Human Events: Texas Toll Road Plan Stirs Grassroots Protest

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

Texas Toll Road Plan Stirs Grassroots Protest
By Gary Hoitsma (more by this author)
Human Events Online
03/12/2007

The conventional wisdom among conservatives about the benefits of privatizing government programs is being severely tested in a heretofore largely obscure controversy that is now blossoming in America’s heartland. When up to several thousand people gathered in vigorous protest March 2 at the majestic state capitol in Austin, there were echoes of the formative beginnings of similar grassroots protest movements of other eras, in which the organizers were not professional political activists, but rather genuinely fed-up ordinary citizens motivated by a combination of self-interest and patriotism to seek a legitimate redress of grievances. Almost 30 years ago, a similar citizen protest movement in California over high taxes (the Prop 13 movement) sparked a national political wave that helped elect a conservative president in 1980.It remains to be seen if the current brewing controversy in Texas will have the same kind of political “legs,” but it is surely worth watching. At issue is the efficacy and wisdom of Texas’ grandiose public plan to phase in the construction of a statewide network of over 4,000 miles of new toll roads designed to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure to meet the demands of expected booming population growth in the 21st Century. The heavily-traveled Laredo-to-Dallas route, currently served by Interstate 35, is the initial focus of attention. The plan, which is strongly backed by Texas’ Republican Governor Rick Perry, was authorized in state law several years ago with relatively little fanfare by bipartisan majorities in the state legislature.

The plan’s central feature calls for the financing of the new highways through so-called “public-private partnerships” in which private companies will be permitted to invest billions of dollars in up-front capital to build the roads (or sections of roads) in return for the lion’s share of the revenue that tolls on those roads will generate over contract periods of 50 years and more. The tolls are supposed to not only pay the private companies back for the cost and maintenance of the roads, but also to provide these companies’ private investors with a healthy long-term profit.

Such an arrangement sharply breaks tradition with how major highway infrastructure has been financed and built in the United States since the highly successful Interstate highway program began in the mid-1950’s. The building of America’s Interstates, widely considered to be one of the largest and most positively consequential construction projects in human history, was the result of a wholly-owned multi-billion dollar government program financed on an essentially pay-a-you-go basis through Federal and state excise taxes levied on gasoline.

By contrast, the Texas toll road plan, commonly known as the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), is being promoted by its backers with the confident assertion that it will involve no new taxes and no government funds or public-account deficit spending, state or federal. Instead, it is claimed that the vaunted “private sector” will bear all the costs, debt, burdens and risks involved. And it will get new roads built, relieve traffic congestion and bring economic benefits to local communities at least 30 years faster than could be possible with the existing gas-tax funded programs. So who could possibly be against that?

Enter Hank Gilbert, businessman, rancher, and last year’s unsuccessful Democrat candidate for state agriculture commissioner, who played a central role in organizing the eclectic March 2 protest rally against the toll road plan at the state capitol. The sign-waving gathering of many farmers and ranchers included assorted “Reagan” Democrats, conservative Republicans, and independents of varying stripes. “There’s no doubt there’s a huge groundswell of opposition to the TTC,” Gilbert said, noting that after examining the emerging details of what they voted for, “politicians will realize that those of us who’ve been fighting this thing are not just lunatics.” He cited one of the bill’s original co-authors in the legislature who now has major qualms about how it is being implemented.

TTC opponents, who overwhelmed a recent open legislative committee hearing with requests to speak, cite a litany of concerns. While some on the other side suggest these concerns are wrong, overblown, or dip into “black helicopter” territory, it is clear that most of these issues are not going away anytime soon. For example, it is said by TTC opponents that:
• “Private sector” in this case largely means foreign-owned financial holding companies that will end up essentially owning vital U.S. transportation infrastructure in perpetuity along with preferential rights to concessions and economic development activities (including the building of hotels and shopping malls) within the roads’ rights-of-way.

• The necessary abrupt taking of private property through “eminent domain” and the lack of adequate interchanges and on-off ramps on the proposed new toll roads will wreak havoc on property owners, countryside landscapes and local communities, unnecessarily disrupting traditional in-state travel patterns and forms of commerce.

• The real hidden purpose of the project has little to do with benefiting the citizens of Texas, but is rather designed to facilitate burgeoning NAFTA freight traffic–shipping imports arriving at Mexican ports directly to points north–to Kansas City and beyond. The idea is to help create an eventual “North American union” of essentially borderless commerce whose unintended consequences will involve more illegal immigration, smuggling, and foreign terrorism.

• The tolls will be configured in a way to benefit foreign investors, meaning they will be higher and much longer-lasting (if not permanent) than commonly used tolls merely designed to pay off costs of construction and maintenance. Indeed, the necessarily higher interest costs will make the actual overall costs of the roads themselves considerably higher than if funded through normal government mechanisms.

• The difference between “taxes” and “tolls” will be lost on road users, who will end up paying twice for transportation projects as the plan envisions no elimination or reduction of existing gas taxes.

• In sum, the project threatens the safety, security, and sovereignty of America in the name of globalization and unfettered free trade.

On the other side, TTC supporters, who include officials of the Texas Department of Transportation and many Republicans led by Governor Perry, reject all of these arguments. They point to the huge potential economic benefits of improved transportation and the innovative leveraging of private financing that can be a model for the rest of country, saving taxpayers billions of dollars over the long term.In the process, they suggest that conservatives should be pleased to endorse the implementation of their own long-standing rhetoric about the positive idea of “privatization” as a better and more efficient way to do jobs that government bureaucrats need no longer do. Judging by the “conservatives” standing for hours in the Austin sun the other day, it appears that many are not yet so pleased.

Mr. Hoitsma, a managing associate with Carmen Group, Inc., a Washington, D.C., government affairs firm, made his way from his home state of New Jersey to be a youth field coordinator on the 1976 Texas Reagan campaign.

North American Union: Fact or Fiction?

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

North American Union: Fact or fiction?
By Henry Lamb
World Net Daily
March 10, 2007

Reaction to reports about a possible North American Union have been robust, to say the least.

Reaction from a few conservative pundits is way beyond robust, nearing the ridiculous. Popular radio talk-show host, Michael Medved, describes the journalists reporting on the possible North American Union as ” bastards and creeps and jug-heads and drunks and reprobates.”

John Hawkins, a blogger at Right Wing News says claims about a North American Union are ”… not true at all.” He then explains why he thinks the claims are false.
People who are unfamiliar with the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or the North America Free Trade Agreement, or the Trans-Texas Corridor, or the European Union could easily believe the very superficial analysis of these two, and other pundits who have ridiculed the formation of what could easily become a North American Union.
About the only thing that is correct in the reaction of either of these two pundits is the fact that no one is admitting officially that a North American Union is under construction.

What is quite publicly under construction is a ”North American Community,” with the express goal of deeper ”integration” of the economies and culture of the United States, Canada and Mexico. This North American Community is the brainchild of Dr. Robert Pastor, who, as co-chair of a special task force of the Council on Foreign Relations, produced a report entitled ”Building a North American Community.” This report is essentially a regurgitation of Pastor’s earlier book: ”Toward a North American Community.”

Among other goals, Pastor wants the three countries to:
• Adopt a common external tariff.
• Adopt a North American Approach to Regulation
• Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.
• Establish a North American investment fund
• Establish a permanent tribunal for North American dispute resolution.
• Hold an annual North American Summit meeting
• Establish minister-led working groups
• Create a North American Advisory Council
• Create a North American Inter-Parliamentary Group.
Pastor considers NAFTA to be ” … the first draft of an economic constitution for North America,” because it sets up the legal mechanism for achieving all his goals without bothering Congress.

The president apparently agrees with these goals, because he launched the Security and Prosperity Partnership in 2005, which consists of nearly 20 ”minister-led” working groups, with appointed bureaucrats from each of the three countries, all working toward deeper ”integration” through harmonization of procedures, rules and regulations – all of which is happening without bothering Congress.

While this is happening, Pastor, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Security and Prosperity Partnership all say they ”in no way, shape or form” are working toward a North American Union. What they are working toward is Pastor’s North American Community.

If it looks like a skunk, and smells like a skunk, it’s probably a skunk – regardless of what you call it.

Is it just a coincidence that what is now the European Union began its life in 1957 as a customs union called the European Economic Community. A customs union is a free trade area with a common external tariff. The participant countries set up common external trade policies.

Do Robert Pastor’s ideas point to a new and better direction, or are his ideas an echo of a treacherous past that robbed European nations of their independence, their currency and their sovereignty?

By following the European Union timeline, it is easy to see how the European ”Community” evolved into a ”Common Market,” and evolved its own currency, and finally established its own Parliament.

Look again at Pastor’s goals. Are they not perfectly aligned with the history of the European Union? Again, it may be just a coincidence that the European Union was nurtured from the beginning by the Royal Institute for International Affairs. This non-government organization was created in 1920, by the same people who created its sister organization, the Council on Foreign Relations, in 1921.

Perhaps the North American Union is best described as a work in progress, having established a ”Common Market” through NAFTA and CAFTA, and now approaching the ”Community” stage through the Security and Prosperity Partnership. If the bureaucrats are not stopped by Congress, we will see, first, a ”North American Inter-Parliamentary Group,” which is only a step away from a North American Parliament.

People, including pundits, who fail to see this work in progress could learn much from this NAU presentation. The NAU is moving quickly and quietly toward the same kind of political reality that now grips Europe. Only a concerned and enlightened constituency can compel elected officials to stop this erosion of America’s sovereignty.

Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental Conservation Organization and chairman of Sovereignty International.

Toll road angst not just in TX; Denver legislature makes it harder to build toll roads

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to story here.

We, the grassroots citizens of Texas, aren’t the only ones expressing our LOUD opposition to the nationwide shift to privatized tollways, they’re still fuming in Indiana and now Denver. Read a series the Denver Post (and more here) did last summer that reveals the insidious side of tolling. Also see what’s happening in West Virginia as citizens want elected officials, not unelected bureaucrats at the tolling authority, to have the power to set/increase toll rates.

House Approves Bill To Make Toll Roads Harder
Associated Press
Mar 8, 2007

(AP) DENVER The House gave final passage Thursday to a bill that would make it more difficult for private developers to build toll roads.

The measure (House Bill 1068) now goes to the Senate.

The bill would require a developer to notify property owners that they live in a toll road corridor and to notify the state transportation department before the developer can express any interest in people’s land.

The way toll roads ought to be done…

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

Here’s a news clip from Arkansas. It’s a good model for how toll roads ought to be done. On NEW roads, with a vote of the PEOPLE, and controlled by local ELECTED officials.

Legislative Briefs
Thursday, Mar 8, 2007

Compiled by Arkansas News Bureau

Regional highway authority bill clears Senate committee.

The Senate Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs Committee on Wednesday recommended the revised Regional Mobility Authority bill, House Bill 1698 by Rep. Robbie Wills, D-Conway.

The bill would allow regions of the state to set up highway authorities lead by county judges and mayors within the region, but would require voter approval for new toll roads. The bill would not allow tolls on existing highways or highways already under construction.

U.S Govt. hypocrites: refuse to pay tolls in London

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

How’s this for hypocrisy? The U.S government is delinquent in paying tolls in London (called the “congestion tax”) to the tune of $2 million, but what is our government trying to make us do here in the States? Pay tolls everywhere, even on highways we’ve already bought and paid for! If it’s good for the goose, it ought to be good for the gander. It’s about time the government starts living under the oppressive taxation they expect us to. Of course, the wealthy residents surrounding London got their “loophole” and get to drive into London for a mere $1.50 while everyone else pays $15. The Average Joe gets shafted again…

French join Americans in fight against London driving fee
By Alan Cowell
International Herald-Tribune
February 23, 2007

LONDON: Ever since authorities in London imposed a charge to drive into the city center in 2003, the U.S. Embassy has stood as a beacon of automotive defiance, refusing to pay what its diplomats call a tax from which they should be exempt.

But, when the city elders almost doubled the size of the charge zone this past week, casting their cash-hungry net over an area housing many more embassies, the Americans suddenly acquired new allies in their resistance — including from unusual quarters like France, which has not always been so supportive of U.S. diplomacy.

“The situation has changed,” said a diplomat from the French Embassy, which paid the charge for as long as its embassy in the Knightsbridge area lay outside the zone, offering diplomats a choice of buses or cabs or subway trains to enter the charging area. “Now the embassy is within the charging zone, we have no choice: We have to use vehicles for our work.”

Like the Americans, the French and some others — reportedly including Russians and Belgians — maintain that international protocols, known as the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, forbid the imposition of taxes on diplomats.

“This is not a question of rich countries being unwilling to pay,” said a senior European diplomat who, like his French colleague, spoke in return for anonymity in order to be, well, diplomatic. “It is a question of principle — legal principle and diplomatic principle.”

The charge for entering the zone is roughly $15 a day during working hours from Monday to Friday, and the London model has inspired some other European capitals, notably Stockholm, to follow suit.

While European officials say roughly half of the 27 European Union members will not pay the charge, Sweden is not among the rebels.

In fact, these have been challenging days for the British authorities who seek to exert some kind of dominion over the ever more choked streets and highways. After the congestion charge zone was extended on Monday, in a separate event on Wednesday, Prime Minister Tony Blair found himself sending e- mailed replies to a staggering 1.8 million people who had registered protests in an electronic petition on his official Web site against plans to impose nationwide road charges.

One day earlier, on Tuesday, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced an innovative plan to halve fares on buses and trams for around 250,000 people living on welfare under a deal struck with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela: Essentially Venezuela will pay for one-fifth of the diesel used by 8,000 buses in return for technical advice from London on how to run a transit system — even though London buses and subways are frequently criticized by passengers.

“Both London and Venezuela will be exchanging those things in which they are rich to the mutual benefit of both,” Livingstone said.

Not everyone agreed, as Richard Barnes, a leader of the opposition Conservatives in the London Assembly, made clear. London, he said, “should not be doing business with a third-rate South American dictator with an appalling human rights and democratic record.”

The $32 million deal achieved a somewhat lesser profile than the expansion of the congestion charging zone from roughly 8 square miles to 15 square miles, or 21 square kilometers to 39 square kilometers, embracing up- market neighborhoods like Kensington and Chelsea, home to bankers and rock stars and the rich of other stripes.

One quirk about the extension of the charging zone is that about 60,000 residents of the newly extended zone received a 90 percent residents’ discount, meaning that people living, for instance, in Chelsea — whose legions of SUV drivers inspired the generic term Chelsea Tractor for their Range Rovers and BMW X5s — may now cruise the entire zone for a mere $1.50 a day.

That could well offset Livingstone’s promise to reduce congestion in central London by 10 to 15 percent. As the conservative Daily Telegraph observed in an editorial, drivers “who are among the wealthiest householders in the country will now be able to drive into central London at a fraction of the usual cost of this punitive, regressive tax.”

The embassies that have entered this fray seem eager to keep their dispute with the mayor less strident than it was a couple of years back when Livingstone railed at the U.S. ambassador, Robert Tuttle, accusing him of behaving “like some chiseling little crook” by withholding the congestion charge.

In the past, Tuttle and his aides have gone public to defend their rejection of the mayor’s argument that the congestion fee is a charge for a service and not, therefore, a tax and should, therefore, be paid.

But the American Embassy, which has been within the charging zone from the very beginning, seemed reluctant to take part in a new round of arguments.

“We are actively discussing the issue with British authorities but don’t have anything to add to what we have said before,” an Embassy spokeswoman said, insisting on anonymity and declining to answer further questions.

According to Transport for London, the official body running the city transit system, the U.S. Embassy owes more than $1.95 million in unpaid congestion charges and fines. “Those embassies that flout the law of this country and misuse diplomatic immunity to avoid the charge are enjoying the benefits of reduced congestion but contributing nothing,” Transport for London said in a statement.

Dallas Morning News: Cintra, King of Toll Roads

Posted on March 12, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. You’ll need to clean your spectacles or blink several times when you read how closely Cintra courts governments because it’ll SHOCK you (or make you want to take a shower, or two). Yes, the government in Ontario, Canada pays Cintra if not enough people take their toll road! Do you see any protections for taxpayers here? See anyone looking out for us? Nope, the government just signs on the dotted line for up front cash and bemoans the consequences for the next 50 years. For, we the people, it’s just too bad, says our government, because “we signed a binding contract.”

Cintra becoming king of the toll roads
But Spanish company’s global projects are earning criticism, too
Sunday, March 11, 2007
By TONY HARTZEL
Dallas Morning News

MADRID, Spain – Thousands of miles from the shopping centers along State Highway 121, a toll road company is banking that it can bring to Texas the success it’s built among the olive groves of Spain.

Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA, the company picked to work on two major Texas toll road projects, has operated roads and collected tolls since 1968.

In that time, it has raised tolls around Toronto, to the chagrin of politicians. It has opened sophisticated new projects in Madrid and its suburbs. It has paid billions to take over toll roads in Chicago and Indiana, with rights to toll revenues for up to 99 years. It has even taken one project full circle, giving a 35-year-old toll road – and its toll revenue – back to the Basque regional government in northern Spain.

Now it’s a central player in an increasingly contentious debate over the planned Trans-Texas Corridor, which it has been hired to develop. And last month, the company was selected to build and operate State Highway 121 in Collin and Denton counties as a toll road.

No one from Cintra attended the Feb. 27 announcement of that deal, and company officials declined to comment last week for this story. But last summer, at their Madrid headquarters, they were welcoming.

“This is about investing in the very long term,” said Nicolas Rubio, Cintra’s business development director.

“Nothing against public roads,” he said, “but if you have the private sector wanting to do it, that allows the government to concentrate on other priorities.”

Toll roads have been a priority for Cintra and its corporate parent, Grupo Ferrovial, since they partnered with a company called Europistas on the A8 highway in northern Spain.

The road struggled in its first few years, and when some private companies floundered and gave their toll roads back to the Spanish government in the 1970s, Cintra did not.

“Our strategy was to invest and to hold,” said Jose López, Cintra’s director of U.S. and Latin American operations. “After a few more years, it was a gold mine.”

Going global

It’s not all been easy. Cintra’s first international project, in Colombia in 1993, was abandoned after a few years when toll road opponents began blowing up toll plazas. Workers were still inside when the bombs went off.

“Now we only invest in areas where that can’t happen,” Mr. Rubio said.

The company turned its attention to more stable countries like Chile, where it has built 463 miles of toll roads in the last 10 years. But it was a 67-mile toll road outside Toronto that paved the way for much of the company’s recent business, including its work in Texas.

Cintra garnered international attention when, in 1999, it assumed control of the existing 407 ETR project outside Toronto. It had opened as the world’s first all-electronic toll road.

But in the last several years, Cintra and Ontario provincial officials have battled extensively over the rates the company can charge motorists, with the case reaching the highest courts in Canada. Cintra officials recently prevailed, although they point out that the contract provides stiff penalties should higher tolls result in less traffic.

“The tolls when we bought the project were way low,” said Mr. López. “If we had kept the toll where it was, it would have been congested.”

The Canadian toll rate debate has led to regular meetings between Cintra and Canadian government officials.

“We meet all the time,” Mr. López said. “Especially if there is an election coming.”

From Chile to Ireland and from Canada to Texas, Cintra has claimed a growing stake in the international toll road business. Most of that growth has occurred since the late 1990s, and much of it has come in its home country of Spain, where Cintra is opening hundreds of miles of new toll roads.

Growing in Spain

Headed out of Madrid on the R4 roadway one morning last summer, traffic was fairly light. The road, which leads to the Spanish capital’s small but growing southern suburbs, costs about $7.50 to travel 37 miles, and it attracts only 12,000 vehicles a day.

But the company just opened a 111-mile extension of the R4, and 83 miles of that extension have tolls. It costs about $15 to drive the extension from end to end, and Cintra will collect tolls on that section of the highway for up to 38 years.

The extension is expected to be very popular, offering weary drivers a way to pay a few euros and avoid congested roads. Those motorists, headed to Spain’s southeast coast, reach their destinations about four hours sooner. And due in part to the adjacent R4, the Madrid suburbs of Parla and Pinto, with about 50,000 residents each, are expected to grow dramatically.

“All of a sudden, there is a highway here, and people can now commute,” said Javier Pérez Fortea, director of Cintra’s European division.

Near one R4 toll plaza, examples of the area’s past and future collide. Dozens of vehicles travel through one of 21 lanes at the toll plaza while in the distance a cowboy practices with his prancing horse. Farmers still tend their fields, and tractors cross the toll road on overpasses specially constructed for farmers and other local traffic.

In for the long haul

In the United States, Cintra has drawn attention for the long-term deals it has reached with local and state governments to buy existing toll projects.

In Chicago, Cintra and its partner, Macquarie Infrastructure Group, paid $1.82 billion for the rights to operate the Chicago Skyway bridge in a deal that will last until 2104.

The deal has drawn criticism for its 99-year duration. Chicago officials were also criticized for using the cash to help balance the state budget instead of building more roads.

In Indiana, Cintra and Macquarie paid $3.8 billion for the rights to all the state’s toll roads through 2081. In that case, state leaders pledged to use the revenue for other transportation projects, but they came under political fire for selling the rights to a valuable toll road network for 75 years.

Cintra expects about a 13 percent return on its investment in Indiana. In Texas, that figure is about 12 percent.

On some roads, Cintra officials say, the payoff doesn’t come for up to 30 years.

“We are very patient investors,” Mr. López said.

ABOUT CINTRA

Full name: Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte

Headquarters: Madrid, Spain

Parent company: Grupo Ferrovial

Businesses: Manages 20 toll road concessions in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Chile, the U.S. and Canada; and more than 250,000 parking spaces

2006 revenues: 884.7 million euros (about $1.17 billion)

2006 net income: 155.6 million euros (about $206.1 million)

Employees: More than 2,900

U.S. toll roads: Indiana Toll Road, Chicago Skyway

Texas contracts: Development contract for Trans-Texas Corridor, rights to build portion of State Highway 130 electronic toll road from Austin to Seguin, contract to build State Highway 121 in Collin and Denton counties as a toll road

SOURCE: Cintra

Call these San Antonio reps to support HB 2772!

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Terri Hall

For more info on HB 2772 go here.

You may also contact each representative by calling the Capitol switchboard: (512) 463-4630.

Frank Corte (said he will not co-sponsor) – 349-0320 or STREP123@aol.com

Ruth McClendon-Jones (said she would) – 225-2107 or ruth.mcclendon@house.state.tx.us

Jose Menendez (said he would) – 512-463-0634 or jose.menendez@house.state.tx.us

Robert Puente – 532-8899 or robert.puente@house.state.tx.us

Mike Villarreal – (512) 463-0532 or michael.villarreal@house.state.tx.us

Edmund Kuempel – (830) 379-8732 or edmund.kuempel@house.state.tx.us

Thank those who have already signed on –

All San Antonio Senators:
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, leticia.vandeputte@senate.state.tx.us
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, jeff.wentworth@senate.state.tx.us
Sen. Carlos Uresti, carlos.uresti@senate.state.tx.us
Sen. Judith Zaffirini, judith.zaffirini@senate.state.tx.us

Plus…

Rep. Joe Farias, joe.farias@house.state.tx.us
Rep. David Leibowitz, david.leibowitz@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Nathan Macias, nathan.macias@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Joe Straus, joe.straus@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Joaquin Castro, joaquin.castro@house.state.tx.us
Trey Martinez-Fischer – 866-845-7777 or trey.martinezfischer@house.state.tx.us

Giuliani's law firm advised Cintra on Hwy 121 deal in Dallas!

Posted on March 8, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to Bracewell & Giuliani press release here. I think it’s pretty safe to say Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is in favor of privatizing toll roads.

Firm Advises Cintra in First Privatization of Toll Road in Texas
03/01/2007

DALLAS (March 1, 2007) Bracewell & Giuliani LLP advised Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., a Spanish transportation company, in its successful bid to develop State Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties. The award to Cintra, approved by the Texas Transportation Commission, is the first privatization of a Texas toll road.

Bracewell is acting as project counsel to Cintra with respect to the 50-year concession from the Texas Department of Transportation. Cintra will pay a $2.1 billion upfront and annual lease payments totaling $700 million.

“Cintra was awarded this project because of its proven expertise and competitive proposal,” said Thomas O. Moore, partner with Bracewell & Giuliani. “This is the largest transportation deal of 2007. This is one of only five deals in the country.”

Three firms have competed for the Comprehensive Development Agreement for State Highway 121 since last summer. The proposals were reviewed and scored based on selection criteria set forth by the Regional Transportation Council, the metropolitan planning agency for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

This CDA is a public-private partnership that allows the provider to handle all facets of developing the toll road, including completing construction and operating and maintaining the corridor.

Cintra, a subsidiary of Grupo Ferrovial specialized in toll roads and car parks, is one of the world’s leading private-sector developers of transport infrastructure.

Bracewell & Giuliani attorneys that advised on this matter include:

Partners: Thomas O. Moore, Roger D. Aksamit, Kevin A, Ewing, George Y. Gonzalez, Jason B. Hutt, Nancy Jo Nelson, Andrew M. Taylor and Jose Luis Vittor.

Associates: Todd G. Amdor, Eamonn K. Bakewell, Patrick A. Caballero, Erik E. Petersen, Lisa A. Smith and Trevor Wommack.

Dallas Metroplex leaders hurl "Williamson-like" venom at their senators' anti-toll stance

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

Perhaps this explains why Senator John Carona, Chair of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, held a public hearing to demonstrate the universal public opposition to Perry’s privatized version of tolling…with regional transportation folks as nasty as these guys, makes ya wonder if their mothers ever taught them to play nicely…or maybe it’s from spending too much time with Ric Williamson.

I’d turn the coin on these transportation leaders and say they’d rather endanger the long-term economic health of the region and risk state sovereignty issues by handing over public highways to foreign companies for the next 50 years all for a few near-term transportation projects ya want fixed! It makes no sense…they’re selling Dallas area residents down the road to the tune of $100 billion in profits going overseas for the next 50 years all so they can complete a 12 mile stretch of highway (for a lousy $2.5-5 billion up front payment)! It’s the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) that needs their heads examined not these courageous senators! C’mon, these RTC guys are essentially saying, “Anyone who dares to represent their constituents should pay a price with us, the elitists who know what’s best for everyone.”

2-year ban on toll roads sought
By GORDON DICKSON
Star-Telegram
March 7, 07

FORT WORTH — Interstate 35W, Loop 820 and Airport Freeway would not be expanded until 2015 at the earliest if a two-year ban on toll roads is approved by the state Legislature, area leaders say.

A bill calling for a two-year ban was filed Tuesday and has strong support in the Senate.

North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino says it’s time to hold the Metroplex’s lawmakers accountable for jumping on the anti-toll road bandwagon and endangering Metroplex road projects.

The bill was filed by state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and cosigned by 25 of 31 Senate members, including Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, John Carona, R-Dallas and Royce West, D-Dallas.

“Any senator or state representative who gets on the bandwagon should be told we don’t appreciate it. It goes against the region’s mobility plan. We’re gridlocked,” Trevino, chairman of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition, said Wednesday morning.

Noting that Shapiro walked out of a Senate committee meeting last week while Metroplex leaders were making a presentation in Austin, Trevino added: “If they don’t want to hear from the region, what are they doing down there?”

While anti-toll road sentiment has swirled statewide, particularly on the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, Metroplex leaders have sought toll financing for projects that aren’t scheduled to receive sufficient gas-tax funding.

Texas Department of Transportation officials have already mapped out how to spend their gas-tax money through 2015 and the Tarrant County projects aren’t fully funded.

But the agency is currently seeking private bidders to come forward with investment money, and in exchange collect tolls on express lanes on I-35W, Loop 820 and Airport Freeway for up to 50 years.

Privately run toll lanes also have been proposed for the Texas 114/121 DFW Connector project in Grapevine, scheduled to be under construction early next year.

But Nichols’ bill could halt much, if not all, of that work.

“We must closely evaluate private toll contracts before we sign away half a century of control of our transportation system. Many provisions in recent toll contracts are alarming,” Nichols said in a statement. “These roads were built with public money for public use. Converting existing roads to toll roads would break a promise to taxpayers. No one should have to worry that the roads they drive on today will be tolled tomorrow. Tolling provides a valuable tool for expansion but should be reserved to add new capacity.”

Ironically, Nichols was a champion of toll roads and privatization during his term as a member of the Texas Transportation Commission from 1997-2006, when he resigned to run for the state Senate.

Hillwood executive Russell Laughlin said Metroplex leaders should ask senators to at least exempt the region’s plans from a two-year ban.

Dallas Morning News: CDA moratorium seeks to halt toll roads

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

Measures take aim at toll roads
Legislature: Proposal halting creation of private routes for 2 years gains steam in Senate
By TERRENCE STUTZ
Dallas Morning News
March 7, 2007

AUSTIN – The majority of senators have endorsed legislation to prevent the creation of new private toll roads for two years.

Two measures offered Tuesday by Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, also would prohibit conversion of existing roads to toll roads. At least two dozen senators have signed on as co-sponsors of the two bills, indicating that both should easily pass the chamber.

“We must closely evaluate private toll contracts before we sign away half a century of control of our transportation system,” said Mr. Nichols, a former state transportation commissioner. “Many provisions in recent toll contracts are alarming.”

Senate leaders have been increasingly critical of a series of private toll road projects approved in recent years by the transportation commission, including a $3 billion deal announced last week to make State Highway 121 the first privately operated toll road in North Texas.

Senators have warned that some of the projects might result in skyrocketing tolls for motorists in the future and could hamper the ability of the state and local governments to improve public roadways near the toll roads.