Link to WOAI-TV news story.

After repeatedly voting to toll (also see here) existing freeways on the northside as a Board member of the San Antonio MPO (SAMPO), Bexar County Commissioner Chico Rodriguez is cashing in by getting an expedited, NON-TOLL, FREEway fix to 1604 (west) in his own district. Can you say quid pro quo? This is how TxDOT controls the majority of SAMPO, by quid pro quos and goodies for those who tow the TxDOT toll road line.

Rodriguez’ most recent SAMPO vote was to move ahead in a hostile takeover of the Hill Country. He admitted prior to the vote that the purpose of engulfing the Hill Country into SAMPO was to get access to the Hill Country’s gas tax allocations in order to fund needed road projects in his precinct. Also, remember that Rodriguez denied he EVER voted for toll roads when his SAMPO votes were made known to his constituents prior to his last re-election campaign in March.

So he lied to get re-elected and ran away from his toxic, controversial toll road votes to keep an angry public at bay until he could cash-in on TxDOT’s promised quid pro quo. Many of his constituents drive north for work and WILL be impacted by toll taxes (hence their opposition to tolls), yet he sold them and ALL the motorists who depend on 281, 1604, and the other proposed toll projects (on existing state highways) down a river.

Big Plan to Get Traffic Moving in SA
By Leila Walsh
November 7, 2008
WOAI-TV

SAN ANTONIO – With toll roads on hold here, News 4 is breaking news about the biggest project planned to get traffic moving in one of the busiest parts of town.

People who live near Potranco and Loop 1604 say they get stuck in traffic every day on the way to and from work. Now News 4 has uncovered a plan that could make life a whole lot easier for tens of thousands of people in that area.

The county and TxDOT will meet next week to discuss the terms of a plan that would do two things: widen Potranco to four lanes from Loop 1604 to the county line and extend State Highway 211.

“We need relief and relief is coming because we’re thinking ahead,” said Bexar County commissioner Chico Rodriguez.

The project is not a toll road and it is not expected to involve a tax hike. If approved, work on the first phase could get started in just over a year.

For a detailed look at the plan, click here. For a map of the area, click here.

Link to article here. A recall or other method for removal from office is what tollers can expect. The citizens are tired of being ignored and trampled on by unresponsive, abusive government, and the politicians who stab voters in the back in favor of special interests. The taxpayers are in no mood for an extra tax for every mile we drive! For Diane Cibrian to claim she didn’t vote to toll existing freeways is a total falsehood, and it insults the intelligence of constituents who were there and witnessed her do it (video can be seen at www.RecallDiane.com). What are 281 and 1604 if not existing roads?

Link to Express News articles here and here.

Transportation authority making cities nervous
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
October 28, 2008

New Braunfels, Seguin, Boerne and other fast-growing pockets north of San Antonio are becoming too big to be without a transportation-planning umbrella to guide how federal dollars are spent, officials say.But many residents in those communities nervously eye San Antonio’s Metropolitan Planning Organization as a 500-pound gorilla looking to expand its territory. The agency’s eagerness to toll new highway lanes doesn’t help.

“It scares Comal County to death,” New Braunfels Mayor Bruce Boyer told the San Antonio planning board Monday.

Boyer and Comal County Judge Danny Scheel, who also spoke, have ruled out tolling as a way to pay for road lanes.

They said they haven’t had time to reach any decisions on starting up a federal planning process.

“We don’t have enough information yet,” Boyer said.

MPO Director Sid Martinez said federal regulations indicate that the agency’s jurisdiction — which covers Bexar County, Selma, Schertz and Cibolo — should already include an urbanizing Hill Country swath stretching from Boerne to Seguin.

Growth projections for the next quarter century show enough population density to bring in all of Comal and Guadalupe counties now, he said.

At the very least, New Braunfels could be forced to form its own MPO after 2010 census results are released, Martinez said. But federal rules discourage the creation of adjacent planning groups, which means Hill Country areas could be thrust into San Antonio’s planning orbit anyway.

“It’s difficult to allow two MPOs in this region,” he said.

But for now, not wanting to push those communities into San Antonio’s MPO, the board voted 10-2 to ask them to join.

“It’s important to have you here to help us,” said San Antonio City Councilwoman Diane Cibrian, who sits on the board.

Voting against the measure were Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and state Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, who are critical of toll roads and the board’s inclusion of non-elected members.

“This MPO can cram down more garbage in the throat of the community than you can imagine,” Adkisson told the New Braunfels mayor. “We do not want to consume you.”

October 28, 2008
New Braunfels cringes in San Antonio’s shadow
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
The first thing the New Braunfels mayor said was that he hoped his comments wouldn’t be taken as adversarial.

Coming from a politician, that’s like saying please don’t look for fire just because there’s smoke.

Mayor Bruce Boyer then told the San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization board that its Monday meeting had come as a surprise. Specifically, the shocker was the agency’s scheduled vote to pursue adding Comal and Guadalupe counties to its jurisdiction.

“We didn’t even know about this meeting,” Boyer said. “Nobody notified the city of New Braunfels, or the county for that matter.”

He meant nobody from San Antonio had told him anything.

On a tip from state Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde, and heat from dozens of e-mails a day from worried constituents, Boyer and Comal County Judge Danny Scheel on Monday traveled some 60 miles — round trip — to put a voice to concerns about being swallowed by the transportation-planning gorilla to the south.

Bruce Boyer

Among the issues:

• Much of San Antonio’s leadership is gaga over toll roads. Boyer and Scheel decidedly are not.

• The few seats that Hill Country communities would get on the San Antonio MPO board would be watered down by many other seats, which now total 19.

• Comal County officials haven’t had time to digest the federal regulations and population projections that will dictate how some sort of MPO blanket will eventually cover an urbanizing Hill Country.

• San Antonio has been discussing a boundary expansion since at least last year but communication to northern neighbors has so far been sparse.

• Many Comal County residents feel they’re about to get trampled on.

Several MPO board members assured Boyer that they wouldn’t absorb his city against popular wishes. Nevertheless, agency Director Sid Martinez said federal rules could force the matter after the 2010 Census is released.

As politicians are often wont, exchanges were kept professional, even friendly.

“This is a two-way street,” Boyer declared near the end of his visit. “I want to invite everybody to Wurstfest.”

Link to Herald-Zeitung article here.

Officials voice MPO concerns
By Chris Cobb
The Herald-Zeitung
October 28, 2008
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio-Bexar County Metropolitan Planning Organization is pushing to absorb New Braunfels and Comal County.

The San Antonio MPO’s Transportation Policy Board voted Monday to formally begin the process of persuading nearby local governments to agree to join the transportation authority.

MPO Director Isidro “Sid” Martinez said during the meeting that expanding its boundaries to include all of Comal and Guadalupe counties would make the MPO “stronger as we go the state and federal government for grants.”

Created in 1962 by the Federal Highway Act, an MPO is a government mandated organization in cities with more than 50,000 residents, designed to plan for future urban growth and help allocate federal and state transportation funds.

Some local leaders are worried that agreeing to come under the umbrella of the San Antonio MPO would hinder New Braunfels’ and Comal County’s ability to receive those funds, as they would have one voice on a 19-member board.

“I’m concerned with the enormity of (the San Antonio MPO),” said Comal County Judge Danny Scheel. “Having one seat on that board would jeopardize the transportation future of our county. Having served on several other boards that shared funds with the city of San Antonio, we are always on the short end of that stick.”

All local governments in either Comal or Guadalupe counties would have to agree to become a part of the San Antonio MPO.

Martinez said population projections in the next 20 years would put sufficient density in between San Antonio and New Braunfels to justify it being a part of the organization.

New Braunfels Mayor Bruce Boyer addressed the transportation board Monday, saying that while the city would like to be involved in regional planning, it also would like to study and weigh its options before consenting to join any MPO.

“I don’t know that we’re in a position yet to make that determination,” he said.

Both he and Scheel said they feared joining the MPO also could leave them vulnerable to the possibility of new toll roads in the county, something each has lobbied against in the past.

“I have a real problem with representatives from other counties deciding my county’s future transportation needs,” Scheel said.

The number of residents required to form a planning organization is based on census data. The next census will take place in 2010. Once that information is available, New Braunfels likely will be officially above 50,000 in population and could form its own MPO, or possibly combine with Guadalupe County to form a two-county planning organization, provided it meets federal requirements.

The transportation board’s vote — which passed 10-2, with one abstention — only gives the MPO the official go-ahead to begin talking with local governments about possibly joining.

Sheila McNeil, the chair of the MPO’s transportation board, assured Boyer that cities such as New Braunfels would have a say in the final outcome.

“Our decision will be based on your decision,” she said.

In what can only be described as the biggest political blunder at the San Antonio MPO (SAMPO), the Transportation Policy Board had egg all over its face when New Braunfels Mayor Bruce Boyer and Comal County Judge Danny Scheel told SAMPO they were never officially notified that it was set to vote on pursuing extending its boundaries into Comal County at today’s meeting.

They had to find out from their State Representative Nathan Macias and constituent emails. This move by SAMPO not only shows a total lack of consideration and political couthe, but also demonstrates a hostile takeover of the Hill Country by SAMPO was in the works. The inept lack of professional courtesy isn’t exactly how SAMPO engenders a spirit of cooperation!

Our thoughts for Comal County officials? Welcome to the toll road steamroller. They may be back-peddling and even appear to be accommodating as a result of their colossal faux paux, but once they rope you in, don’t expect their treatment of you to improve. You’d be one vote on a board of 20 with all but a small minority FOR toll roads, which your constituents adamantly oppose.

Why the rush to gobble up the Hill Country?

The law allows the Hill Country to form its own MPO once New Braunfels reaches a population of 50,000. But none of this relevant until the next census. Why the rush to do it now? Think TOLL ROADS and SAMPO seeking the Hill Country’s gas tax funds.

This boundary extension is no small issue. It means both counties have less control over their local transportation decisions. Comal County doesn’t want to be one vote on a Board of 20, and Bexar County doesn’t need the expense or hassle of taking on the Hill Country’s transportation costs nor another Mayor Jack Leonhardt who goes along with TxDOT (and the toll road agenda) to get his small city, Windcrest, some goodies at the expense of everyone in the larger urban areas.

Despite SAMPO having made presentations in the past to some Hill Country officials regarding the possibility of joining SAMPO, they still voted to take official action to “formally engage in a discussion” about a boundary expansion to engulf the Hill Country.

Why take action against the wishes of thousands of people as expressed by two of their elected officials in Comal County if they’ve already engaged them in discussions? In plain English: it’s to officially force a decision by New Braunfels, Comal County, and other counties north of Bexar County in an aggressive posture that’s totally unnecessary until the next census.
SAMPO presented 3 scenarios of how the extension could occur. In one scenario, they’d take in all the area up to Hwy 46 (which TxDOT has already studied for tolls) and another showed them engulfing three entire counties: Kendall, Comal, and Guadalupe. A hostile takeover indeed!
Outright lies and deliberate deception

Mayor Boyer took exception to SAMPO’s bogus federal re-certification report that says New Braunfels did a census of its own prior to the 2010 census to see if it qualifies as an urbanized area SAMPO could engulf. Boyer stated there is no nor was there ever such a census conducted by the City. He called SAMPO on the carpet for this deliberate fabrication and misrepresentation of the facts to the federal government!

Boyer also spoke of constituents’ angst over taxation without representation in a sort of New Braunfels Tea Party that’s sprung up as a result of the threat of being absorbed by pro-toll SAMPO without any say by City officials. He also challenged their population growth figures stating they’d be hard pressed to provide water to all of these “new” hypothetical residents considering the situation of providing water to current residents is already dire.

“We’re all for regional cooperation, but we haven’t even decided what we’re going to do yet,” Boyer said.

Boyer and good guys Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and State Representative David Leibowitz all agreed that they can achieve planning and cooperation through existing entities like the Alamo City Council of Governments (AACOG) without having to surrender Comal County’s independence to the overly aggressive and rabidly pro-toll SAMPO.

We’re after your money

Bexar County Commissioner Chico Rodriguez admitted that one of the reasons SAMPO is trying to force a decision by New Braunfels well before the 2010 census is because Bexar County wants access to their gas tax allocations. He said, “We don’t want to lose any money. People need to realize we’re losing mooney. We hope Comal and Guadalupe counties will join us, because we need the money.”

It’s also been made known that the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) is seeking toll projects outside Bexar County since they cannot advance any toll projects without clearance for 281 (the lynchpin to the whole system, without 281, they can’t do toll roads in Bexar County), which won’t happen for another 3-5 years.

“You have representation on this Board”

Pro-toll Selma Councilman Bill Weeper tried to pass off his one vote on SAMPO as representation for New Braunfels since their city touches 3 counties, Comal being one of them. Yet when thousands of constituents have asked SAMPO to vote down toll roads, Weeper has consistently and gleefully cast his vote FOR toll roads.
Councilwoman Diane Cibrian, the subject of a recall campaign due to her betrayal of voters regarding toll roads, also tried to claim she was the voice and vote of the Hill Country that touches her district.

After Boyer made his constitutents’ opposition to toll roads perfectly clear, Weeper’s and Cibrian’s comments were more like a slap in the face than any reassurance.
Since SAMPO has staked itself out as a pro-toll board despite the opposition by taxpayers, they have made an ardent enemy of the tax-averse Hill Country who already suffer from the pro-toll railroading of SAMPO.

Good Guys vote with the PEOPLE

Only two heroes showed up to vote with the PEOPLE against expansion:

Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson

State Representative David Leibowitz.

Who were the ones that voted to steal the Hill Country’s gas tax allocations and shove their expansionist agenda down the throats of sovereign cities and counties in the Hill Country?
Bexar County Commissioner Chico “We need your money” Rodriguez
Councilwoman Sheila “Those people can afford the toll roads” McNeil

Councilwoman Diane “Flip Flopper, I’m your Hill Country vote” Cibrian

Councilman John Clamp
Selma Councilman Bill “I’m your Comal vote” Weeper

Windcrest Mayor Jack LeonhardtAll the un-elected bureaucrats, including two TxDOT votes

No shows

Senator Carlos Uresti
Commissioner Lyle Larson

Councilman Louis Rowe

Adkisson nailed the public sentiment when he again expressed his long-standing objections to the board being stacked with bureaucrats who “can cram a lot of garbage down the throat of this community wihtout reprecussions at the ballot box.” He went on to say “until this board can find its way past toll roads and put elected members in the place of bureaucrats,” he’ll vote against such moves.

Leibowitz was visibly appalled by the fact that neither SAMPO Chairwoman Sheila “Those people can afford the toll roads” McNeil nor its Executive Director made any attempt to reach out to New Braunfels or Comal County officials to inform them of today’s possible action. He asked Boyer if it was a fair to say “that you have not been given enough information to make an appropriate decision at this time.” And Boyer concurred. Leibowitz reassured Boyer he concurred with his position against toll roads and said he would never vote to make a decision to New Braunfels’ detriment.
Only a total revolt at the ballot box and a mass dumping of incumbents, including voting down term limits, will re-shape this corrupt board that’s just as tone-deaf to the taxpayers as TxDOT.

The road building and transportation lobby’s biggest event of the year is arguably the Texas Transportation Summit, hosted annually by Dean International in Irving, TX. Not usually an invited guest among those whom ordinary citizens have ardently opposed, TURF was invited to attend by the Summit’s Founder, David Dean. An olive branch and honest effort to incorporate differing views? We hope so. Time will tell. Below is the TURF testimony at three public hearings that were held concurrently with the Summit: one addressing MPOs, another public private partnership toll roads, and another addressing the diversions from the gas tax to non-transportation uses.

Testimony by TURF Founder, Terri Hall, before the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Addressing MPOs, August 12, 2008

Chairman Carona, Senators, thank you for having public testimony on this vital issue effecting transportation decision-making in the state, MPOs. The citizens have found by and large that MPOs are rife with many of the same problems we’ve experienced with TxDOT. MPOs are tone-deaf to the public and do not represent the will of the taxpayers anymore than TxDOT does, regardless of the elected officials that sit on those boards.

The process by which this shift to toll financing for nearly every road project is flawed to begin with. The public has been shut out from DAY ONE and has never been given ANY meaningful input  as to whether Texans even want to be charged both gas taxes and tolls to get to work or have any chance at mobility.

We don’t want or need any more organizations that give political cover to TxDOT (and frankly to the Governor and Legislature) that allows TxDOT to check the public involvement box and ignore the overwhelming opposition to tolling existing right of way and proceed as planned anyway.  I’ve personally witnessed it in the NEPA public hearing process and there is no meaningful public input to date.

There is no provision that allows the public to veto a project or influence how its financed. There are already 2 lawsuits pending against the MPOs in this state due their flawed decision-making processes. MPOs are not a reflection of the will of the people. When hundreds of citizens have turned out to ask MPO Boards to nix toll plans (by a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 margin against), they consistently vote to toll anyway.  What is the point of “public involvement” if the public’s input is consistently ignored? The only redress is to unseat at least half the MPO Board in the next election only to again have it stacked with pro-corridor, pro-toll, pro-privatization appointees. The citizens never know who will be appointed to the MPO,  and therefore have no way to truly impact the MPO even at the ballot box. If a board member votes with the people, they promptly get removed from the Board and replaced with one who will vote pro-toll. Ask former Chairwoman Andrade, she facilitated that retribution in Bexar County.

THE FAIR AND EQUITABLE SOLUTION
Ordinary citizens and taxpayers have been alienated from the process of transportation decision-making at EVERY level. The citizens have a right to self-determination in a Republic and we deserve the right to bring this to a public vote or have some other means of having citizen input heeded perhaps through the NEPA process, rather than continue the TxDOT & MPO charade of “citizen involvement.”

Let’s remind ourselves what TxDOT thinks of as citizen involvement…it’s them breaking the law to hire a lobbyist to lobby elected officials and hire marketing firms and political consultants to write and coordinate their speeches, public appearances and press statements in order to spout the glowing benefits of the tolling to taxpayers in Town Hall meetings to convince an angry public that they really do want toll roads.

Texans are smart enough to know if we truly need this new infrastructure, how they want it financed, and what the preferred route and solution ought to be. It’s not just the top-down approach that’s upsetting people, it’s the lack of any meaningful input into the decisions being made at EVERY level of the process.  It’s abundantly obvious that the decision has already been made for us. That’s what people are objecting to.

I do hope our message is clearly communicated and HEEDED in your recommendations to the Legislature.

Testimony by TURF Founder, Terri Hall, before the Legislative Study Committee on Private Participation in Toll Roads, August 12, 2008

The invited testimony before this CDA Study Committee has been noticeably stacked in favor of CDAs or PPPs, despite the overwhelming public opposition to privatizing our public infrastructure. Rather than heed the public’s concern, you have instead chosen to try and tweak PPPs in order to make them more palatable to an angry public rather than truly study what you were charged with studying: the EFFECTS of PPPs on the traveling public. This committee operated form the assumption that PPPs would continue from day one, rather than deliberate whether we should be engaging in any more of these types of contracts and whether this type of contract is in the public’ best interest.

We feel strongly that you should take a few steps back and study whether or not the government should even be in the business of making a profit and whether or not massive leveraged debt in this lending is the right approach. This committee also ought to study whether we should continue such a heavy reliance on tolling considering the sustained volatility of the price of gas. Considering both Houston and Dallas toll roads have experienced a decline in toll road usage and that there has been an overall decline in driving due to high gas prices, will 87+ toll projects be toll viable in 5 or 10 years given these conditions. Will the taxpayers be stuck with even higher toll prices because of lower ridership or worse be stuck bailing out a toll road in default?

Increasing the cost of transportation, particularly with a market-based toll rate and/or a PPP which is the most expensive transportation tax, is not only unwise, it’s a recipe for economic disaster.

Gas prices have caused a dip in toll road usage (per articles in Express-News and Landline Magazine) and caused marked drops in driving in general. The bond debt for these toll projects is very likely to default under these conditions, which most leading energy analysts agree will continue for the foreseeable future.

Where is the consideration of the taxpayer in all of this?  Short of some brief comments by Senator Tommy Williams and Rep. Wayne Smith, the taxpayers pocketbooks and their ability to pay these new taxes hasn’t even been on the radar. Where was the invited testimony from leading experts about high gas prices and the dwindling availability of oil and its effect on driving and the subsequent increase in usage of other modes of transportation? These issues have an enormous impact on the sustainability of 87+ leveraged toll projects. The Transportation Summit put on by Dean International had a speaker on this subject, and this area is being investigated by Congress, yet the Committee didn’t see fit include such an elephant in the room in its decision of whether or not to recommend the most expensive transportation funding option….PPP toll roads?

Several witnessed testified that most toll roads aren’t self-sustaining. Why are we building toll projects that can’t sustain themselves and need massive taxpayer subsidies? Raiding other public funds to piece these projects together does the exact same thing the gas tax does, takes from some to give to others. How is this process better or more efficient for the taxpayer? It’s not, it just allows an unaccountable government revenue stream.

Testimony in answer to Senator Robert Nichols’ question concluded not a single PPP currently on the books anywhere in the U.S. could be used as an ideal model or exemplary PPP deal. The taxpayers can’t afford any more untested experiments when the risks and costs to the pubic are so high. We’re not guinea pigs for the financial markets and road builders to “try out” their “innovative financing” schemes.  We’ve studied these deals for many years now and we’ve been reaching to find one that served the public well. So far, one doesn’t exist. To continue such risky schemes and to ignore the obvious warning signs to the tune of billions of dollars is totally unacceptable.

Dennis Enright testified that CDAs cost 50% more, that there is no risk transfer, and these projects should always stay in the public sector. None of these areas make PPPs palatable to the taxpaying public. We keep hearing PPPs and tolling are just a tool in the “toolbox” and that “one size doesn’t fit all,” but due to TxDOT’s Minute Order passed December 18, 2003 mandating all new capacity be studied for tolling, it’s become the only tool in the toolbox unless you remove it.

The GAO recently cautioned that public protection must be put in place when using PPPs and indicated PPPs aren’t right for every project. SB 792 took the first step toward primacy, but the fundamental assumption that everything that can be tolled will be tolled (including subsidizing projects that aren’t 100% self-sustaining) must be removed. Senator Nichols’ Primacy Determination model needs to take a few steps back to change the assumption that everything will be a toll project of one kind or another, to one where the priority is to improve freeways and keep them freeways, resorting to tolling dead last.

To ignore the economic warning signs and bury our heads in the sand and continue down the path of models that require sustained increases in driving and affordable gas, is to foolishly invite economic disaster and would be a complete failure of the Legislature’s fiduciary duty to the public it swears an oath to protect and serve.

Testimony by TURF Founder, Terri Hall, before the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee on Transportation Financing Options, August 13, 2008

Thank you for studying the vital issue of transportation. There are many considerations before this committee that will impact the taxpayers’ everyday lives. The shift to privatizing and even maximizing profit (even on public toll roads) should cause every public servant to pause.

While some are trying to “fix” PPPs to make them more palatable to an angry public already suffering under high gas prices, we need to take a step back and look at whether this shift to reliance on tolling to fund new road construction is prudent, protects the public interest, and is sound fiscal policy that best serves the public interest. We submit that tolling satisfies none of those areas.

While we’re not opposed to all tolling, the tolling of existing right of way, market-based tolls, and privatization smack of runaway taxation and both government and private profiteering exploiting what amounts to government-sanctioned monopolies, our public highways. The toll-first Minute Order #109519 passed by the Transportation Commission on December 18, 2003 demonstrates tolling isn’t just a “tool in the toolbox,” it’s the only tool they’ll continue to use in order to fill their coffers. Through the prolific use of tolling, TxDOT has become a defacto taxing entity with no accountability to the traveling public who depends on these highways for their daily living.

We’d like to bring some things to your attention that we feel are vital to setting transportation on the right course.

TOLL ROAD USAGE, DRIVING DOWN
First, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and ignore the warning signs around us. In a San Antonio Express-News article July 29 and a Landline Magazine article from August 1, it states that toll road usage is down in both Dallas and Houston, largely due to high gas prices. The FHWA also reports that driving is going down causing gas tax revenues to also drop.

One can see there is an inverse relationship between a drop in driving and the escalating price of gasoline. So any transportation policy that substantially increases the cost of transportation will not only wreak havoc on the economy and leave less money for taxpayers to cover other necessities, it’ll actually reduce tax revenues, particularly toll road usage, necessitating increases in toll rates or causing the massive leveraged debt used to build these facilities to go into default leaving the taxpayers to bailout a HUGE mess not unlike the mortgage and banking crisis we’re seeing now.

INDIRECT EFFECTS OF TOLL ROADS
We must also consider indirect effects and the unintended consequences of toll proliferation like traffic diversion to surface streets which will increase wear on county and city roads, not meant to handle such traffic loads. In a study called the Empirical Evidence of Toll Road Traffic Diversion by Peter Swan of Penn State and Michael Belzer of Wayne State, released January 14, 2008, Swan and Belzer noted that efforts to “monetize” existing toll roads is a recipe for the level of higher toll rates that increase truck diversion.

A summary of the findings published in the Newspaper.com (January 14, 2008) states:

The researchers analyzed decades of data from the Ohio Turnpike and nearby alternate routes in Ohio, comparing both to national data to determine the effects the toll rates had on nearby free roads. Ohio raised toll rates in the 1990s and subsequently lowered them, allowing an easier calculation of the effect of different rate levels. The study showed that as the Turnpike toll increased, truck traffic increased on alternate, free routes as truckers balanced the monetary savings with the cost of the extra time needed to take an indirect route.

Swan and Belzer’s economic modeling showed that the Turnpike could maximize its revenue by setting a truck toll rate of 46 cents per mile and collecting $111 from each truck driving the length of the Turnpike. At this high rate, however, the number of trucks avoiding the toll road would quadruple and place 608 million vehicle miles of added traffic and wear on secondary roads.

The study did not directly examine accident rates but the results suggested that imposing tolls on divided highways would increase the number of road fatalities by pushing truck traffic onto roads not designed to handle heavy truck traffic.

“Because we know that secondary roads pose greater safety hazards, the safety cost of diversion will be substantial,” the study explained. “We know enough about the frequency and severity of crashes based on highway type to suggest that a substantial increase in crashes, crash severity, and fatalities in the state of Ohio probably would occur as a result of this diversion.”

Interestingly, 46 cents a mile is the exact truck toll rate set by the Alamo RMA in the 281 toll project. In a TURF lawsuit to stop that toll project due to an insufficient environmental study of the impacts of that toll road on existing residents and businesses, no economic impact was conducted nor any study of the indirect effects of the toll road on surface streets and neighborhoods due to diversion.

DELIBERATE SUPPRESSION OF POTENTIAL NEGATIVE IMPACTS HIDDEN
Also found through litigation to stop the 281 toll road, TURF attorneys discovered a key study by a geologist TxDOT hired was deliberately hidden from the FHWA during the environmental review process. The report speaks of potentially “severe” impacts from the toll road on the Edwards Aquifer. Obviously this information could have changed the outcome of the FHWA’s environmental clearance (“Finding of No Significant Impact” or FONSI) for the 281 toll project had it been submitted with the environmental assessment. TURF’s attorneys also uncovered correspondence that shows management at TxDOT tried to pre-determine a FONSI on both 281 and 1604.

Such deliberate deception by a state agency cannot be tolerated, not to mention it violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The public trust can only be restored by direct punishment (employee terminations) for such violations and through strong legislative oversight.

PUBLIC PROTECTIONS PARAMOUNT
The GAO recently released a report to Congress in February 2008 citing concerns about needing more rigorous up front analysis of PPPs to ensure pubic protections are put in place. Senator Robert Nichols released a draft of a decision tree of sorts called a “Primacy Determination” that suggests a process by which any decision to toll would go through to determine if a PPP was the right type of method for a given project. We think this sort of process must be in place to ensure the public interest is protected. However, it assumes most if not all projects will be toll projects.

We submit that this decision-making draft ought to take one step back, and that is, to have a process by which TxDOT and the MPOs must go through to keep our freeways toll-free FIRST. Tolling should be the last option considered (PPPs, if not completely eliminated, the last on the tolling option list), especially considering high gas prices and tighter, more expensive lending conditions.

HIGH COST OF BORROWING
Even if a public toll authority does the project, a Bloomberg article, Not Even 2% Fed Funds Help Munis Amid Record Rates, from just days ago, August 7, 2008, shows that even municipal bonds and other government financial instruments are experiencing higher lending rates.

Two experts didn’t parse words:

“The world is falling apart” for borrowers, said Robert Doty, the president of American Governmental Financial Services, an advisory firm in Sacramento.

“The unwinding of the credit bubble has had dramatic implications,” George Friedlander, a municipal strategist at Citigroup Inc. in New York who has covered the market for more than 30 years, said in an Aug. 1 report.

Government and certainly the Appropriations Committee cannot ignore its fiduciary duty to the public by looking the other way and ignoring the warning signs.

OVERSIGHT AUTHORITY MUST HAVE TEETH
Another area the Legislature needs to consider addressing in statute is giving the State Auditor the authority to force a tolling entity (whether public or private) to redo their traffic and revenue studies if the methodology or study is insufficient in any area. For instance, the State Auditor asked the Alamo RMA to redo its traffic and revenue study to take into account high gas prices, which is an obvious factor tolling authorities must consider in whether a toll road will be viable long-term. These agencies are doing inadequate studies to ram their agendas through. An article in the Express-News about this recommendation from the Auditor, emphasizes that the Auditor cannot force the RMA to re-do anything, that SB 792 only has the Auditor review their methodology. The Auditor should have the ability to force a tolling entity or TxDOT to redo an inadequate study that could potentially put these public roads in default at the taxpayers’ expense.

MPO TONE DEAF TO PUBLIC
Also, MPOs can be just as tone-deaf to the public as TxDOT. Certainly RMAs and unelected toll authorities fit into this category as well. The public by and large has been left out of transportation decision-making at EVERY level. There is no provision that allows the public to veto a project or influence how its financed. There are already 2 lawsuits pending against the MPOs in this state due their flawed decision-making processes. MPOs are not a reflection of the will of the people.

When hundreds of citizens have turned out to ask MPO Boards to nix toll plans (by a 2 to 1 or even 10 to 1 margin against), they consistently vote to toll anyway.  What is the point of “public involvement” if the public’s input is consistently ignored? The only redress is to unseat at least half the MPO Board in the next election only to, again, have it stacked with pro-corridor, pro-toll, pro-privatization appointees. The citizens never know who will be appointed to the MPO, and therefore have no way to truly impact the MPO even at the ballot box. If a board member votes with the people, they promptly get removed from the Board and replaced with one who will vote pro-toll. Ask former Chairwoman Andrade, she facilitated that retribution in Bexar County.

THE FAIR AND EQUITABLE SOLUTION
The taxpayers have a right to self-determination in a Republic and we deserve the right to bring this to a public vote or have some other means of having citizen input heeded, perhaps through the NEPA process, rather than continue the TxDOT & MPO charade of “citizen involvement.” We need some public involvement REQUIREMENTS that FORCE TxDOT to implement the alternative chosen by the public, not the one that makes the State the most tax revenue.

LOBBYING FOR TOLLS/PPPs
Let’s remind ourselves what TxDOT thinks of as citizen involvement…it’s them breaking the law to hire a lobbyist to lobby elected officials and hire marketing firms and political consultants to write and coordinate their speeches, public appearances and press statements in order to spout the glowing benefits of the tolling to taxpayers in Town Hall meetings to convince an angry public that they really do want toll roads.

We provided the Sunset Commission as well as the Chairwoman Harper-Brown’s office with in-depth documentation of TxDOT’s illegal lobbying activities. The Texas Government Code Chapter 556 states that TxDOT is subject to a reduction in appropriations per 556.005

(c)  A state agency that violates Subsection (a) is subject
to a reduction of amounts appropriated for administration by the
General Appropriations Act for the biennium following the biennium
in which the violation occurs in an amount not to exceed $100,000
for each violation.

DETERMINE TRUE NEEDS, COMPARE FREEWAY FIX TO TOLLWAYS
We need to end the toll road wish lists (MPO TMMP plans that even the Governor admitted were based on an if-money-were-no-object principle) and get a true side-by-side, apples to apples comparison of the cost of fixing our roads and keeping them freeways versus the cost of turning them into tollways. If it’s anything like the US 281 project in Bexar County, TxDOT/ARMA has turned a $100 million gas tax funded FREEway plan into a $1.3 billion toll project. This side-by-side comparison will help Legislators and the public discern our true “unfunded needs,” since we cannot rely on TxDOT’s “funding gap” figures to be accurate. Then and only then can we accurately assess funding our roads in the least invasive, most affordable, and most transparent fashion.

Thank you for allowing us testify to the citizens’ concerns and we trust their voices will be heard and heeded as we seek to restore trust in the transportation decision-making process across the state and to put the citizens back in the driver’s seat.

As if the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) aren’t in enough hot water with two pending lawsuits against them by citizen groups, now one of the state’s most powerful MPOs, the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) in Dallas-Ft. Worth, is asking for the power to finance roads by selling its own bonds like a Regional Mobility Authority (or RMA)! It’s bad enough the RMAs are un-elected boards tone-deaf to the public interest and to the citizens’ objections, but MPOs which are just as bad if not worse, are seeking the same bonding authority. The MPOs role set-up by the feds is as a “planning” not “taxing” entity.

MPOs have no business and certainly no legal authority to finance or build roads, and the RTC knows it, so they’re trying to change the law to grant themselves MORE POWER, the power to put the taxpayers’ further into debt! They also seek to gobble up neighboring suburbs into their jurisdictions, diluting smaller communities’ power over their own transportation destinies.

Senators talk transportation at annual summit
by Mark Lavergne
Lone Star Report
August 19, 2008

IRVING – Federal, state and local elected officials, transportation leaders, companies and other interests convened this week for the 11th Annual Transportation Summit, hosted by the City of Irving, to mull challenges and innovations on how to get from place to place.

The meeting of minds provided a ripe occasion for state lawmakers to discuss future policy, including those on the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, who met Aug. 12 to discuss a sizeable plate of issues. Another committee dealt with toll road issues (see Around Texas). Another Fund 6 (see article).

Among the transportation committee’s concerns:

Metropolitan Planning Organizations. The message from members of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) was not surprising: Please give MPOs more “flexibility,” i.e. more decision-making ability about where the money goes.

MPO members are often appointed by county commissioners and city council members, and are usually made up of elected officials and transportation experts who make decisions about which transportation projects to work on.

Michael Morris, director of transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments Regional Transportation Council — no doubt one of the state’s longer job titles — suggested creating “metropolitan mobility authorities.” An MMA would be a statutory hybrid between a regional mobility authority (RMA) and a metropolitan planning organization (MPO). RMAs have more funding power than MPOs do.

Terri Hall with the transportation policy watchdog group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) had issues with the idea. “What’s really troublesome about that,” she said, “is that the makeup of these boards is, I think, flawed to begin with,” since state legislators often sit on the MPO boards, which allocate federal funds, creating a separation of powers issue.

“There’s also the issue,” she said, “of having the boards diluted,” with appointees that the people have no role in choosing. “Now they’re going to try to give them actual bonding authority.”

Morris also said that it is important for MPOs not to be too numerous, saying that it would be “ludicrous” for DFW to have three different MPOs. Lewisville and McKinney each have separate MPOs from the DFW MPO — as required by law, Morris said. The DFW MPO is going after some 12 counties right now so they don’t have a bunch of MPOs planning in the same metropolitan region, Miller said.

The committee members seemed receptive to Morris’ ideas.

Said Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano): “What we’re missing in our MPO is the ability to do the same thing that an RMA might do, and that’s the funding mechanism.” But Shapiro emphasized that the authority should be given to an already existing entity, the MPO, rather than creating another layer of government on top of it.

Indeed MPOs, plus the spending power of RMAs, would essentially equal a Metropolitan Mobility Authority.

Morris suggested giving MMAs the use of toll revenue. Right now those revenues go to Fund 6, but “the region is scared to death that someone will sweep it during session,” Miller told the committee. Miller has been looking for innovative ways to ensure that the money stays in the region.

Hall, of TURF, told the committee that citizens have found that MPOs are “tone-deaf to the public, and don’t represent the will of the taxpayers any more than TxDOT has been.”

“We don’t want or need any more organizations that give political cover to TxDOT,” Hall said, “and then allows TxDOT to check the public involvement box and ignore the overwhelming opposition to tolling existing right-of-way and proceed as planned anyway.”

Hall told the committee that there are already two lawsuits pending against MPOs in the state due to flawed decision-making processes. “MPOs are not a reflection of the will of the people when hundreds of citizens have turned out to speak at these MPO boards and its toll plans two-to-one, three-to-one, in some cases ten-to-one margins, and consistently vote to toll anyway. What’s the point of public involvement if the public’s input is consistently ignored?”

“Texans are smart enough to know if we truly need this new infrastructure, how they want it financed, and what the preferred approach ought to be,” she continued. “It is abundantly obvious that the decision has already been made for us, and that’s what we’re objecting to.”

One of the lawsuits challenges the very existence of MPOs in Texas, Hall told LSR, on the grounds that no Texas law makes MPOs legal in the state. Federal law makes MPOs possible for the states, but the states must have enabling legislation, which Texas is without, Hall said.

Bus accidents another black mark on TxDOT? Recent bus accidents in Texas, notably the recent fatal one near Sherman, could provide more reason to remove vehicle regulation from TxDOT, Sen. Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth) told the transportation and homeland security committee.

Sunset staff found TxDOT’s regulation of motor vehicles did not “conform to commonly applied licensing practices.” While staff did not recommend taking the licensing function away from TxDOT altogether, Sunset Advisory Commission members, including Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio), suggested creating a whole new agency to deal with licensing (currently done at the Texas Department of Public Safety) and vehicle regulation (currently at TxDOT).

Shapiro asked Major Mark Rogers of the Public Safety Commission to look into compiling and including on the DPS website a list of private bus companies that have been taken out of service for safety concerns.

Rogers said that was “something that we could easily do.” She also asked that DPS look further into requiring seatbelts on all buses, a measure the last legislature mandated for school buses. “I know it’s an expense,” she said, “but when you’re seeing this happening over and over again throughout the state, at expense to whom and why? Its certainly not too expensive to ask to save lives.”

Employees at TxDOT. Committee Chairman John Carona (R-Dallas) pressed TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz on the number of employees at TxDOT, saying fewer would provide greater efficiency.

But Saenz said that the agency already has 800 to 900 full-time-equivalents fewer than appropriators authorized. Right now he wants to keep the workers he does have in place to determine which functions the department can regionalize.

Carona pointedly asked: “So, is it fair to say that you would be prepared to release those 800 to 900 positions back to the finance committee?”

“Yes and no,” Saenz replied. He said core groups and work groups are looking at improvements that could be made to TxDOT’s technology. The goal is to be become more effective, efficient, and transparent, he said.

Billboard regulation. Margaret Lloyd, policy director for Scenic Texas, urged the members to reverse the existing law and limit outdoor advertising. Lloyd said she would like at least to see “some local control,” requesting that the Legislature consider granting “very narrow authority” to counties.

But Lee Vela of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Texas said that limiting outdoor advertisement would “suppress business.” He acknowledged that some Texas roads could be designated as “scenic” but indicated there should be standards for determining which.

Lloyd also suggested the creation of an advertising tax, saying that if billboard companies are considered a business for condemnation purposes, then they should also be treated as such for tax purposes. But Vela said such a tax, though considered in the past, never got traction because it reduces advertising spending.

Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) exhorted Vela and Lloyd to come up with a compromise on the issue, saying he was “sick of this issue,” and surmising that his colleagues were as well. “If we [the Legislature] have to solve it, everybody loses,” Williams said.

Several witnesses spoke in favor of the billboards, including representatives of several non-profit organizations who had had billboard space donated to them, saying that increased regulation would cut off a crucial advertising medium.

Hip, hip hooray for the grassroots! Before we had even arrived at today’s MPO Board meeting where it was to vote on proposed changes to its bylaws, it had already responded to the overwhelming number of emails opposing many of the changes to the bylaws by striking the most controversial provisions. The MPO pulled the proposal to allow the Mayor and County Judge to unilaterally appoint an alternate member to the Board in the place of an elected official. Considering the MPO is the subject of a TURF lawsuit to force the recomposition of the Board to force out the majority of the appointees who are diluting the elected officials’ votes, the proposed bylaw changes added fuel to the fire and demonstrated the propensity of this body to stack the deck with as many appointees as possible.

The MPO also removed some of the changes to how projects are scored and prioritized (that would have made tolling easier) and even added a provision that the category at issue could NOT be used on toll projects! SCORE AGAIN!

However, the Board still voted to loosen what constitutes a quorum (allowing vacancies not to count toward a quorum almost guaranteeing appointees rather than elected officials will be making multi-billion tax decisions without the people’s elected representation), and to give the Chair unilateral discretion to direct the Executive and Finance Committees instead of that power being vested in the entire Board as a whole. It also approved language that paves the way to expand its boundaries to engulf the Hill Country in its jurisdiction, sure to cause a near riot once the citizens north of Bexar County catch wind of such a plan. You can’t get more anti-toll than Texas House District 73.

Commissioner Tommy Adkisson gave rousing and well-reasoned arguments for a distrust of the feds pushing a boundary expansion saying “you can’t trust anything coming down from the feds. Everything they touch is a mess! I say local control.” He and Representative David Leibowitz also objected to the changes to a quorum since it will only encourage elected officials to tarry in filling vacant seats when controversial votes (ie – toll roads vs no tolls) will likely be cast leaving these decisions to appointees whose jobs depend on towing the pro-toll line.

For those living in the 281/1604 area (Precinct 3) in the first round of toll tax assaults, your County Commissioner Lyle Larson, was a no show for today’s important bylaw battle. His pro-toll appointee to the tolling authority also sang the praises of tolling 281 at nearly 10 times the cost of the FREEway fix at last week’s 281 public hearing. Bob Thompson, Larson’s appointee and ex-City Councilman, is serving in an expired term. He should have been re-appointed or replaced last February. If you’re concerned, call Larson’s office: (210) 335-2613 or email him at lylelarson@bexar.org.