Divide & Conquer: the 281 nightmare continues

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

First decode the jargon:

ARMA = Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), a misleading name for tolling authority, whenever you hear “mobility” it’s code for tolling

MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization is the local transportation planning board

NEPA = National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that guides environmental review for highway projects

__________________________________________________

The RMA can’t seem to tell the truth. At yesterday’s MPO meeting, Executive Director,Terry Brechtel, couldn’t even tell the Board how many toll lanes the agency is planning to build on 281. She’s either incompetent or intentionally hiding the truth. I believe it’s the later.

The point of the discussion was to get to the bottom of what happened to the $100 million in gas taxes dedicated to fix 281 (some became available in since 2003, the rest by 2006, documents showed it was still there through 2007) and how to move forward with an immediate solution. For the scoop on how a non-toll plan for overpasses and expansion on 281 was promised in public hearings in 2001 and funded with gas taxes since 2003, go to: www.281OverpassesNow.com.

Every project needs environmental clearance and funding. Sufficient funding, despite TxDOT’s best attempts at hiding and spending every cent available to fix 281, is still available. But yesterday, Clay Smith of TxDOT NEVER answered Rep. David Leibowitz’ direct question asking where the $100 million in gas taxes went. Brechtel also tried to claim the cost difference between the 20-lane toll road and 10-lane freeway plan was a mere $20 million.

TxDOT nor the RMA ever has to answer for its defiance, not as long as we have Rick Perry as governor and a sheepish legislature that’s too afraid to fix the big bad wolf. Guys like Commissioner Tommy Adkisson (new Chair of the MPO) and Rep. Leibowitz are in short supply in Austin. However, Bexar County Commissioners appoint the RMA Board and have floated the idea of dissolving it. Let’s insist they do.

The other hurdle in getting 281 fixed becomes the environmental clearance. The clearance for the toll road was pulled October 1, 2008. TxDOT royally botched the 281 toll road environmental study that was found to be rigged and fraudulent for which one employee was fired, two others “re-assigned,” and caused TxDOT to be banned from doing the new study (totally unprecedented).

The clearance was pulled for the toll road only. Federal law, NEPA, provides for a different course of action to advance in place of the toll road, particularly one that’s different in size, scope, and impacts. The original non-toll plan for 281 fits the bill, and yesterday we laid out how to get environmental clearance expedited for 281. It was abundantly obvious that TxDOT and the RMA continue to dismiss ANY other solution other than converting our existing FREEway into a tollway. Every non-toll scenario is shot down.

Brechtel and sidekick Leroy Alloway blatantly misled the public in Sunday’s Express-News article stating that the footprint for the freeway plan and the toll road are identical when the RMA’s own web site (see inset photos) and even past Express-News reports show otherwise. The original freeway fix is 10 lanes and the toll road is up to 20 lanes wide. We don’t need a mega toll road to fix 281, we need overpasses and access roads.

The toll road has detrimental impacts that the non-toll plan does not. There are significant negative economic impacts such as $2,000-$3,000 a year in new toll taxes and a higher cost of goods, indirect effects such as traffic diverting to neighborhood streets, environmental impacts due to continuous frontage roads that induce overdevelopment of the aquifer and a larger footprint creating greater impervious cover.

In addition, the criteria to determine what level of study is needed states controversy as a reason to do a full environmental impact statement. The toll roads are extremely controversial. The FHWA already required the RMA to do a full impact statement for the Bandera toll road for that reason.

Public meetings this week:
“Open House” means silence opposition
The RMA is hosting two public hearings this week, one tonight on the 281/1604 interchange at Harvest Fellowship off 1604 (just west of 281) at 5:30 PM, and a 281 “Scoping Meeting” Thursday at St. Mark’s Church off Thousand Oaks at 5:30 PM. The Open House techniques being utilized by the RMA for its public hearings do not comport with federal law, NEPA.

An open house format does not allow the public a chance to hear a formal presentation all at one time, with identical project information. The public has to read handouts, look at posters and project drawings spread around the room, and ask one-on-one questions of people from ARMA and the consulting firms in order to gain any understanding of the project. There is no official record of the questions and answers from the comments/concerns expressed in such one-on-ones. For a public hearing, there is a comment and response report where you can read the agency’s official response, but not with an open house.

TxDOT in recent years has begun to use the open house so that those opposed to a project don’t get to express their opposition during an open comment period at the end of a meeting where the audience hears these concerns and sometimes applauds and may cause some people to change their minds about a project. The open house format is a divide and conquer technique designed to silence those who may oppose the agency’s preferred alternative, which is always toll roads.

At the RMA’s open house for the 281 superstreet, attendees were not even made aware that in order to have their comments appear on the official record, they had to go submit them to the stenographer. We had many folks tell us they didn’t even know a stenographer was present.

The open house format is not a proper format for public hearings and it must be stopped or it can and will be challenged.

Here’s what you can do…

1. Head straight to the stenographer to get your comments on the official record.
2. Express your concerns with the Open House format where dissemination of info is not uniform and citizens cannot benefit from hearing other attendees thoughts about potential impacts.
3. Specifically for the interchange meeting, ask to see the document you’re supposed to be commenting on. (they’re holding a public meeting for comments on a document we believe is not even completed yet, which is cart before the horse and another violation)

Divide & Conquer: the 281 nightmare continues

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

First decode the jargon:

ARMA = Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), a misleading name for tolling authority, whenever you hear “mobility” it’s code for tolling

MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization is the local transportation planning board

NEPA = National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that guides environmental review for highway projects

__________________________________________________

The open house format is not a proper format for public hearings and it must be stopped or it can and will be challenged.

Here’s what you can do…

RMA open house on 281/1604 interchange a farce

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

See why the “open house” format is an affront to federal requirements for public involvement here.

Web Posted: 08/26/2009 12:00 CDT

Study on highway project disputed

By Josh Baugh – Express-News

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority on Tuesday held its lone public meeting for plans to build four non-tolled direct connectors between U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 — a plan that’s expected to ease congestion in one of the city’s worst intersections.

But the RMA’s efforts to quickly move through a low-level environmental review came under fire from critics who’ve raised concerns about everything from environmental impact to the method in which the meeting was conducted.

The RMA will use federal stimulus money to pay for the $140 million project that will connect northbound U.S. 281 with eastbound and westbound Loop 1604 and connect eastbound and westbound 1604 to southbound 281. The northern side of the project can’t be built, RMA officials said, because the agency doesn’t have environmental clearance for work north of the loop.

Enrique Valdivia, president of Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, said his group advocates a more holistic approach. AGUA believes that the environmental review ought to include the Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 corridors as well.

“What we’ve been arguing all along is that any long-term solution needs to take in the entire area — not a piecemeal approach,” he said.

The RMA is conducting three separate environmental reviews on the two highways and the direct-connector project.

Valdivia said he’s concerned that constructing the direct connectors will predetermine the scope and plan of expanding Loop 1604 and U.S. 281.

His group, a co-plaintiff with Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, hasn’t ruled out reopening a federal lawsuit to ensure that the proper level of environmental review is done.

Stacey Benningfield, a consultant handling the RMA’s environmental review, said the level of review isn’t up to the RMA. Rather, it’s decided by the Federal Highway Administration. That agency has directed the RMA to do the lowest level of environmental review — a categorical exclusion — for the interchange project, Benningfield said.

Agency officials based that recommendation on other similar projects and what they knew about the RMA project, Benningfield said. The federal agency has the final say in approving the document and based on the review could require a higher-level study.

Tuesday’s meeting was a successful one, RMA officials said. RMA board members attended and helped answer specific questions from the public.

“This is an opportunity for the public to really get engaged,” RMA Executive Director Terry Brechtel said. “Look around. People are talking. They’re asking questions.”

The RMA hopes to hire a contractor by next spring to design and build the project.

RMA lies about size of 281 toll road

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

The RMA purposely misleads the public in this article. Read what happened when we shined the light on these falsehoods here. See the proof that shows the 281 toll road is twice the footprint of the FREEway plan at www.281OverpassesNow.com.

Web Posted: 08/23/2009

Agency ‘aggressive’ on U.S. 281 environmental review

By Josh Baugh – Express-News

By 2012, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is hoping to have wrapped up the most extensive environmental review ever conducted on U.S. 281, the prerequisite to any long-term relief on the region’s most gridlocked stretch of highway.

The results of the federal “environmental impact statement,” or EIS, will dictate if and possibly how the U.S. 281 corridor from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line will be improved. No capacity can be added to U.S. 281 without first completing the EIS. It’s typically a five-year process, but the RMA hopes to complete it in three years.

“That is the bestthe best-case scenario in any circumstance,” said Terry Brechtel, executive director of the RMA. “We have decided to be aggressive and do some things to try to get this through. A lot of people and a lot of resources are trying to get it done.”

Improving U.S. 281 has been a controversial issue here for years because of the potential for toll roads, and it likely will continue to be as the RMA moves forward on its EIS.

Toll critic Terri Hall, the agency’s most outspoken opponent, has suggested that the cumbersome environmental review isn’t necessary — at least not anymore. Hall was part of a 2008 lawsuit that demanded that an EIS be conducted before any improvements were made to U.S. 281.

Her aim is to take toll roads out of the mix.

The EIS will evaluate, among other things, potential environmental, social and economic impacts that the highway’s expansion could have on the corridor. The study is supposed to take in a lot of public input.

It’s the type of study that toll opponents and environmental activists sought in a 2008 lawsuit they filed against the Federal Highway Administration, the RMA and the Texas Department of Transportation. Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom sought an injunction blocking tolled highway expansion until an EIS was prepared in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

The groups wanted an EIS conducted jointly on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. But the RMA is conducting an EIS separately for each highway. AGUA President Enrique Valdivia said that in itself taints the EIS process because it signifies the RMA putting its mark on the process before any outcome is reached.

Clearance yanked

In 2007, the Federal Highway Administration had given environmental clearance to the project based on a lower-level study — an environmental assessment — but the federal agency pulled the OK in 2008 after TxDOT announced that it had discovered irregularities in how its San Antonio district had procured scientific services.

The highway administration then sent a letter to the RMA requiring that an EIS be prepared for any future federal transportation project in the U.S. 281 corridor.

Environmentalists and toll opponents point to their lawsuit as a victory in stopping the project.

But Hall — TURF’s founder and director, and a plaintiff in the 2008 lawsuit — says the cumbersome EIS process could be avoided if plans to toll the highway were jettisoned.

RMA officials say it’s clear that there’s no way around conducting an EIS before adding capacity to U.S. 281. The Federal Highway Administration has said as much in a letter requiring that the study be done before any federal money is spent on U.S. 281. But Hall contends that the yanked environmental clearance only applies to the plan to build toll roads. Based on Hall’s reading of the National Environmental Policy Act, a non-tolled plan could undergo an “environmental assessment,” or EA, which is a lower-level study.

“We would argue that if you look at NEPA, you could actually do an expedited EA, meaning even faster than a normal EA, which is pretty quick compared to an EIS. And one of the things it says there in NEPA is that you don’t have to have public hearings, even. That’s a very long process.”

Hall advocates for TxDOT’s “original plan,” which called for two additional main lanes, bringing the total on U.S. 281 to six, along with four lanes of frontage roads. All the lanes were to be built as non-tolled.

But Leroy Alloway, the RMA’s director of community relations, says the footprint has never changed from the “original plan.”

“If you look at the plan she’s talking about, which is overpasses and frontage roads, and you look at the 2005 plan, they’re identical,” he said. “You look at the 2007 plan, it’s still the same footprint. You’re still building the exact same thing. The only difference was the expressway lanes would have been tolled. The frontage roads would have stayed as frontage roads. … That footprint didn’t change.”

That’s why the EIS should move forward, he said.

Solution sought

Now nobody knows what will be built. That’s where the public comes in.

On Thursday, the RMA will hold the first of several public meetings to gather input on how to deal with gridlock in the U.S. 281 corridor. In technical terms, the RMA will determine “need and purpose” that will help guide the outcome of the study — what the “preferred alternative” could be.

Maybe it’s the “original plan,” or the six tolled lanes that currently appear in the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s fiscally restrained Transportation Improvement Plan. Maybe it’s passenger rail, bus rapid transit or high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.

Throughout the process, a residents advisory group — which includes seats for AGUA and both of Hall’s groups, TURF and the San Antonio Toll Party — will meet and offer input for the EIS.

For Hall, though, it’s all for naught.

“At the end of the day, we want to get the overpass and original expansion plan for U.S. 281 funded and fixed and move forward with an expedited EA, and this whole EIS thing will be moot,” she said. That is, without toll roads on the drawing board.

But RMA officials say the U.S. 281 corridor is now a “blank slate” and that the EIS will determine the best way to address congestion there. There are a couple caveats: The preferred plan doesn’t have to be the most environmentally friendly, and funding sources have to be identified.

The RMA’s Brechtel says tolls are on the table and will remain so until another funding source becomes available. There’s not enough money from the state or federal governments to build the estimated $450 million project.

Hall said TURF would push in the 2011 Legislature for an indexed gas tax increase that would cover the cost of constructing freeways.

There are other options, Brechtel says, adding that San Antonio and Bexar County could decide to create a public improvement district or use property taxes to fund the project. More stimulus money could become available. Or a local-option sales tax — shot down in the Legislature this year — could take the place of tolls.

“Federal law says to keep a project going through an environmental study process, you have to have a reasonable revenue source, and today that reasonable revenue source is tolls,” Brechtel said. “I’ve been explaining that to folks on the MPO so they understand how this works.”

Brechtel wouldn’t speculate on the possibility of shifting trends at the MPO, the local agency that oversees more than $200 million of federal transportation dollars. Its new chairman, County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, is a toll opponent and ally of Terri Hall.

Hall said she thinks the MPO could vote to rescind its approval of tolls, effectively deflating the RMA. If Brechtel’s concerned about that, she wouldn’t say.

A toll-road vote isn’t on Monday’s MPO agenda, she said, so she’s not worried about it “this month.”

Find this article at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/traffic/Agency_aggressive_on_environmental_review_for_US_281.html

Community wants the RMA to go away!

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Terri Hall

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DISSOLVE THE RMA!
TURF/Toll Party
Comments to Bexar County Commissioners
April 7, 2009

The Alamo RMA is on life support. After spending tens of millions of taxpayer money, they have not one thing to show for it but a trail of dishonesty, and abuse of taxpayer money on every front like its 411 on 281 propaganda campaign and high-priced lobbyist to lobby lawmakers to keep their own jobs, not to mention relentless below the belt attacks on ordinary citizens, especially housewives and homeschooling moms.

The Alamo RMA and TxDOT are trying to convince the public NOTHING can be done on 281 for 7-9 years (3-5 years for a new environmental study and 3.8 years to build it). The law plainly shows this mantra is patently false. The clearance got pulled for the toll project only. There are provisions in the law that would allow the scaled down, non-toll original overpass expansion plan to move forward in months not years.

The ONLY thing that’s delaying the fix to this freeway now is the Alamo RMA’s REFUSAL to work with the community on a smaller scale, non-toll solution to 281 north. This isn’t about a lack of funding or lack of clearance, it’s about a lack of political will by those who want to tap the vein of congestion-weary commuters to make money off this freeway.

The “slice & dice” interchange – an RMA bailout!

Here’s the rub over the stimulus money. WOAI news radio reported January 14 that the RMA submitted a proposal to fix the main lanes on US 281, without making them toll lanes. Yet in the project list submitted to the Transportation Commission for stimulus funds, it clearly lists 281 as a toll road! RMA Chairman Bill Thornton promised it would remain a freeway if they got stimulus money for it. But they never submitted 281 as a non-toll project and never intended to do a non-toll fix as these documents show. Then in yet another twist, the RMA abandoned the freeway fix completely to pursue the interchange.

It’s a bait and switch and the public is SICK and TIRED of the misleading information, broken promises, and outright lies.

Clearly, the Alamo RMA is NOT an honest broker.

An Express-News article states only the southbound connectors would be built using the stimulus money. The RMA says the reasons they sliced and diced the interchange is because that’s all they have money to build. Just last year, the entire interchange cost was listed at $150 million. Now they say $143 million will only build half if it.

Total HOGWASH!

The interchange is a red herring to use up the stimulus money on something other than fixing the BIGGER problem, which is getting overpasses built to remove the stoplights from our freeway and get traffic moving again. This interchange is an “RMA bailout”!

Short of the environmental work for 281, they’ll be twittling their thumbs for the next 5 years. They’re grasping at straws to find anything they can call “shovel ready” to keep their doors open.

The reason they don’t want to build the northbound connections is because they plan to toll them (as shown in MPO documents dated February 23, 2009, that stated “connections to managed lanes optional” — managed lanes are toll lanes). When angry taxpayers made such a stink about using stimulus money on toll projects (which is a TRIPLE TAX), the RMA subsequently backed away from building the whole interchange knowing they’d get blowback if they came in later and tolled those ramps that were paid for already.

So instead of building the entire interchange, they scrapped the northbound connections and will let all of 281 north wither on the vine for 7-9 years until they get their toll road built.

They’ve promised if a new pot of money appeared, they’d keep them freeways. Now they’ve got it (stimulus money), and they’re still going to end-up tolling our freeways.

We do not need new legislation to get rid of this out of control agency. Simply direct them to vote to dissolve. And please do it quickly since they’ll say and do anything to stay on life support, and keep us doling out their lavish $1 million dollar salaries and benefits, instead of serve the best interest of the taxpayers. A bill in the Legislature to merge the RMA into a new agency just had a public hearing in the Senate Transportation Committee yesterday. So time is of the essence!

-30-

Commissioners want to get rid of RMA before state interferes

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here.

Web Posted: 03/26/2009 12:00 CDT

Bexar County may beat state at retooling toll road agency

Jaime Castillo – Jaime Castillo, San Antonio Express-News

A major bill being pushed by San Antonio Democratic Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon to consolidate several agencies dealing with local transportation policy hasn’t even been assigned to a legislative committee.

But that hasn’t stopped the politicking back here in Bexar County.

At least three county commissioners — Tommy Adkisson, Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez and Kevin Wolff — are mulling an effort to dissolve the Regional Mobility Authority, perhaps even before the Legislature acts on the consolidation effort.

In separate interviews, all three said the RMA, the toll road agency that has been the subject of intense criticism, is saddled — rightly or wrongly — with a perception that it’s a lapdog for the Texas Department of Transportation.

“I just think the RMA is a fifth wheel,” Adkisson said. “We ought to fold its powers into VIA. The time has come.”

Until now, local officials have been focused on the legislative effort, which would collapse the RMA and VIA Metropolitan Transit into the Advanced Transportation District, the voter-approved entity that currently uses a quarter-cent sales tax for road, bus and transportation improvements.

Rodriguez said he doesn’t want to do anything to harm the consolidation effort, which is designed to streamline transportation efforts as local leaders ponder new efforts for light rail and expanded rapid bus service.

But he said the RMA’s only current reason for being is a pair of recently awarded projects to add ramps at the interchange of Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 and to alleviate gridlock on a northern stretch of 281 with a “superstreet” concept.

“The RMA only has one hanger to hang its clothes on,” Rodriguez said. “We can transfer those projects elsewhere.”

Bill Thornton, the RMA’s chairman, bristled at suggestions that the agency doesn’t perform a valuable public function and that it’s too closely allied with TxDOT.

“If you give up on the RMA, you’re giving up local control that will just fall back to Austin,” he said. “Had we not had the RMA and the right of first refusal, we would’ve had that Spanish company handling the projects around 281.”

Thornton was referring to Cintra, a private company that was part of the state’s initial plans to build a network of tolled lanes in northern Bexar County.

Wolff said he’s “been trying to understand the viability of the RMA, and I can’t come up with anything.”

But he said he’d like to see a legal opinion regarding the transfer of the RMA’s powers before he commits to moving forward.

“I’ll know shortly what we’ll lose if it goes away,” Wolff said.

The commissioner’s father, County Judge Nelson Wolff, said he doesn’t think doing away with the RMA is the right approach.

“It would be my position to let the consolidation process work itself out,” he said.

However, it takes only three votes on the five-member Commissioners Court to get something passed.

Bait & switch interchange…red herring to NOT fix 281 north

Posted on March 21, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. Read our complete press release here.

03/21/2009
Toll road debate heats up — again
By Craig Kapitan – Express-News

Two factions that have harbored a running argument in recent years over the fate of a congested stretch of U.S. 281 just beyond North Loop 1604 are at it again.

Each side has held news conferences over the past two weeks — the most recent one on Friday — accusing the other of pulling a bait-and-switch on San Antonio residents.

Representatives for Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, both of which oppose a “mega toll road” in the area, stood near U.S. 281 and Stone Oak Parkway on Friday to take aim at the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

“The public is sick and tired of the misleading information, broken promises and outright lies,” TURF founder Terri Hall said.

The mobility authority, she added, “will say and do anything … to gain access to our wallets and build a $1.4 billion boondoggle of a toll road.”

The dispute now hinges on a five-story, $140 million interchange project that would link 281 and 1604 on the south side of the intersection. Ramps on the north side of the loop would be built at a later time.

The mobility authority, which would oversee the project, announced recently that construction on the southern ramps could begin within the year thanks to $80 million in federal stimulus money.

The only catch, agency representatives have said, is the threat of a lawsuit from the opposition groups. With projects required to be “shovel ready” to receive stimulus money, a delay caused by a lawsuit could sink the whole endeavor, officials said.

In his own news conference last week, mobility authority chairman Bill Thornton railed against the groups. The ramps built with federal money would be nontoll, he said, adding that it would be disingenuous for the anti-toll groups to now say they’re opposed because of environmental concerns.

But the problem, Hall said Friday, is that building a large-scale interchange lays the groundwork for a large-scale tollway in the future.

Instead, she said, the stimulus money should be used to relieve traffic by building smaller-scale, less environmentally destructive overpasses at U.S. 281 intersections that currently have stoplights.

The mobility authority is overreacting about the possibility of a lawsuit, she said, explaining that her group and AGUA haven’t yet decided whether to file one.

“We are not interested in endless litigation,” Hall said, adding that it is their only weapon for negotiation.

Another problem, she and others said Friday, is that the mobility authority is trying to get around developing an environmental impact statement on the interchange by using an exemption intended only for minor projects with little impact. A set of five-story ramps is not a minor project, they said.

But what the groups neglect to mention, mobility authority spokesman Leroy Alloway responded, is that three of the stories for the ramps already are in existence at the intersection.

Further, the Federal Highway Administration has sent signals that it would be impossible to build overpasses with the stimulus money, Alloway said. That would require the building of on- and off-ramps and access roads, which would have a major impact and necessitate a lengthy environmental study, he said.

“It’s badly needed,” he said of the proposed interchange. “We recognize their concern, but we question its validity. It starts looking like a straw argument.”

During last week’s news conference, the mobility authority announced the launching of 411on281.com — part of a new public relations campaign to promote the road projects. TURF and AGUA responded Friday with Operation: Meltdown the Phones — a new campaign urging residents to call local politicians while stuck in traffic. The project is outlined at FixGridlock.com.

The anti-toll groups also are expected to show up at City Hall today for a public hearing on stimulus funds. It begins at 10 a.m.

RMA launches web site in repsonse to www.281Overpasses.com

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to news report here. Here is the TURF response to the RMA’s propaganda. Read about Operation: Meltdown the Phones here.

Alamo RMA Opens Web Site Touting Toll Roads
Opposition Groups Planning Friday Response
Thursday, March 19, 2009

SAN ANTONIO — The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is taking their case for various Highway 281 improvements to the Internet.”The conversation with the community needs to get started again with what can be done and what can’t be done,” said Terry Brechtel of the ARMA.

“A lot of folks believe you can build overpasses. Read the letter from the highway administration, read the prior environmental studies, overpasses do not meet the long-term solution.”

Brechtel said the authority believes toll toads are only one option, but that it must be considered along with other financing options.

Opposition forces are expected to voice their opinions at a press conference tomorrow, said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a nonprofit group opposed to toll roads.

The Metropolitan Planning Commission is recommending $22.9 million of funds from the economic stimulus package be used to widen 36th Street as well as the so-called super street project along Highway 281 north of Loop 1604, according to sources.

RMA comes unhinged at concerned citizens over interchange

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Terri Hall

Link to article here. There is NO new lawsuit or a threat of one. All that AGUA/TURF did was send a letter to the Federal Highway Administration questioning the “clearance” the RMA claims to have for this 5 level interchange. The interchange is a red herring and an excuse NOT to fix 281 north. Read more here.

Suit might block use of stimulus money
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
03/13/2009

The $140 million in federal and state funds allocated for the building of long-awaited ramps linking North Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 could end up being sent back if two sides in a lawsuit can’t find common ground.The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority hopes to use $80 million in federal stimulus funds and $60 million from state bonds — dubbed “money from heaven” by one local official — to start construction on the four ramps within a year. The ramps on the loop’s south side wouldn’t be tolled, according to plans.

But lawyers for Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom are poised to challenge federal environmental clearance for the five-level interchange, saying there likely would be significant changes in traffic, suburban growth and Edwards Aquifer water quality.

The groups filed a lawsuit last year to demand a detailed environmental study of planned toll lanes on 47 miles of U.S. 281 and Loop 1604, and the Alamo RMA later decided to do so. The interchange should be part of that study, plaintiffs’ attorney Bill Bunch said Thursday.

“We certainly don’t think you should sacrifice San Antonio’s sole source of drinking water to do that,” he said. “We still have a lawsuit pending. It would probably be raised in that context.”

If the Alamo RMA were forced to probe the interchange’s impacts, work could be held up three or more years, and that means the federal stimulus funds could go unused.

“It’s not a lawsuit yet, but there’s a general concern,” RMA spokesman Leroy Alloway said. “What’s going to happen next, that’s the big question.”

Bunch said he asked the Alamo RMA to discuss less invasive improvements to the two roads but hasn’t heard back.

“We want to avoid the litigation as much as anybody,” he said. “But there’s been no response to that.”

Alloway said he hasn’t heard of such a request, but negotiations aren’t likely anyway.

“We’re not willing to negotiate out the environmental protections necessary for our community,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Alamo RMA on Wednesday launched an effort — called 4-1-1 on 281 — to engage residents along U.S. 281 in dialogue. Officials also mentioned AGUA and TURF skepticism as a potential bogeyman to the non-toll interchange.

“We knew we needed a fresh approach,” Chairman Bill Thornton said in a statement. “The public is frustrated by the delay in construction and they want answers.”

Go to www.411on281.com for more about 4-1-1 on 281.

281/1604 Interchange to get stimulus funds

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Terri Hall

03/06/2009

Ramps linking 281, 1604 get funding

By Patrick Driscoll and Peggy Fikac
– Express-News

AUSTIN — A spurt of federal stimulus dollars soon will help douse one of San Antonio’s worst daily traffic flare-ups.Four ramps directly linking North Loop 1604 to U.S. 281 on the south side of the loop could be open within four years, thanks to the Texas Transportation Commission’s decision Thursday to pour in $60 million in stimulus money from Congress.

The commission also threw in $60 million in state bond funds for the $140 million project. San Antonio’s Metropolitan Planning Organization is putting up $20 million of its local share of federal stimulus handouts.

“It is just new money from heaven,” said Bill Thornton, chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which had intended to charge tolls at all eight ramps envisioned at the interchange.

The four new ramps wouldn’t charge a toll, but they could connect to future toll lanes along with freeway lanes.

In all, the commission Thursday allocated $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funds — including $783.2 million on toll or toll-related projects — despite calls for delay from tollway foes and other critics.

Toll opponents in general object to the large share of the projects that are toll-related, saying it amounts to paying twice for the same road — with the taxpayer-financed stimulus funds and with tolls.

Texas Department of Transportation officials said the use of several sources of funds allows more construction to be done and that such leveraging meets federal requirements. The $1.2 billion in stimulus funds approved Thursday will be part of $2.6 billion in overall construction, the agency’s John Barton said.

The commission, which once before had delayed action on the $1.2 billion in projects, declined calls for another postponement from toll critics, environmentalists, some lawmakers and officials whose projects didn’t get funded.

“The opinion of this commission, and certainly my opinion, was the more we delayed, the more we were delaying putting Texans to work,” said Deirdre Delisi, the commission chairwoman. “If today’s action means that we prevented one Texan from being laid off or we’re helping contractors to hire more Texans, I’m very pleased with that action.”

Although the commission didn’t slow up, it did make some changes in its proposed allocation of the stimulus funds for predominantly new construction projects Thursday and in $505 million in stimulus spending for road and bridge maintenance that it approved last week.

The changes came after state Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, who heads the House committee overseeing the spending of stimulus funds in Texas, voiced concern over whether the commission had directed enough of the money toward economically distressed areas, as required by the federal government.

The commission added projects in some counties classified as economically distressed after getting further guidance from the federal government. Also in Bexar County, the commission allocated $10 million in stimulus dollars, which the local planning board will match with $4 million from another fund, to widen several miles of Loop 1604 near Randolph AFB to four lanes.

The wider road will help handle growing traffic from jobs being added to the base, said Clay Smith, a Texas Department of Transportation planner. Not long after the current interchange was built about two decades ago, it routinely became an amalgam of crawling cars and sizzling tempers as drivers negotiated access roads and traffic signals to get from one freeway to the other.

Stirring the pot were plans crafted about five years ago to fund the direct connecting ramps by charging a toll on them. Thornton, blistered for years over the toll push, often said the agency would build nontoll roads if there were money.

Now the agency has enough money for half the ramps, and cautious toll critics intend to hold Thornton to his promise.

“If it stays nontoll, that would be fantastic,” said Terri Hall, founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Construction could start in a year and finish by 2013, when an estimated 50,000 motorists a day would soar into blue sky to get through a five-level interchange. Overall, Texas’ share of stimulus funding for roads and bridges is $2.25 billion, including $1.7 billion under the commission’s purview and $500 million overseen by metropolitan planning organizations.

That stimulus money will be part of $3.4 billion in total construction, creating an estimated 90,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to TxDOT. Staff Writer Peggy Fikac reported from Austin.

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