Link to article here.

Private toll lanes, free highways merge first in Tarrant project
Friday, January 30, 2009
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
mlindenberger@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – Private toll roads are coming to North Texas, and coming fast.

In the first of three deals to be announced over the next two months, the Texas Transportation Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to hire a Spanish toll-road company to rebuild Tarrant County’s busiest traffic corridor, adding two new toll lanes in each direction.

The 13-mile project will replace the two free lanes in each direction on Interstate 820 and on State Highway 183 in northeast Tarrant County. Four new toll lanes will run parallel, and drivers used to tolls of about 14 cents a mile will initially pay rates as high as 75 cents a mile.

Construction should begin late next year and be complete by 2015, said a beaming roster of officials from Tarrant County and the Texas Department of Transportation. Final details of the contract will be negotiated over the next 60 days, and lining up lenders for the project could take until the end of this year.

“This is a historic day for mobility in North Texas, and a historic day for the citizens,” said TxDOT Commissioner Bill Meadows, a former Fort Worth City Council member. Nearly a dozen mayors, council members and others from the county traveled to Austin to hear the announcement Thursday morning.

For Dallas drivers, Thursday’s announcement is a sign of things to come.

Next month, the TxDOT leaders are expected to pick a firm to rebuild the LBJ Freeway. Like the North Tarrant Express, the LBJ project will add no new free lanes, but will add tolled lanes. The six new toll lanes will be half-buried underneath the existing LBJ lanes in what some have called the most ambitious road-engineering project in America, now that Boston’s Big Dig is complete.

The LBJ project is expected to begin construction next year and take five years – a significant challenge for the 280,000 drivers who currently use the lanes each day and the hundreds of businesses located along its frontage roads.

TxDOT officials said Wednesday that mitigation efforts with local business along LBJ have been under way for more than a year, though most lanes of traffic will remain open during peak hours throughout the construction period. Phil Russell, assistant executive director at TxDOT, said any contract awarded will include steep fines should the construction crews be forced to close main lanes.

Another project under bid by private toll companies is the DFW Connector in Grapevine, which will involve rebuilding and expanding State Highway 114 and State Highway 121, including interchanges across seven different highways. The 14-mile project will add free lanes and tolled lanes owned by the state along Highway 114.

North Texas drivers are increasingly familiar with toll roads, but they’ve never driven on lanes like these.

The new concepts that will be at the center of all three of these projects are what are called “managed lanes.” Toll rates for these lanes will change 24 hours a day, depending on how much demand for them there is. That demand will be measured by the amount of traffic on the free lanes.

For drivers, that means the more backed-up the traffic on free lanes, the more it will cost to get a quick ride into town on the tolled lanes. Buses will use the tolled lanes free, and motorcyclists and carpoolers will get a discount.

The idea is that by raising the tolls on the toll lanes when traffic is bad, it will keep the traffic down to a manageable level, which in this case is defined as traffic moving at 50 miles per hour or more.

It’s a rarely used concept, though drivers in Orange County pay a $1 a mile during rush hour into Los Angeles, and appear happy to do so.

For now, Cintra estimates that the peak-hour rates on the North Tarrant Express will be about $6.50 each way for the 13-mile trip, or about 50 cents per mile. It says tolls during nonpeak periods could be as low as nine cents a mile. By comparison, rates on NTTA roads, which do not change according to traffic levels, are about 14 cents a mile.

The Regional Transportation Council has adopted a policy that sets the maximum rate for the managed-lane tolls at 75 cents per hour for now, but even that cap is a soft cap. If the toll lanes prove so popular that they are getting overcrowded even at 75 cents a mile, the rates can be increased.

Jose Lopez, Cintra’s president of American operations, said the managed-lane idea is a new one for his company, and he applauded North Texas leaders for adopting what he called a “modern concept.”

It’s catching on, however. Toll roads in Virginia headed into Washington, D.C., will use managed-lane toll policies, and so will Houston’s rebuilt Katy Freeway, which opened late last year and is expected to begin using fluctuating rates within a few months.

The smiles all around the briefing room in Austin Thursday were in marked contrast with the consternation associated with Cintra’s first attempt to build a toll road in North Texas.

Two years ago, the commission awarded the company the rights to Highway 121, only to see an enraged Legislature step in and pave the way for NTTA to successfully bid on the project. This time, however, NTTA has its hands full and did not seek to compete for the road. It will, however, be paid a fee to collect the tolls for Cintra.

“We’re very pleased to see the level of support from local officials,” Lopez said Thursday.

The team Cintra pulled together to bid on the project includes nearly a dozen firms, including two others who have agreed to put money in as equity investors. One of those is the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund, though neither Lopez nor fund officials would say how much money they are investing.

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Link to article here.

Monday, Feb 9, 2009

Analysis of Governor Rick Perry’s interview with the Dallas Morning News about transportation below is provided by Susan Ridgway Garry of ACRE, a grassroots group of farmers opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor.

January 26, 2009
By Susan Ridgway Garry of ACRE

Dear Friends:

Beginning with Perry’s “vision” of the Trans-Texas Corridor criss-crossing our state’s valuable farming and ranching land with 4,500 miles of quarter-mile swaths of concrete and rail, Gov. 39% has expressed his disdain toward us rural residents and our property.  During a small meeting at the very beginning of the Corridor process, Perry’s TxDOT officials referred to the Corridor as a totally “green fields” project, the kind that the big road contractors like.  Left out of the equation was the fact that the green fields in question already belonged to Texas farmers and ranchers.  This has never bothered Perry, as he introduced the “quick take” process to condemn land for the Corridor and vetoed HB 2006 eminent domain protection.

In a recent interview with Dallas Morning News Transportation Writer Michael A. Lindenberger, it is obvious that Perry still doesn’t get it!  The entire transcript is here

Much of the interview concerns North Texas and the North Texas rail plan, but some of the comments reveal Perry’s general philosophy, if you can call it that.

Perry’s vision is misunderstood by stupid constituents

First, he implies that his constituents are stupid.  About transportation, he says, “This is an issue that too many people don’t understand.”  He claims he wants “a relatively unbiased intellectual discussion about transportation infrastructure…” Try to think “Perry” and “intellectual” at the same time; it’s impossible.

As the people who have been studying and fighting Perry’s plans for the last few years know, more and more Texans do understand the issue and disagree with Perry’s approach.  Also, Perry and his TxDOT have been doing everything they can to quash any discussion about transportation.

Perry says, “I don’t have an entrenched opposition to allowing people at the local level deciding how they are going to build their transportation infrastructure . . . there is no fairy that comes in the night and build these big projects.”
This tells us that Perry’s approach to local level decisions and regionalism is that the decision has already come down from on high that there will be a “big project,” and that he will pretend to listen to what the local people think about it.

To Perry, local people controlling their own destiny means listening to what Perry tells them is going to happen

He repeats that one of his three principles on transportation is “regionalism. . . . The folks at the regional level will decide what the appropriate user fee is to build that infrastructure.”  He says that he supports local people “controlling their own destiny.”

This is just the opposite of what his TxDOT has done all the way through the Corridor project.  Perry and TxDOT have withheld information from local areas and from citizens who have filed open record requests.  They were required to hold certain meetings.  They tried to get through this process without very many people finding out about it and submitting comments.

It was due to local groups along the Corridor routes and their local media that so many citizens knew about hearings, attended, and commented.  True local organizations are the 391 commissions that have been formed by local governments along the routes of the Corridor. Perry and TxDOT have been trying to confuse the public by forming TxDOT groups with similar names but that do not have the actual power that the 391 commissions have.  The last thing that Perry wants is local people controlling their own destiny.

Perry says rural people shouldn’t be penalized to help urban areas, but that is exactly what he intends with the Corridor, even though the Corridor wouldn’t actually be the help that urban areas need.

In regards to the gas tax, Perry says, “Does the guy in Van Horn need to be paying for the roads in Dallas?  No.  But I do have a problem with forcing someone whose transportation needs are being met to pay for somebody’s transportation needs that are not being met.”

Taking a farm in Williamson County for the Corridor IS forcing someone to pay, big time, for somebody else’s transportation needs.

Perry and his TxDOT have tried to take away the choice to drive or not to drive on a toll road. Perry tells Lindenberger, “This is the beauty of (the reliance on toll roads).  My dad says, ‘I ain’t never going to drive on a toll road.’ You know what? He doesn’t have to.  That’s the beauty of what we have created here.  For those who for philosophical or any other reason don’t want to drive on a toll road, they don’t have to.  It’s the beauty of choice.”

With Perry’s non-compete clause in toll road contracts prohibiting building or maintaining roads a certain distance from a toll road, this DOES mean that drivers don’t have a choice.  They have to drive on a toll road, or NO road, or a dangerous crumbling road.  TxDOT’s violation of the legislative intent that free lanes not be converted to toll lanes also takes away choice.  There is no “choice.”  Perry thinks that his constituents are so uninformed that they don’t know this.

A truly chilling account from Perry on the origins of the Trans-Texas Corridor idea

I can’t do better than to just quote Perry:

“An analogy would be, I had laid out in my mind’s eye, and even made it public, that this is the big mansion that I want to build. Here are the house plans for this really magnificent place I want to build for my family and the people I love.

“Well, you start the process and there are a lot of changes that occur, for whatever reason. Your wife didn’t like that bedroom being there, she wanted … way too big a game room and not big enough utility room . . . whatever. All these things that go on in people’s real lives, that’s what went on with this.”

Brilliant! Comparing what the landowners in the path of the Corridor have gone through the last several years to a couple building a house is a stupid analogy!  And if anyone should not be mentioning mansions, it is Perry, since it was on his watch with the decreased security at the Governor’s mansion, that the people’s beautiful historic mansion was almost destroyed.
Perry implies that we owners of farms are stupid

Perry said, “I laid out a very broad-based, 50-year plan—and a lot of times people missed the 50-year part of it, they thought, ‘They are going to build 4,500 miles in 10 years and, oh my God, my farm is gone.’”

So, first, according to Perry, us stupid farm owners misunderstood the 50-year part.  It should be perfectly fine with us if the state and a foreign corporation take the family farm away from our children and grandchildren in 50 years.
Second, it is not necessary for him to take the Lord’s name in vain.

And, thirdly, for those of us who saw our farms fall within the Master Plan from Cintra, the Spanish corporation, it was indeed, “My farm is gone.”

Perry implies that people are not going to be paying attention to this issue anymore without the Trans-Texas Corridor name, and that we don’t remember and don’t care that he tried his hardest to take our land away.

He says, “Is the name still around? Are the same people that were mad two years ago still mad today? I would suggest to you no.”  I would suggest to him not only yes, but heck yes!

Perry denigrates grass-roots volunteer efforts—if we weren’t having an impact, he wouldn’t lower himself to talk about us.

Lindenberger raises two important points related to the impact of grass-roots efforts against Perry and the Corridor.  First, he says to Perry, “It seems clear that something fell apart politically for you in 2006, when you faced strong opposition in your re-election campaign [thus resulting in Gov. 39%], and then in 2007 when lawmakers rebelled at the idea of bringing foreign companies to Texas to build and operate toll roads—for a profit.”

Then, Lindenberger also points out, “Among the most persistent complaints among the grass-roots opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor has been your relentless push for not just toll roads, but for privatization, too. Among the criticism has been the observation that you have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from some of the same companies that went on to win contracts to build some of these roads. Is that a fair criticism?

Perry totally reverses the order of what happened, as pointed out in the question.  The sequence is that Perry received hundreds of thousands of dollars and then the companies won road contracts.

Perry turns the question around and responds, “People contribute to my campaign because they like my philosophy and they like what I implement.”

Then he once more insults some of his constituents, knocking down the straw man of not building any roads at all.  “If the grass-roots toll groups . . . had substantial influence, we wouldn’t be building any roads at all.”  And Perry is so vindictive and petty, he has to make an uncalled-for attack on former Austinite Sal Costello, who worked tirelessly against toll roads and the Corridor on a volunteer basis:  “Sal Costello had to move out of the state, it got to be such a poor way to make a living.”

Sal did not make a living out of it; he put his own money and time into the fight and had a lot of success.  He was the David against the Goliath of Perry and his contributors.  Lindenberger points out in a note:

Costello, founder of a group called Austin Toll Party, is credited with helping stop some taxpayer-funded roads in Austin from being converted to toll roads. His blistering attacks made him a prolific anti-toll road gadfly. He announced earlier this month he had moved to a small town in Illinois and given up what he called his costly “obsession” with campaigning against toll roads.

Attacking volunteers—giving big contracts to big contributors—Is this any way to run the state? If Perry thinks that it is an attractive trait to publicly attack citizens volunteering to make the state a better place and rural residents who are simply trying to save their farms and ranches, he is sadly mistaken.  It is Perry and his big contributors who are “making a living” out of this—a rather large living, when private corporations get in the position, through their influence on the Governor, to wield the power of the government against private citizens.

TURF Board member Hank Gilbert is the President of the 391 planning commission in the Piney Woods/Nacogdoches region and they’re using local government to challenge the Trans Texas Corridor. Go Hank!

PRESS RELEASE -January 16, 2009

The Piney Woods Sub-Regional Planning Commission (PWSRPC) took another step in the process of maintaining local control of future highway construction during a meeting held with TxDOT representatives last week.  The over-flow capacity crowd of public supporters caused the PWSRPC-TxDOT meeting to be moved to a much larger meeting room in the Nacogdoches County Courthouse Annex.  This did not miss the attention of the three TxDOT officials, two of which were from the Austin Office, and the panel of consultants TxDOT brought with them, as nearly a hundred local citizens turned out to hear the Planning Commission’s President, Hank Gilbert, grill TxDOT as to their plans.
Doug Booher, ‘on the scene’ Environmental Manager stated, “We’re not going to pursue the 4,000 mile network.  We are going to continue to pursue two individual projects; one of them would be the I-35 corridor project and the other one would be the I-69 corridor project.”

When asked the question from the attending audience about a loop that once was planned to go around the West side of Nacogdoches, Booher stated, “I’m sure those plans would be dusted off and looked at again.”  He also stated the name ‘Trans Texas Corridor’ would be ‘phased out’ and mentioned several times that tolling and public/private partnerships (by foreign investors) would still be an option in TxDOT’s transportation plans.
Hank Gilbert also expressed to PWSRPC members that he is concerned about legislation Governor Perry may try to pass that would eliminate SRPC’s, such as the Piney Woods.

“We have people watching out for such legislation and if it is introduced, we will need for the citizens of Texas to call their Representatives and let them know that they want to keep their local SRPC’s,” Gilbert stated.
The strong show of public support for the PWSRPC’s meeting with TxDOT validates the desire of the public for input and information.  The NEXT Piney Woods Sub-Regional Planning Commission meeting will be with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Representatives on Thursday, February 5, at 10:00 a.m. in the Nacogdoches County Annex.  This will also be an open meeting and the public is urged to attend.  As Board Member Larry Shelton has stated, “You are either at the table or you are on the menu.”