Link to story here.

State Error: Bridge Cost Triples
By Brian Collister
WOAI-TV
2/05/08

When the ritzy subdivision, the Dominion, was annexed several years back, the City of San Antonio promised to build a highway overpass on I-10 so emergency vehicles could cross the highway.

But you won’t believe what it is costing you.

Let us explain it to you this way: You know how you take you car to a mechanic and they give you an estimate for what it will cost to fix the problem, but later they call and tell you they found a lot more wrong and the bill has skyrocketed?

Well, it is happening to you again but with your tax dollars. This time, thanks to the folks who are building the Dominion bridge.

News 4 Trouble Shooter Brian Collister uncovered the staggering numbers.

Construction on the Dominion overpass is already half way done.

The new fire station the city promised when it annexed the area is already finished after being moved from its temporary location just 1 mile away.

It sits just a few feet away where fire trucks will soon be able to dart under the highway when the call comes out for an emergency in the Dominion.The station and bridge were the city’s way of smoothing over fear from angry Dominion homeowners who fought the city’s land grab in 1998.

“The times that they are quoting to us, response times for fire and EMS are just not adequate,” said Billie Kite-Howlett back in 1998, a homeowner in the Dominion at the time. “We’re very, very concerned about that.”

To help it win the annexation battle and swallow up the subdivision packed with multi-million dollar homes, the city got a quick estimate from TxDoT right before the city council was set to vote. Engineers said they could do the project for $6.5 million.

But today, that cost has ballooned to $20 million!

Pretty pricey, even for taxpayers around the Dominion who told the News 4 Trouble Shooters on-camera the price seems like an incredible amount of money.

TxDoT admits it did not do much homework at all when it came up with the initial price tag.

During an interview with News 4 Trouble Shooter Brian Collister, TxDoT engineer Clay Smith explained, “It’s not until you get into the detail design that you realize what it’s going to cost you.”

“But isn’t that TxDoT’s job to say here is how much this is going to cost, we looked at it?” asked Collister.

“Correct, and that’s what you do with your estimate. You give them the best engineering estimate you have at the time,” replied Smith.

“But this one was way off,” countered Collister.

“Yeah, well, like I said, you had a lot of factors,” added Smith.

The biggest factor? TxDoT says its engineers did not realize the project is in the 100 year flood plain.

Which is pretty weird, since anyone who was here during the flood of ’98 saw what happened to Rudy’s BBQ, which is just up the road from the bridge site.

When asked why TxDoT did not look at a flood map before it provided its estimate, Smith answered, “It just, ah, we developed the equipment real quick. We didn’t have the money in there to accommodate was actually going to need in there.”

So now the overpass project that was supposed to cost $6 million is costing $20 million.

“It costs what it costs,” said Smith.

But TxDoT would have known what it really cost from the start if they simply had done some digging like we did.

For starters, the city, which asked for the bridge, knew about the flood plain.

Records obtained by News 4 from 1983 show the Dominion wanted a city permit to build another exit to the subdivision in the same area, but it was denied because it is in the 100-year flood plain.

So when did TxDoT figure it out?

An environmental study we uncovered, done in 2001, notes the flood plain, but still says it will only cost $6 million. It wasn’t until later that engineers realized that because of the problem they would have to build a much larger and more expensive bridge that includes concrete side walls.

Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson sits on the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is responsible for handing out the money for roads.

“Anybody (who) saw the ’98 floods when Macaroni Grill and Rudy’s, all of those were washed out. There should have been some intuitive understanding that that area is prone to flooding,” says Larson. “You’re right, I don’t know why they would not have included the flood plain element in their bids, but maybe they were just rushed at that point.”

Larson says the skyrocketing cost has meant other highway projects are being delayed.

And that also means you will pay more when those projects finally get started because of rising costs of construction materials and labor.

“All of the escalation that we’ve seen on this project, you can see the projects in 98, 99, 2000, that we thought we’d start in 2003, 2004. You’re going to see a significant increase on those, as well,” says Larson.

Because of what happened with the TxDoT project and others that have gone over-budget, the MPO now requires the agency to give better estimates and provide updates more frequently during a project to stop it from happening again.

We called the Dominion Homeowners Association to see what it thinks of the cost of the overpass. We got no response.

Link to article here.

Leon Valley council supports rapid buses
By Amanda Reimherr Buckert
Express-News< 02/05/2008 The Leon Valley City Council approved a resolution Tuesday supporting an idea to help speed up traffic on congested Bandera Road — and it doesn't include toll roads. Proposed by Mayor Chris Riley, the resolution backs a concept to have VIA Metropolitan Transit's second rapid bus line along Bandera. "The Fredericksburg Road corridor will be VIA's first corridor for bus rapid transit, or BRT, and will be operational in 2012," said Priscilla Ingle, the vice president of public affairs for VIA. The Texas Department of Transportation has allocated no money to improve Bandera Road, so the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority was charged with finding long-term solutions. A total of 21 options are being considered, but the only one that can fund any improvements is tolling. Rapid buses have been discussed at several council meetings, and Riley said she plans to send the resolution to VIA, the mobility authority and the Metropolitan Planning Organization. "I ride the bus all the time, and I believe in mass transportation," Riley said. "I think it is the way of the future for both convenience and to protect the environment." Riley has already met with representatives from VIA. And in Eugene, Ore., she met with Graham Carey, an expert on BRT and a project engineer with Lane Transit District. "It has been incredibly successful in (Eugene). We opened in January of last year, and within six months, we exceeded our 20-year projection for ridership," Carey said. "Many people talk about light rail when talking about mass transportation, but we like to call this 'like rail' because we apply all the light rail components into this concept." Carey said the vehicles run on concrete strips that resemble a track and have multiple doors like a train, but light rail can be 10 times more expensive than a rapid bus system. Riley said she rode the system in Eugene with Carey and was hooked. "I was so impressed. BRT will change people's perceptions about the bus. It truly feels like light rail and runs regularly like a train from stations, so you don't need a bus schedule," she said. However, any substantial improvements to Bandera Road are years away. "There is an environmental impact study being conducted on Bandera that is still four to five years away from being completed, and no long-term improvements can be done until then," said Leroy Alloway, spokesman for the mobility authority. "This is a good, long-term vision on the city's part, but don't expect immediate implementation." A rapid bus line would require a dedicated lane to keep travel speeds and times, officials said. VIA's Ingle said her agency is looking at the space along roadways, and other factors, before determinations of future routes are made. "We are going to be putting together a long-range plan to identify other corridors for future BRT routes," she said. "That process will be a 12-18-month process, and then the goal is to determine other corridors that will be suitable and then prioritizing them." Leon Valley recently approved its El Verde 2020 plan, which has an objective for the city to become carbon neutral by the year 2020. "One of the goals of that plan is to increase mass transit. It seems our community is not in favor of a toll road, so we need to be for something," Mayor Riley said. "I think this is an excellent alternative to a toll road."

Senate Transportation Committee and Senate Finance Committee held a joint hearing in Austin today to probe TxDOT’s supposed funding shortfall for 2008. The Legislature wasn’t even out of session 6 months before TxDOT fired-off letters to legislators telling them they planned to cut billions in already committed/funded projects. The sparks flew back and forth during the heated “discussion” that seemed more like a public flogging of TxDOT than a committee hearing. Here’s just a flavor…

Senator Steve Ogden, Chair of Senate Finance Committee, on TxDOT’s balance sheet: “This is really screwed up. Y’all need to redo your sheet.”

Senator Tommy Williams: “TxDOT has poor internal controls…I don’t have confidence in anything TxDOT is telling this committee.”

Senator Kirk Watson: TxDOT’s either “political or incompetent.”

Senator Judith Zaffirini: “TxDOT is an agency in turmoil and chaos. This (blaming Legislature for TxDOT’s own incompetence and poor planning) disdainful and awful behavior by some agency staff is at best intellectually dishonest.”
_______________________________

The senators put the screws to TxDOT for three hours, and something remotely resembling the truth managed to emerge at the other end. The end result is that the Legislature ought to be exploring TxDOT’s “credibility gap” instead of its ginned-up funding gap. Fed-up like the taxpayers, the senators are tired of being lied to by a state agency over which they have oversight, tired of being lectured to by the Governor (who rejects ANY affordable transportation funding option besides selling off our freeways to his buddies), and tired of being blamed for TxDOT’s incompetence. Now let’s hope they finally mean it when they say TxDOT needs fixing!

TxDOT is up for sunset review in 2009, so it’s the Legislature’s golden opportunity to clean house at this “agency run amok.”

Though much transpired at the hearings today, here’s the summary of the juicy stuff. TxDOT had to admit that it put out false information that misled both the public and legislators about the claimed $4.2 billion “shortfall” (which acting Chair Hope Andrade later revised the term “cuts” to more correctly mean “delays”) and the reasons for it.

At the end of the day, TxDOT admitted to repeated accounting errors (overstating the 2008 shortfall by $3 billion), that they welcomed an audit “so we can know what’s going on” inside their own agency, and that they haven’t “cut” spending, but are rather just moving money around.

Senator Ogden brought up a good point when he stated that the Legislature gave TxDOT $7.5 billion MORE money this two-year budget over the last, so he questioned why are they cutting projects? TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz then admitted they are making “cuts” based on future projections of shortfalls in 2015, not shortfalls in this immediate 2-year budget cycle. In plain English, they’re making “cuts” now in order to advance the Governor’s political agenda of selling off our highway system to the highest bidder.
It’s good thing only a small cabal of ordinary citizens and taxpayers were there or TxDOT would have been run out on a rail! The most heated discussion of the day came when Senator Zaffirini asked TxDOT for the talking points it sent to the various district engineers who sent letters announcing the cuts in December 2007. TxDOT produced a different letter, but Zaffirini read the initial talking points TxDOT leadership sent out that blamed the U.S. congress and the state legislature, not TxDOT’s own overcommitment to projects it couldn’t fund due to the poor planning and chaos inside its own doors. Saenz admitted there are three divisions, forecasting, management, and the one that pays the actual bills, where neither knew what the other was doing.

Senator Watson summed it up best when he said: “So TxDOT’s either being political or incompetent.” But when the dust settled, all of them were more worried about the billions in lost contracts for the highway lobby than they were about the taxpayers held hostage by TxDOT’s incompetence and man-made congestion crisis.

The second half of the day was the first meeting of the study committee on private toll roads as required by SB 792, the private toll moratorium bill. The Governor’s 3 appointees rabidly pushed the MOST expensive option of privatization of our public infrastructure (bringing in the world’s top privatization guru, Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation) while the others were consumed with understanding market valuation.

To refresh you memories, TURF fought hard to strip the market valuation language from SB 792. This language never appeared in ANY bill the entire 80th session until Governor Perry got a hold of it (though Committee Chairman Senator John Carona,/span> credited Senator Williams for actually authoring that section). It’s a way to skirt around the federal law prohibiting the public sector from competing with the private sector to drive up the price of a public project.

Market valuation REQUIRES BY LAW that all toll projects undergo a determination of how much money the government can make off the road by analyzing the “value” of it the way Wall Street would. It’s called asset monetization and it translates into the highest possible toll rates, because instead of keeping the toll as low as possible, they determine how to get a BIG up-front payment just like the private toll roads. They figure out how much additional bond money they can milk out of one set of motorists in order to fund projects for other motorists. It’s Robin Hood applied to roads! The very thought of calling the public’s highways “assets” for government to sell off on the open market is OFFENSIVE and an economic disaster waiting to happen!

So when you hear a toller call toll taxes a “user fee,” think again. It’s another deception geared at making you think you’re paying a more direct tax tied to your actual usage of something rather than taking from one to give to another (which is EXACTLY what they criticize the gas tax for doing, making one part of the state help fund roads for other parts)! Regardless, this method of tolling is a targeted, discriminatory, purposely bloated tax, designed to be a government cash cow without the private toll road controversy.

Interestingly, one of the authors of the bill actually asked TxDOT (and agency with NO credibility) how market valuation works when he was the one who authored the bill!

Ream the taxpayer

One of the Governor’s appointees, former Transportation Commissioner John Johnson, essentially cautioned the 6 legislators on the committee to NOT consider their constituents, but rather to “keep the big picture in mind.” What big picture is he referring to? Selling the public’s freeways to the highest bidder for maximum profit.

Then, when the conflict with federal law was mentioned, Poole of the Reason Foundation, suggested TxDOT could petition the feds using an “SEP 15” (or special experimental program) process to WAIVE THE LAW allowing public agencies to compete with the private sector (which results in jacking up the cost to motorists)! OUTRAGEOUS! No one even blinked at the suggestion that they try to skirt the LAW!!! Note it was the lobbyist who knew the loopholes, not the policymakers. It further indicates who’s writing our laws, doesn’t it? We’re lambs being led to the slaughter, folks. WAKE-UP!

In addition, Senator Carona said TxDOT had a lot of explaining to do in regards to their admission (thanks to the evidence uncovered in our lawsuit) they broke the law by hiring registered lobbyists, yet didn’t breathe a word of it at these hearings. Why? “Because it’s pending in court.” Someone should have told Commissioner Ted Houghton that before he
admitted it ON CAMERA!

Our government isn’t serving us, representing us, nor looking out for the public interest. Our Legislature and Governor are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce crowd, the Reason Foundation, and road contractors.

Start our taxpayer revolt on March 4. Go to the voting booth and work your way down the list….throw the bums OUT!

View TTC-69 public hearing schedule here.

Link to PDF of TTC-69 FACT SHEET outlining what TTC-69 is and why the state is building it here.

Link to PDF of TTC-69 PUBLIC COMMENT GUIDE with suggestions for public comment on the project here. Comments are due March 19, 2008. TxDOT has made it clear ONLY comments specific to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) will become part of the OFFICIAL LEGAL record. So knowing the areas appropriate for public comment are VITAL!

Link to article here. We all knew why Via suddenly did a 180 and began voting with TxDOT FOR tolls rather with the PEOPLE and voting against…TxDOT’s bullying tactics and promises for a piece of the private sector pie got them to sell out the citizens real fast. Shouldn’t surprise us that government teams up with government to rip-off the taxpayer. Self-interest is getting uglier by the minute…

Private sector may hold key to VIA plans for rapid buses
01/30/2008
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News

VIA Metropolitan Transit’s upcoming experiment with rapid buses, the agency’s rubber-tire answer to light rail, will involve asking private investors to help foot the bill for easing gridlock on the car-crazy Northwest Side.The idea is to parlay what 14,000 passengers a day, perhaps many of them suburban commuters, would bring to businesses on corners like Babcock Road and Medical Drive.

Seven acres of grassland and scrub trees on the southwest corner of that busy intersection will be home to a transit station serving as a terminus for a rapid-bus line, connecting the sprawling South Texas Medical Center to downtown, city officials said Tuesday. Two acres were set aside for commercial development.

But officials aren’t sure what type of venture might end up there, or even if it will be designed more for pedestrians than cars. Market studies and developer interest will have a lot to say about that.

“We’re just not far enough into the process yet to have details,” VIA President John Milam said.

A friendlier pedestrian environment is just what’s needed around the Medical Center campus, said Dr. James Andry, who’s renovating a building across the street into a sleep lab and office. Better sidewalks and shuttle buses could help, he said.

“Look here, you can’t even cross the street so easily,” he said, pointing across Babcock Road. “People don’t walk enough in the Medical Center, that’s for sure. Everything is so spread out.”

After voters rejected a light-rail plan in 2000, VIA changed course and decided to make buses work more like rail.

There’s no specific plan yet, but agency officials say options include articulated buses that bend in the middle, sheltered transit stations, real-time message boards, ticketing without fare boxes, dedicated bus lanes and technology to hold or trip traffic signals.

“It’ll be like light rail but on rubber tires,” VIA Chairman Eddie Herrera said Tuesday.

The agency’s first rapid buses could run through the Medical Center, on Fredericksburg Road and along Interstate 10 to a planned Westside Multimodal Center near the University of Texas’ downtown campus.

The $99 million project, about half-funded with federal grants and the rest locally, is expected to be fully designed and built by 2012. The high-tech buses could shave travel times by a third and boost ridership up to a fourth as they whisk riders between the city’s two largest job centers.

Though rapid-bus systems are babes compared to light rail and don’t have the same reputation for cultivating higher-density walkable developments or for attracting white-collar commuters, VIA officials will look for ways to make money from the extra traffic they hope to generate.

One proposal calls for additional taxes on new development along the rapid-bus line — through a tax increment-financing district. Another plan, the one touted Tuesday, is to carve out chunks of land next to bus stations and partner with developers to build there.

The transit station at Babcock Road and Medical Drive — with a 60-seat lobby, canopies outside and 128 parking spaces in the back — will be VIA’s first effort to rope in such private investment. The agency will seek proposals to get the best value.

The station could open in two years, replacing the transit facility in the Medical Center. It later would become the terminus for the rapid-bus line, which officials say would ease congestion in the heavily traveled area.

“It will be the nucleus of the Medical Center transportation,” District 8 City Councilwoman Diane Cibrian said as she stood on a mowed carpet of brown grass.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Terri Hall, Founder/Director San Antonio Toll Party & TURF
PHONE: (210) 275-0640
EMAIL: terri@satollparty.com / terri@texasturf.org
WEB: www.SATollParty.com /www.TexasTURF.org

(San Antonio, TX, January 29, 2008) As if US 281 traffic snarls aren’t bad enough due to TxDOT’s man-made congestion through signal light manipulation, now TxDOT, the tolling authority, or the County has shut down a favorite bypass route Timberwood Park residents use to avoid the back-up at the lights on 281.

“I’ve received several emails from supporters alarmed at the road closure. There is no rational reason to close a relief artery for residents other than the dreaded non-compete clause associated with the 281 toll road,” says Terri Hall, Founder/Director of San Antonio Toll Party.

Residents of Timberwood Park have been taking Evans Road to and from 281 since it goes right to Borgfeld (Evans Rd. turns into Canyon Gulf) and cuts out five stoplights between Borgfeld and Evans.

The road was called Dal-Cin and the two-lane section across Borgfeld still bears that name. The new four-lane Canyon Gulf winds through developments that are barely populated and still largely under construction.

However, this weekend the road was closed off. It’s obvious from this photo that it’s not a temporary closure either.

“I can see parts of bumpers where people have already hit these posts, probably at night because it is very dark out here,” said one resident.

“This is a four-lane road just yards from a fire station. If there is a fire in the new development, the fire trucks will now have to wind their way down Timberline and other two lane roads through Timberwood Park in order to help anyone.”

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) confirmed at the December 3 Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) meeting that the US 281 toll project will, in fact, have a non-compete clause. A non-compete clause is where the ARMA agrees not to expand any roads surrounding the tollway so as not to “compete” with the toll revenues. So eliminating or clogging free alternatives is the goal of a non-compete agreement in order to maximize toll revenues.

“Either the tolling authority is getting prepared to implement the non-compete even before any contract is signed, or the County (headed by a pro-toll Judge) has decided to put the screws to residents snarling traffic so badly they cry ‘uncle’ and beg for the toll road,” thinks Hall.

Link to article here.

Drivers to See Major Toll Hikes
By Dennis Cauchon
USA Today
01-28-08

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(San Antonio, TX, January 27, 2008) At Tony Kosub’s campaign kick-off yesterday, San Antonio Toll Party Founder, Terri Hall reminded supporters of the many toll tax hikes Frank Corte loaded onto his constituents, market-based tolls among them.

Express-News Columnist Jaime Castillo said this about market-based tolls once he caught wind of them in the Governor’s counterfeit moratorium bill, SB 792: “If you want to raise funds for other projects, keep jacking up the toll price until drivers cry ‘uncle,’ and then back it off a penny or two” (Express-News, July 22, 2008).

Corte voted for this new scheme where traditional toll taxes based on the actual cost of construction and bond debt were replaced with market-based tolls based on the nebulous concept of “whatever customers would be willing to pay.” This doesn’t bode well for Corte in a heavily Republican district who sent him to Austin to lower taxes and limit government.

Another tax grab Corte supported is the complete conversion of US 281 into a tollway. According to the Federal Register published August 30, 2007, every single freeway lane will be converted to a toll lane on US 281, with access roads as the non-toll lanes. Converting freeways to tollways without a public vote has since been outlawed (HB 2702), but Corte has not only voted to allow this freeway conversion (repudiated by the entire South Texas Congressional delegation), he’s refused to step-in.

“The road improvements and overpasses to 281 have been paid for with our gas taxes since 2003. Here we are FIVE years later, and it hasn’t been fixed, why? Because Frank Corte is part of the leadership in Austin that puts one man’s agenda, Rick Perry’s, above the best interest of the Party and of Texans,” Hall emphasized.

“Corte voted to give TxDOT unprecedented power so that Texans won’t get ANY new lanes, or ANY congestion relief unless they pay a double tax, a toll tax,” Hall noted.

The full text of Hall’s speech is below:

This is an exciting day for the San Antonio Toll Party for two reasons:
1) We have a candidate to unseat a pro-toll incumbent in District 122

2) We have a candidate who actually inspires us! That candidate is Tony Kosub.

He’s a man of incorruptible character, who’s genuine and sincere in his convictions, and who actually cares about people. His life’s work is investing in our children as a middle school teacher and coach. He doesn’t just talk; he lives what he believes.

I first met Tony Kosub at one of our events a number of years ago, and Tony not only took it upon himself to get educated and involved in fighting tolls roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, he began to take an interest in the larger fight against overbearing, abusive government, an escalating tax burden, and out of control government spending while “we the people” had to keep tightening our belts. Tony Kosub desperately desired to remedy the growing problem of the disconnect between us and our elected representatives, particularly in his own backyard, District 122.

Let me give you a glimpse into just how bad that disconnect is with Frank Corte. After thousands of emails, phone calls, meetings with constituents, and even traveling to Austin during the session, it became abundantly clear that Frank Corte refused to represent his constituents, showing stubborn indifference to the most egregious highway robbery, tax and spend feeding frenzy ever to hit his district…the complete conversion of the 281 FREEway into a tollway in a DOUBLE TAX NIGHTMARE for our lifetimes.

The road improvements and overpasses to 281 have been paid for with our gas taxes since 2003. Here we are FIVE years later, and it hasn’t been fixed, why? Because Frank Corte is part of the leadership in Austin that puts one man’s agenda, Rick Perry’s, above the best interest of the Party and of Texans.

Corte claims to be a conservative. His record on taxes demonstrate, he’s NO fiscal conservative. He voted to increase a host of taxes, but the largest tax increase of all will be paying a new toll tax on roads we’ve already built and paid for, like 281, 1604, and I-10…all in District 122. He voted to give TxDOT unprecedented power so that Texans won’t get ANY new lanes, or ANY congestion relief unless they pay a double tax, a toll tax.

We’re already feeling the pain at the pump with gas prices at record highs and no end in sight. Frank Corte is on the energy committee and has taken plenty of money from the energy industry yet Texans couldn’t be farther from energy independence than we are right now, on his watch.

Tony Kosub is not only a fresh face for District 122, but he’s also a problem solver. He comes from the people and understands the economic stress that both business and families are under and he knows how to relieve it…by returning to the principles we know will work. The principles of less government (starting with reining-in government spending), lower taxes, and greater accountability to the taxpayers…starting with TxDOT, of course, an agency full of waste, fraud, and abuse who has already recklessly taken Texas into a toll tax slush fund road building frenzy, but that now has also clearly crossed the line by illegally hiring lobbyists on the taxpayer’s dime!

I know you’ll agree, that it’s time for change in Texas. It’s time to throw off politicians who defend government instead of their constituents, who refuse to listen to the people who pay the bills, and who represent the status quo even to the detriment of citizens. We CANNOT keep sending the same ol’ career politicians to Austin and expect different results. We need new leadership.

It is with great confidence that the San Antonio Toll Party gives our endorsement to Tony Kosub. I can’t think of anyone more equipped for the task ahead of him, who has the values to get us headed in the right direction, and who has the uncompromising conviction it will take to resist the forces of big government and the tax and spend mentality that has taken over Austin.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my privilege to introduce you to the next State Representative for District 122, Tony Kosub!