Electronic tolling nightmares: $200 in fines!

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. We’ve heard from many North Texas motorists who have been fined when they didn’t even take the toll road (a relative or friend used their cars). For those who did take the road, there is no way to pay without an electronic toll tag, so those just passing through or making spontaneous trips and who have to wait to be billed get taken to collections for the crime of not having their current address on file with TxDOT. Can you say bureaucratic nightmare and guilty until proven innocent? This is also government coercion to buy into their TxTag system, or else!

Motorists fuming over past-due toll road bills
By GORDON DICKSON
Star Telegram
July 31, 2008

Star-Telegram/Laurie L. Ward

Brian and Sharilyn Wilson’s boating trip to Lake Texoma last year turned into a tollway bill for $76.60. Star-Telegram/Laurie L. Ward

Woman gets toll road bill for $101.90

HURST — More North Texans are coming forward with complaints that a collection agency hired by the Texas Department of Transportation is unfairly demanding large past-due payments for driving on the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties.

“This is highway robbery,” said Brian Wilson of Hurst, who two weeks ago received a bill for $76.60 for a $1.60 toll he incurred on a boating trip to Lake Texoma in June 2007. “This is bureaucracy at its worst. I’ll never use that road again.”

Texas 121 is the region’s first all-electronic toll road. Toll payments can be made either by an automatic account such as a TollTag or by standard mail. For those paying by mail, the common practice is to wait until the Transportation Department’s Texas Tollways office sends a bill and then send a payment.

But that system doesn’t work when the bill gets mailed to the wrong address.

On Monday, the Star-Telegram published a story about Norma Bartholomew of Fort Worth, who had been contacted by a collection agency for a past-due toll that the Transportation Department had sent to an address where she hasn’t lived since 2004.

She had traveled on the road in February 2007, but never received the original bill for $1.90 in tolls, and a few weeks ago was shocked to learn that the state now wanted $109.90, including $100 in fees.

A Transportation Department official said it was a rare incident. The woman’s account was eventually cleared after she lodged complaints with the Texas Tollways office and state elected leaders.

But since then, four other readers have contacted the Star-Telegram to complain that the Transportation Department sent bills to their old addresses and — in all but one case — turned them over to a collection agency, too.

In each case, the readers felt the Transportation Department ought to know their correct address. All said they had submitted address changes to the department after moving, and are currently receiving auto registration renewal notices in the mail.

Wilson’s case

Wilson and his wife, Sharilyn, traveled on Texas 121 in June 2007, using their pickup to tow the family boat to Lake Texoma.

A few weeks after the vacation, they received — and promptly paid — a bill for $3.40 in tolls, charged to the account of their boat trailer.

But at the time they didn’t realize that the camera system on the road had captured not only an image of the license number on their trailer, but also on their pickup. While the bill for the boat trailer toll was sent to their current address, the toll for the pickup — another $1.60 — was sent to Brian Wilson’s old address. Wilson said he never saw the original pickup bill.

Two weeks ago, Wilson opened his mail and found a collection letter demanding $76.60 for that unpaid toll.

Wilson called the Texas Tollways customer service line, but the call taker was unsympathetic, he said.

The call taker did, however, offer to cut the bill almost in half to $39, if Wilson would agree to open a TxTag account so that his tolls could be collected automatically.

Wilson reluctantly agreed, even though opening the TxTag account cost him an additional $20, so he paid the $59 to avoid letting the whole affair smudge his credit rating.

But now he wants his money back. “I felt like my arm was put behind my back and twisted,” he said during an interview at his home, where the unused TxTag remains in its envelope on his kitchen counter.

Others

In addition to Wilson, the Star-Telegram also spoke to or exchanged e-mails with:

Richard LaChance of Fort Worth, who received a collection notice for nearly $700. He agreed to open a TxTag account in exchange for cutting the late fees in half. But he later called again to complain about the original toll bills, which were mailed to an address he hadn’t used in nearly five years, and persuaded Texas Tollways to rescind the charges. “The whole time I was wondering how many other people were treated this way,” he wrote.

Steven Maas of Fort Worth, who was billed for $125 in fees. Maas has since signed up for a TollTag, another form of automatic toll collection operated by the North Texas Tollway Authority, to prevent the problem in future transactions. But Texas Tollways considers the TollTag a competitor to its TxTag and won’t waive his fees.

When Maas complained to Texas Tollways, a call taker confirmed that his original toll bills had been returned to the Austin office, stamped “Return to sender.” But apparently no one investigated whether his address had changed.

“Yet they still invoked . . . the fees. That’s just ludicrous and completely preying on people.”

Joseph Rivera, a former Fort Worth resident now living in Plano, who was told he owes $12 for a 90-cent toll accrued on Texas 121 on Christmas Day 2007. The bill was originally sent to his old Fort Worth address, where he hasn’t lived in nearly three years. “When I talked to them they were very standoffish,” he said.

Don’t let it linger

Transportation Department officials say they’ll work with people on a case-by-case basis, and remove fees deemed improper. But spokesman Christopher Lippincott urged motorists who have used the Texas 121 toll road to avoid problems now by updating their vehicle registration information, rather than waiting for a collection agency to find them.

“There is no substitute for Texas drivers ensuring that their registration information is correct and up-to-date,” he said.

What you can do

Since April 4, tolls collected electronically on Texas 121 in Denton and Collin counties are billed through the North Texas Tollway Authority, not the Transportation Department. However, there is still the potential for bills being sent to an old address, because the tollway authority gets its vehicle registration data from the Transportation Department.

Steps to take to avoid getting slapped with late fees:

Visit your county tax office and make sure your vehicle registration information is current. Check all three address fields in the database: the vehicle owner’s address, the renewal recipient address and the vehicle location address.

Call the Transportation Department’s vehicle titles and registration division regional office. In the Fort Worth area, call 817-649-5938.

If you suspect you owe a toll but haven’t received a bill, call the Texas Tollways customer service line toll-free at 888-468-9824 and ask for your vehicle information.

If you believe you’ve been erroneously charged late fees and the call-taker won’t budge, ask to speak with a supervisor. If that doesn’t work, consider complaining to a state senator or representative.

Car owners are responsible for tolls, even if the toll is accrued by someone else. However, if you get a bill for tolls on a car that was sold or stolen, you may download a toll violation defense form at www.gotxtag.com/violation.

Consider signing up for a TollTag, a windshield-mounted transponder that makes it possible to pay tolls automatically. TollTag accounts are usually backed by a credit card. The North Texas Tollway Authority administers the accounts and may be reached at www.ntta.org or toll-free at 877-991-0033.

The Transportation Department offers a TxTag, which is similar to a TollTag. For information visit www.txdot.gov or call toll-free 888-468-9824. TollTags and TxTags work on tolls roads in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.

FHWA pushes for more public-private toll roads

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Try to follow this logic…driving is down due to high gas prices, therefore road maintenance costs will also drop, and so will congestion & gridlock, yet the FHWA and the Bush Administration call for more risky leveraged debt to prop up an unsustainable toll road scheme that requires motorists to ante up a minimum of 20 times more money than gas taxes? What’s broken is our government run by politicians and bureaucrats who continue to indebt generations for today’s private profiteering. Yet again, we see a government agency lobbying on the taxpayers’ dime.

FHWA director: U.S. transportation system broken
Tom Greenwood / The Detroit News
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
SOUTHFIELD — James Ray, Acting Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, called on Congress to engage in serious dialogue on maintaining and improving the interstate highway system.

“Without a doubt, our federal approach to transportation is broken,” said Ray, who spoke at a press conference at the Eaton Corp. Tuesday morning.

“And no amount of tweaking, adjusting or adding new layers on top will make things better.”

Ray said it was paramount that new forms of revenue be considered to supplement the current gas tax, which he described as “unpredictable and unsustainable.”

According to the agency, gas tax revenues have declined as American motorists have dramatically cut back on driving due to a sagging economy coupled with record high gasoline prices and increased vehicle fuel efficiency. Ray noted that increased production of hybrid vehicles was a double edged sword in that they diminished the country’s reliance on oil, but at the same time reduced tax revenue at the gas pump.

Ray said the Bush administration was in favor of a “more progressive direct user fee” similar to a system that is currently being tested in Oregon. Under that pilot program, cars were equipped with on board mileage counting equipment that was read by pumps equipped with mileage reader devices.

When refueling, the mile counters communicated with the mileage readers at the pumps, which then automatically deducted the standard gas tax and substituted a user fee, instead.

Ray said the Bush administration was offering a number of ways to overhaul the U.S. transportation system, including:

• Streamlining the federal review process for new transportation projects, which takes 13 years to design and build new highway and transit projects.

• Consider more direct pricing options like tolls based on miles driven instead of a flat gas tax paid at the pump.

• Develop a Metropolitan Innovation Fund that would reward cities for creative solutions to transportation problems.

• Cut red tape by reducing over 100 federal transportation programs down to eight comprehensive programs that would focus on transportation problems and solutions.

• Allow states and cities to have a greater say in addressing their most needed transit and highway priorities.

• Encourage greater participation by private companies in public roadways by allowing them to lease federal highways and maintain them through tolls.

• Offer economic incentives to motorists not to drive during peak travel periods.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, drivers traveled nearly 10 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than at the same time period in 2007. Additionally, for the first five months of 2008, U.S. motorists drove nearly 30 billion fewer miles than in 2007, which will result in a nearly $4 billion shortfall in gas revenues for 2009.

Ray said the Bush administration was not in favor of raising the federal gas tax, which currently stands at 18.4 cents per gallon.

“We’re not looking at raising the federal gas tax,” Ray said.

“The fact is that it’s dying … and relying on a gas tax will not work. We need something which is more agile and responsive than the current gas tax.”

High gas prices = less time in traffic = toll roads not viable

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

High gas prices easing rush-hour traffic
By Pat Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
July 29, 2008
Americans cutting back on driving to soften the blow of high gas prices has loosened gridlock in San Antonio, Houston and some other major U.S. cities.

(Urban Congestion Report)

Crunch-time on San Antonio roads tracked by TransGuide shrank by more than an hour a day from last year.

Rush-hour travel times dropped 2.6 percent from March to May compared to a year ago in 23 cities with traffic monitoring systems such as TransGuide, according to a recent Federal Highway Administration report.

The California cities of Riverside-San Bernardino and Sacramento led the way with drops of 7.6 percent and 6.6 percent respectively. Just two cities had increases.

San Antonio motorists spent 4.7 percent less time stuck in traffic, saving a little more than a minute a day, despite twice as many construction zones than a year ago. Houston drivers shaved 1 percent off commute times.

Traffic experts, including those who size up the profits and risks of toll roads, consider work commutes to be a mainstay of urban traffic. People will cut out some vacations, entertainment and even errands to save on gas but will make sure they get to work to keep the paychecks coming.

Nevertheless, as these numbers indicate, commuters are now finding other ways to get to work, such as switching to transit or sharing rides with other motorists.

Rush-hour traffic in the two dozen cities looked at was down 1.4 percent, said Texas Transportation Institute researcher Shawn Turner, who compiles the report for the Federal Highway Administration. Weekday traffic around the clock dipped up to 3 percent while weekend travel dropped up to 5 percent.

All travel on U.S. roads declined 2.4 percent from January through May, a federal report released yesterday says.

In a seeming contradiction, 6.2 percent more cars squeezed onto San Antonio’s highways during peak hours while travel times shortened. One reason could be that as jamming eases the roads can handle more traffic, Turner said. Of six hours a day that’s tracked, just under two hours were congested, down from just over three last year.

Or the figures could be off, Turner said.

“There’s a number of reasons that could be,” he said.

• URBAN CONGESTION REPORT

Yesterday’s report on all U.S. travel:

• Summer driving season started with a flat tire

Other related reports:

• High gas prices no problem, toll-road officials say
• Rising fuel prices too much for transit
• High gas prices met by record drop in travel
• Drop in driving, and nagging questions
• Record oil prices just a start

State Dept gives U.S. oil to Russians

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Record high gas prices hurting your family? Don’t worry, the U.S. government isn’t concerned. In fact, it’s giving away U.S. oil in order squeeze U.S. consumers even more. What are we paying these people for? To protect the public interest and solve our energy crisis? No, to reduce the standard of living in this country to Third World status courtesy of the sell-outs in the U.S. government. Just like the Chinese are drilling for oil off the Florida coast, now the Russians will have access to our oil, too. But God forbid Americans get access to it. President “Executive Order” Bush, just continues to push controversial policies that he couldn’t get through Congress through the Un-Constitutional use of Executive Orders.

Oil? Ah, let Russia have it
State Department gives away 125,000 square miles of Alaskan ocean floor
July 29, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Even if Congress follows President Bush’s lead in opening off-shore oil exploration, there exist over 125,000 square miles of sea bottom that won’t be explored, because the State Department – amid controversy and against the will of Alaskans – has surrendered the land to Russia.

Eight islands and their surrounding sea floors were ceded to the former Soviet Union as part of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Maritime Boundary Treaty in 1991, a treaty signed by the U.S. Senate and President George Bush but never ratified by the Soviets. Nonetheless, an executive agreement enforcing the terms of the treaty until ratification has been in place through three presidencies, meaning the State Department officially recognizes the islands as Russian territory.

Alaskan legislators, who were given no input or authority on the island giveaway, have long protested the treaty, declaring it null and void without Russian ratification.

And since last week’s U.S. Geological Survey estimating that 90 billion barrels of oil lie undiscovered and technically recoverable above the Arctic Circle, those 125,000 square miles of seabed have taken on newly appreciated value. Five of the islands lie north of the Artic Circle, and the other three sit at the western end of Alaska’s Aleutian island chain.

Carl Olson, a retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and chairman of State Department Watch, a nonpartisan foreign policy watchdog group, explained to WND the significance of the State Department’s stance: “The area off the coast of an island that a nation may use is called the exclusive economic zone. The group in charge of defining that is the State Department. So (the president and Congress) can say the off-shore areas are opened up, but still not recognize these quarter of a million square miles available for American oil exploration.”

Alaska state Rep. John B. Coghill told WND earlier, “The issues involve not only state sovereignty over vital territories but also significant national defense concerns and substantial economic losses over fisheries and petroleum.”

The Alaskan legislature and a sympathetic California legislature have both passed resolutions asking Congress to allow Alaska at the bargaining table with Russia to resolve the islands’ ownership. After almost 20 years of official protests, the U.S. State Department has yet to acknowledge Alaska’s arguments.

“It’s totally anti-public, anti-Congress, anti-state actions – but unfortunately the State Department thinks it has the power to adopt this boundary line with the Russians without anybody’s consent outside themselves, ” Olson told WND. “The State Department is basically chopping off a piece of Alaska and giving it to a foreign government without Alaska having any say in it.”

The lands in dispute include the islands of Herald, Bennett, Henrietta, Jeanette, Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock, Sea Otter Rock, and Wrangel, which is the largest of the eight, roughly the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, including the Aleutian Islands, which presumably would include Copper Island, Sea Otter Rock and Sea Lion Rock. In 1881, U.S. Captain Calvin L. Hooper landed on Wrangel Island and claimed it for the U.S. Also in 1881, the U.S. Navy claimed the islands of Bennett, Jeannette, and Henrietta. The British held Herald Island, but they gave up that claim, permitting the U.S. to take it.

American citizens had occupied Wrangel Island from approximately 1881 to 1924, when Russian soldiers landed and forcibly removed the American occupants from its shores. The Russians then reportedly used the island as a concentration camp.

Many Alaskan legislators believe the islands were part of their state, even after the Wrangel invasion, though the U.S. State Department officially disagrees. Without a ratified treaty designating them as Russian, those same legislators and Carl Olson believe the islands still are American territory and can be reverted to the U.S. easily.

The only thing binding the islands to Russia is “in the form of an executive agreement,” Olson told WND, “which means it can be changed with the stroke of a pen by the president, because it has no force of law.”

“We have been steadily maintaining the pressure,” said Olson. “It’s just a matter of finding sympathetic people in Washington and the other states to go for it. There’s plenty of organizations who have endorsed our efforts, so we keep up the drumbeat.”

Coghill has also sought the support of other states, claiming that the federal State Department has overstepped its authority in giving away a state’s land. “If they can do this to Alaska,” he warns, “they can do this to any state.”

U.S. State Department officials did not return WND telephone calls to discuss the matter, but a State Department webpage devoted to the island controversy denies that islands were ever claimed by the United States and explains that though the treaty between the U.S. and Russian Federation was never fully ratified, “In a separate exchange of diplomatic notes, the two countries agreed to apply the agreement provisionally.”

The webpage concludes, “The U.S. has no intention of reopening discussion of the 1990 Maritime Boundary Treaty.”

Bush calls for tolling existing FREEways, privatizing infrastructure

Posted on July 30, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. At least now it’s abundantly clear to the average citizen that the Bush Administration is behind this privatization of our public infrastructure and toll road proliferation. He even called for tolls on existing freeways in a DOUBLE TAX nightmare for motorists. So much for lower taxes from so-called conservatives! They even advocate DOUBLE TAXING us for freeways already built and paid for!

Bush Calls for New Highway Tolls, More Private Funding of Roads
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
Wall Street Journal
July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration unveiled a plan to impose new tolls on freeways and encourage more private investment to finance road and mass-transit projects, a move aimed at stirring debate as lawmakers prepare for a major overhaul of transportation policy.

The White House says more tolls and public-private partnerships can solve perhaps the biggest problem confronting the nation’s aging infrastructure: There are limited funds available to upgrade transportation networks and too many federal funds are doled out inefficiently through earmarks and pet projects that do little to improve mobility or reduce congestion.

The search for alternative funding sources is ramping up because Americans are driving less and shifting to more fuel-efficient vehicles. That means they will be paying less in gasoline and diesel-fuel taxes, which traditionally have been the biggest source of federal funding for highway and mass-transit construction.

Many states are moving to increase existing tolls. Pennsylvania, for example, is hoping to win federal permission for new tolls on a standing interstate. Meanwhile, several states are turning to business consortiums to finance, build and operate new highways, bridges and tunnels, although a political backlash has slowed the push in recent years.

The administration’s proposal comes as Congress gears up to start work later this year on a six-year transportation spending bill that could cost well more than $400 billion. The last multiyear bill, which expires in September 2009, carried a $286 billion tab.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan commission concluded the nation is spending only about 40% of what is needed to reduce congestion, improve safety and spur economic growth. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters served on the commission but dissented from the majority view that gas taxes should more than double in coming years to support a big increase in transportation spending.

[Chart]

Ms. Peters says gas-tax rates should hold steady — at 18.4 cents a gallon for regular gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel, where they have stood for more than a decade — and private money and toll revenue can address any needed increases in funding. She declined Tuesday to say how much more the U.S. needs to increase its overall spending on transportation infrastructure. Instead, she suggested ways to make transportation spending less wasteful.

“Our federal approach to transportation is broken,” she said. “And no amount of tweaking, adjusting or adding new layers on top will make things better.”

Many Democrats objected to the administration’s plan, saying it could have gone further in identifying ways to raise investment and spur projects that could unclog major choke points. Perhaps the most common complaint centered on the shift in reliance from gas taxes to private-sector dollars.

“It’s basically an opportunity for people who have wanted to systematically reduce the federal participation in infrastructure,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.), who is spearheading a transportation debate in the House. “It’s going to fall with a thud.”

The two major presidential candidates haven’t released detailed plans on transportation funding, even as the issue is sure to be one of next year’s biggest legislative battles. Republican Sen. John McCain has stressed the need to eliminate earmarks and pet projects. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama supports the creation of a $60 billion national infrastructure bank that would fund projects of regional and national significance. The two have also sparred over Mr. McCain’s proposal to give consumers a gas-tax holiday this summer.

Driving down again, even during peak summer season

Posted on July 29, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Driving continues to go down as gas prices stay high. What other evidence do bond investors need to realize these toll roads are a BAD investment and will likely default given the dramatic drop in driving as people tighten their belts? There just won’t be enough money to ante up for a toll, too.

Summer driving season started with a flat tire
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
July 28, 2008
The “slip” in how much Americans are driving, or the “blip” as another expert called it last week, has extended into another record monthly drop as motorists continued adjusting to high gasoline prices.

“Slip” and “blip” in U.S driving, as shown in latest federal Traffic Volume Trends report.

Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May compared to last year, according to the latest data from the Federal Highway Administration.

The 3.7 percent “slip” is the largest for any May, which kicks off the summer travel season, officials said. And it’s the third largest drop for any month in 66 years of gathering such data.

The “blip” has now stretched to seven months, and includes the three largest monthly declines ever seen. March tops the drops with 4.3 percent, followed by December at 3.9 percent.

Driving on Texas roads dropped four months in a row from a year ago, including 2.3 percent in May and a revised 3.8 percent in March.

• TRAFFIC VOLUME TRENDS

Driving continues 7 month slide, worst since 1980

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. It’s obvious Americans have reached the ceiling for the price of gasoline. Apparently, $4 a gallon is the impetus to cutting back on driving for the first time since the oil embargo. Tollers still contend you’ll pay tolls no matter the cost to the family budget since people still have to make the daily commute. But what they’re foolishly counting on is that demographics will stay constant and that people will merely cut back on leisure travel and still pony-up a toll to get to work.

Trends are already showing families are making dramatic lifestyle changes to adjust to the rising fuel prices, like moving closer to work or moving to avoid the costly expense of paying tolls. Tollers are placing high stakes bets on status quo and mortgaging our children’s future to tune of hundreds of billions in leveraged debt, exploiting risky financial schemes that brought us the mortgage and banking collapse we’re in now. We cannot tolerate more fiscal malfeasance. Demand an end to toll proliferation and risky leveraged debt schemes that will leave taxpayers holding the bag while private profiteers laugh all the way to the bank.

U.S. Motorists May Drive Less for 1st Time Since 1980 (Update2)
By Angela Greiling Keane

July 28 (Bloomberg) — U.S. motorists, paying record prices for gasoline, drove less for a seventh consecutive month in May, pointing toward the first annual drop in road travel since 1980.

“$4 per gallon may have been the trigger point we’ve been looking for,” said Kenneth McGill, managing director for travel and tourism at consulting firm Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. “It’s interesting to see Americans finally reacting to the price of gasoline by rationing consumption.”

Vehicle-miles traveled on all U.S. roads fell 3.7 percent in May from a year earlier, the Federal Highway Administration said in a report today. The seven-month slide is the longest streak since 1979, agency spokesman Doug Hecox said.

Americans cut back as the average U.S. retail gasoline price reached a then-record of $3.98 a gallon on May 31. Rising fuel prices and a weak economy also marked the drop in driving in 1980, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and U.S. Embassy personnel in Iran were taken hostage.

May’s travel decline pushed this year’s total down 2.4 percent, according to the Washington-based highway agency, which has been reporting the data since 1942.

Driving decreased in all five regions for which the agency tallies results, led by a 4.5 percent drop in the north-central U.S., which includes Chicago. May’s 254.7 billion miles driven were the lowest for the month since 2003.

Slowing Economy

The report adds to evidence of a slowing U.S. economy already beset by the worst housing market since the Great Depression. Gasoline at U.S. pumps averaged as high as $4.11 this month before slipping to $3.96 yesterday, according to motoring group AAA. Spending more on fuel leaves consumers with less for other goods and services.

“It’s not only not a good summer, but probably not a good fall and there’s a big question mark in 2009 also about the state of domestic travel and domestic spending,” said Dennis Forst, a hotel and casino analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets in El Segundo, California.

That drain on household budgets is helping damp U.S. auto demand, which Deutsche Bank AG said July 23 may shrink to 14 million vehicles this year, the fewest since 1993. First-half sales fell 10 percent, with light trucks down 18 percent.

Highway Freight

Highway freight traffic is down, too, because of the drop in auto sales and homebuilding and consumer spending that grew only a third as fast in the first quarter as a year earlier. YRC Worldwide Inc., the biggest U.S. trucking company, said second- quarter tonnage on its regional unit plunged 16 percent.

The traffic counts are compiled using cables across roadways to estimate the number of miles driven. The highway agency tracks all motorized vehicles and doesn’t differentiate between commercial and passenger traffic.

“We’re seeing a sustained dropoff over a prolonged period, and a significant dropoff that we expect will continue,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters told reporters today on a conference call.

She will outline the George W. Bush administration’s proposed changes in highway funding, including greater use of private capital, in a speech tomorrow at Georgia Institute of Technology in Smyrna, Georgia. Peters has said federal gasoline taxes become less useful in paying for transportation projects as Americans drive less. Bush’s term ends in January.

May’s traffic decline confirms predictions from groups including AAA that Americans would drive less during the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, the traditional start of the summer vacation season.

“People were not traveling far from home,” said Adam Weissenberg, tourism, hospitality and leisure leader at New York-based consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. “More people were going to local beaches, local state parks, etc.”

David Ellis, a researcher at Texas A&M University’s Texas Transportation Institute in College Station, said high fuel prices are more likely to curb travel when vacationers are on the road than at times of the year with fewer leisure trips.

“We’re tending to cut out the leisure driving first,” Ellis said.

GAO warns of problems with public private partnerships

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. The proof keeps coming that PPPs cost taxpayers more and aren’t worth the cost to future generations to get up-front cash for today’s fixes.

GAO Questions Wisdom of Public Private Partnerships
Government Accountability Office testimony warns of need to better assess the true cost of privately operated toll roads.

GAO report cover The Government Accountability Office last week questioned the wisdom of using public-private partnerships to build and maintain toll roads. GAO’s Director of Physical Infrastructure issues, Jay Etta Z. Hecker, summarized the congressional watchdog agency’s work in testimony before a US Senate Finance subcommittee hearing on Thursday that focused on the cost to the public of privately operated toll road leasing arrangements.

Broadly speaking, these arrangements allow private companies to lease existing roads in return for the ability to collect toll revenue for a fixed term that can last up to 99 years. In some cases, these companies will offer local politicians billions of dollars in up-front cash payments for leasing rights. The private company would then be responsible for maintaining the road. In other cases, the private company would build and own entirely new roads, delivering significant new highway capacity to the public in return for significant profit potential.

While acknowledging potential public benefits of private participation in these deals, Hecker said that GAO’s extensive study of this funding approach identified a number of fundamental problems.

“There is no ‘free’ money in public-private partnerships,” GAO’s report stated. “They are potentially more costly to the public and it is likely that tolls on a privately operated highway will increase to a greater extent than they would on a publicly operated toll road. There is also the risk of tolls being set that exceed the costs of the facility, including a reasonable rate of return, should a private concessionaire gain market power because of the lack of viable travel alternatives.”

In 2006, two key highways in Illinois and Indiana were handed to Cintra-Macquarie, a consortium of Spanish and Australian toll road operators. The Chicago Skyway was leased for 99 years in return for a $1.8 billion payment and the Indiana Toll Road for 75 years for $3.8 billion. State officials found the ability to spend these windfalls on current needs, but GAO questioned whether future generations may regret this decision.

“Using a highway public-private partnership to extract value from an existing facility also raises issues about the use of those proceeds and whether future users might potentially pay higher tolls to support current benefits,” the report stated. “In some instances, up-front payments have been used for immediate needs, and it remains to be seen whether these uses provide long-term benefits to future generations who will potentially be paying progressively higher toll rates to the private sector throughout the length of a concession agreement.”

GAO found that a significant portion of the up-front payment derives from the tax-exempt status of the bonds issued and depreciation deductions that, in effect, shift millions from the federal treasury to the state’s coffers. GAO calculated that the annual taxation cost of $1.2 billion in tax-exempt bonds issued for Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway, South Carolina’s Southern Connector and Nevada’s Las Vegas Monorail was as much as $35 million a year. South Carolina and Virginia also lose up to $3 million a year in state tax revenue.

Beyond the accounting illusion created by the up-front payment, GAO identified a distinct lack of willingness of state governments to perform honest cost-benefit analysis of projects before agreeing to undertake them. For example, no “public interest” study was done before state and local politicians signed off on the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road deals. GAO reported that Oregon’s experience shows that this could be a mistake. That state’s department of transportation hired a consultant to assess the added cost involved in a proposed public-private partnership model to build a new highway. The analysis found the costs “were not justifiable given the limited value of risk transfer in the project.”

GAO suggested the US Department of Transportation might be to blame for the rush to embrace tolling regardless of the cost to the public.

“Despite the need for careful analysis, the approach at the federal level has not been fully balanced, as DOT has done much to promote the benefits, but comparatively little to either assist states and localities weigh potential costs and trade-offs, nor to assess how potentially important national interests might be protected in highway public-private partnerships,” GAO concluded.

A full copy of the report is available in a 205k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: Highway Public-Private Partnerships (Government Accountability Office, 7/24/2008)

Mortgage bailout may cause eminent domain abuse

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Since the Trans Texas Corridor will be the largest eminent domain land grab in TX if not U.S. history, this move by Congress could be very dangerous. Texans need eminent domain protection against private profit in the name of economic development. Governor Rick Perry vetoed the last bill, HB 2006, it’s time to override this out of touch Governor who’s acting as the arm of private, special interests.

ON CAPITOL HILL
Congress’ bailout opens doors to eminent domain seizures
Warning issued about ‘bonanza’ of potential property confiscations
July 26, 2008

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
The congressional plan to bail out the U.S. housing and mortgage industries, which could be approved by Congress and signed by the president as early as this weekend, actually endangers Americans’ housing, according to the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House – of which there will likely be many – one of the most ironic and far-reaching may be this: that whatever security marginal homeowners have from foreclosures, their homes will be far less safe from being taken by a bureaucrat through eminent domain,” John Berlau wrote on the organization’s website.

According to the Wall Street Journal the White House says the bill needs to be enacted soon so its new authorities will start taking effect.

The sweeping package, the report said, “is the government’s most aggressive response to rising foreclosures and fragile credit markets. It creates a new regulator for ailing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and establishes a $300 billion program to expand the Federal Housing Administration’s ability to guarantee mortgages.”

However, some of the details included in the hundreds of pages of the bill are likely to surprise – and concern – Americans. For example, there’s a requirement for a new fingerprint registry for those who are associated with the mortgage industry, raising privacy concerns for many.

There’s also a provision many are interpreting as allowing the federal government to obtain information about online spending, money transfers and purchases, including ordinary eBay purchases.

Now comes the concern that the new proposal’s affirmation of the Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court actually could make the situation worse for homeowners.

That still-bitterly opposed Supreme Court opinion in Kelo v. New London decided in 2005 that the U.S. Constitution allows the taking of private property for private economic development, a decision decried by WND columnist Ellis Washington as “a blatant violation of citizen property rights, also an obvious misinterpretation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which mandates, ‘nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.'”

Berlau explains his worries about the wake of the Kelo verdict, and the new provisions in the housing bailout plan.

“Some states have passed laws protecting property owners by barring eminent domain solely for economic development purposes. But for the many states that still allow this practice, the federal government is often the source of funds for the projects that result in the use of eminent domain. Efforts to bar federal funds to be used on projects that make use of this type of eminent domain have stalled in this and the last Congress,” he said.

“To their credit, the drafters of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which passed the Senate on July 11, at least recognized this danger of throwing billions in construction grants to state and local governments. So they put in a clause stating, ‘No funds under this title may be used in conjunction with property taken by eminent domain, unless eminent domain is employed for a public use.’ The clause then adds that ‘public use shall not be construed to include economic development that primarily benefits any private entity,” he said.

“But this language has vanished from the House bill,” he said.

Replacing it is language that “would give governments substantially more leeway to take land.”

That provision changes the Senate’s prohibition on funds “used in conjunction with property taken by eminent domain” with the looser ban of using funds for a “project that seeks to use the power of eminent domain.”

“This new language in the House bill would give property-grabbing bureaucrats an easy way around the supposed prohibition on using eminent domain,” Berlau said. “All they would have to do is take property for any reason that Kelo allows, and then come up with another project for the specific use of that property. If land were grabbed for general economic development, as Kelo permits, and then a new project were created for a city to sell this land to developers, this would likely not be a violation of the House bill. After all, the new project isn’t ‘seeking’ to use eminent domain, it is merely using land that had already been confiscated.”

He warned of the potential for the bill to “stimulate a bonanza of state and local property confiscation of the type green-lighted in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision Kelo v. New London.”

“This new language means … there will be virtually nothing stopping states and localities from using the federal housing grants to help themselves to confiscate housing,” he said.

Senators can be reached through the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Sunset Commission slams TxDOT for converting existing freeways to tollways & more

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Terri Hall

Mission accomplished. The Sunset Commission heard your voices loud and clear and will investigate scrapping the appointed 5 member transportation commission with a single ELECTED commissioner and more (like investigate their misuse of taxpayer $$$ on illegal lobbying and its advocacy for tolling and the Trans Texas Corridor). Watch the explosive videos, including how legislators say TxDOT is not following the legislative intent of their law prohibiting freeway to tollway conversions here.

Read some of the news coverage that overtly passed over the release of the damaging video of TxDOT’s top brass LYING under oath here and here. But the Houston Chronicle’s blog and the Dallas Morning News blog did mention the TURF lawsuit. See below…

Houston Chronicle blog

July 15, 2008

About that Keep Texas Moving lawsuit

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, a Sunset Advisory Commission member, is questioning the large number of people in the Texas Department of Transportation’s government and public affairs division – 63 – and its efforts to promote toll roads through efforts like the Keep Texas Moving campaign.

“It would be like almost TEA (the Texas Education Agency) creating a Web site for vouchers,” the controversial idea of proving public funds for private-school attendance, Kolkhorst said at today’s Sunset hearing.

Keep Texas Moving sparked a lawsuit by Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, but it was dismissed last month by State District Judge Paul Davis.

TURF’s Terri Hall said her group will appeal the dismissal.

TURF contended the Keep Texas Moving campaign violated a a state prohibition on state officers or employees using their authority for political purposes.

The state said it was allowed to promote toll projects under law and its campaign was responsive to a call from the public and elected officials for more information on road initiatives.

The campaign had been proposed at a cost of $7 million to $9 million.

It has cost $4.5 million and no additional big advertising or outreach pushes are in the works under the KTM banner, said TXDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott — although its Web site will continue to be maintained.

“As an agency,” Lippincott said, “we have been asked to cut back.”

Houston Chronicle blog

Posted by Peggy Fikac at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

Hearing on transportation begins with a bang

The Sunset Advisory Commission has started with a bang: Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, says officials need to seriously consider the idea of an elected transportation commissioner.

“I think that we ought to have everything on the table,” McClendon said, asking Sunset staff to explore pros and cons of the idea, which would be a dramatic change from the current five-member commission appointed by the governor.

She said everything should be looked at from leaving the commission the way it is to making that big change to an elected overseer for the agency.

Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, agreed that the idea of an elected transportation commissioner should be explored, saying 76 percent of those who commented wanted the commissioner to be elected.

The idea drew an “Amen” and applause from TxDOT critics in the hearing room.

Dallas Morning News blog
TxDOT hearings continue into the evening, turn testy6:04 PM Tue, Jul 15, 2008 | Permalink |

After hours of mostly polite, if often pointed, questioning by members of the Sunset Advisory Commission, a hearing in Austin turned uglier late Tuesday.Rep. Ruth McClendon, D-San Antonio, questioned the honesty of TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz when he said he couldn’t immediately recall the details of State Highway 281 in south Texas. “After we started off on such a positive start, and after all this talk of honesty and transparency, you sit here in front of us and say you do not know.”No, Mr. Saenz repeated, he did not have the details in front of him, but said he would get the information and meet separately with the commission members when he did.

Ms. McClendon and the 11 other members of the advisory committee are grilling TxDOT today over allegations that the agency has lost its way.

Other areas of disagreement that led to sharp questioning by the lawmakers include the question whether TxDOT is illegally spending millions of dollars to advance its preference for toll roads and, in many cases, private toll roads.

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, asked TxDOT executive Coby Chase how much the agency had spent in the past year on Keep Texas Moving, the agency’s public campaign supporting its road-building agenda. “$4.5 million,” he said, to the guffaws of some in the audience who have seized on the spending as evidence of the agency’s improperly politicizing transportation.

State law prohibits state agencies from lobbying, and Rep. Kolkhorst said TxDOT spending money to promote toll roads is just as illegal as if the education department ran ads encouraging vouchers.

But TxDOT spokesman Christopher Lippincott said the agency does not participate in the kind of advocacy prohibited by state law. It does not, he said, lobby for particular changes in the law. Toll roads, even private toll roads, are entirely legal and have been authorized by statutes passed by the Legislature, he said.

TxDOT’s top brass perjures themselves
TURF releases explosive footage of depositions from ad campaign/lobbying lawsuit to Sunset Commission

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 – Some very damaging footage of TxDOT’s top brass under oath was presented to the Sunset Advisory Commission at its hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) today. As part of TURF’s lawsuit against TxDOT to stop its illegal lobbying and ad campaign called Keep Texas Moving to promote toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor in violation of Texas Government Code Chapter 556, several top officials of TxDOT were deposed under oath where they perjured themselves.

TURF gave each member of the Commission a DVD of a new documentary film, Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition, made about TxDOT’s Keep Texas Moving campaign that shows portions of legal depositions of TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz, Director of Government and Public Affairs Division Coby Chase, and Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton.

TURF showed the Sunset Advisory Commission that TxDOT has made an unprecedented push to win public approval for its controversial toll road and Trans Texas Corridor project, using public money, which is not only illegal, it unfairly stacks the deck against citizens.

Houghton swore under oath that TxDOT had not hired registered lobbyists when these invoices (view here.) show they have (as well as Houghton’s own admission during a Town Hall Meeting in Hempstead, view here.). State law prohibits state agencies from hiring lobbyists and prohibits them from using public money for a political purpose. State agencies are to implement policy, not shape it. Video clips from the Town Hall meeting in Hempstead also show Houghton trying to sway the crowd in favor of the Trans Texas Corridor while under oath he was adamant that TxDOT and he had not done so.

PULL ANY ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS FROM TXDOT
Keep Texas Moving advocates the Trans Texas Corridor, privatization of infrastructure, and tolling. The information in this campaign only extols the benefits of tolling and privatization (and never includes criticisms).

The stated goal of the campaign found in TxDOT documents is:
“To shift perception among those who are opposed to or on the fence about the TTC” and to change the political environment to “make it less hostile to the TTC” and to promote the “benefits of TTC…and help inoculate it from negative attacks” as well as “increase support of TxDOT programs.”

“This is no public information campaign. It’s a taxpayer-funded political ad campaign, which is not only illegal, but it also abuses the taxpayers in order to line TxDOT’s pockets with the MOST EXPENSIVE transportation tax,” says Terri Hall, TURF Founder who testified before the Sunset Commission.

TxDOT hired 5 registered lobbyists to the tune of $100,000/month to directly lobby Congress and other elected officials for more CDAs, the TTC, and tolling. Saenz, Chase, and Houghton all claimed ignorance of the law under oath, but Chapter 556.009 says all state officers and employees are given the law prior to taking a position with the State and a record of their acknowledgment of receipt is to be kept in writing.

“So any claim of ignorance of the law by the top brass is no get out jail free card,” Hall said.

This document shows TxDOT targeted County Judges in the path of the TTC-69. Houghton testified in the TURF lawsuit that lobbyist Gary Bushell is who arranged Houghton’s meetings with the County Judges. County Judges are key in appointing an arbitration committee between landowners and the State in eminent domain cases. So TxDOT’s lobbying effort was clearly to give the State an advantage in eminent domain proceedings for the Trans Texas Corridor.

Despite the TURF lawsuit and the suspension of hiring outside lobbyists, TxDOT recently hired an in-house lobbyist, Rebecca Reyes, to lobby Democrats in Congress through TxDOT’s Washington office (view here) and joined a lobby group named Transportation Transformation, or T2, with 4 other DOTs and private investors, like Goldman Sachs, to lobby Congress for more CDAs (see here).

TxDOT (see here) seeking to gain public approval of the TTC, which included asking overtly political questions like political party affiliation and if the respondent voted straight ticket in the last election.

In another document, it states TxDOT’s messages in the ad campaign would promote tolling over gas taxes with statements like, “tolls are better than gas taxes to fund roads” (see here).
“The Sunset Commission needs to strongly recommend the repeal of Section 228.004 from the transportation code and remove from TxDOT any ability to promote toll roads. They’ve become an arm of private industry that cannot be trusted to expend funds in a way that protects the public interest,” insisted Hall.

END FREEWAY TO TOLLWAY CONVERSIONS
TURF and many of its supporters addressed the reforms the citizens demand in order to restore trust in the agency, anywhere from replacing the unelected 5 member Transportation Commission with a single ELECTED commissioner to fixing how decisions to toll roads are made (and giving the public real veto power), to getting an accurate figure of road funding needs independently of TxDOT, as well as ending freeway to tollway conversions.

The complete conversion of US 281 from a freeway, already built and open to traffic for decades, to a toll road shocked the Commission and was a central part of the hearing. Representative Linda Harper-Brown questioned TxDOT’s perversion of a state law, HB 2702, that prohibits conversions without a public vote and requires them to leave as many non-toll lanes that exist before adding toll lanes. But TxDOT is tolling every single express lane (or main lane) on US 281 and downgrading the non-toll lanes to access roads with slower speed limits and permanent stop lights, an unfair replacement say critics.

Even worse, the 281 improvements have been funded with gas taxes starting in 2003 ($100 million plan total), but it was turned into a toll road simply to generate revenue for other area projects, clearly a discriminatory, targeted tax. Now as a toll road, the pricetag has ballooned to a whopping $1.3 billion!

“With highway robbery of this scale, it’s no wonder the supposed funding gap for future roads swelled to $86 billion. This is insane! Rep. Joe Pickett once stated we can build 4 freeways for the price of one toll road. In the case of US 281, we can build 10 freeways for the price of one toll project!” notes an outraged Hall.

TURF also delivered disks of all the evidence in their lawsuit to the Travis County District Attorney’s office to press them to file criminal charges against guilty parties.

“Texans are tired of one legal standard for them and another for those in power. The Truth Be Tolled TURF Special Edition DVD (www.TruthBeTolled.com) is enough evidence to show TxDOT is guilty of lying under oath and prosecuting an illegal ad and lobbying campaign on the taxpayers’ dime. Blood’s in the water now, and the sharks are circling. The people demand justice,” Hall commented.