Read it in the Texas Insider.

The conflicts of interest NEVER end. Elizabeth Ames-Jones voted to toll at the MPO in July of 2004 and is also seeking office as Railroad Commissioner March 7. Now she’ll play a role in giving private rail companies HUGE tax subsidies from Prop 1 rail bonds (that Transportation Commission Chair Ric Williamson said could be paid back with the State’s toll slush fund).

BUYER BEWARE OF OVERINFLATED TRAFFIC PROJECTIONS BY URS CORPORATION!

See Letter to Editor here.

Toll numbers inflated

Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken’s tax-funded review of Austin’s “freeway tolls” has been hijacked by tollers. The pro-toll committee is allowing the toll authority to hire a company to fluff traffic forecast numbers.

That company, URS Corp., has a magnificent record of failed tollways and inflated traffic forecasts. URS has inaccurately forecasted nearly a half-dozen failed projects in Florida. One of those, the Suncoast Parkway, was projected for $70 million in year one. It produced $7 million.

The failed Camino Colombia tollway promised to be a “generator of regional economic activity.” URS forecasted $9 million for year one — but it produced $500,000, which was 6 percent of the URS forecast.

We can only memorize the names on the toll committee: McCracken, state Rep. Mike Krusee, state Rep. Mark Strama, Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, Austin City Council Member Betty Dunkerley and fire them in upcoming elections for a sham “review.”

SAL COSTELLO
Founder of People for Efficient Transportation & Texas Toll Party
imacsal@aol.com

Read them here.

And from transportation expert, Bill Barker…

Greater Chamber – Problem Not Solution
February 9, 2006

Joseph Krier’s op ed response to Carlos Guerra is one more step in the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s long-standing efforts to promote development over the recharge area of our city’s principle source of water, the Edwards Aquifer. In the past, the Chamber even opposed the citizens’ successful referenda in both 2000 and 2005 to purchase land and easements over the recharge and contributing zones of the Aquifer.

In his op/ed, Mr. Krier asserts that paving over the aquifer recharge area and increasing transportation costs through tolls are good for us.

Mr. Krier did not mention, however, the impact of road projects on water quality. The U.S. Geological Survey has concluded that human activity is responsible for the detection of pesticides and volatile organic compounds (including at least one gasoline additive) in the Edwards Aquifer water. The regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency has commented that the US 281 toll project “…has the potential to increase the amount of contaminants reaching the aquifer.” Robert Potts, general manager of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal last month as saying, “If you keep building over the aquifer, you are increasing the pollution and also the chances of having a catastrophic spill.” A toll road over the recharge zone won’t make our drinking water cleaner or more abundant.

The air in the San Antonio region is unhealthy according to federal standards. The biggest source of this air pollution is motor vehicles. Building more roads will generate more traffic and increase emissions. Mr. Krier’s assertion that building a toll road will help our air quality and reduce energy consumption is baseless. The most detailed study to date of the environmental consequences of the U.S. 281 toll road, namely TxDOT’s flawed Environmental Assessment, did not prove this, so it is not clear where Mr. Krier is getting his information.

Mr. Krier compares traffic congestion in San Antonio to Austin, but he again leaves out some important information. Both Austin and San Antonio have commute times that are BELOW the national average. Austin’s average commute was one single minute longer than San Antonio’s in 2000, but Austin’s commute is described by Mr. Krier as “painfully long.” Give me a break. We already have 18% more lanes miles of freeway per person here in San Antonio than Austin does. Plus, we commute more by carpool, bus and walking than Austinites.

Both Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston have commute times that are longer than the national average, and these cities both have toll roads. Maybe toll roads actually cause longer commute times! Or, more probably, when commute times do get longer than average, people are more willing to use toll roads.

Mr. Krier has absolutely no proof that toll lanes will reduce congestion in San Antonio. Toll roads depend on congestion, as noted by local toll authority chairman Dr. Bill Thornton, which is why recent toll road agreements with private firms have required that public agencies do not make any improvements to parallel roads or public transportation. The result is much more congestion on the free lanes and roads so that people are forced into paying for tolls. Of course, you can always charge a toll so high on the toll road that it is uncongested, but what happens to the parallel roads and neighborhood streets when you do that? They become MORE congested.

Regarding Mr. Krier’s assertion that highways do not impact growth patterns, he would do well to review the Fannie Mae Foundation’s conclusion that no other government activity has had more impact on American’s cities over the last 50 years. Or, perhaps, the 1999 federal district court ruling that threw out the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the IH-355 toll road in Illinois. The judge rejected the EIS because it was based on the “implausible assumption” that the corridor’s population would grow by the same amount with and without the toll road. The judge also rejected the State’s assertion that there were no reasonable alternatives.

TxDOT’s Environmental Assessment for the US-281 toll road was also successfully challenged in federal court because it lacked any alternatives to a 16-lane toll road. TxDOT did not consider any other highway, transit, access control, or low-cost alternatives in its analysis, not even its original no toll plan for improving US 281. Incidentally, this no toll plan would already be under construction today if TxDOT had not decided to convert US 281 to a toll road. Bexar County Commissioners Adkisson and Larson as well as State Senators Madla and Wentworth have since sent letters to TxDOT requesting consideration of additional highway alternatives in the corridor.

Mr. Krier is correct to say that most motorists and voters do not want to increase the cost of transportation through taxes, tolls or any other means. Doing so will have a negative impact on the local economy. A recent study in Hampton Roads, Virginia, for example, found an improved economic forecast if existing tolls there were discounted to reduce the cost of transportation.

The best thing for our economy would be for TxDOT to live within its ample budget and for our elected officials to assert greater oversight of our transportation program. A December 2004, Texas Senate Finance Committee report concluded, “The sheer size of the budget of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) coupled with the significant new financial authority granted to the agency during the 78th Legislative Session calls for improvements to the agency’s financial reporting methods.” Among the larger cities in Texas, our local regional transportation policy group is the only one in which elected officials are the minority of voting members.

San Antonio is the only city in Texas that has a sales tax dedicated to state highway projects. Since TxDOT plans to improve US 281 with taxpayer dollars, why does it need to charge us tolls to use it? This is DOUBLE TAXATION! Why does San Antonio have to be the only city in the State with BOTH a sales tax for highways AND toll roads?

Bill Barker, AICP
Transportation Consultant
San Antonio, TX 78213

Bexar County Commissioner:
Precinct 2: Enrique Barrera
(who will help us have a majority on the Commissioners Court who appoints the RMA tolling authority)

Texas House of Representatives:
District 52: Barbara Samuelson (to UNSEAT TOLLER MIKE KRUSEE)
District 73: Nathan Macias (to UNSEAT TOLLER CARTER CASTEEL)
District 118: Larry Ricketts

These folks turned in our candidate questionnaire and have committed in writing to KEEP OUR FREEWAYS FREE!

WARNING: Elizabeth Ames Jones who is running for Railroad Commissioner voted to toll us at the MPO. Now she wants to help private rail companies get HUGE tax subsidies from Prop 1 rail bonds (that Transportation Commission Chair Ric Williamson said could be paid back with the State’s toll slush fund).

Complete List of Texas Toll Party (People for Efficient Transportation PAC) Endorsements below:

Both the Democrat and the Republican Parties have failed to represent us. Special interests, who fund toller campaigns, are being allowed to toll and profit from public highways we’ve already paid for, and the Trans Texas Corridor is taking our land. After reviewing and comparing PET PAC’s comprehensive questionnaires from candidates and past voting records, our crosspartisan volunteers have endorsed the following Independent Democrat and Independent Republican champions.

IMPORTANT: This is a strategic plan to replace special interest politicians. This strategy includes voting in the primary of any party to stop the looting. We can no longer vote along party lines. We must shop the ballot to de-elect the looters and elect the better candidate. The Strayhorn campaign urges everyone to vote in the very low turnout Primaries where our votes really count. Strayhorn campaign has the money to get all the signatures she needs. Strayhorn is the ONLY candidate that has the millions needed to beat Rick “Toller” Perry AND her campaign is gaining momentum: see blog here. Strayhorn has also found Perry’s freeway tolls to be Double Taxation and has been fighting with us for almost 2 years!: see report here.

If you live in TRAVIS County Precinct 2 or Precinct 4, or BEXAR County Precinct 2, VOTE in the Democratic Primary
(Travis County Precinct map at the bottom of this email and at this link http://www.texastollparty.com/documents/Travis.jpg):

Travis County Commissioner:
Precinct 2: Sarah Eckhardt*
Sarah Eckhardt is a former prosecutor, ready to fight for accountability and oppose Special Interest Candidate Karen Sonleitner. Sonleitner has 1) Voted to privatize and toll hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our public highways – as a member of CAMPO. Double Taxation 2) Ignored 93% of the public feedback that opposed the toll plan. 3) Raised County Taxes for all Travis County residents. 4) And, after all that, Sonleitner gave herself a Pay Raise!
Precinct 4: Yolanda Montemayor

Bexar County Commissioner:
Precinct 2: Enrique Barrera
A vote for Barrera will give us a majority on the commissioner’s court!

All other areas of Texas, VOTE in the Republican Primary:

Texas House of Representatives:
District 47: Bill Welch
District 50: Don Zimmerman
District 52: Barbara Samuelson*
Barbara Samuelson is opposing Mike Krusee in this important Williamson County race. Mike Krusee created the new freeway toll tax, TTC land grab schemes and unaccountable bureaucracies that will cost our Texas families $1,000’s of dollars more a year. As a member of CAMPO, Krusee also voted to privatize and toll hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our Central Texas public highways after ignoring 93% of the public feedback that opposed the toll plan.
District 73: Nathan Macias*
Nathan Macias is opposing Carter Casteel. Casteel backed up Krusee as a Transportation Committee member to help create the new freeway toll tax and TTC land grab schemes.
District 83: Frank Morrison
District 87: Annette Carlisle
District 101: Tom Latham
District 4: Gent Wade

Texas Supreme Court:
Place 2: Steve Smith*
Former Supreme Court Justice Steve Smith is our PET Inc. Attorney who is suing Gov. Rick Perry on the behalf of Texans, to fight double tax tolls and the TTC. He’s done months of work Pro Bono! The person who is opposing Steve Smith in this Primary is a special interest funded Gov. Perry appointee that had NO experience before Perry appointed him.

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals:
Terry Keel
As State Representative, Terry Keel’s independence caused him to be the first elected person in Texas to call freeway tolls “a double tax”. In 2004, Terry Keel asked the State Comptroller, Carol Keeton Strayhorn to investigate the first Freeway Tolling Authority in Texas for using gas tax dollars to create freeway tolls. Read the 2005 Comptroller Report that shows “Double Taxation Without Accountability” and “Favoritism And Self-Enrichment”: see it here.

Texas State Railroad Commissioner:
Major Buck Werner

Texas State Senate:
District 3: Bob Reeves
District 18: David Stall
David Stall is cofounder of CorridorWatch.org. David is a true Texas patriot that has dedicated years of his life educating citizens and elected officials about the truths of the Special Interest Trans Texas Corridor. David Stall is selfless and devoted to Texans.

Collin County Commissioner:
County Judge: Rick Neudorff
Precinct 4: Jeran Akers

Call 283-Vote for your voting location

Thank You
Sal Costello
Founder of www.TexasTollParty.com & www.StopCorridor.com
(People for Efficient Transportation PAC)
DAILY MUCKRAKING OF CORRUPTION HERE: http://salcostello.blogspot.com/
email me with questions 24/7: Sal@TexasTollParty.com

*Key Races
We must vote strategically and wisely to stop the corruption.
Print out this ACCOUNTABILITY VOTERS GUIDE and take it with you into the voting booth.

SEND THIS VOTERS GUIDE OF THE GOOD GUYS AND GALS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN TEXAS!

Carlos Guerra: Trans Texas Corridor toll road network hides details from public

If you have any further questions remaining about who’s behind tolling half of San Antonio with more promised to come, look no further than the info on Express-News reporter Pat Driscoll’s blog. Read it here. I had the same newsletter forwarded to me. Our mission is to shine the light on this overt corruption of the public good and to reveal the TRUTH behind these toll plans. In contrast, proponents are set to begin a PROPAGANDA campaign to hookwink unsuspecting residents into lining the pockets of corporations who are no longer satisfied with bidding to build our highways, now they want “lease” agreements with 50-99 year sweetheart deals kept SECRET from the public (who’s paying for them) effectively granting ONE business a monopoly over public infrastructure that belongs to TEXANS!

It’s insidious; it’s ugly; it’s morally and ethically wrong; it should be illegal, and the other side will do whatever it takes to get your money! A taxpayer revolt is in order! Wake your friends and neighbors, alert them to the coming tidalwave and tell them to get armed with a ballot and throw the thieves who voted to toll your existing freeways OUT OF OFFICE March 7 and November 7!

Carlos Guerra: Are toll roads really about traffic, or perhaps about big contracts? Finally a reporter who’s beginning to dig into who’s pushing tolls in this town. Joe Krier’s San Antonio Mobility Coalition is nothing more than another waste of taxpayer dollars selling the public good for private gain. Read about it here. Thank him for shining the light on the shady deals going down and encourage more stories bringing this to light. Submit it as a Letter to the Editor here.

I’ve also attached a related article submitted to the South Texas Republicans newsletter this week:

Who’s pushing tolls?
By Terri Hall
February 13, 2006

Apparently our little grassroots effort to keep our freeways free has ruffled some feathers. First, the Executive Director of TxDOT, Michael Behrens submits an Op/Ed to the Express-News then San Antonio Mobility Coalition Chair and Greater Chamber CEO Joe Krier submits another within less than a week! What’s striking is their total lack of rationale for tolling EXISTING freeways. Like most government bureaucracies , TxDOT prattles on about how its bloat factor isn’t high enough…they “NEED” more money. But what’s truly astounding is Joe Krier and the Greater Chamber supporting a policy that will increase government, increase the cost of doing business, and increase taxes.

A principled approach to representing the business community would take into account more than just the highway lobby (SAMCO represents 70 private companies who stand to profit handsomely from toll roads), it would promote lowering taxes which genuinely spurs economic growth. No nation has EVER taxed their way into prosperity. There is simply NO EXPLANATION (other than greed) for tolling FREEways that are already built and paid for! It’s DOUBLE TAXATION and violates conservatism and responsible fiscal policy.

Krier got on KTSA radio Feb. 3 and emphatically stated no toll will be placed on ANY existing road, when Frank Holzman of TxDOT stated on camera that they are planning, in fact, to toll what we drive on today on US 281 (at an Encino Park HOA mtg., Jan. 24). ANYONE who’s attended the public hearings on the project can attest to the same.

Who else is pushing tolls? The highway lobby itself, of course, with the help of willing public officials. Last November, former Executive Director of the MPO JoAnne Walsh landed herself a lucrative private sector job at a firm tied to the toll industry, Parsons-Brinckerhoff, right after seeing to it that $500 million in gas taxes were earmarked for toll roads. In January, former Executive Director of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (tolling authority) Tom Greibel also moved on to an executive position with a highway engineering firm, Pape-Dawson. Coincidence or conflicts of interest? Coincidence or exploiting the public good for personal and private gain?

We’ve seen enough corruption with the Abramoff scandal in recent days, Republicans certainly don’t need to be hitched to more of it! Though there are friends and enemies on both sides of the aisle pushing tolls, it’s Republicans who run the show in Austin and it’ll be Republicans who pay the price for a messy, shady, scandal with plenty of conflicts of interest if not outright criminal behavior taking place.

The only two companies “bidding” to build the toll starter system in San Antonio, Spanish-based Cintra and Australian-based Macquarie, also just happen to be partners on at least two such public-private partnerships, one in Ontario, Canada, and one just inked in Indiana. Competitive bidding or shady monopolies?

Back in its glory days, the Texas Department of Transportation built a highway system many touted as one of the best in the world. Well, sadly that ceased to true when Governor-appointed Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson took the helm. With statements like: “It’s toll roads, slow roads, or no roads,” (El Paso Times, 05/05/04) and “In your lifetime, most existing roads will have tolls,” (Houston Chronicle, 10/11/04) it’s not hard to make the case. TxDOT just hosted two workshops, one to over 1,000 people in the highway lobby to essentially “sell” private Texas land taken by eminent domain over to these new quasi-governments, these foreign consortiums, for 50-99 year SECRET toll agreements (public-private partnerships, called Comprehensive Development Agreements or CDAs in Texas), and one just THIS WEEK to bond buyers promoting the same CDAs for toll roads.

Special interests have more power over the government than the governed. Our elected officials are selling out the public good for the private gain of the few. Look who’s promoting these toll plans and who’s drinking at the public trough and it’s easy to understand the public outrage! It’s time for new leadership. Statewide and nationally, Republicans need to return to the conservative principles that built this Party and made this country a beacon of light, liberty, and democracy to the world.

Read about it here.

Here’s the story on the signal re-timing that occurred on US 281 shortly after the lawsuit victory…

As tolls bog down, so does U.S. 281

Web Posted: 02/10/2006 12:00 AM CST

Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

A curious thing happened after the Texas Department of Transportation, facing a lawsuit, backed off plans to start construction on U.S. 281 toll lanes last month.

Within days, traffic got a lot worse.

Cars backed up for more than a mile at stoplights, and motorists spent almost twice as much time stuck in rush-hour traffic.

“It was always horrible,” said Joe Dunn, who commutes daily on U.S. 281. “This was a whole lot worse than it had ever been.”

Then came accusations that officials had re-timed the traffic signals, giving them less green time, to ratchet up the pain and make the prospect of toll roads look better.

“It seems to me that TxDOT, with the city’s acquiescence, has been playing politics with our highway system,” said Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party, a group critical of toll-road plans.

Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson, who lives near U.S. 281, said he noticed the slower traffic, too.

“There was definitely a change and it was noticeable to a lot of people who travel the corridor,” he said.

At a recent meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Organization board, which Larson sits on, he asked the city to explain what happened to signal lights at Stone Oak Parkway, Encino Rio and Evans Road.

City Transportation Engineer Christina De La Cruz said that “they had been tweaking it.”

Later, she said crews had replaced a faulty detector in the signal at Stone Oak Parkway and had checked the other two lights. She also said TxDOT recently provided new traffic counts for U.S. 281 and that the city might use the data to re-time the lights.

But the city hasn’t changed the timing of any U.S. 281 lights yet, De La Cruz said. And the foul-up of the detector soon after TxDOT postponed work on the toll lanes was a coincidence.

“There has never been a coordinated effort to create problems out there,” she said.

Larson said he’s still not clear on what happened. But he did accuse officials of holding back on some quick, cheap fixes to improve traffic flows on U.S. 281, such as retiming lights to move more cars during rush hour and building turn lanes at intersections.

“If they’re committed to the toll-road concept they’re not going to improve those routes at all,” he said. “They want people to get their fill of frustration out there.”

Since 2000, TxDOT has installed traffic signals at Stone Oak Parkway, Bulverde and Borgfeld roads and has restriped shoulders to create additional lanes from Stone Oak Parkway to Redland, agency spokeswoman Laura Lopez said.

The real problem, she said, is that there’s just too much traffic out there.

“No matter how badly you want it to happen, you just can’t fit that amount of traffic through the existing infrastructure,” she said. “It seems that the funnel is about as big as it can get without some major reconstruction.”