Category: General

Truth Be Tolled documentary filmmaker, Bill Molina, featured in Trinity's Alum Mag

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Bill Molina ’84

Getting the Show on the Road

By Donna Parker

Bill Molina ’84 is an award-winning Hollywood cinematographer who toiled on film and episodic television shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, but now he is focused on ZIP codes closer to his Texas roots.

A recent winner of the Worldfest Houston Film Festival Platinum Remi Award for his feature documentary Truth be Tolled, Bill tellsthe story of foreign companies poised to make a fortune off the Trans-Texas Corridor and by charging tolls on existing Texas roadways already paid for by taxpayers.

“I never saw myself as a political activist. I just got really tired of seeing the direction our country is taking. When this issue of tolling our existing roads without a public vote came up, I got involved – not as a filmmaker – but as a concerned taxpaying citizen. There is a story to be told here not only about the double taxation of our roads but more importantly the TTC and the largest forcible eminent domain acquisition in U.S. history.”

Last year, Bill attended a public meeting on a proposed San Antonio toll road and noticed no one from the TV press was reporting on the debate or the other obvious toll issues.

“I picked up a video camera and started shooting these public meetings and became more annoyed that there was little or no press coverage. At one meeting, there were 800 people and I was the only one documenting the event with a camera. I ended up producing a documentary in order to share the truth with the public.”

Bill is currently retooling the film for a premiere in San Antonio later this month.

“My entire focus right now is this documentary. I’ve put my career on hold to produce this film. This is something for which people need to wake up and get involved. What’s at stake is far more than just a toll road.”

Always passionate about filmmaking, Bill also minored in speech and drama while at Trinity and credits several professors who served as mentors and jump started his career path.

“Steve Gilliam, department of speech and drama, was a great influence because he was very concerned about his students and gave us artistic freedom to be ourselves and accomplish what we could. Also, my advisor, David Thomas, department of communication, was instrumental in encouraging me to finish my first student film, Revelation, which was honored by the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences) student competition, leading the way to University Film and Video grant for my next film project.”

Bill says the turning point in his professional life in Hollywood was directing his first feature film Where Truth Lies, starring his idol, Malcolm McDowell.

“That was a trip in itself…to have Alex sitting in my car discussing Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange.”

The other star was Kim Cattrall (of Sex and the City fame) and Bill almost blew that first meeting when he got caught in traffic, showed up late, and then couldn’t produce his wallet to pay for the dinner.

“I walked out of the restaurant thinking my career was over, but Kim called back within an hour and agreed to do the movie,” laughs Bill.

“Although I’m still star struck by Hollywood, I know that there are so many other important issues in the world and I just needed to produce a film that would actually make a difference.”

You may contact Bill at the following email address:
stormpictures@earthlink.net

For more information on his documentary, Truth be Tolled:
http://www.truthbetolled.com/

TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads

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Link to articles here and here. Well, we ought to feel vindicated as news of what we’ve all known since Ric Williamson uttered this now famous quote, “In your lifetime, most existing roads will have tolls” (Houston Chronicle, Oct. 11, 2004)…the plan is to turn all our existing roads into toll roads and DOUBLE TAX, even TRIPLE TAX us to use them. What’s most shocking in this media frenzy is the pretense of outrage on the part of elected officials.

Gimme a break…TxDOT has been converting our existing state highways into tollways (281, 1604, 121) all over the state, with two interstates highways slated to be tolled (I-35 and I-10 in San Antonio and Houston), and they have done NOTHING to stop it! They all hide behind tough rhetoric, then give the green light to TxDOT to play a game of semantics and pretend that if they bulldoze our existing highways and do an elaborate and ghastly expensive re-arranging of the pavement, that they are somehow not tolling existing roads. It would be laughable were it not so serious.

We posted the news of TxDOT lobbying Congress to remove all limits to tolling interstates and their proposed buy back scheme that would give private corporations tax breaks on toll income in January. The Legislature was briefed on it in February! So when you read Senate Transportation Committee Chairman John Carona feign outrage, remember that. Who’s he kidding? A housewife in San Antonio knows this but not the Senate Transportation Committee Chairman?

TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Plan includes buying interstates and charging drivers a toll
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Houston Chronicle & Express-News, Austin Bureau
Aug. 31, 2007

AUSTIN — The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to “buy back” parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.The 24-page plan, outlined in a “Forward Momentum” report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.

“I think it’s a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas,” said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.

“I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly be opposed to such an idea,” he said. “The simple fact is that taxpayers have already paid for those roadways. To ask taxpayers to pay for them twice is untenable.”

The report not only advocates turning stretches of interstate highways into toll roads, but it also suggests tax breaks for private company “investment” in such enterprises.

Talk Back
• Do you think Texas should toll existing lanes?

Along with that, it calls for altering the tax code to exempt toll road owners from paying income taxes.

The agency’s attempt to influence Congress comes in on the heels of its multimillion-dollar advertising campaign touting the lightning-rod Trans-Texas Corridor plan and other toll roads.

With an estimated price tag of $7 million to $9 million, the “Keep Texas Moving” campaign comes even as transportation officials warn of an $86 billion shortfall for needed highway construction.

“It’s less than 50 cents a Texan,” Transportation Department spokesman Chris Lippincott said in defense of the ad campaign. “We could sit down and buy them a cup of coffee for that kind of money.”

Lippincott said he’s surprised by the reactions, noting the agency discussed the issue at four public meetings and sent a link to the draft report last December to all members of the Texas Legislature.

Besides, he said, state law would prevent the conversion of interstate highways into toll roads unless such a plan gained votes of county commissioners and taxpayers in a referendum.

Anti-toll road activist Sal Castello, the Austin-based founder of the TexasTollParty.com, said he’s frustrated by the “schemers and the scammers” who “never stop” divisive toll road proposals despite widespread opposition and fretted that a required referendum could be creatively worded to disguise the nature of toll road conversions.

Carona said he objects to the agency’s attempts to persuade Congress to allow federal highways to turn into toll roads because the interstate system was built as part of the national defense.

Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said the report appears to recycle ideas that led the Legislature this spring to pass a moratorium on construction of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a mammoth toll plan that’s the cornerstone of Gov. Rick Perry’s highways building proposal.

“This is not only double taxation, it is a violation of the trust that should exist between citizens and government,” she said. “Existing Texas highway lanes built with our tax dollars should not be converted to toll roads and taxed again.”

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the report in no way contradicts Perry’s repeated promise on highways that “if it’s free today it will be free tomorrow.”

That still holds true, he said, unless local voters say otherwise.

Meanwhile, “Texas will work to educate Congress of the importance of including reasonable and efficient funding solutions, such as tolling, in the next (highway funding) reauthorization bill,” the department’s report promises.

Next week Democratic state Reps. Joe Farias and David Leibowitz of San Antonio will join Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde, at a condemned gas station in San Antonio to air objections to the transportation department’s tolling ideas and ad campaign.

“TxDOT has crossed the line on a number of fronts in recent weeks, and elected representatives are prepared to fight,” said Terri Hall, founder of Texans United for Reform and Freedom, a grass-roots group to promote nontoll solutions to Texas’ transportation needs.

A third of Bexar County cannot afford basic necessities…so how can they afford tolls?

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It’s so basic…Bexar County can’t afford tolls. For all those who can afford them that may be business-owners, your employees can’t afford tolls even if you can. Having to pay a toll to go to work is like taking a pay cut. An employee may decide it’s not worth it to work in a tolled corridor and work where there aren’t tolls. Same is true of customers. Think about it…

A third of S.A. families don’t make enough to meet basic needs, report finds
By Aissatou Sidime
Express-News Business Writer
08/30/2007
A decent life is out of reach for many folks in San Antonio, according to a report released today.

A two-parent, two-child family in the San Antonio area needs at least $40,826 a year to afford housing, food, child care, health care, transportation, and other basic needs without relying on government assistance, according to the report by the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

And that’s if an employer pays 100 percent of health insurance premiums for employees and 50 percent for dependents.

About one-third of families don’t meet that goal.

San Antonio is the fifth most expensive metro area in Texas. The Fort Worth-Arlington area is the most expensive, with families needing $45,770 a year. The Brownsville-Harlingen area is the least expensive at $29,982 a year.

TxDOT's secret plan to toll existing interstates

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Link to article here. Toll Road News also told of this report earlier this year. But now the masses can learn of yet more TxDOT deception, lies, and slippery talking points.

EXCLUSIVE: Secret TexDOT Plan to Toll Existing Interstates
Internal report to Congress, obtained by 1200 WOAI news, urges Congress to ‘repeal’ laws prohibiting tolling Interstates
By Jim Forsyth
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
At the same time local officials assure us that tolls will ‘never’ be charged for traveling on existing highway lanes, 1200 WOAI news has obtained a Texas Transportation Commission report in which Tex-DOT officials discuss ways to impose tolls on existing interstate highways.The report, entitled ‘Forward Momentum, a Report to the 110th Congress,’ makes several recommendations to Congress on how best to upgrade the state’s highway system.

One section, entitled “Tolling Authority EXPANSION” (the capital letters are included in the report), discusses strategies Congress could use to allow Texas to charge tolls on existing Interstate highways, including Interstates 10, 35, and 27.

“Federal law generally prohibits imposing tolls on interstate highways for which federal funds have been used,” the report reads on page 11. “In several situations, however, Congress has enacted specific legislation to allow states to ‘buy back,’ or re-imburse the federal government, for federal funds applies to a highway segment, thereby relieving it of the prohibition against tolls.”

That’s right. Your state tax money would be used to ‘buy back’ highways your federal tax money has already paid for, so the state could charge you tolls to drive on that highway.

Chris Lippencott of TexDOT confirms the language in the report, but stresses that any tolling would not be done without the consent of local officials and the public.

“Even if the Congress allowed states to purchase back parts of the interstate, state law would still be in effect, and it would require TexDOT to seek the approval of not only a county’s Commissioners Court, but also the voters in that county, before we tolled existing lanes,” Lippencott said.

So we’ve gone from ‘existing lanes will never be tolled,’ to ‘existing lanes might be tolled with your consent.’

The TexDOT report proposes that ‘restrictions on tolling programs’ be removed, to ‘give states such as Texas, as many opportunities as possible for new funding alternatives.’

The report suggests that if Congress ‘authorizes states to implement interstate tolling options beyond current pilot programs’ it would ‘allow revenues from toll-financed facilities to be used for other critical system needs.’

“I’m not a political guru, but I would suggest to you that the likelihood of an existing lane being turned into a toll lane is pretty slim,” Lippencott said.

The TexDOT also brags that the Government Accountability Office has ‘cited Texas (and Governor Perry specifically) as a leader in using tolls to “reduce congestion”)’ Texans are being told that tolls would be collected to build badly needed highways, not to ‘reduce congestion.’

SPP puts UN in charge of U.S. in health crisis

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Link to article here.
The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) signed by Bush, the Prime Minister of Canada, and President of Mexico in March of 2005 is the framework for the NAFTA Superhighways, known as the Trans Texas Corridor in Texas. For more on the SPP go here.

U.S. under U.N. law in health emergency
Bush’s SPP power grab sets stage for military to manage flu threats
August 28, 2007
By Jerome R. Corsi
8/23/06
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America summit in Canada released a plan that establishes U.N. law along with regulations by the World Trade Organization and World Health Organization as supreme over U.S. law during a pandemic and sets the stage for militarizing the management of continental health emergencies.The “North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza” was finalized at the SPP summit last week in Montebello, Quebec.

At the same time, the U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, has created a webpage dedicated to avian flu and has been running exercises in preparation for the possible use of U.S. military forces in a continental domestic emergency involving avian flu or pandemic influenza.

With virtually no media attention, in 2005 President Bush shifted U.S. policy on avian flu and pandemic influenza, placing the country under international guidelines not specifically determined by domestic agencies.

The policy shift was formalized Sept. 14, 2005, when Bush announced a new International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza to a High-Level Plenary Meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, in New York.

The new International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza was designed to supersede an earlier November 2005 Homeland Security report that called for a U.S. national strategy that would be coordinated by the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Agriculture. The 2005 plan, operative until Bush announced the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, directed the State Department to work with the WHO and U.N., but it does not mention that international health controls are to be considered controlling over relevant U.S. statutes or authorities.

Under the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, Bush agreed the U.S. would work through the U.N. system influenza coordinator to develop a continental emergency response plan operating through authorities under the WTO, North American Free Trade Agreement and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

WND could find no evidence the Bush administration presented the Influenza Partnership plan to Congress for oversight or approval.

The SPP plan for avian and pandemic influenza announced at the Canadian summit last week embraces the international control principles Bush first announced to the U.N. in his 2005 International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza declaration.

The SPP plan gives primacy for avian and pandemic influenza management to plans developed by the WHO, WTO, U.N. and NAFTA directives – not decisions made by U.S. agencies.

The U.N.-WHO-WTO-NAFTA plan advanced by SPP features a prominent role for the U.N. system influenza coordinator as a central international director in the case of a North American avian flu or pandemic influenza outbreak.

In Sept. 2005, Dr. David Nabarro was appointed the first U.N. system influenza coordinator, a position which also places him as a senior policy adviser to the U.N. director-general.

Nabarro joined the WHO in 1999 and was appointed WHO executive director of sustainable development and health environments in July 2002.

In a Sept. 29, 2005, press conference at the U.N., Nabarro made clear that his job was to prepare for the H5N1 virus, known as the avian flu.

Nabarro fueled the global fear that an epidemic was virtually inevitable.

In response to a question about the 1918-1919 flu pandemic that killed approximately 40 million people worldwide, Nabarro commented, “I am certain there will be another pandemic sometime.”

Nabarro stressed at the press conference that he saw as inevitable a worldwide pandemic influenza coming soon that would kill millions.

He quantified the deaths he expected as follows: “I’m not, at the moment at liberty to give you a prediction on numbers, but I just want to stress, that, let’s say, the range of deaths could be anything from 5 to 150 million.”

In a March 8, 2006, U.N. press conference that was reported on a State Department website, Nabarro predicted an outbreak of the H5N1 virus would “reach the Americas within the next six to 12 months.”

On Feb. 1, 2006, NORTHCOM hosted representatives of more than 40 international, federal and state agencies for “an exercise designed to provoke discussion and determine what governmental actions, including military support, would be necessary in the event of an influenza pandemic in the United States.”

NORTHCOM and other governmental websites document the growing role the Bush administration plans for the U.S. military to be involved in continental domestic emergencies involving health, including avian flu and pandemic influenza.

NORTHCOM participated in a nationwide Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed exercise – code-named Exercise Ardent Sentry 06 – to rehearse cooperation between Department of Defense and local, state and federal agencies, as well as the Canadian government.

A pandemic influenza crisis was one of the four scenarios gamed in Exercise Ardent Sentry 06, involving a scenario of a plague in Mexico reaching across the border into Arizona and New Mexico.

As has been customary in SPP documents and declarations, the Montebello, Canada, announcement of the North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza acknowledges in passing the sovereignty of the three nations.

The announcement says, “The Plan is not intended to replace existing arrangements or agreements. As such, each country’s laws are to be respected and this Plan is to be subordinate and complementary to domestic response plans, existing arrangements and bilateral or multilateral agreements.”

Still, the SPP plan argues the risk from avian and pandemic influenza was so great to North America that the leaders of the three nations were compelled “to work collectively and with all levels of government, the private sector and among-non-governmental organizations to combat avian and pandemic influenza.”

Moreover, the SPP plan openly acknowledges, “The WHO’s international guidance formed much of the basis for the three countries’ planning for North American preparedness and response.”

WND previously reported NORTHCOM has been established with a command center at Peterson Air Force Base, tasked with using the U.S. military in continental domestic emergency situations.

WND also has reported President Bush signed in May two documents, National Security Presidential Directive-51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20, which give the office of the president extraordinary powers to declare national emergencies and to assume near-dictatorial powers.

Following the Montebello summit last week, the SPP North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza was published on a made-over SPP homepage redesigned to feature agreements newly reached by trilateral bureaucratic working groups.

Feds approve toll project on US 281

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Link to article here.

This “story” reads more like a tolling authority and TxDOT PR puff piece than a news article. I had multiple interviews with this reporter, he came to our Toll Party meeting and heard with his own ears that our primary reason for the lawsuit is to force TxDOT to install the gas tax funded plan on 281 rather than convert that existing FREEway into a tollway. There is no justification to pay tolls on a freeway that’s already built and paid for and where the improvements are already paid for. No where does he mention this in the story. He makes it appear as though the lawsuit is simply to stop “progress.” In not even 10 seconds on our web site he’d know this. We’ve advocated for the original already PAID FOR improvements for the overpasses and expansion of 281 since DAY ONE! It’s irresponsible journalism to purposely leave out this vital information! Email the Editor here bsimas@primetimenewspapers.com.

Feds approve toll project on U.S. 281 PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Congestion

A typical afternoon filled with congestion on north U.S. 281. Courtesy of the San Antonio Express-News

By Scott Mahon
Staff WriterThe Federal Highway Administration gave its approval to continue the toll project on U.S. Highway 281 after environmentalists brought the project to a standstill over a year ago, but the San Antonio Toll Party said it would file a lawsuit once again to challenge the project.

U.S. 281 is presently a four-to-six-lane highway. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, 8,600 vehicles per day traveled U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 in 1980. In 2005, 92,590 vehicles per day traveled the highway and it’s projected that by 2035 217,900 vehicles per day will travel the highway.

Because the state’s gas tax – 38.4 cents per gallon – has not been increased since 1991, state officials say current revenues from the gas tax are not sufficient to fund highway improvements.

The 77th Legislature approved legislation that allowed the construction of toll roads as an alternative means of funding the construction of improvements and new highways.

TxDOT then proposed building new toll lanes on U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Borgfeld Road. Motorists would have the option of driving on toll lanes or non toll lanes.

The project began in November 2005 and was originally scheduled to be completed in 2009 at a cost of $104 million, but work was stopped in February 2006 after toll road opponents and environmentalists filed a lawsuit claiming the project’s environmental impact had not properly been assessed.

Toll road opponents also have targeted other projects, including Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile network of toll roads with rail and utility lines that was planned to be funded through a private-public partnership with Cintra of Spain and Zachry Construction Co. of San Antonio.

Road Map

Courtesy San Antonio Express-News

In June 2007, the Legislature placed a two-year moratorium on toll projects funded by partnerships with private companies.At the same time, the Legislature gave local transportation authorities, including the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, the right to develop local toll projects.

According to the Alamo RMA, the U.S. 281 project will be constructed in two phases. The first phase will include toll lanes inside the existing lanes on U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Drive and is now estimated to cost $120 million.

“For three years drivers have been stuck in traffic,” said William Thornton, chairman of the Alamo RMA. “The decision by the Federal Highway Administration now means that our region can start addressing the serious congestion clogging our highways.”

Officials said the proposed improvements on U.S. 281 would provide motorists a choice of using toll lanes or not.

“No one will ever be forced to use a tolled lane in Bexar County. There will always be a choice between a toll and non-toll lane,” said Terry Brechtel, executive director of the Alamo RMA.

The second phase of the project will include improvements from Stone Oak Drive to Borgfeld Road, and eventually to the Blanco County line.

The estimated cost of the total project, including an interchange at Loop 1604, is approximately $600 million.

Construction of the first phase will begin in April or May of 2008, said Leroy Alloway, director of community relations for the Alamo RMA.

“The construction contract will be put out for bid,” Alloway said. “We will probably go to the bond market in the first quarter of 2008 to fund the first phase of the project.”

TxDOT officials said the U.S. 281 corridor has been studied numerous times since 1984, but special interest groups claimed that previous environmental studies did not comprehensively account for the potential impact of the proposed project.

But Alloway also said there would be a 180-day period during which “anyone could file a lawsuit challenging the findings of the Federal Highway Administration.”

Terri Hall of the San Antonio Toll Party said the environmental assessment approved by the FHA was a “cursory, low-level study” and promised her organization would file a lawsuit challenging the study.

“It’s just a bunch of game playing,” Hall said. “… you can’t tell me there’s not going to be an economic impact up and down the U.S. 281 corridor if they build toll lanes. So, yes, we definitely intend to file a lawsuit.”

SA Current: 281 DOUBLE TAX freeway toll plan

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Link to article here.

News
 Tarred & weathered
Inaction on 281-N put SA on freeway to double taxation

By Greg Harman 8/29/2007

No joke, U.S. 281-N is crippled.

Drivers crunch along each other in a diesel-tinged wash even as fresh cement tonnage is draped across the denuded landscape. New roofs sprout like an alien fungus with each morning sweat.

It’s the “dark side” at work, with massive residential and commercial developments rocketing far beyond the pitiable roadway’s ability to fill them with sleepers and shoppers.

In engineering parlance, 281-N is an “explosive region” marred by “interrupted flow” (read: turn lanes and traffic lights), and gobs of “external costs” (car crashes, death, etc.).

“It’s the dark side of capitalism,” says UTSA engineering professor Jose Weissman. “It’s only going to get worse.”

From a safety perspective, this is the worst the city has to offer.

By allowing continued development in Northern Bexar County without keeping up with road capacity, regional leaders ensured the convergence of 281 and 1604 would climb to the summit of the city’s “Top 10 Crash Locations” list, where it has stayed since 2004. City records list 177 accidents at the juncture so far this year. The Texas Department of Transportation has recorded 856 accidents and 87 fatalities on 281 between 1604 and the Comal County line between 1996 and 2001.

So why has the road remained such a miserly worm and the backdrop for so many Blood on the Highway remakes?

TxDOT blames environmentalists and the anti-toll contingent. Others blame TxDOT and toll-road blackmail.

A major 281-N overhaul was taking shape more than a decade ago, but privatization fever rocked everything in 2003.

Across the county, the next wave of Big Business profits was predicted to occur as typically publicly owned assets such as ports and highways were auctioned off to the private sector. The Texas Legislature was wild with Trans-Texas Corridor wine. Toll roads were being bottled and sold as transportation salvation and Texas drank deep. It was in this increasingly gridlocked and giddy state that a directive came down from TxDOT: all future “capacity projects” must be tolled if proven viable.

Though critics argued 281, just months away from a major expansion, didn’t exactly qualify as a “future capacity project,” state brakes squealed in ’04.

Bexar County Commissioner Lyle Larson was chairman of the San Antonio – Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization at the time. He remembers those early promises of six luscious lanes, traffic-light-hopping overpasses, and business-friendly feeders.

Three overpasses that were to rise in 2004 didn’t. Instead, following the new toll directive, TxDOT borrowed from other state efforts to double size of the freeway expansion and convert it all into an $80-million toll project.

San Antonio’s Aquifer Guardians and People for Efficient Transportation sued after 281 was repo’d by the TxDOT toll roaders and additional lanes started popping up on engineering charts.

To those who fought the toll solution, TxDOT’s behavior smelled like blackmail.

“The slowing of capacity I think was in some ways intentional,” says Larson. The worse the roads got, the easier it would be to gain public acceptance of tolls, went the thinking.

Under pressure from the state to adopt the toll project, local planners buckled. “The whole state abdicated their responsibility here,” Larson said. “They said, ‘Either you toll or the roads won’t be fixed.’”

Larson conducted his own lobby of letters, drafting numerous communicades to Governor Perry and House Speaker Craddick. He wanted state gas-tax dollars, long an income stream siphoned for related (and not-so-related) purposes by the Texas Legislature, restored to the state’s highway fund and channeled back into Bexar County asphalt (See “Your gas-tax detour,” page 12).

Though most went unanswered, Larson’s request that popular votes be required before toll roads were unrolled across existing state highways received a mealy-mouthed reply from Perry.

“You may also be interested to know,” the Guv wrote blithely back for the first and last time on the topic in March of ’06, “that no urban community is required to build toll roads. These decisions are made by local officials, and only new lanes may be tolled – not existing lanes.”

Then the line to the state Capitol went dead.

Several more letters were sent out by Larson’s office. No response.

The full Commissioner’s Court joined him in requesting Perry’s help steering diverted gas-tax funds back to their intended purpose of repairing and expanding state highways.

“Since 1986, over $9.3 billion has been diverted from Fund Six, the State Highway Fund. The Bexar County region has immediate combined transportation infrastructure needs totaling over a billion dollars. As a result of these diversions, our region is unable to meet the transportation needs of this community using traditional funding mechanisms,” the Commissioners wrote.

Austin didn’t send a rescue party to Bexar, but an apparently repentant Lege followed their pay-to-play bacchanal with a sackcloth moratorium bill this year, declaring a two-year study period before new toll roads could get underway. However, virtually every project in the chute, about $15-billion worth, was exempted.

Meanwhile, as traffic on 281 climbed past 91,000 vehicles per day (from roughly 8,000 a day in 1980), the highway department’s expected fix-it costs have also taken wing. The cost of this 7.5-mile stretch running north from 1604 has leapt to $400 million for a collection of up to 19 tolled and non-tolled lanes. Add a nifty interchange and the total price tag noses $600 mil.

If ever there was a portrait of potential future environmental degradation, one would think a 400-foot swath of cement and asphalt cutting over the Edwards Aquifer’s recharge zone would be it. Still, TxDOT’s Environmental Assessment returned a clear-eyed wink and a FONSI, or Finding of No Significant Impact.

While transportation-related sites have leaked hazardous chemicals into the Edwards and Trinity aquifers along the road, the road itself shouldn’t be held responsible.

“There are no well-documented incidents of contamination of the Edwards Aquifer in Comal or Bexar counties from non-point sources of contamination,” the agency’s Environmental Assessment reads.

But considering the road stands to convert 142 square miles of land to “developed uses,” according to TxDOT’s report, surely the road should bear some responsibility. Not at all, the authors stress: Development is something for local officials to manage.

Of several spills that have reached the aquifer from the edge of 281, the worst involved 800 gallons of gasoline at the Texaco at 281 and Borgfeld Road – the current project’s northern-most terminus.

TxDOT’s District Engineer David Casteel says there is “no conspiracy” at play here. While his agency has come under increasing scrutiny for assigning millions of dollars to public relations to sell toll roads to a resistant public, Casteel runs a less-conspicuous lobby. For instance, decision-makers in San Antonio recently received a fax from Casteel, presenting them with pro-toll literature prepared by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. It claimed that to avoid toll roads in Austin, drivers would have to eat a 72-cent gas-tax increase. However, the chamber’s math is challenged by a report by the Governor’s Business Council, which proposed that the state’s major transportation needs could be met by an eight-cent-per-gallon fuel-tax increase, if properly adjusted for inflation. Casteel vigorously disputes the report, insisting the research suffers from many flawed assumptions.

Still, Casteel says TxDOT is ready with $102 million earmarked for U.S. 281 improvements (secured in ways he folksily compared to “borrowing money from your in-laws to build your house”) and blames the road delay on AGUA’s 2005 lawsuit.

While the suit appears to have delayed the toll road two years and cost TxDOT $2 million for additional study, the machinery is warming up again – this time with blessing from the Federal Transportation Authority.

For Larson’s part, he says that the toll roads can only be stopped by the Attorney General ruling against TxDOT logic by declaring 281 an “existing roadway.”

“If the Attorney General declares these roads as existing roads then 1604 and 281 will not be tolled,” Larson said.

Teri Hall, regional director for the San Antonio Toll Party, said her group is busily rounding up the lawyers and ink for another suit. “If we don’t challenge them in court, no one’s going to,” said Hall. She and many others still want the freeway expansion plan TxDOT scuttled in 2004.

“They have a less invasive, more affordable – more viable – alternative than that toll road. They have no argument to that.”

There is an argument, however. And it’s curt.

“There’s no money,” said a local TxDOT flak last week. There’s certainly not $600 million in the kittie, critics agree, but that $102 million could get things started. Or refunding some of those billions in diversions from the state gas tax from the state’s current surplus would be even better. •

Your Gas-Tax Detour

Texans currently cough up 20 cents in state gas tax for every gallon they gulp. Intended to maintain and expand our highway system, the gas tax has been a go-to for numerous pet programs in Austin.

With TxDOT claims that a funding crisis necessitates toll-road solutions, an increasing number of voices are asking for the diverted monies to be restored to highway spending.

Already, about $8.6 billion in scratch has been scattered to hungry state agencies and programs, including Texas Department of Health parking lots, the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway, mobile refrigeration, worker’s compensation, and auto-theft prevention efforts, among others. Bills carried this past session by State Representative Robert Puente and Senator Jeff Wentworth meant to patch up the tax tank conked out in committee.

Where do Texas gas tax dollars go – other than SA freeways? Here are a few examples of your tax dollars are work … elsewhere.

Department of Public Safety: $5.4 billion
Medical Transportation Program: $111.8 million
Department of Criminal Justice: $30 million
Gulf Intracoastal Waterway: $11.6 million
Aviation: $208 million
Vehicle Sales Tax to General Revenue: $1.4 billion
County Roads: $77.2 million
Mental Health Mental Retardation: $13.9 million
Texas Historic and Arts Commissions: $9.6 million
Auto Theft Prevention: $20.4 million
Cemetery Land: $7.5 million


SOURCE: Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce

More Bexar County residents living in poverty…toll roads will only make it worse

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Link to article here.

The data out today further demonstrates what we already know, Bexar County can’t afford toll roads. Forbes Magazine listed San Antonio in the Top 10 cities hardest hit by high gas prices. The toll viability studies show toll roads aren’t viable at $3 a gallon for gas. It’s inexplicable why politicians continue down the road of unsustainable transportation policies. Tolling our roads will make too many residents second class citizens priced off our FREEways, though they still pay gas tax for highways. Read more about it here and here.

Poverty pinches South Texas


By Nancy Martinez
Express-News
08/29/2007

While the nation’s poverty rate declined for the first time in 10 years, new census figures released Tuesday reinforced what many here have known for years: Residents in Texas, especially South Texas, are among the country’s poorest.About 3.7 million Texans were living in poverty last year. Brownsville, College Station and Edinburg were among the top U.S. cities of 65,000 or more with the highest rate of poverty, between 35 percent and 40 percent, according to estimates in the report, part of the 2006 Census Bureau’s American Community annual survey.

The figures are important for Texas, which ranked ninth in the highest rate of poverty and first for the highest percentage of people in the nation without health insurance, since they are used to decide eligibility for things like federal housing, health, nutrition and child care benefits.

In fiscal 2007, nearly $419 million in federal money was doled out to states for such social services, among other things, according to Federal Funds Information for States, an arm of the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“Despite five years of economic growth, Texas’ poverty rate has stagnated,” said Frances Deviney, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, based in Austin. “It’s encouraging that conditions haven’t gotten worse, but 3.7 million in the state are poor, and it’s no different than two and five years ago.”

Meanwhile, more Bexar County residents were living in poverty last year — 16.7 percent compared to 13.9 percent in 2005, according to the survey.

More coverage

This is the first year the American Community Survey included other groups, such as prisons, military bases, college dormitories and assisted-living homes, in its calculations.

Because of the change, it’s difficult to determine the reasons behind the local increase in poverty, Deviney said.

“We’re not comparing apples to apples,” she said.

The Bexar rate compares to the national poverty rate, which dropped to 12.3 percent last year, or 36.5 million Americans, down from 12.6 percent in 2005, according to the survey.

That means about 251,864 people in Bexar County were living below the poverty level last year, according to estimates in the report.

The poverty threshold depends on the number of children in a household. For a family of three with two children, it’s an annual income of $16,242, and for a family of four with two children, it’s $20,444.

“There seems to be a growing disparity,” said Shannon Nisbet, Director of Development at the Family Service Association, which provides a host of services to the needy. “Those who have money are getting more of it. Those who don’t are getting poorer. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle class.”

Last year, 81 percent of the 48,000 local people the association served had incomes of less than $15,000. One of those people was Janie Cardenas.

Cardenas, 34, and her four children, ages 15, 12, 6 and 1, slept in the same bedroom Monday night on the Northwest Side.

Living on a tight budget means the bedroom was without air conditioning, which broke earlier in the day.

Cardenas works full time as an attendance secretary at Clark High School and makes $1,300 per month. She gets $248 per month in food stamps and sometimes gets assistance to pay her utility bill. She could be getting disability benefits — a result of a fall when she was 2 years old that temporarily paralyzed her — but chooses to work.

“My life is a roller coaster,” she said. “I try to manage and do the best I can.”

Still, Cardenas is grateful that at least her family is insured — a safety net that many cannot claim.

The number of people without health insurance in the U.S. also increased, to 47 million.

A three-year average for years 2004 to 2006 found Texas had the most uninsured in the country, 24.1 percent of residents. The national rate of uninsured is 15.3 percent.

Nationally, Hispanic children were about three times as likely to be without health insurance, compared with Anglo children in 2006, according to the Census Bureau.

The real median household income in Texas rose between 2005 and 2006 to $44,900.

But Texas also had the two lowest median household incomes among counties with 250,000-plus population in the country: Cameron and Hidalgo counties.

Karl Eschbach, interim director of the Texas Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio, noted long-term trends found across the country.

“Incomes have tended to rise at the top of the distribution and declining stay at the bottom. Knowledge and skills are being rewarded, and if you don’t have knowledge and skills, there are lots of pressures,” he said.

The Associated Press, News Researcher Julie Domel, Director of News Research Michael Knoop and Database Editor Kelly Guckian contributed to this report.

Sparks fly at MPO as TxDOT cuts road congestion projects

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Link to articles here and here. Note one of the best lines at yesterday’s MPO was from Commissioner Lyle Larson who said dealing with TxDOT and their constantly changing “now you see it now you don’t” tactics on funding vital projects, along with a long string of lies, half truths, and broken promises, is like “dealing with a snake oil salesman.” Here, here! Be sure you catch this outstanding editorial that summarizes how we got here very well. Catch the Toll Party comments that take on the San Antonio Mobility Coalition’s (SAMCo) presentation here.

Planning board members miffed at stalled road projects
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
08/27/2007

City Councilwoman Diane Cibrian got testy when she heard about the latest highway projects getting axed.County Commissioner Lyle Larson carped about vital projects falling by the wayside.

And Texas Department of Transportation officials spread the blame on why $57 million worth of work to widen three local highways must be scuttled in fiscal year 2008. It’s two-thirds of what was planned.

Cash doesn’t flow like it used to, not with inflation for construction materials and workers skyrocketing 73 percent over the past five years, TxDOT officials on Monday told the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which allocates federal gas tax funds in San Antonio.

“Inflation is just eating our lunch,” said David Casteel of TxDOT, who along with Cibrian and Larson is a member of the 19-member planning board.

TxDOT officials are paranoid about letting existing roads and bridges deteriorate further, and to keep up they will have to slash $965 million from congestion relief projects statewide and pour it into maintenance work.

San Antonio’s share of cuts will delay three projects:

$38 million to add lanes on Interstate 10 from Huebner Road to Loop 1604.

$10 million to widen Loop 1604 to four lanes from FM 78 to Lower Seguin Road.

$9 million to widen FM 3009 to four lanes from Interstate 35 to Nacogdoches Road.

“I’m deeply concerned,” Cibrian said. “Development is coming from absolutely everywhere. We cannot sustain this kind of traffic.”

She demanded to know why work on I-10 hadn’t already started and why the project was targeted in the cutbacks.

TxDOT engineer Clay Smith said a 2005 lawsuit to stop construction of toll lanes on U.S. 281 had inadvertently forced the state to redo environmental studies for several area roadways. The new I-10 lanes would link to both tolled and free ramps at Loop 1604.

Now the $38 million price tag tops the $29 million that TxDOT will have next year for widening local highways, he said.

Larson, still miffed about TxDOT killing a plan several years ago for three miles of freeway and a non-toll overpass on U.S. 281 and replacing it with a proposed tollway, warned the board not to let the newest cuts slip into oblivion. “These have to roll over and be pushed prior to any other project,” he said.

When the board heard from the public, toll critic Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party blasted Smith for blaming the lawsuit on delaying projects.

She said TxDOT stalled U.S. 281 work years before the lawsuit so the freeway plan could be converted to a tollway. “It is simply because TxDOT wants to tax-toll us for the rest of our lives out there.”

________________________________

This next story below doesn’t tell the whole exchange between Councilwoman Sheila McNeil and Representative David Leibowitz. Rep. Leibowitz did more than ask why, he said if someone has a beef with a member of the Board, they should be able to address them directly. Ever heard of free speech, Ms. McNeil? When TxDOT operates in secrecy, doesn’t tell the truth, and wants to enact oppressive toll taxation on roads already built and paid for, the citizens have few opportunities to share their grievances face to face, and even then, are usually confined to 3 minutes during Citizens to be Heard.

Nothing in our comments were personal attacks. Rather, we were using TxDOT’s own documents to publicly shame them for defrauding the public and to call them out on their lies. Frankly, they need more than just a few minutes of flack, they need to be prosecuted for illegally using taxpayer money!

More road cuts, more heat
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
August 28, 2007
The Texas Department of Transportation, tasked with delivering another round of bad news to the local Metropolitan Planning Organization, took a beating Monday.

County Commissioner Lyle Larson, a critic of the state shifting roadway costs to local governments, got in a couple of swift jabs at a meeting of the MPO board on which he sits.

Talking about what he said was an understanding that TxDOT would reimburse the county in full to widen roads such as Culebra and Blanco, but which later turned into a promise to repay some of the costs, he said:

It’s like we’re negotiating with snake-oil salesman.

Ouch.

TxDOT officials didn’t reply.

After a short video was shown of a recent meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission, which oversees TxDOT, he said:

Was that Satan’s den we were looking at?

That actually got some chuckles from other board members.

But when Terri Hall of San Antonio Toll Party addressed the board and laid into a TxDOT engineer over who stalled what on U.S. 281 plans, City Councilwoman Sheila McNeil, chairing her second MPO board meeting, came to the rescue.

“Ms. Hall, Ms. Hall,” McNeil interjected to get her attention. “Can you address the chair please?”

State Rep. David Leibowitz, who joined the board last month after nudging by Hall to steer him to a vacancy, asked why.

McNeil said it was to avoid personal attacks.

“I prefer that they address the chair,” she said.

Meanwhile, facing construction inflation that has galloped 73 percent over the last five years and almost a billion dollars in federal takebacks from Texas that last spring delayed $132 million worth of highway work over the next decade in San Antonio, TxDOT officials on Monday unveiled the latest cutbacks.

In an effort to keep roads and bridges from deteriorating further, money for congestion-relief projects in fiscal 2008 will be shifted to maintenance, officials said. San Antonio’s share of the cuts will delay three projects worth $57 million, two-thirds of what was planned, which is less than losses in Houston, Dallas and Austin.

For more, see these reports:

Toll Party takes on SAMCo, TxDOT and the pro-tollers on the MPO

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MPO COMMENTS
August 27, 2007

In response to SAMCO Statements –

While the picture SAMCO paints is quite grim, I believe many seem to be suffering from short term memory loss…the A&M Study released not even a year ago, flat out, unequivocally states WE DO NOT NEED A SINGLE TOLL ROAD IN TX to meet our future transportation needs! Let’s remember how we got into this mess. Mr. Boyer rightly points to the Legislature who has perpetually raided gas tax revenues for more than 20 years…to the tune of more than $10 billion! On the federal level, a highway bill with 6,000 earmarks and the bridge to nowhere benefiting 55 people versus properly funding the building and maintenance of our Nation’s major arteries represents more egregious malfeasance. It’s not the taxpayers responsibility to bail out their leaky boat.

Let’s talk about why the Legislature hasn’t addressed transportation funding issues. First, there are many who wish to keep starving the gas tax to push a toll agenda. Second, TxDOT has put out at least 6 different figures of how much of a gas tax increase is needed. The Legislature, nor anyone else, can get straight, honest answers from TxDOT. They change their numbers more often than they change their underwear. Given this total breech in trust, Legislators were not about to put their toe in the water to raise gas taxes when the target kept moving. Third, TxDOT is up for sunset review in 2009. Once the Legislature gets a top to bottom look at TxDOT’s books, they’ll have a much better idea of what the true shortfall is, what the true gas tax figure is and will be able to have a true transportation debate since Mike Krusee will no longer Chair the House Transportation Committee. Trust me, Mike Krusee will not be returning to the Legislature! Then, let’s not forget the second State Audit Report that confirmed what the A&M Study also found, that TxDOT’s supposed funding gap is nearly half what they claim it is.

All that to say, we’re NOT going to keep pumping money into your coffers only to watch it get diverted time and again feeding this perpetual cycle of failing to fund the necessities so government can use it as an excuse to keep raising taxes.

Now, SAMCo’s comments were misleading and in some cases completely false. Let’s take them one by one.

• The MPOs funding gap figure is based on a wish list and would amount to $10,500 per person in San Antonio (based on population figure of 1.8 million people). Considering most of those people are children and that children don’t drive, that dollar amount is even greater per motorist. So what you’re proposing is outlandish and unsustainable. Let’s not forget that by the Governor’s own admission, those figures are based on sky’s the limit, money is no object wish lists, not “needs.” So let’s inject some sanity back into the process by using realistic figures and determine the true needs before we continue this sky is falling if we don’t increase every tax to fund roads mantra.

• SAMCo on one hand says we’re getting so maxed out on bonding that our category 2 funds will be diminished by more than $100 million a year using the vast majority of money for congestion relief to retire the debt we’re already in. Then on the other hand, SAMCo supports even more bonds. Pay as you go is looking better every day!

• The state gas tax has outpaced population growth and inflation by 178% (from 1984-2004). There has been a steady increase in gas tax revenues…it has not remained flat as SAMCO states.

• Who’s to blame for delays on 281? It was the FHWA not the lawsuit that required TxDOT to redo its environmental study for 281. Why was a lawsuit filed? Because TXDOT refused to install and refused to consider the gas tax funded plan as a viable option. Were it not for TxDOT and this MPO converting that freeway into a toll road, there would not be this battle over 281. It is totally disingenuous to blame concerned citizens for some erroneous $230 million in delays on 281. That is not an apples to apples figure. The toll road footprint is twice the size, takes twice as long to build, and will now cost 4 times more than the original gas tax plan. If anyone is costing the taxpayer more money, it’s TxDOT. Tolling it will cost the taxpayers $400 million PLUS a lifetime in new toll taxes. It’s the toll plan and TxDOT that is responsible for cost increases, not citizens asking for the vastly cheaper, less invasive gas tax plan that not only takes half the time to build, but would have been done already. The citizens have said from DAY ONE, install the gas tax plan and stop defrauding the public about your intentions to toll an existing freeway. The blame for any delays on 281 rest squarely with TxDOT and the politicians who enable them.

• Population growth doesn’t necessarily necessitate the need for more highways if we grow up and not out. Let’s also remember that population increases mean gas tax revenues increase. Population growth alone versus actually looking at congestion is a false argument.

• SAMCo says the Legislature did not give any new funding for highways…well, what’s doubling TxDOT’s bonding capacity and returning $50 million per year (in HB 2093) to transportation that were previously diverted?

• Mr. Boyer either didn’t read or doesn’t understand the implications of SB 792, though Jaime Castillo’s article on July 22, 2007 does. He seems to think the RMA is pursuing a traditional toll project like Houston and Dallas. That’s not true. Former Transportation Commissioner now Senator Robert Nichols has confirmed that all traditional turnpikes have been replaced by market-based tolling in SB 792. That means now even the public tolling entities will not simply base the toll rate on the actual cost of building the road, but on how much profit they think they can make for the road. The RMA will have to come up with that pre-determined profit and put it in an up front account just like the private equity concession model. It translates into the highest possible tolls and taxing one corridor to death to fund roads elsewhere in the region.

• SAMCO would use the taxpayers money that helps fund them far better if it would study the impacts of increasing the cost of transportation on the economy. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledged how high gas prices are hurting the economy and market-based tolls will only hasten that effect, not help it. Yes, there’s a cost to sitting in traffic, but the cost of tolling and the debt to finance the fix costs far more.

• SAMCO wants to define our congestion challenges and find additional ways to manage congestion. Here’s some that cost next to nothing. The Federal Highway Administration lists the top 3 reasons for congestion/road delay have nothing to do with road capacity. They’re accidents, weather, and road construction itself. TxDOT needs to immediately implement an incident management program to help clear accidents quickly like Houston and other metro cities. Also, as columnist Ken Allard recently suggested, much of our current congestion is TxDOT-induced due to tearing up every major artery all over the City all at once, bottling up traffic everywhere with no alternate routes. Smarter planning and basic consideration of motorists’ needs when considering construction schedules would go a long way to solving man-made congestion! TxDOT should also immediately better synchronize the stop lights on US 281 and use the right of way already acquired to add additional left and right turn lanes at those lights.

Excerpts from Lone Star Report–
Today’s Lone Star Report has an Op/Ed that nails what’s wrong with transportation in this country –

Maybe if TxDOT pursued rational transportation policies, the public support would follow, and it could spend that $9 million (being spent on an ad campaign pushing tolls) building and maintaining roads.

Borrowing money and deficit spending are called “innovative financing< ;/span> techniques.” The term “public-private partnerships” is used to describe mortgaging public property. Tax hikes are called “market-based” or “value-based” tolling or “market valuations.” Government-sanctioned monopolies are referred to as “introducing competition to transportation financing.”

Here’s why Texans ought to be concerned.

Borrowing carries a price tag. The Texas Constitution has traditionally eschewed deficit spending and required existing revenue to pay for existing spending. Now, the state wants to build most of its roads by borrowing, either publicly or by getting a private firm to agree to borrow money, build a road, and collect tolls.

Funding gap wish list not needs- It also shows a lack of priorities at the agency. Most Americans would love a longer vacation, a fancier home, and a nicer car. But their wallets get in the way. Every day, Texans take their limited resources and differentiate between wants and needs. The government should do so also.

In the 2007 transportation compromise, Perry insisted on “market-based tolling,” whereby the tolls for new highways are set above the cost to build and maintain the road. Perhaps one could call a toll a “user fee” if the amount of the toll reflected the cost of building and maintaining the road (though even that’s debatable). But when money is taken from a government-sanctioned toll road monopoly and used to build other free roads, that’s a tax.

Simply stated, Perry is raising taxes.

These bad transportation policies are being promoted not only here but also by the U.S. Department of Transportation and in other states like Indiana, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. But just because George W. Bush likes something doesn’t make it right or conservative.

There is a better alternative. It starts with the recognition that building roads is a legitimate function for government, as recognized by the U.S. and Texas constitutions.

Once the state has gone through the process (of properly evaluating the costs vs benefits), then and only then should discussion of tolling begin.

It’s time to stop pushing public policies that primarily benefit a select few highway contractors and investment bankers at the expense of the motoring public.

Instead, let’s put a spirit of public service back into TxDOT and enact transportation policies that provide accountability and frugality.

In response to attitudes survey going to a pro-toll contractor –
We object to the fact that no elected officials were on the oversight committee for the attitudes survey. Also, 4 of the 7 appointees consistently vote pro-toll. The RMA is not even a voting member and yet it’s on this committee. Who’s representing the opposite point of view on this committee? Once again, the make-up of this committee fails to give proper representation of the citizens’ repeated concerns and overtly leans pro-toll by its very make-up. How are to trust that the results will be fair and impartial?

The President of the ETC Research firm has a background working for the very people pushing toll roads like speaking to the transportation industry at two Transportation Management Summits sponsored by the TMA Council of the Association of Commuter Transportation (made-up of a host of both public and private highway interests, and actively advocates tolling) with the support of the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and U. S. Department of Energy. HOV/HOT Council Chair is with the Texas Transportation Institute. Using this and most of the companies under consideration will no doubt mean a skewed result.

TxDOT’s first choice was Thompson Marketing whose clients also include highway engineering firms. It seems this body pathologically goes to EVERY extent conceivable to push a pre-determined agenda, toll roads, versus find some market research firm that isn’t tied to the highway lobby and apply unbiased, scientific principles to truly gauge effects of high gas prices on people’s attitudes about toll roads and transportation. Frankly when you have appointees and no elected officials sit on this survey committee, stacked with those who are toll proponents, the agenda is obvious.

Will the questions inform citizens that TxDOT already has a gas tax funded plan for improvements to 281 that is half the footprint of the toll road, one-quarter the cost, and half the construction time? Will they be told that it should have been completed in 2004 but people languish in traffic today because they chose to convert an existing freeway already paid for into a toll road and DOUBLE TAX 281 users to fund other road projects elsewhere? Will they be told their ONLY non-toll option will be access roads? Will respondents be pooled from the northside where all the toll roads are currently planned? Will the citizens be told that the TX Transportation Institute study says we don’t need a single toll road to meet out future transportation needs? Will they be told that toll roads cost more to build and maintain than freeways and that a HEAP of gas taxes (like $363 million on 1604 alone) will go into building the toll roads but you can’t drive on them without paying a DOUBLE TAX, a toll tax? Will they be told these multi-billion dollar tax decisions are being made by unelected bureaucrats resulting in taxation without representation?

Will they be informed as to the cost escalations from $1.4 billion to $2.2 billion for just the first 47 miles on 2 highways (compared to the entire Phase II toll roads proposed in Austin being $2.2 billion for 7 or more projects)? Will they be told of the waste and misuse of gas taxes by the highway department like $7-9 million dollar ad campaigns, and millions to restore historic courthouses while we languish in traffic? Will they be told that market-based tolls have replaced traditional turnpikes like the ones in Houston and Dallas and they can expect tolls to start at 29 cents a mile up to $1.50 a mile like in Austin which means $2,000-$4,000 a year in new toll taxes versus 1-3 cents a mile in gas tax? Bottom line: will they be properly informed of the truth or be treated to a dose of pro-toll, TxDOT/RMA spin?