Link to article here. One correction to the article, the toll lanes will replace all 6 of the current freeway lanes, and there will be overpasses and 6 non-toll access roads added with stop lights and lower speed limits. So the plan is not adding 2 lanes down the middle of the existing corridor, the entire freeway is being converted to a toll road. And you can see TxDOT can come up with money to toll a road, but they refuse to give us FREEways with the tax money we already pay. This state had a $14 billion surplus and left $8 billion unspent AND sales tax revenues are beating projections, yet they sit there and tell us there’s no money for roads. It’s a tax grab, pure and simple.

Carlos Guerra: Crowded meeting, lots of e-mails show the passion over toll roads
San Antonio Express-News
12/03/2007

After getting a bunch of e-mails from toll road opponents — and a forwarded e-mail apparently sent out by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce — urging people to show up in force, I knew that Monday’s meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Organization would be worth watching.The organization is a local intergovernmental agency that approves all transportation projects, and Monday’s meeting was called to unveil how much the toll trolls will extract from travelers once two toll lanes in each direction and a tolled interchange are built on U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604.

It is expected that the toll structure set for San Antonio’s first toll road will set the price for the rest of this area’s 70-odd miles of planned toll lanes.

After 15 minutes looking for a place to park, I showed up 33 minutes before the 1:30 meeting. Even so, I had to wade through a crowd of 42 people who were being kept outside the VIA building by a stern-faced security guard at parade rest, guarding the door.

A sign proclaimed that the fire marshal had limited attendance to 208 people, though this rule apparently did not apply to journalists, who were welcomed in. This was the first time they had to turn the public away from a meeting, said Scott Ericksen, who is, ironically, the agency’s public involvement coordinator. But rules are rules.

Inside, the crowd was peppered with familiar faces from both sides of the issue. But it differed from other public meetings convened to discuss toll roads, especially the “hearings” convened to unveil the Trans-Texas Corridor, in which well over 90 percent of the speakers condemned tolling. This time, the toll advocates’ attendance was impressive.

The meeting, Metropolitan Planning Organization board member and County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson said, was being held “at a very inconvenient time” for working people, and he urged City Councilwoman Sheila McNeil, the chairwoman, to get the show going so the public could be heard on this increasingly acrimonious issue.

The Greater Chamber, I was told, mounted a major effort to get its people to attend.

“I got 442 e-mails generated by the Chamber,” County Commissioner Lyle Larson mused, pointing to a breakdown of the senders. “You’ve got engineering firms, 86; real estate firms, 67; construction and engineering, 37; homebuilders, 33 …

“These are all folks that have a vested interest in getting construction under way. But I can tell you that the lion’s share of correspondence I’ve gotten over the last 31/2 years has been opposed to (toll roads), and I mean by the thousands.”

Like others, Larson doesn’t buy into the notion that tolling is the only option for alleviating traffic congestion. And he questions the numbers the Texas Department of Transportation has issued to support its pro-tolling arguments.

“On the state level, at least, they’re focused on revenue,” he said.

“It’s not about building capacity, it’s about revenues.

“That’s why you are seeing the state come in now to subsidize the (U.S.) 281 corridor by about $112 million,” he added. “They have been indicating all along that there was no money available for 281, and all of a sudden, they found $112 million.”

At $35 million each, he said, “If they had the $112 million in 2003 when (TxDOT) was supposed to start construction on the first three overpasses, we would have gone a long ways at building overpasses at all seven intersections that have traffic lights (on U.S. 281) and alleviated a lot of the congestion by now.”

As for the argument that Houston, Dallas and Austin have embraced tolling options, Larson said, “Well, I’ve always thought San Antonio was unique. I don’t want to be like Houston, Dallas and Austin (in the) way they developed their urban areas, and adding toll roads is nothing to be proud of.”

NOTE: Unedited version
Testimony limited to 9 minutes, then 3 minutes

This board is about to cast one of the most controversial in its history.

Let’s evaluate the leadership of this Board. I have had a flood of email, blog comments, and phone calls expressing shock and outrage at the biased, divisive, and inflammatory comments made by Councilwoman McNeil about the northside and about those who cannot afford toll roads.

First, her comments were completely inaccurate, in fact, only the top 1% of income earners make $300,000 a year. Ms. McNeil tried to back away saying she meant average home value, but that’s also inaccurate. The average home value is only $159,000, and, in fact, you can hardly give away a home in Stone Oak right now. She repeated these comments TWICE, and referred to those who have worked long hours and sacrificed much to live up North, as “THOSE PEOPLE.” Ms. McNeil said exactly what she meant to say and no amount of spin can change it.

Second, her comments were extremely divisive in nature, pitting one side of town against another when we’re all in this together. These are the public’s highways and we all depend on them to live and work. What was most astonishing about her comments was the ease with which she told her own constituents that if they can’t afford the tolls (with the average income in her district at $14,000 a year, it seems few if any can afford tolls) they can be relegated to second-class citizens and take the congested access roads! Knowing I-35 is already in the toll plans, she defended her plan to vote to toll the northside, but indicated she wouldn’t be as eager in her own backyard. That isn’t leadership; it’s outright hypocrisy.

We ask that Ms. McNeil resign as Chair immediately and not preside over this vote since she’s clearly biased the Board and has used flagrantly false data to skew the debate in a discriminatory manner. I’ve received dozens of letters like these since her comments were made public:

“The MPO Chair has breached her duty to the citizens of San Antonio. She should resign. Neither my income nor my home value approaches $300K and even if they did, that is not justification for confiscating an existing right-of-way. Does the MPO Chair think that 281 is used only by the ‘rich’? Disband this atrocious body.”

“The MPO Chair has been exposed for what she really is. Put an end to this divisiveness. She should resign.”

“The video of Sheila McNeil’s presentation to her ‘constituents’ was an eye-opener…Ms. McNeil should not be on the MPO given her clear bias in favor of toll roads. She should be as embarrassed in making those comments as was in watching her make them. I was never motivated one way or the other about the 281 tolls, but incidents like this make it hard not to get involved.”

“I am extremely disturbed by (these comments)…(they) are not only totally inappropriate, they are completely inaccurate. I am a Mexican-American blue-collar worker who lives on the Northside. I acquired my home and my income level through hard work (10 to 12 hour days). Nobody has given me ANYTHING. EVERYTHING that I have, I have worked (my ___ off) to acquire. I do not appreciate your assertion that because I have what I do and live where I do, I should, therefore, be required to pay tolls on the roads that I use… Please resign your position on the MPO.”

You get the idea…Ms. McNeil needs to resign from the Board. A KSAT 12 poll last Friday showed 86% of respondents think McNeil should NOT preside over the toll road vote today.

Next, it’s DOUBLE TAXATION to toll an existing road:

“We have lived in the north central part of San Antonio area for 10 years. In that time TxDot promised to improve traffic conditions on 281N by building overpasses. The money was projected, the promises were made, taxes were collected, and nothing.

Meanwhile, the city and county has approved thousands and thousands of homes to be developed up and down the 281 corridor. Still no traffic relief. No overpasses. Nothing.

For the last few years the new idea is tolling 281. Why? Where are the overpasses? IF they had been built when promised we would know definitively if they improved traffic (which in all theory they would.) However, (TxDOT says) the monies for overpasses have been spent elsewhere.

We do not need toll roads. We need what has been promised, funded and denied.”

Hwy 281 needs overpasses, not a toll road. The ORIGINAL gas tax funded plan promoted in public hearings in 2001 included overpasses AND expanding the highway to 6 lanes, AND adding access roads to get to existing businesses. This plan as evidenced in the MPO’s and TxDOT’s own documents was supposed to be let in 2003, and TxDOT FAILED to install the promised fix, which has NOTHING to do with a lawsuit filed in late 2005.

The pricetag for the gas tax plan, $100 million in 2004 dollars. TxDOT has confirmed repeatedly in several news stories that it has $100 million in gas taxes for 281. They had the money and failed to fix the road. So the blame for the situation on US 281 rests solely at TxDOT’s feet. As Ms. McNeil so nicely stated, they have targeted where they think the money is, on the northside, and they want to extort money from commuters and make them buy back the road they’ve already bought and paid for.

That brings us to today. Let’s adjust the cost of the original gas tax plan using the construction index to today’s dollars, it’s up to $170 million. TxDOT is NOT making an apples to apples comparison when it compares the gas tax plan cost to today’s estimated toll road costs. The toll road is up to 20 lanes, the original plan called for only 10. They’re not the same plans; therefore, the cost of the gas tax plan cannot be compared to toll road costs as if they were the same plan. Given the Texas Mobility Funds available, there is NO EXCUSE to spend $475 million to toll 281 when a $170 million gas tax plan would do the job. With FHWA stats showing the growth has slowed in this corridor, this plan is indeed more than sufficient to fix the road and keep it a FREEway, though TxDOT will always claim otherwise, either though the gas tax plan is their own plan based on aggressive MPO growth patterns in the first place. The only thing that changed was TxDOT’s leadership who is shoving toll roads down our throats and asking you politicians to follow them into your own political ruin.

Given the information in an Express-News article on the Park & Ride controversy at 281 and Marshall Rd. just yesterday, portions of this toll road will traverse over the most sensitive area of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge zone and yet TxDOT after one lawsuit and more than a year later has FAILED to do an Environmental Impact Study and claims there is “no significant impact” in building a 14-20 lane toll road over the aquifer. Clearly, the facts say differently as Carlos Guerra’s column addressed yesterday.

NEXT, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:
This Board ought NOT to give equal weight to what started as a stealth email campaign by the highway lobby. It was hatched in a backroom at Valero, October 19, and meant to give the appearance of legitimate public opinion in favor of tolls when supporters should have come clean and stated where they work and that they have a financial interest in toll roads when corresponding. When a person has something to gain financially, they need to DISCLOSE IT when trying to influence the vote. A public official or RMA board member has to recuse him or herself from any votes or even the debate they have financial ties to what’s being discussed.

The emails you received in favor of tolls have to be considered on this basis. In contrast, what does count is the LEGAL RECORD at the 281 & 1604 NEPA public hearings with over 90% of the OFFICIAL public comment being opposed. There was no official, nor announced process for this MPO to collect public comments for this vote.

But in response to the SAMCO and Chamber-led email campaign, you received nearly 1,200 emails opposed to tolls. Over 35 businesses including dozens of CPAs and Independent consultants wrote in opposition to tolls as well as active duty & retired military and public school teachers.

Then, I personally witnessed Sheila McNeil and 2 TxDOT employees, one that sits on this board, Clay Smith, enter that closed door meeting at Valero where the stated purpose (in this SAMCO memo: READ EXACT WORDS) was to win approval of the terms and funding for 281/1604 toll projects on December 3. Since Vic Boyer who is also an ex-officio member of this board, was also there, this starts sounding an awful lot like collusion to me.

SECRECY/FINANCIAL TERMS:
Despite a sham letter from David Casteel to a few of our elected officials, the meaningful financial guts of the 281 toll rates are still secret. It’s tantamount to malfeasance to vote on this without knowing whether or not there is a non-compete agreement, what the impact of gas prices are on toll viability since other studies have shown toll roads are NOT viable once gas hits $3 a gallon, and what other factors can potentially affect toll rates if the assumptions used change! Essentially, you’re being asked to make a FINAL decision to approve a “draft” document without reviewing a single Traffic and Revenue Study and without knowing CRITICAL financial terms and impacts.

What’s most egregious is the study that has been done says that given the toll term assumptions made, “US 281 has a negative net present market value” and a “tax subsidy” would be required to complete the project. They repeatedly say these toll rates are based on the assumptions made but what happens if those assumptions don’t become reality and we have an oil embargo, or development slows or traffic continues to stay flat and fails to grow at the rate both TxDOT and MPO demand models show?

Here is a chart of the FHWA TX stats that shows traffic (VMT) has NOT GROWN and remained FLAT since the steady of rise in the price of gasoline began in 2005. (SHOW SLIDES)

The Government Accountability Office points out that benefit-cost analysis can be a valuable tool for helping decision makers. Local and state officials here have been denied this tool having never even conducted one, they’ve only taken the benefit-cost ratio as gospel with no documentation of it whatsoever.

Richard Perez’s op ed yesterday notes that “…costs for roadway construction projects have risen 72 percent in the last five years.” Instead of cutting back, Perez says “We can’t wait.” At some point, the cost of a project exceeds the benefits. We don’t know the full costs and benefits of any of these projects and whether the benefits exceed the costs.

When the toll road only goes the same distance that should have built in 2003 and you’re being asked to scramble today in order to extend the RMA project to the county line using a hefty tax subsidy that roughly equals the cost of the ORIGINAL gas tax plan, it’s clear tolling this freeway is a tax grab. There’s a viable, more affordable, less invasive and most importantly QUICKER option, so there is NO ACCEPTABLE EXCUSE to do this toll project when your own study says it’s a net LOSER! The highway lobbyists in this room are the ONLY reason to proceed because that’s who will make money off this boondoggle!

At this point, there’s more that you as decision-makers don’t know than you do know. You don’t know whether there’s a BIG FAT GOTCHA in these plans, but judging by everything else TxDOT touches, you can bet there is one. You ought to know by now the devil is in the details, and you don’t have the details upon which to make an informed public policy decision.

TxDOT and the RMA will say and do ANYTHING to get toll roads. Remember The State Auditor and the Texas Transportation Institute both found TxDOT’s figures are bloated and the Auditor specifically stated their figures “cannot be relied upon to make public policy decisions.” Commissioner Larson called them snake oil salesmen for a reason. You cannot trust what they say or believe any assurances they give you. If this is truly the best option, when why the secrecy? Why can’t they be open about it with the public and even MPO Board members and legislators who have oversight over TxDOT?

Leroy Alloway of the RMA alluded that there is a non-compete agreement and he tried to assure opponents that it wouldn’t prevent TxDOT or the City from expanding the roads, only the RMA. But the City is rabidly pro-toll and TxDOT has a policy that all new capacity will be tolled, too! This will guarantee congestion on our neighborhood streets, this is an OUTRAGE, and you can’t let it happen on your watch!

Among our politicians on the federal level –

Senator Hutchison and Senator Cornyn are opposed to the state tolling existing federal highways. The entire South Texas congressional delegation opposes the state plan.

Hutchison who passed a moratorium on tolling existing interstates said:
“My bill will protect drivers from paying tolls on roads that were already paid for by taxpayers.”

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

Then, Congressman Ciro Rodriguez who was instrumental in getting the moratorium passed said:
“Using toll roads to double-tax Texans is just plain wrong. I am very pleased that the final Transportation conference agreement contains an anti-tolling provision for federal highways in Texas. The citizens of Texas have spoken and they do not want the federal highways they have already paid for to be converted into toll roads. Working with Senator Hutchison, we put progress over politics for the benefit of Texas.”

We urge the Board to do just that, put special interest politics aside for the benefit of ALL Texans. Do not make the Texas taxpayers pay tolls for what’s already paid for. Give us the gas tax plan NOW!

We notified the public what is happening here today by doing over 200,000 automated calls over the weekend. We will also notify them how each of your voted tomorrow.

Will those who were able to take off work to be here to stand against the toll tax increases today, please stand to be recognized by the Board? This concludes my remarks…
__________________________________________

Texas Mobility Funds discussion –

At the May 2006 TX Bond Review Board Meeting, the record states TMF funds DO NOT NEED TO BE TIED TO TOLL ROADS, they can be used to build FREEWAYS. Prop 15 that the voters passed explicitly states they can used for FREEways. It is merely a TxDOT policy, NOT LAW, that is strong-arming this Board into applying them strictly to leveraged toll projects.

Use these funds to fix the most critical areas of 281 and 1604 NOW! This MPO designated these highways as high priority yet refuses to fund them other than as toll roads, which is the same method TxDOT uses. So how is this Board or the RMA “locally controlled”?

This $325 million total available TMF funds combined with the $100 million in gas taxes for 281 could build all of the needed improvements to 281, the interchange at 1604, and the most critical overpasses on Loop 1604 giving us the most critical fixes without endebting generations with risky bond debt at a time when gas prices continue to rise and put toll road viability at risk.

We all know the Legislature MUST address transportation funding next session. Sen. John Carona, Senate Transportation Committee Chairman, is already calling for indexing the gas tax and stopping the hemorrhaging of those gas tax revenues by ending the diversions through Constitutional Amendment to bypass Governor Perry. And we can all be thankful Mike Krusee, the single biggest impediment to getting meaningful funding addressed, spared us the time and expense of booting him from office by resigning first. If only the other tollers would do the same. If not, we’ll work hard to remove them.

Given that previous toll viability studies for 281 show 20 cents of every dollar collected in tolls goes to administration, it’s the very same problem we have now with the gas tax….diversions, not all of the money collected goes to transportation. So building more toll roads means we’re not actually fixing anything, we’re playing a more expensive ponzi scheme than we have now.

Then, the Sunset Review, a top to bottom review of TxDOT’s books, will also reveal the waste, fraud, and abuse of this agency run amok and allow Legislators to accurately determine the true transportation needs we need to fund, not bloated wish lists that are totally unrealistic at a time when concrete and asphalt prices will force changes to our government’s road building and toll road frenzy and force a change to driving habits now that even the International Energy Agency says cheap and easy access to oil has disappeared. We need GENUINE and REALISTIC transportation options, not more of the same, which is MORE DEBT and the biggest, most expensive toll road the highway lobby can dream up to enrich their own pocketbooks at the expense of the taxpaying public.

Toll roads cost anywhere from 10 to 40 times more money per mile than we pay now in gas taxes. Increasing the cost of transportation only HURTS the economy by sucking more money out of taxpayers pockets to travel to where they need to go, AND extracts more money from businesses who then have to charge their customers more which makes us all have to pay more for everything whether or not we take the toll road.

Why? To enrich a single industry, road contractors and their financiers? It’s downright criminal to crush our economy, and levy the largest tax increase in TX history to benefit the special few. We need to retain our seamless, efficient, freeway system EVERYONE CAN USE, not chop up our highways into a two-tiered system of expressways for the wealthy, and congested access roads for everyone else.

Use these TMF funds to fix 281 and 1604 as FREEWAYS NOW!

A representative list of businesses (whether the owner or its employees) who wrote in opposition to tolls:

Bill Reiffert & Assoc., Inc., Structural Engineers
Macina, Bose, Copeland and Associates, Inc.
TXCO Resources Inc. formerly: The Exploration Company
TEXAS INDUSTRIAL RUBBER & GASKET COMPANY
Food Safety Concepts International
Brandt Engineering Co.
Santex Ltd.
Kersey and Associates
Kirk Kothmann, DVM
Potters Wheel Productions
Edgar Chew & Associates
A-Bear Air Conditioning L.L.C.
Ince Distributing, Inc.
Findling, Milam & Pyle
Barrett & Sons, Inc.
Training, Rehabilitation & Development Institute
Corporate Express Business Interiors
Trinity University professors and employees
Groomer Seafoods
Methodist Healthcare
Scientific Aerospace Research Consulting (SARC), LLC an SDVO SBC (Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned, Small Business Concern)
Pratt & Whitney, Serviceable Military Assets (SMA)
dNovus RDI
USA Cycling
T3 Technologies
SWTEC, Inc.
FCE Benefits
COMCO Systems
Traugott, Inc. Painting & Decorating
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT SPECIALTIES, INC
Macina, Bose, Copeland and Associates, Inc.
CDF Properties, Real Estate Investments

Dozens of CPAs, active duty & retired military, public school teachers, and Independent consultants like pre-paid legal, Arbonne, Desktop Graphic Systems Consulting, etc. wrote in opposition to tolls as well.

Link to article here.

Richard Perez was the local waterboy for the highway lobby as Councilman and MPO Chair. He knows who butters his bread and he’s going to use the financial resources and backing of the Greater Chamber to get the toll road road heist done.

First of all, it isn’t “progress” to take on massive public debt nor is it “progress”to subsidize a toll road that can’t even pay for itself! Secondly, his wording is very misleading. He gives the illusion the existing expressway lanes that are there today will still be there when they’re done adding toll lanes. Not true, as was published in the Federal Register, the official legal notice for US 281, EVERY SINGLE HIGHWAY LANE will be converted to a TOLL LANE and the NEW lanes will be access roads with stop lights and slower speed limits which will be the ONLY non-toll option. There will be NO toll-free highway lanes!

Lastly, TxDOT’s resources are hardly “tapped out.” The Legislature just doubled TxDOT’s bonding capacity, transferred more general revenues to TxDOT, and voters just gave them an additional $5 billion in bonds November 6. Then, 281 overpasses have been funded since 2003. TxDOT REFUSES to build them toll-free with the gas tax money it already has in hand because they want to raid the wallets of the poor chaps unfortunate enough to live and work in the 281 corridor. It’s money grab, pure and simple. This is anything but progress or speeding up road projects, rather, road contractors and complicit politicians have teamed up to jam up traffic everywhere until motorists submit to their plan to rip-off taxpayers!

Richard Perez: Toll road plan will enhance S.A.’s future

Web Posted: 12/01/2007 07:11 PM CST

Richard Perez
If we look 10 years into the future, few decisions will impact our city’s road safety, economic development and quality of life more than the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Board decision scheduled for Monday. Which direction will we go? Will it be years of waiting, lawsuits and growing traffic, or will the city move forward?

The plan before the board is better than when we first discussed toll roads. When I served as chairman of the San Antonio-Bexar County MPO Transportation Policy Board, we included a toll system in the region’s long-range transportation plan. We were anxious that the system would be controlled in Austin. But now, the system is controlled locally by the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority. We were concerned that a foreign company would build the road and take the profits out of the U.S. But now, all profits stay in our region and will be used to maintain and expand future roadways.

We already see improvements. Through the hard work of Texas Transportation Commissioner Hope Andrade, we see remarkable construction on Interstate 10, the I-10/Loop 410 Interchange, the U.S. 281/Loop 410 Interchange, and Interstate 35 South from Military Drive to Division Avenue, to name a few. But these resources are tapped out.

We must take our next step toward progress. On Monday, members of the MPO Policy Board can pass a vote that provides long-term solutions to our traffic nightmare.

I support the MPO vote to add tolled lanes and direct connectors to the existing free expressway lanes. Here’s why.

We will always have free travel on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. No one will ever be required to pay a toll. We will always have a free alternative adjacent to the toll lanes.

The free lanes on U.S. 281 will be in better shape once the toll roads are constructed. This design calls for adding lanes in the middle (where lanes currently do not exist). In order to do this, the design actually requires upgrades and enhancements to the current free lanes on U.S. 281, making free travel faster.

Traffic in San Antonio is getting worse every day. Congestion at key locations along U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 has already reached a level of “F” — the worst congestion ranking on a scale from A to F. And traffic continues to grow at 15 percent per year.

We have witnessed continued and significant federal and state transportation funding cuts; these cuts mean shrinking dollars for highways. Help is not coming any time soon from Washington, D.C. or Austin. Just this November, federal rescissions were announced, and the money once earmarked for transportation projects is no longer available. This also means that a significant portion of transportation projects the MPO Policy Board scheduled for 2008 will not happen or will be scaled back. We must solve this problem using our own resources.

The costs for roadway construction projects have risen 72 percent in the last five years. Intense global competition for raw materials such as cement, copper, steel, rubber and petroleum products has been a major factor in this rise. For example, a $100 million project in 2002 dollars now costs $172 million in 2007. We can’t wait.

When I served on the San Antonio City Council, my charge was to represent not only my district, but all the good people of our community. I always did my homework and acted in the best interests of San Antonio. As I take the reins of the chamber, my mission has not changed.

The chamber’s mission is to implement a long-term vision for a vibrant San Antonio. The plan before the MPO is our means. It is a fair solution, and at the end of the day, the only solution.

---

Richard Perez is president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. He formerly served two consecutive terms on the San Antonio City Council from 2003 – 2007.

MySA Ad Link

Link to article here. View McNeil’s comments on YouTube here.

Jaime Castillo: McNeil just doesn’t get the toll-related frustration of ‘those people’
12/02/2007
San Antonio Express-News

I’ve been invited in the past by immigration hawks to “go back to Mexico,” even though I’m a third-generation U.S. citizen.And, from time to time, I’ve been lumped in with that vast media conspiracy which supposedly takes its p’s and q’s from an unseen deity named “Liberal.”

But, to my knowledge, last week was the first time I was branded one of “those people” merely because of where my family lives.

For that, I have City Councilwoman Sheila McNeil to thank.

In an attempt to ease the fears of her East Side constituents, McNeil last week added another chapter to the ongoing public relations nightmare perpetrated by toll-road proponents.

She did so by telling a gathering of homeowners that they need not worry about proposed toll rates on U.S. 281, which could be made official today, because the folks who live and drive on the north central corridor can afford it.

“Most of the people who use this road live out in that area. That’s who it impacts,” she said in videotaped comments Wednesday that are now part of Internet lore. “Now when they start coming over here on (Interstate) 35, then we can talk.

“But right now the decision we’re making next week is 281 and the folks who live and drive out there,” she continued.

“And those people can afford a toll, because the average income out there is probably around two, three hundred thousand dollars a year.”

At best, McNeil possesses an alarming ignorance of the city. At worst, she will stop at nothing to further her argument, including making up facts.

Express-News transportation writer Pat Driscoll, who blogged about the episode last week, noted the following:

“City stats say four out of five households in Council District 9, where half of the U.S. 281 tollway will be, earn less than $100,000 a year. More than half the district’s households make less than $60,000.”

Oops.

To be clear, as a resident along U.S. 281, I don’t believe McNeil was trying to start class warfare. But her comments reveal that toll-road backers, after months and months of public discourse, still don’t get the primary source of frustration for those who will be tolled.

It’s not about whether someone can afford to pay 17 cents a mile to travel on a tollway. Heck, I can afford to pay parking tickets, but I don’t rack them up on purpose just to save myself a few blocks worth of walking.

The issue, which admittedly is lost in the incessant frothing displayed by organized toll opponents, is that state transportation officials have never dealt from the top of the deck on the toll-road issue.

When it came to divulging financial details about the private partnership looking to build a section of the Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry and his handpicked leadership of the Texas Department of Transportation did not just tell the public “no.”

They also told the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott, which ruled that the information was public record, to go fly a kite for more than a year and half.

Similarly, it has long been known that the state’s highway funding crisis is in large measure worsened by the fact that state lawmakers keep spending supposedly dedicated highway funds on non-road purposes.

So, acknowledging the anger that the practice generates, did Perry and toll fans lay down the law last legislative session?

Of course not. The biennial budget crafted earlier this year diverts another $1.6 billion from the fund.

Pardon me, Councilwoman McNeil, the issue is not whether a certain group of residents can afford something.

The issues is whether you, as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, will ever put your foot down for anybody outside your council district.