Link to article here. Talk about spin…Williamson arrogantly claims Hutchison’s ban on tolling existing interstates will actually hasten TxDOT’s scheme to add “managed” toll lanes to existing interstates. Why? Because that makes him look better when he just got kicked in the teeth…the amendment does prevent TxDOT from buying back interstates for the purpose of tolling them. TxDOT lobbied Congress to make that legal in a TRIPLE TAX revenue generating scheme more akin to a thief than the Chair of a State agency who’s supposed to be serving the public. This from the man who said it’s not his job to make transportation affordable! In yet another brazen comment, he thinks fiscal accountability, like not paying for the same thing two and three times over, is “outdated.” Anyone still think Governor Perry and his highway Chair are still tax averse conservatives?

Hutchison adds toll ban to Senate bill
1-year freeze on old Texas interstates may speed fee on new lanes
By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas Morning News
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed an amendment that imposes a one-year ban on adding tolls to existing lanes of interstate highways in Texas.

But state and local highway officials say the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, could make it easier to impose tolls on new lanes added to highways in Texas.

The amendment would affect only Texas and would expire in one year unless Congress reauthorizes it.

By exempting tolls on new interstate lanes, the moratorium could lead to new federal rules making it easier to impose tolls on new lanes – even those added to existing highways.

“We see what Senator Hutchison has done as a great step forward,” said Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission.

Ms. Hutchison added the amendment to the Senate version of the housing, urban development and transportation 2008 appropriations bill – which is expected to pass later this week.

She said she opposes putting tolls on existing lanes of interstate highways because taxpayers already pay to build and maintain them.

“Today we protected Texas taxpayers from paying twice for a highway,” Ms. Hutchison said in a statement. “I will continue pushing for a permanent prohibition of tolling existing highways.”

Despite Mr. Williamson’s praise for the amendment, Ms. Hutchison has said she filed it to defeat his department’s long-standing efforts to persuade Congress to give states more latitude in imposing tolls, including tolls on existing interstate lanes.

Mr. Williamson said Wednesday that as the cost to maintain the interstate network continues to rise, the notion that the nation’s highways have already been paid for has become outdated.

Still, he said he welcomes the Hutchison amendment because it helps clarify which tools his department can use to pay for badly needed new roads – and which have been taken off the table.

“I am not the elected senator from Texas, and I am not the elected governor of Texas,” said Mr. Williamson, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry.

“My guy, who appointed me, has asked me to present a series of solutions for dealing with the $86 billion gap” between available funds and Texas’ road needs. “So that’s what I am doing, presenting options,” he said.

It’s up to Congress, and Texas elected officials, to decide which solutions to adopt, he said.

Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said the ban on adding tolls to existing lanes won’t have much effect in North Texas. He said current policy has for a decade been to reject such tolls locally.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Antonio, TX, September 13, 2007 – We applaud Senator Hutchison for attempting to begin the long process of reining-in not just our rogue state agency, TxDOT, but also many of her colleagues who claim banning managed lane projects (adding new toll lanes to existing corridors to “manage” congestion, which is also a DOUBLE TAX) was a non-starter.

This amendment does little overall to stop any current toll projects in the works throughout Texas. The State can still bulldoze our existing interstates to its heart’s content and re-arrange the pavement to make way for toll lanes down the middle. They call them “new lanes” but they’re using our existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes. So it’s still a DOUBLE TAX. The State can also continue to toll existing STATE highways, all or in part, unabated.

Consider TxDOT’s tricks to replace “existing lanes” with frontage roads or to narrow the width of the existing lanes (after they destroy them, then re-build them, taking twice the construction time as a freeway at more than double the cost), it will slow down or manipulate traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people on the tollway (or steal the entire existing freeway making second class citizens out of those who cannot afford tolls by relegating them to frontage roads).

“So it begs the question, if politicians fell all over themselves to be the first to repudiate tolling existing interstates (like Texas State Senator John Carona, State Representative Lois Kolkhorst, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, San Antonio Councilwoman Sheila McNeil), then why won’t they stop TxDOT and the tolling entities from tolling our existing STATE highways?” asks a frustrated Terri Hall, Founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF).

“The people of Texas are tired of tough talk and no action. They’re tired of politicians playing games with the plain meaning of words. TxDOT is tolling EXISTING STATE HIGHWAYS and rights of way, which is no different than tolling existing interstates, which they claim to object to. So why don’t we stop the tomfoolery and end this. If they want to build toll roads, make them completely NEW roads, but stop tolling our existing corridors (whether federal or state highways),” Hall challenges.

“So this amendment is a start, but doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental concerns of taxpayers outraged by what’s happening in this state,” notes Hall.

When the Texas A&M Study says we don’t need toll roads, it’s confounding that some politicians still march ahead over the people’s objections.

“This battle is far from over and Senator Hutchison vows to continue to fight this DOUBLE TAXATION in its many forms. We surely hope so!” said Hall.

We applaud Senator Hutchison for attempting to begin the long process of reining-in not just our rogue state agency, TxDOT, but also many of her colleagues who told her stopping managed lane projects (adding new toll lanes to existing corridors to “manage” congestion, which is also a DOUBLE TAX) was a non-starter.

That said, this amendment does little overall to stop any current toll projects in the works throughout Texas. The State can still bulldoze our existing interstates to its heart’s content and re-arrange the pavement to make way for toll lanes down the middle. They call them “new lanes” but they’re using our existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes. So it’s still a DOUBLE TAX. The State can also continue to toll existing STATE highways, all or in part, unabated.

Then when you consider TxDOT’s tricks to replace those “existing lanes” with frontage roads or to narrow the width of the existing lanes (after they destroy them then re-build them, taking twice the construction time as a freeway and more than double the cost), it will slow down or manipulate traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people on the tollway, this amendment is a start, but doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental concerns of taxpayers. When the Texas A&M Study says we don’t need toll roads, it’s confounding that some politicians still march ahead over the people’s objections! This battle is far from over and Hutchison vows to continue to fight this DOUBLE TAXATION in its many forms. We surely hope so!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 11, 2007

Sen. Hutchison Protects Texas Taxpayers From Double Taxation on Existing Highways
Senate Passes Hutchison Amendment to Ban Tolling Existing Highways in Texas for One Year
WASHINGTON — Texas’ senior Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R–TX) today passed an amendment to H. R. 3074, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development (THUD) Appropriations bill, that protects Texas taxpayers by placing a one-year moratorium on tolling existing highways in Texas. The FY 2008 THUD bill, which passed the Senate today by a vote of 88-7, would be effective through September 30, 2008. The Senate version will now need to be reconciled with the House-passed bill in a conference.

“Today we protected Texas taxpayers from paying twice for a highway,” Sen. Hutchison said. “I will continue pushing for a permanent prohibition of tolling existing highways.”

If enacted, Sen. Hutchison will have protected Texas for one year, but she is committed to addressing this issue on a more comprehensive basis in the 2009 Highway Reauthorization bill. Sen. Hutchison’s amendment preserves the Texas State Legislature’s authority over this issue in Texas.

During the 80th session of the Texas Legislature the state House and Senate approved a measure that would place a two-year moratorium on building toll roads in Texas.

“Sen. Hutchison is a hero to every Texas driver,” State Sen. and former Texas Transportation Commissioner Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) said. “Her amendment is the right thing to do and I strongly support her position.”

Last week Sen. Hutchison filed S. 2019, a bill to prohibit the tolling of interstate highways that have used federal funds in their construction, and the next day four Members of Congress filed companion legislation, H.R. 3510. The House bill was filed by Reps. John Peterson (R–PA), Phil English (R–PA), Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX) and Ciro Rodriguez (D–TX). Sen. John Cornyn (R–TX) cosponsored Sen. Hutchison’s bill.

Efforts to toll newly constructed lanes or new highways would not be prohibited in Sen. Hutchison’s amendment that passed the Senate, or in S. 2019 or H.R. 3510.

“I’ve long believed that if local communities and the state want to come together and build a toll road, they should be able to do it,” Sen. Hutchison said.

Earlier this year the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) declared they will lobby Congress to allow for the “buy back” of existing federal highways in Texas for the purpose of tolling. In February TxDOT released their legislative agenda in a report called “Forward Momentum,” which seeks changes in federal law that would allow such buybacks for the purpose of tolling interstate highways, pending approval by local governments.

“I deeply thank Sen. Hutchison for being a voice of reason on this issue,” State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R–Brenham) said. “Asking Texans to pay twice for the same road violates the trust that should exist between people and government.”

Sen. Hutchison passed a similar amendment as part of the 2005 Highway Bill, which passed the Senate but was stripped in conference by the House of Representatives.

“The purpose of having an interstate system is so that we could have seamless and free transportation into every State of our Union,” Sen. Hutchison said.

The text of Sen. Hutchison’s amendment can be found here: http://hutchison.senate.gov/resources/FY08_KBH_THUD_Amdt.pdf

Link to article here.

The bill is HR 3510 with identical wording to Hutchison’s amendment attached to an appropriations bill yesterday. This is a stand alone bill (versus an amendment that will end when the appropriations bill ends next year) to put a permanent end to a total conversion of an existing interstate into a toll road. The bill would also keep TxDOT from buying back an existing interstate from the feds with the intent of tolling it.

That said, it does little to stop any current toll projects in the works throughout Texas. The State can still bulldoze our existing interstates to their heart’s content and re-arrange the pavement to make way for toll lanes down the middle. They call them “new lanes” but they’re using our existing right of way already paid for with gas taxes. So it’s still a DOUBLE TAX. The State can also continue to toll existing state highways all or in part unabated.

Then when you consider TxDOT’s tricks to replace those “existing lanes” with frontage roads or to narrow the width of the existing lanes (after they destroy them then re-build them, taking twice the construction time as a freeway), it will slow down or manipulate traffic in such a way as to maximize the number of people on the tollway, this bill is a start, but doesn’t come close to addressing the fundamental concerns of taxpayers. When the Texas A&M Study says we don’t need toll roads, it’s confounding that some politicians still march ahead over the people’s objections!

House bill would block highway tolls
By Gary Martin
Express-News, Washington Bureau
09/12/2007

WASHINGTON — House lawmakers from Texas and Pennsylvania filed a bill to block proposals in their respective states to toll federal highways to provide revenue for repair and construction, officials said Tuesday.The House bill is a companion to legislation filed in the Senate by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who has vowed to stop efforts in Austin to “buy back” federal highways and levying tolls on state taxpayers.

“Tolling existing freeways — the lifeblood of moving goods and services — is bad public policy, and states like Pennsylvania and Texas would incur irrevocable economic damage,” said Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez and Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, both San Antonio Democrats, joined Peterson and Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., in co-sponsoring the House bill.

Rodriguez signed on one week after meeting with Ric Williamson, the Texas transportation commissioner, in Washington.

Williamson met with federal lawmakers, urging them to relax current laws that prohibit tolls on U.S. highways.

The state is seeking revenue to make up an $86 billion shortfall preventing Texas from improving highways.

Williamson, a Republican, has proposed buying back federal highways and turning them over to private entities to levy a toll that would produce money to improve and expand infrastructure.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Williamson say a decision to toll an existing highway or road should rest with the local taxpayer, not federal officials.

Decisions on how to use existing highways “would be better made in San Antonio and San Angelo than in Washington,” said Chris Lippincott, a Texas Department of Transportation spokesman.

Pennsylvania also is eyeing plans to toll Interstate 80, as well as other revenue enhancing measures being studied by Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat.

“The real problem is, we don’t have sufficient resources and our infrastructure is falling apart across the country,” Rodriguez said.

But Rodriguez said the state should not penalize Texas taxpayers and make them pay twice for federal roads that were built with public funds.

“Those roads have already been paid for,” Rodriguez said.

Hutchison and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, are opposed to the state’s tolling existing federal highways. Hutchison vowed to block any effort to lift current prohibitions to the practice.

The entire South Texas congressional delegation opposes the state plan.

Rodriguez said he asked Williamson to list the state’s most dire transportation needs.

If those issues cannot be addressed in supplemental spending bill, the state could be forced to wait until Congress takes up the reauthorization of the transportation bill next year, Rodriguez said.

Link to Herald-Zeitung article where Comal County Commissioner claims there will be no tolls on his watch, but toll plans say otherwise. here.

See Herald-Zeitung article below.

No tolls in Comal County? Think again. The Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 Development Plan discloses that the State plans to toll I-35 from San Antonio to Dallas. Considering both I-35 and US 281 will be tolled in the near term in Bexar County and shortly thereafter through Comal County, county residents will not be insulated from toll roads. Interstate 35 is one of the primary arteries Comal County residents depend on to get to work as is US 281. As much as we’d like to think tolls stop at the county line, drivers who depend on these corridors will still pay BIG!

The article below entitled, Toll lanes in county? ‘Not on our watch,’ states that SB 792 exempted 281 and 1604 from the PRIVATE toll moratorium. This is inaccurate. SB 792 specifically includes 281 in the private toll moratorium and since the contract linked 281 and 1604 together in the same bid, both projects CAN NO LONGER BE HANDED TO A PRIVATE FOREIGN COMPANY. That is a HUGE victory for the taxpayers! However, the PUBLIC tolling entity in Bexar County is moving ahead with 281 & 1604 as a toll project.

Overall, the privatization of our public infrastructure is far from over. The U.S. Department of Transportation just announced that I-10 from California to Florida and I-69 from Texas to Michigan are eligible to become privately financed, tolled trade corridors (see it on TxDOT’s web site).

They have the plan, the money, and the clearance to fix 281 WITHOUT tolls

Secondly, in the article, TxDOT Engineer Greg Malatek falsely claimed he hasn’t heard any non-toll options coming from toll opponents. Even a cursory glimpse of the www.TexasTURF.org web site shows a prominent tab called “Non-toll Solutions.” On the home page of www.SATollParty.com it also displays a section “Non-toll Alternatives” and the animated presentation focuses almost entirely on an alternative to converting existing freeway US 281 into a tollway. TxDOT has the funding for a non-toll improvement plan for overpasses and the expansion of US 281.
It’s inexplicable that they delayed the desperately needed fix out there when they had the money in hand and the environmental clearance to begin building those overpasses in 2003. TxDOT could plainly see that the stop lights gave them the opportunity to hi-jack an existing highway and turn it into a toll road replaced by frontage roads with permanent stop lights. It fools the public into thinking it’s an apples to apples trade-off. Instead, it’s a ghastly expensive re-arranging of pavement that tolls an existing freeway.

TxDOT’s failure to even acknowledge the gas tax plan and their failure to inform the public about this option has allowed them to deceive people into thinking the ONLY way to get the fix is to toll it. TxDOT is pushing the plan that puts money in their pocket while remaining silent about the gas tax plan which wouldn’t.

Why should anyone have to pay a toll when they have the plan, the clearance, and the money to fix US 281 as a freeway? There is no justification for tolling that freeway other than greed and to tap the vein of 281 users to fund other road projects politicians won’t fund through the gas tax. Over 90% of the public feedback in their own environmental studies showed people opposed tolling, and citizens insisted the gas tax plan alternative be used in it’s place.

Texas does not need a single toll road to solve congestion

Then, a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M released last year revealed Texas does not need a single toll road to solve congestion. While TxDOT clings to false figures saying they’d have to raise the gas tax by as much as $1.40 a gallon, in contrast, the TTI Study showed all that’s needed is indexing the gas tax to inflation. Mr. Malatek and TxDOT also know this, but they continue to use scare tactics and ultimatums to push the MOST EXPENSIVE OPTION…toll roads. How expensive? Compare 1-3 a mile we pay now in gas tax to 30 cents or more a mile in tolls (per TxDOT’s studies and toll roads in Austin). Just a 20 mile, one-way commute would mean over $3,000 a year in new toll taxes PER COMMUTER!

State Auditor says can’t trust TxDOT’s figures

Twice this year, the State Auditor caught TxDOT lying about their figures. The first report showed they cooked the books and purposely miscoded expenditures “engineering” when in fact they had spent it on public relations! The second report found that nearly half of TxDOT’s “funding gap” is pure FICTION and cannot be substantiated with a single sheet of paper!

Given the fact that TxDOT has adamantly claimed they’re not tolling existing freeways, only to find out that they lobbied Congress to do just that (as evidenced in TxDOT’s report “Forward Momentum”), our highway department’s repeated and brazen misstatement of facts has shredded any credibility they had left.

It’s time to clean house at TxDOT and remove every single politician who voted to toll and that failed to rein-in this agency run amok!
Toll lanes in county? “Not on our watch”
By David Saleh Rauf
The Herald-Zeitung
September 9, 2007

State transportation officials moving forward with toll road projects in San Antonio have no plans to build toll lanes on U.S. 281 in Comal County.

The Texas Department of Transportation was recently given the green light by Federal Highway Administration officials to continue with an ambitious U.S. 281 toll road project that stretches from Loop 1604 to Comal County. But the U.S. 281/1604 toll project ó which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars ó and TxDOT’s push to convert existing highways into tolled lanes, will not cross into Comal County, officials said.

“Not going to happen,” said Pct. 2 Commissioner Jay Milikin. “Not on our watch.”

State transportation officials announced their plans to move forward with toll lanes on U.S. 281 in San Antonio just five days before local TxDOT representatives held a public hearing on a project slated to improve 6.8 miles of U.S. 281 in Comal County.

Less than two weeks later, reports surfaced that TxDOT had been pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing them to purchase portions of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads, which has put a spotlight on the U.S. 281 issue in Comal County. Since then, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-TX, has filed legislation that would block TxDOT’s move to acquire existing roads and convert them into tolled lanes.

The possibility of tolled lanes to fund construction of new roads, such as the proposed outer loop around the city, still is a possibility in Comal County, said TxDOT area engineer Greg Malatek. But local TxDOT officials said they will not turn existing highways into tolled lanes in the County.

“Right now, commissioner’s court has made it loud and clear … they don’t want to see toll roads on any existing roadway,” Malatek said.

Milikin said the county has reached an agreement with local TxDOT officials that will prevent them from pursuing toll road projects on existing highways in Comal without Commissioners’ Court approval.

Commissioners have rejected prior attempts by TxDOT to toll existing highways to help fund road improvement projects within the county, Milikin said.

In turn, Commissioners’ Court reached an agreement with TxDOT to front a portion of constructions costs to help improve U.S. 281 and a segment of Texas 46. As part of the pass-through agreement, the county has agreed to loan the state $16 million for each respective project. Milikin said the state will pay back the principle of the loan over a four-to-five-year period, but the county will “eat the interest.”

“I don’t like using county tax payer money to subsidize the state, but that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Milikin said. “Without the pass-through agreement, we were looking at 15 to 20 years before those improvements would be made on 46 and 281.”

While commissioners in Comal have guaranteed that no toll roads will pop up on existing highways within the county anytime soon, in San Antonio and other portions of the state toll road projects are moving forward, despite a so-called two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts.

Senate Bill 792, over which Gov. Rick Perry threatened to call a special session at one point, left exemptions for nearly every toll road project that had already contracted with private developers, including the U.S. 281/1604 project in San Antonio.

Several state lawmakers who voted against the measure, including Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde, have since banded together to oppose TxDOT’s latest $7 to 9 million public relations campaign aimed at promoting toll roads. The “Keep Texas Moving: Tolling and Trans-Texas Corridor Outreach,” which began in June, has drawn criticism from some state lawmakers and anti-toll road activists for wasting valuable gas tax dollars to promote toll roads.

“They’re trying to use a $9 million blitz campaign to sell toll roads,” said Rep. Joe Farias, D-San Antonio, who along with Macias and Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, held a press conference last week calling for an end to TxDOT’s press campaign.

“If anything, the biggest thing is that as far toll roads go, the folks oppose who toll roads we’re really not hearing any other options to stop congestion in San Antonio,” Malatek said.

U.S. 281 Expansion in Comal County

• What: Upgrading 6.8 miles of U.S. 281 in Comal County from 2-lane, undivided sections to 4-lane divided roadway.

• Where: Between FM 311 and FM 306 on U.S. 281.

• When: Construction to begin in 2010; could take up to 3 years.

• How Much: $55.4 million