Link to article here. See the letter the State Auditor sent to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) warning them of their inadequate toll viability study that failed to take into account high gas prices. High gas prices have been responsible for declines in driving and toll road use. Yet the ARMA continues to stick its head in the sand and ignore the economic signs that the 281 and other toll projects are in jeopardy due to high gas prices. And who will pay for such malfeasance? The taxpayers left to bailout the bonds when the toll roads default.

U.S. 281 toll-road planners didn’t figure on costly gas
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
August 8, 2008
Gas prices shot through the roof this year and a debate drags on over what the future holds, but none of that was reflected in recent traffic and revenue projections for the planned U.S. 281 toll road.

As a result, the estimates got a thumbs-down last month from State Auditor John Keel, who meted out his case in a single page of bean-counter lingo.

“Explicit consideration for the possible effects of higher motor fuel prices on the usage of the toll facility and, therefore, on revenues would seem warranted,” he concluded in a letter to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

The state auditor doesn’t actually sign off on traffic and revenue reports from toll agencies. According to a 2007 tolling law, the auditor just reviews and comments on them.

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Director Terry Brechtel noted that in a letter responding to Keel, saying the audit’s over.

However, she said the local agency agrees with his criticism and already had asked the consultant, URS Corp., to do a gas-price impact analysis.

“We will nevertheless forward to you a copy of the fuel sensitivity analysis once it is completed,” she said.

Such an analysis was a no-brainer to toll-road critics as long as two years ago.

Activists had tried to get the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which approved 70 miles of tollways in San Antonio, to study rising gas prices and the impacts to toll bonds that can stretch over several decades. The MPO board refused.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “We’re glad the state auditor has the same concerns that we do. Will this road even be viable in 10 years with the trends we’re seeing in gas prices?”

Wary motorists have been scaling back in the face of gas prices soaring to a record U.S. average of $4.11 a gallon last month, according to AAA.

Americans drove 2.4 percent fewer miles through May compared to the same time last year and rush-hour congestion eased in many U.S. cities from March through May, federal data show.

San Antonio drivers spent 4.7 percent less time stuck in traffic, though officials say new lanes opening on Interstate 10 and new ramps at two Loop 410 interchanges helped.

Americans also have started avoiding some toll roads, with Houston reporting a 3 percent drop in traffic from March through June, and Dallas seeing a 2.3 percent slip in June on its President George Bush Turnpike. Growth on the Dallas North Tollway was flat.

Dallas’ North Texas Tollway Authority asked its consultant to take another look at traffic projections for planned toll lanes on Texas 161.

“But they’re not anticipating any change,” Dallas toll spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said.

Unlike San Antonio’s toll-road consultant, Moody’s Investors Service took rising gas prices seriously Thursday when it issued a stable but cautious report on U.S. government toll roads through 2009. The long-term outlook was more uncertain.

“Gas prices at around $4 per gallon for a prolonged period could have a dampening effect on traffic and revenue and, if declines are not offset by rate increases, it could cause Moody’s to change our stable outlook,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Maria Matesanz said in a statement.

Federal forecasters say gas prices will spike even higher next year, but where they go from there is wrapped in a muddy debate on when global oil production will peak and begin to slide. Some say it’s happening now; others say there’s a four-decade cushion for technologies to come to the rescue.

San Antonio toll officials, getting ready to sell 40-year bonds later this year to help fund toll lanes on eight miles of U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604, are undeterred. They point to the success of Austin’s 65 miles of toll roads, which began opening in late 2006 and are raking in more money than expected.

“If we get higher fuel efficiencies in our vehicles, that could have an impact,” Alamo Regional Mobility Authority spokesman Leroy Alloway said. “People are still going to be driving, we’re still a very auto-centric country.”

Still, many toll critics aren’t sold on the car-dominated vision.

“It’s time for us to shift to sustainability, by moving to mass transit, or pay the price,” Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson said. “All the warning signals are there.”

Watch the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Chair gloat over enriching 400 families employed by the winning bidder for the 281 toll project at the expense of 95,000 daily commuters that depend on 281 to get to work who will have to pay a DOUBLE TAX TOLL to drive on it!

Read how the toll project is 3 times more expensive than the FREEway overpass plan for 281 here.

Watch the TURF press conference on lawsuit pending in federal court to stop the 281 toll project below:

Margaret Byfield of Stewards of the Range is an expert in using local government to fend off overreaching and overbearing state and federal government. Local government coordination is at the fingertips of ANY local unit of government willing to flex its muscles. For all the cries for local control, this one is a sure-fire way to make it happen….it’s the LAW!

Link to article here.

Could Hollywood Park stop the 281 North toll road project?
North Central News
November 19, 2007

San Antonio Toll Party and Texans United for Reform and Freedom Founder and President Terri Hal addresses the Hollywood Park City Council. Photo by Eva Ruth Moravec

By Eva Ruth Moravec
Staff WriterSome citizens following toll roads issue have recently claimed, and to some extent proven, that individual cities and groups of cities can stop toll road projects that affect them by demanding to be involved in the process.

The town of Hollywood Park could be the next to try.

“I thought it would be a good idea for her to come out,” said Hollywood Park Mayor Richard McIlveen at a recent city council meeting where he introduced SA Toll Party and Texans United for Reform and Freedom Founder and President Terri Hall. “We need to start thinking ahead.”

Hall attended the meeting at the urging of TURF’s Treasurer, Hollywood Park resident Sudie Sartor.

According to Hall’s presentation, a city—specifically, Hollywood Park—affected by the toll road—specifically, the U.S. Highway 281 North toll road project—could effectively tattle on the Texas Department of Transportation to the federal government and stop the toll process here dead in its tracks.

TxDOT should have included Hollywood Park in its long-completed environmental assessment, Hall said, since the city will likely experience more cut-through traffic, an increase in accidents and lower sales taxes and property taxes.

Moreover, the Texas Statutes Local Government Code, which all local governments follow, encourages coordination and thus provides local governments with armory to attack TxDOT, Hall said.

“If you demand coordination, that will require another study, and that will stop the toll project,” she said. “We have got to stop this now. It really just adds up to more economic damage.”

McIlveen said he isn’t sure what the city council will do with Hall’s information. She advised the body and citizens to write a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which approves environmental assessments on projects like the U.S. 281 toll project, and “include what you thought was inadequate,” said Hall.

“We need to get the city attorney’s interpretation,” McIlveen said. “Obviously, the residents can do whatever they want, but we have to run it through our legal department.”

TxDOT Spokeswoman Laura Lopez said since the project only required an environmental assessment, and not an environmental impact statement, then the coordination clause doesn’t hold true.

“This far in the process, it can’t be stopped that way,” she said.

Stewards of the Range, a group dedicated to legislation on private property rights in America, has determined that the “coordination clause” is valid no matter what the study’s name is.

“The law is really clear, it says that they have to coordinate with the local government,” said Margaret Byfield, Executive Director for Stewards of the Range. “The National Environmental Policy Act is what mandates how environmental assessments and impact statements are done, and that statute says they have to coordinate.”

Byfield’s group has been involved with the city of Bartlett and others’ efforts to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor. Bartlett and others have used the “coordination clause” to stop TxDOT there and demand to be a partner by forming a commission. However, Lopez said the TTC 1-35 project is undergoing an environmental impact statement process, not environmental assessment process.

Moreover, Lopez said Hollywood Park was invited to be involved in the process through quadrant meetings and stakeholder meetings, but added that the city won’t feel impacts from the toll road project that ends at the northern border of the city, Loop 1604.

“They [Hollywood Park] should not be affected by it at all. The purpose of adding capacity is to add more lanes for drivers not to have to go through any shortcuts,” she said, “so there should be no impact whatsoever.”

Hollywood Park already experiences cut-through traffic by drivers who want to avoid the U.S. 281/Loop 1604 interchange. After Hall spoke, council discussed ways to limit cut-through traffic in the city, as a separate agenda item. Further action will be taken in the future.

To solve the interchange issue, the toll road plan will include ramps that will directly connect the two roads, but the ramps won’t be built for years after the toll project begins, and will be tolled.

Byfield said that the skepticism about Hall’s plan is because “local governments haven’t really understood how involved they should be in the process, and TxDOT’s not real happy that some of the local governments are realizing this. They’re going to try to avoid it to the best of their ability.”

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is finalizing plans for the 281 North Toll Road project and will seek funding from the Metropolitan Planning Organization on Dec. 3. After that, three bidding teams will prepare entries for the project, and a winner will be selected next spring.

ARMA Spokesman Leroy Alloway said that his organization invited Hollywood Park council members to public meetings and that they were given the opportunity to be involved.

McIlveen said he wasn’t sure if an action item on the subject would be on the agenda for the next council meeting, scheduled for Dec. 18.