IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, September 20, 2007 – In Travis County District Court today,TURF Founder Terri Hall, filed a petition for a temporary restraining order against the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to immediately halt its illegal taxpayer funded, toll road campaign. Judges from all over the state are at a conference in Galveston, TX so a visiting judge, Bill Bender, was assigned the case. The lawyer with the Attorney General’s office, Kristina Silcox, representing individuals employed by TxDOT who are named in the suit, objected to the judge, and having no available replacement, the hearing for a temporary restraining order was postponed until Monday.

Judge Bender was apparently unacceptable to the State since he resides in Seguin, which happens to be in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor.

“TxDOT didn’t want this case heard before a judge whose community is deeply affected by the Trans Texas Corridor,” thinks Hall. “Every day this case isn’t heard is another day TxDOT illegally spends taxpayer money on a toll road ad campaign.”

Silcox also entered a plea to the jurisdiction, which is the State’s new playbook to force a strong case into an appeals court abyss (as they did with a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Planning Organizations filed in October of 2005 and is still stuck in an appeals court black hole: read about it here.). The State’s argument will not hold up but it won’t matter. The code, changed in 2005, allows the State to dump any good case it stands to lose by doing a fast track appeal as soon as they lose a motion and BEFORE the case is EVER heard! If they win the motion, the case is dismissed. Either way, they’ll call it a win.

“Not so fast,” says Hall. “These fast track appeals are the State’s get out of jail free card and resemble the State’s fast track eminent domain that forcibly removes landowners in 90 days. We knew they’d try this and we’ll combat it so that this case is heard and TxDOT is FORCED to comply with the LAW! I thought we are a nation governed by the rule of law, but since Governor Perry took office and started promoting his toll road schemes, he and his transportation commission rule more like an oligarchy. Even with a stacked deck, the people of Texas seek justice and will fight on.”

This lawsuit is brought pursuant to § 37, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. TxDOT’s expenditure of public funds for the Keep Texas Moving campaign is illegal, and an injunction prohibiting any further illegal expenditures in this regard.

TxDOT has violated § 556.004 of the Texas Government Code by directing the expenditure of public funds for political advocacy in support of toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, and have openly indicated TxDOT’s intention to directly lobby the United States Congress in favor of additional toll road programs.
On August 22, 2007, TURF filed a formal complaint with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and asked him to prosecute TxDOT for criminal wrongdoing. See the formal complaint here . Today’s petition seeks immediate injunctive relief in a civil proceeding.

“Between TxDOT’s PR campaign, report to Congress asking that all limitations on tolling be lifted including buying back existing interstates, and Chairman Ric Williamson’s recent trip to D.C. lobbying for the same, it’s clear they’ve not only crossed the line into illegal lobbying, but they leaped over it,” says Hall.

TxDOT’s report to Congress, Forward Momentum, ignited a category 5 blowback that prompted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and U.S. Representatives Charlie Gonzalez,and Ciro Rodriguez to file legislation (S 2019 and HR 3510) to halt the tolling of existing interstates and to prohibit TxDOT from buying back interstates for the purpose of tolling them (read more here). TxDOT’s actions also prompted Rep. Rodriguez to call for a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on converting interstates to tollways and on TxDOT’s ad campaign (read more here.).

View petition and affidavits:
Petition
Terri Hall’s affidavit
Bill Barker’s affidavit

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, September 20, 2007 – In Travis County District Court today,TURF Founder Terri Hall, filed a petition for a temporary restraining order against the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to immediately halt its illegal taxpayer funded, toll road campaign. Judges from all over the state are at a conference in Galveston, TX so a visiting judge, Bill Bender, was assigned the case. The lawyer with the Attorney General’s office, Kristina Silcox, representing individuals employed by TxDOT who are named in the suit, objected to the judge, and having no available replacement, the hearing for a temporary restraining order was postponed until Monday.

Judge Bender was apparently unacceptable to the State since he resides in Seguin, which happens to be in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor.

“TxDOT didn’t want this case heard before a judge whose community is deeply affected by the Trans Texas Corridor,” thinks Hall. “Every day this case isn’t heard is another day TxDOT illegally spends taxpayer money on a toll road ad campaign.”

Silcox also entered a plea to the jurisdiction, which is the State’s new playbook to force a strong case into an appeals court abyss (as they did with a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Planning Organizations filed in October of 2005 and is still stuck in an appeals court black hole: read about it here.). The State’s argument will not hold up but it won’t matter. The code, changed in 2005, allows the State to dump any good case it stands to lose by doing a fast track appeal as soon as they lose a motion and BEFORE the case is EVER heard! If they win the motion, the case is dismissed. Either way, they’ll call it a win.

“Not so fast,” says Hall. “These fast track appeals are the State’s get out of jail free card and resemble the State’s fast track eminent domain that forcibly removes landowners in 90 days. We knew they’d try this and we’ll combat it so that this case is heard and TxDOT is FORCED to comply with the LAW! I thought we are a nation governed by the rule of law, but since Governor Perry took office and started promoting his toll road schemes, he and his transportation commission rule more like an oligarchy. Even with a stacked deck, the people of Texas seek justice and will fight on.”

This lawsuit is brought pursuant to § 37, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. TxDOT’s expenditure of public funds for the Keep Texas Moving campaign is illegal, and an injunction prohibiting any further illegal expenditures in this regard.

TxDOT has violated § 556.004 of the Texas Government Code by directing the expenditure of public funds for political advocacy in support of toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor, and have openly indicated TxDOT’s intention to directly lobby the United States Congress in favor of additional toll road programs.
On August 22, 2007, TURF filed a formal complaint with Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle to investigate TxDOT’s illegal lobbying and asked him to prosecute TxDOT for criminal wrongdoing. See the formal complaint here . Today’s petition seeks immediate injunctive relief in a civil proceeding.

“Between TxDOT’s PR campaign, report to Congress asking that all limitations on tolling be lifted including buying back existing interstates, and Chairman Ric Williamson’s recent trip to D.C. lobbying for the same, it’s clear they’ve not only crossed the line into illegal lobbying, but they leaped over it,” says Hall.

TxDOT’s report to Congress, Forward Momentum, ignited a category 5 blowback that prompted Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and U.S. Representatives Charlie Gonzalez,and Ciro Rodriguez to file legislation (S 2019 and HR 3510) to halt the tolling of existing interstates and to prohibit TxDOT from buying back interstates for the purpose of tolling them (read more here). TxDOT’s actions also prompted Rep. Rodriguez to call for a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on converting interstates to tollways and on TxDOT’s ad campaign (read more here.).

View petition and affidavits:
Petition
Terri Hall’s affidavit
Bill Barker’s affidavit

Express-News article link here.

Most at meetings down on toll roads
Web Posted: 04/01/2006 12:00 AM CST
Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

If it were up to people willing to voice their opinions at public meetings, toll lanes would never get built on U.S. 281.

Dozens of speakers unloaded their grievances about the toll-road plan to raucous applause from hundreds of residents at two meetings this week.

If the Texas Department of Transportation wants to widen U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Comal County, they can cancel projects in other parts of the city to come up with the money, two out of three people said in a questionnaire sent back to TxDOT this month.

“How many other ways can we say no?” said real estate agent Nancy Strack, who spoke at Thursday’s public meeting at Bush Middle School. “Are you listening to us?”

About 550 people attended the meetings at two North Side schools, and a majority of more than 50 speakers lashed out at TxDOT’s proposal to rebuild U.S. 281 into a tolled expressway with free frontage roads.

Critics who stepped to the microphone Thursday outnumbered toll advocates 3 to 1, and many were hot.

“I’m outraged, absolutely incensed by TxDOT’s refusal to admit that there are other options other than toll roads,” Mike Gravett said. “It’s absolutely appalling.”

Proponents, who also got some applause — though much lighter — argued that tolls are the best way to speed up needed highway projects.

“I’ve wasted enough of my life,” John Houston said. “I’m an expert at sitting in traffic. I’m tired of it. Enough is enough. We need to do something about this.”

Many opponents said TxDOT should have built five overpasses at intersections on U.S. 281 as planned several years ago. The agency has $84 million in gas tax funds to build four overpasses and three miles of express lanes and frontage roads.

By tolling the express lanes, officials said they could get additional money decades sooner to help pay for three more overpasses, four more miles of toll express lanes, toll ramps at the Loop 1604 interchange and new toll lanes for Loop 1604.

“We can fix any one problem but we can’t fix all the problems without doing something different,” said David Casteel, TxDOT’s head engineer in San Antonio.

Most critics and advocates agree there is a traffic problem on U.S. 281.

About 91,000 cars a day traveled the highway just north of Loop 1604 in 2004, up from 8,600 in 1980, according to TxDOT. Nine people were killed and more than 700 injured in crashes on a seven-mile stretch from 1998 to 2001.

Three out of four people say the highway should be expanded, indicates a TxDOT questionnaire given to neighborhood groups, businesses and government officials with a stake in the project.

If more money is needed to widen U.S. 281, then other projects should be canceled, 65 percent of the 97 respondents said.

And forget about raising taxes or waiting up to 25 years to get the work done, 71 percent said.

“No one thinks the do-nothing solution is acceptable,” said Clay Smith, TxDOT’s planning engineer in San Antonio. “Everybody said do something.”

Work on the first three miles of U.S. 281 was scheduled to begin in January, but federal officials pulled their environmental clearances after a lawsuit was filed that says impacts hadn’t been studied enough.

Now state officials are redoing their environmental evaluations, which could last two to seven years and cost up to $2.8 million. Work will be pushed back two to 11 years, finishing between 2010 and 2019, and inflation might run the project cost up 5 percent a year.

Express-News article link here.

Most at meetings down on toll roads
Web Posted: 04/01/2006 12:00 AM CST
Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer

If it were up to people willing to voice their opinions at public meetings, toll lanes would never get built on U.S. 281.

Dozens of speakers unloaded their grievances about the toll-road plan to raucous applause from hundreds of residents at two meetings this week.

If the Texas Department of Transportation wants to widen U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to Comal County, they can cancel projects in other parts of the city to come up with the money, two out of three people said in a questionnaire sent back to TxDOT this month.

“How many other ways can we say no?” said real estate agent Nancy Strack, who spoke at Thursday’s public meeting at Bush Middle School. “Are you listening to us?”

About 550 people attended the meetings at two North Side schools, and a majority of more than 50 speakers lashed out at TxDOT’s proposal to rebuild U.S. 281 into a tolled expressway with free frontage roads.

Critics who stepped to the microphone Thursday outnumbered toll advocates 3 to 1, and many were hot.

“I’m outraged, absolutely incensed by TxDOT’s refusal to admit that there are other options other than toll roads,” Mike Gravett said. “It’s absolutely appalling.”

Proponents, who also got some applause — though much lighter — argued that tolls are the best way to speed up needed highway projects.

“I’ve wasted enough of my life,” John Houston said. “I’m an expert at sitting in traffic. I’m tired of it. Enough is enough. We need to do something about this.”

Many opponents said TxDOT should have built five overpasses at intersections on U.S. 281 as planned several years ago. The agency has $84 million in gas tax funds to build four overpasses and three miles of express lanes and frontage roads.

By tolling the express lanes, officials said they could get additional money decades sooner to help pay for three more overpasses, four more miles of toll express lanes, toll ramps at the Loop 1604 interchange and new toll lanes for Loop 1604.

“We can fix any one problem but we can’t fix all the problems without doing something different,” said David Casteel, TxDOT’s head engineer in San Antonio.

Most critics and advocates agree there is a traffic problem on U.S. 281.

About 91,000 cars a day traveled the highway just north of Loop 1604 in 2004, up from 8,600 in 1980, according to TxDOT. Nine people were killed and more than 700 injured in crashes on a seven-mile stretch from 1998 to 2001.

Three out of four people say the highway should be expanded, indicates a TxDOT questionnaire given to neighborhood groups, businesses and government officials with a stake in the project.

If more money is needed to widen U.S. 281, then other projects should be canceled, 65 percent of the 97 respondents said.

And forget about raising taxes or waiting up to 25 years to get the work done, 71 percent said.

“No one thinks the do-nothing solution is acceptable,” said Clay Smith, TxDOT’s planning engineer in San Antonio. “Everybody said do something.”

Work on the first three miles of U.S. 281 was scheduled to begin in January, but federal officials pulled their environmental clearances after a lawsuit was filed that says impacts hadn’t been studied enough.

Now state officials are redoing their environmental evaluations, which could last two to seven years and cost up to $2.8 million. Work will be pushed back two to 11 years, finishing between 2010 and 2019, and inflation might run the project cost up 5 percent a year.

See Driscoll’s blog here.

Note how TxDOT doesn’t consider its own ORIGINAL funded plan for 281 (See it here) an option they’re considering. It’s only build it as a tollway or no build as the options. Read more analysis here: satollparty.com/post. This is the sort of defiance we’ll continue ot see from this unelected bloated bureaucracy until there’s a change in leadership in Austin. A vote for Perry is a vote for tolls, find out about Strayhorn’s support of our cause on our home page.

What they really mean …
By Pat Driscoll
March 27, 2006

State officials made an odd statement Friday, saying they’re cancelling a construction contract for U.S. 281 toll lanes, which in January were stalled for at least two years by a lawsuit.

The statement’s pretty much meaningless because stopping payments for stand-by time was a given … you have to look deeper for the real meaning.

First, there’s the timing …
The statement was issued less than a week before holding public meetings (Wednesday and Thursday) to redo environmental evaluations for the toll lanes. The lawsuit called for a full-blown impact study, but we won’t know for another year or so if that’s going to be done.

Then there’s the meat of the message …
The Texas Department of Transportation’s long missive goes on to talk about how the new evaluation affects timelines for toll roads:

•The $84 million project to build toll express lanes and free frontage roads on U.S. 281 from North Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Parkway will be two years behind even if a less-intensive environmental assessment is approved. The assessment will cost $800,000 and construction could jump another $8 million. The lanes would be finished in 2010 instead of 2008.

•If federal officials decide an impact study is needed, that could cost another $2 million and add up to another five years of evaluation plus up to four years for any redesign. The lanes would be finished between 2014 and 2019. Officials assume construction inflation will be at least 5 percent a year.

•Non-tolled express lanes aren’t mentioned as an option (a point of attack for critics since the construction money was coming from gas taxes) but a no-build option is. Coming up with another project would have to be studied, and there’s no estimate on how long that will take.

•A $21 million underpass at U.S. 281 and Borgfeld Road has also been put on hold since the environmental evaluation must cover planned toll lanes all the way to Comal County.

And what this means is …
Motorists won’t see any lanes, toll or non-tolled, added to U.S. 281 for years to come … and the more involved an environmental evaluation gets the longer they’ll have to wait.

Is that scary? Is that a tactic? (Note: You bet ya…it’s how TxDOT will try to get away with installing a 16 lane toll nightmare over our sole source of water without a study of the impacts!)

TxDOT’s statement ends with a quote:

“We regret the inconvenience to the driving public and urge safe driving habits as we work to resolve this matter.”

See Driscoll’s blog here.

Note how TxDOT doesn’t consider its own ORIGINAL funded plan for 281 (See it here) an option they’re considering. It’s only build it as a tollway or no build as the options. Read more analysis here: satollparty.com/post. This is the sort of defiance we’ll continue ot see from this unelected bloated bureaucracy until there’s a change in leadership in Austin. A vote for Perry is a vote for tolls, find out about Strayhorn’s support of our cause on our home page.

What they really mean …
By Pat Driscoll
March 27, 2006

State officials made an odd statement Friday, saying they’re cancelling a construction contract for U.S. 281 toll lanes, which in January were stalled for at least two years by a lawsuit.

The statement’s pretty much meaningless because stopping payments for stand-by time was a given … you have to look deeper for the real meaning.

First, there’s the timing …
The statement was issued less than a week before holding public meetings (Wednesday and Thursday) to redo environmental evaluations for the toll lanes. The lawsuit called for a full-blown impact study, but we won’t know for another year or so if that’s going to be done.

Then there’s the meat of the message …
The Texas Department of Transportation’s long missive goes on to talk about how the new evaluation affects timelines for toll roads:

•The $84 million project to build toll express lanes and free frontage roads on U.S. 281 from North Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Parkway will be two years behind even if a less-intensive environmental assessment is approved. The assessment will cost $800,000 and construction could jump another $8 million. The lanes would be finished in 2010 instead of 2008.

•If federal officials decide an impact study is needed, that could cost another $2 million and add up to another five years of evaluation plus up to four years for any redesign. The lanes would be finished between 2014 and 2019. Officials assume construction inflation will be at least 5 percent a year.

•Non-tolled express lanes aren’t mentioned as an option (a point of attack for critics since the construction money was coming from gas taxes) but a no-build option is. Coming up with another project would have to be studied, and there’s no estimate on how long that will take.

•A $21 million underpass at U.S. 281 and Borgfeld Road has also been put on hold since the environmental evaluation must cover planned toll lanes all the way to Comal County.

And what this means is …
Motorists won’t see any lanes, toll or non-tolled, added to U.S. 281 for years to come … and the more involved an environmental evaluation gets the longer they’ll have to wait.

Is that scary? Is that a tactic? (Note: You bet ya…it’s how TxDOT will try to get away with installing a 16 lane toll nightmare over our sole source of water without a study of the impacts!)

TxDOT’s statement ends with a quote:

“We regret the inconvenience to the driving public and urge safe driving habits as we work to resolve this matter.”

VICTORY NUMBER ONE! The Federal Highway Administration DELAYS 281 asking for further review!

Working together with (ofttimes unlikely) partners in a cross-partisan effort to stop the tolling of existing highways, People For Efficient Transportation (legal arm of Texas Toll Party) and AGUA (Aquifer Guardians) along with many of you as individual plaintiffs, have DELAYED the tolling of 281! The Federal Highway Administration, who is also named in our lawsuit, took one look at all of TxDOT’s missteps and has withdrawn their environmental clearance for 281 and is forcing TxDOT to perform a better assessment (and hopefully with our help a full IMPACT STATEMENT) of the impact of a 16 lane toll corridor right up against homes and over our sole source of water!

Most importantly, they’re requiring more public hearings which will lead to putting more alternatives on the table, like using TxDOT’s own original plan for 281 to put 4 overpasses at the stop lights and get traffic moving. The original plan is less expensive, less invasive and quicker than the toll plan, AND it doesn’t DOUBLE TAX us for an existing FREEway or put storefronts out of business.

Read the article in the Express-News today.