 16 in San Antonio and 12 in-between to handle expected traffic, a 1999 study by the Federal Highway Administration says. That’s eight to 12 more lanes in Austin and San Antonio, too much to be practical.

Intelligent transportation technologies such as those used by TransGuide could reduce the need for some of those lanes, but a new parallel route of two to eight lanes still would be needed from here to Temple, the study concluded. Dallas-Fort Worth also would need a bypass.

But officials didn’t need a study to know that alternatives to I-35 would be needed. They could see it coming 20 years ago.

It was during the 1980s that Frank McCullough noticed a troubling sign.

On some holidays, traffic on I-35 slowed down in rural areas, said McCullough, who’d worked for the state highway department years before and at the time was with the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas.

Congestion was expected during rush hours in large cities, but not out where cows grazed.

“I-35 would break down,” he said. “It just couldn’t handle the traffic.”

When McCullough pulled out the Texas ruler for measuring distances — driving time — and projected into the future, the picture was bleak. Trips on I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas soon would take as long as they did before the freeway was built.

“I don’t think anybody was thinking about how big this growth was going to be,” he said. “It was becoming readily apparent that we couldn’t build our way out of that situation. In other words, we couldn’t build lanes fast enough.”

McCullough’s fears were well-founded.

Construction of the nation’s 47,000-mile interstate highway system was grinding to an end, blotting out a vision that for decades gave highway planners something solid to get behind and push.

The 1986 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade had kicked off booming trade with Mexico, and talks for NAFTA would start in five years. Four of five trucks carrying trade to and from Mexico ended up rumbling through Texas, a third on I-35.

Since 1990, the number of trucks on I-35 in San Antonio has more than doubled and now accounts for one in seven vehicles just north of North Loop 1604.

By the mid 1990s, nearly all parts of I-35 in urban areas and almost half in rural areas from Mexico to Canada had reached capacity, according to the highway administration’s 1999 study.

For every mile traveled on the freeway today, the average San Antonio commuter can lose up to an hour a year stuck in traffic.

Something else besides mounting traffic plagues I-35. With Texas’ economy and population seemingly stagnant two decades ago, legislators started diverting some state gas tax funds away from highways. That’s in addition to the fourth that had been going to education for more than 60 years.

“I probably wouldn’t have done it if I could have looked in a crystal ball 20 years down the road,” said Williamson, who now is chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission.

Besides the diversions, legislators have refused to raise the gas tax since 1991 and inflation has steadily whittled purchasing power. Tax revenue continued to go up, but that’s because the amount of driving — and therefore the needs — shot up.

Also in the 1980s, strategies began to shift to ways to manage road congestion rather than cure it — such as more mass transit, carpool lanes and toll roads, all of which become more attractive as traffic thickens.

Talk of an I-35 bypass in Austin soon would consider carpool lanes, and after stalled plans were reinvigorated by TxDOT in 1992, officials decided to fund the road by making it a tollway. They also renamed it Texas 130.

In 1990, community leaders from San Antonio and Austin raised the idea to run commuter rail, with speeds up to 80 mph, along I-35 from San Antonio to Austin. A 1999 state study said it was feasible, but public money would be needed.

By 1994, private companies spent $41 million trying to prove that high-speed rail, with speeds of 150 mph or more, would be a good way to connect the state’s five biggest cities and would be possible if government would just kick in some money.

The supercorridor

McCullough and his colleagues at the research center felt something bigger was needed, something that reached further into the future and would thrive as I-35 became more congested. They considered the failings of the interstates, which plowed through cities and became clogged with commuters, and included access roads — especially in Texas — that further hampered long-haul traffic by adding drivers making shorter trips.

The researchers came up with a blueprint for something that could do it all. They called it a supercorridor.

Their vision, looking 50 years out, was to pack six car lanes, four truck lanes, two passenger rail lines, two freight rail lines, utility pipelines and service areas into one right of way to save land, time, money and pain.

The supercorridors would parallel interstates and go around cities. Highway lanes would be tolled to pay for themselves and control traffic levels, and there would be no access roads to feed urban sprawl.

The center fleshed out the idea with three studies from 1992 to 1996. In the last, which was commissioned by TxDOT, researchers took a detailed look at the I-35 corridor but recommended that all Texas corridors be considered.

Then … nothing.

“When we presented the work, there was a kind of deafening silence,” recalled Rob Harrison, who worked on the studies and now is deputy director of the research center.

But that changed six years later.

In 2002, as the governor’s race began to crank up, incumbent Perry unveiled the Trans Texas Corridor. The plan, hailed as a new vision, is a 50-year $184 billion proposal to build 4,000 miles of toll roads, rail lines and pipelines in shared rights of way across the state.

One of the planners with the research center said he almost fell off his chair when he heard about it. The similarities were that eerie.

The main difference is that Perry is eyeing four passenger rail lines, two for high speeds of up to 200 mph and two for slower commuter service that makes more stops. That pushed the needed right of way width to nearly a quarter of a mile.

But a motley assortment that includes the Sierra Club, the Texas Farm Bureau and even Perry’s own Texas Republican Party have decried how the wide corridors would split farms, ranches and wildlife habitats and devour almost 584,000 acres of valuable land.

“That concerns us, the way it transects the ranches in Texas and some of the best wildlife areas,” said Kirby Brown of the Texas Wildlife Association, which is working to change laws to chip away at the impacts.

Also, a coalition of cities led by Dallas has been fighting to protect I-35 as the historic NAFTA route. They want to see new lanes added to that freeway or kept within 5 miles.

North America’s Supercorridor Coalition Inc., an international group founded in 1994 and based in Dallas, recently began talking to TxDOT about such issues but has endorsed the concept.

“We just want to make sure that the alignment is as close to I-35 as possible and uses I-35 in rural areas where it’s feasible,” NASCO spokeswoman Rachel Edwards said.

Within weeks, federal officials might narrow possible routes for the Trans Texas Corridor leg paralleling I-35 to a 10-mile-wide area.

Picking the actual route, the first of the supercorridors, could take up to two more years.

Keys to Perry’s plan include a shift to tolls and fees to raise most of the money and partnering with private companies to build and operate segments of the corridor while taking on risks in return for profits.

“Tolling is definitely part of the future of transportation finance./span> It varies from state to state,” said Robert Puentes, a fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Peter Samuel, a fellow with the Reason Institute in Los Angeles, said he hopes the corridor comes to fruition but doubts it’ll fully happen in anybody’s lifetime.

“My conclusion is, the whole thing is somewhat overhyped,” he said. “If it all happens, sure, it’s huge.”

In 2004, the Texas Transportation Commission chose a consortium led by Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Corp. of San Antonio to draw up development plans for the corridor’s first project — a $6 billion four-lane toll road from San Antonio to Dallas.

Construction could start in four years.

With federal leadership on transportation issues collapsing after completion of the interstates, the eyes of the nation are now glued on Texas.

“Most states,” Puentes said, “are watching closely to see how they pull that off.”

pdriscoll@express-news.net

See for yourself on TxDOT’s own web site.

How many times have we heard TxDOT bureaucrat David Casteel opine about how broke TxDOT is? Many elected officials have parroted the same ol’ talking points all over town. Some take the bait until we point ’em to TxDOT’s own web site. They act like they’re gettin’ chump change. Their gas tax revenues increased $1 billion last year without raising the gas tax ONE CENT and in the midst of a fuel price crisis causing driving to go down 6%! Nearly every hour of every day they get more of your hard-earned tax money pouring into their coffers. Their total revenue exceeds top companies like Starbucks and Southwest Airlines! We can sink em’ with their own material every time!

Read about it on Sal’s blog.

Yet another HUGE downside to tolling Texas is that it puts upward mobility further out of reach for economically disadvantaged and middle class folks. What’s truly amazing is that our southside councilmen and commissioners fail to recognize how paying a toll to get to work on the northside where much of the job growth is will negatively impact the life and economic opportunties of their constituents. Their choice: pay a toll or sit in unbearable congestion. For many there will not be a choice; they simply can’t afford the extra cost, especially with 40% higher fuel costs in just the last year.

I’ve talked with many northside business owners who express concern over their employees’ ability to get to work. Some have shared that their employees have already said they will have to quit their jobs if they face tolls to get to work. The high gas prices have already taken a “toll” on their take home pay. WOAI news explores this much unheralded and damaging economic impact of the current toll plans.

WOAI story here.

It seems there’s some confusion out there about whether to vote in the primaries due to Strayhorn running as an Independent. Here’s the deal. If your district has ANY contested primary race (more than one candidate for a single office), VOTE in your Party’s primary, especially if you have the chance to UNSEAT A TOLLER! That means we need you to vote for Nathan Macias in District 73 to unseat Carter Casteel, Enrique Barrera in Precinct 2, and Larry Ricketts in District 118. Those who DO NOT have contested primary races (meaning candidates with no opponent from within the same Party) can choose to not vote March 7 in order to later sign the petition to get Strayhorn on the ballot in November. Please contact me if you still have questions: terri@satollparty.com.

See our list of candidate endorsements here.
To find out your district.

Commissioner Lyle Larson was on KSAT 12, WOAI radio, and elsewhere today with more GOOD NEWS…he’s drafted a letter, see PDF here, to Rick Perry calling his toll plans for Texas DOUBLE TAXATION, UNFAIR, and UN-TEXAN. Here, here! Thank Commissioner Larson for his courage to take on our failed leadership in Austin here.

Read KSAT 12 coverage and take their online poll here.

Link to article here or read below with emphasis.

Commissioners call for help on S.H. 121
By KRYSTAL DE LOS SANTOS
McKinney Courier-Gazette
February 16, 2006

Collin County Commissioners may be forced to reconsider signing a comprehensive development agreement with a private company to build and operate S.H. 121, after their plan for the North Texas Tollway Authority to build and operate the road was overlooked Feb. 9 by regional transportation officials.

On Tuesday, they mulled asking state senators and representatives to draft legislation to limit the Texas Department of Transportation’s ability to force cities and counties to accept CDAs with private companies to operate toll roads.

Last Thursday, the Regional Transportation Council voted to include the NTTA’s proposal among other bids to operate the road from which the Texas Transportation Commission can choose. That means that the NTTA, a non-profit local tolling entity, is competing for the rights to build and manage the road with private, for profit companies, some of which are based outside the country. The Texas Department of Transportation will present competing proposals to the RTC in November.

“Our proposal to use NTTA to build and operate 121 wasn’t rejected, it was just thrown into the mix with the comprehensive development agreements,” said County Commissioner Jack Hatchell. “It’s not going to delay the construction of that facility any further. It’s just a matter of who submits the best bid to do that.” Hatchell also chairs the RTC. In April, he said, TxDOT may release a “shortlist” of three of four possible bid winners.

While the RTC’s decision is disappointing, he said, if TxDOT chooses to draft a CDA with one of the private companies, Collin County may still be allowed to set the toll rate.

“The main goal is to get the thing built in five years, and if we can set the toll rates and rate of inflation, then everything will be on equal footing,” Hatchell said.

However, he said, what is frightening is that the CDAs are fast becoming the norm for toll road projects in Texas. Private firms are well-funded, and like they did Thursday, can offer TxDOT a big cash payment for the rights to operate toll roads.

At the RTC meeting, TxDOT revealed that companies were willing to pay up to $575 million upfront for the rights to S.H. 121. The NTTA proposal would pay $515 million over 50 years and gradually increase over time.

“They are so sold on this CDA process. I don’t think they are going to let anybody do a toll road on their own,” Hatchell said. “When they dangle that $575 million in front of people, it really makes a difference.”

That $575 million would immediately add to TxDOT’s coffers for projects in the Dallas District, which includes many of the RTC member counties and cities.

Hatchell said that while the NTTA proposal “is a better deal in the long run,” operating the road through a private firm is seen as a better deal in the short run.

“It’s a money-grab,” said County Judge Ron Harris. “We’re really going to have to follow the lead of our legislative delegation because this has kind of gone over what we can do.”

Harris, Hatchell and Hoagland agreed that the county and its citizens should rally their state representatives and ask for legislation re-evaluating the focus of TxDOT and the RTC’s near neighbor, near timeframe policy. TxDOT, they said, swayed the RTCs vote because the department favors CDAs.

“The four cities are absolutely against and our position has always been against CDAs,” said Harris. “There’s no local control, plus they’re going to make a sizeable profit or else they wouldn’t be doing this. I think the money should just stay here with the NTTA.”

The county initially proposed forming a local government corporation to build and run the road, but that idea was rejected by state transportation officials. The county and four cities revoked their support for the LGC after learning that state officials would not approve of it. They instead endorsed the NTTA’s proposal, and county officials were hopeful that their second choice would be accepted.

Harris said that other counties who have used CDAs have reported problems with them. “The problem is I can’t look at anyone here and tell them I’ve seen the documentation and that it’ll work because it’s all done in secret,” he said.

Hoagland said he would not support allowing a private company to build and operate S.H. 121 through a CDA, and called it “another Robin Hood.

“When the state sells out to the highest bidder, that automatically translates into the highest tolls for our citizens,” he said. “I think that the Legislature ought to go in and change the focus of TxDOT. That’s what’s going to have to happen. We’re going to have to pass a law saying that’s not the way we finance roads.”

Commissioner Joe Jaynes said that if a private company can keep the toll rates low and allow Collin County to set terms of the agreement, he’d be willing to look at the option.

The county’s stance on S.H. 121 could tarnish its relationship with TxDOT and its neighbors and affect its ability to acquire funding for other projects.

“It’s obvious that Austin wants it. They’re doing it in other areas of the state. There might be some issues with it, but I think looking at those issues might resolve them one way or the other, so at least we have the NTTA proposal in there. With the money up front, if that was to work out, we’d have quicker funding for U.S. 75, 380 West and the Outer Loop,” he said. “I’m not pro-CDA. “I’m just saying let’s compare apples to apples so we can get a clear picture on where we’re headed.”