Category: RMA

Express News: SECRET MEETING spurs citizens to get a briefing FIRST!

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An Express News story touches on the SECRET MEETING for BIG business, but focuses more on the 281 toll rates.

Of course, the article doesn’t mention that we only pay 1-3 cents a mile in gas taxes and the national average for toll rates is 9 cents per mile. So 17 cents per mile is a BIG tax hike we’ll all pay, since trucks and businesses will pass on the toll costs to customers. AND let’s not forget that the improvements to 281 are ALREADY PAID FOR with gas taxes (see proof here and here) so WE DO NOT NEED TOLLS! We’ve been told it’s necessary to convert 281 into a tollway to accelerate improvements. They’ve had the gas tax money for the first 3 miles since 2003, for the rest of the fix to Borgfeld by 2004, and now as a toll road, it’ll cost 4 times the price and only get to Marshall Rd! It also fails to mention SAMCo is taxpayer funded and represents the HIGHWAY LOBBY, so don’t let the non-profit tag fool you!

The article states…
The authority will brief the nonprofit mobility coalition at a private meeting Friday at Valero Energy Corp. to strategize support for toll plans.

“We want everyone to have a chance to see this, to ask questions,” Boyer said. “We were on the ball and asked for it.”

When Hall heard about Boyer’s meeting, she called Reed to set up a presentation for toll critics, which will be held at 6 p.m. today at Chester’s Burgers at 16609 San Pedro Ave. She said she wants to know how much profit U.S. 281 toll lanes will generate.

“That’s the real crux of the matter,” she said. “That’ll be interesting.”
______________________________

17 cents will get you a mile

Web Posted: 10/16/2007 12:04 AM CDT

Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Noisy, anxious speculation over how much motorists will pay to use toll lanes on U.S. 281 has ended with a silent revelation.Barring legal action and a dramatic turnaround in the courts, drivers in two- and three-axle vehicles could pay 17 cents a mile when the first four miles of U.S. 281 toll lanes open in 2012, according to documents posted on the Web without fanfare Monday.

Rates might increase 2.75 percent a year through 2017 and then 3 percent annually after that, about as fast as consumer inflation has been rising.

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which will develop the U.S. 281 tollway, negotiated for months behind closed doors with the Texas Department of Transportation to set the toll rates and had carefully kept the numbers hushed.

But the local Metropolitan Planning Organization must sign off on the deal, and following its habit of releasing information before meetings, posted the proposed toll fees. The organization meets next Monday.

“There you go,” spokesman Scott Ericksen said. “It’s just our process.”

Now that the rates are out there, a furious long-running debate over toll roads will now shift to new ground.

“I’m just glad we’re finally getting down to the nitty-gritty,” said Jim Reed, a mobility authority board member.

Terri Hall, founder of San Antonio Toll Party and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, said the fees, while comparable to Houston and Dallas, are higher than some other states — a claim borne out by a recent state audit.

“Texans have to be asking themselves, ‘Why do we have to pay so much?'” she said.

Vic Boyer, director of the public-private San Antonio Mobility Coalition, said business and road industry officials are so far warm to the rates.

“I think they feel fairly comfortable with what they’ve seen,” he said.

Rebuilding U.S. 281 into a tolled expressway with nontoll frontage roads from Loop 1604 to Marshall Road is just a start for the mobility authority.

The agency hopes to use $258 million in public funds and sell bonds backed by decades of toll fees to add $1 billion worth of toll lanes to highways:

The first 4 miles of U.S. 281 — which officials say will cost $200 million, a third more than estimates earlier this year. Construction starts next summer.

U.S. 281 toll lanes to Comal County. No timetable has been set.

Loop 1604 from Culebra Road to U.S. 281. Construction starts in late 2009.

Plans also call for tolled interchange ramps along Loop 1604 to give motorists faster shots to other freeways such as U.S. 281. The proposed toll rates under consideration for 2012 suggest charging 57 cents for each ramp.

Emergency and military vehicles would get free passage on toll lanes. VIA Metropolitan Transit would get a $42,000 a year break, enough to allow buses and vans to ride free, but the agency would have the option of spreading its exemption among other vehicles, such as vanpools.

In 2012 trucks would be charged 46 cents a mile on toll lanes and $1.15 per interchange ramp.

There would be no tollbooths. Instead, motorists would pay via an electronic scanning system.

“Our goal is to be reasonable, to keep it affordable,” mobility authority Chairman Bill Thornton said.

The authority will brief the nonprofit mobility coalition at a private meeting Friday at Valero Energy Corp. to strategize support for toll plans.

“We want everyone to have a chance to see this, to ask questions,” Boyer said. “We were on the ball and asked for it.”

When Hall heard about Boyer’s meeting, she called Reed to set up a presentation for toll critics, which will be held at 6 p.m. today at Chester’s Burgers at 16609 San Pedro Ave. She said she wants to know how much profit U.S. 281 toll lanes will generate.

“That’s the real crux of the matter,” she said. “That’ll be interesting.”

RMA votes to pay LOSING bidders on toll projects

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Link to article here.

We testified against the policy to pay LOSING bidders on toll projects citing that even BIG TIME pro-toll Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson called the practice as “nutty as fruitcake.” But as usual, the unelected appointees did the bidding of the highway lobby over the interests of the public. Once again, all we’re told is there is no money for roads, yet they continue to spend money on advertising, $10 million rest stops, and special “pay-offs” to highway contractors who won’t even be building the project. Board member Christina Rodriguez had it right when she said, architects spend $250, 000 or more to bid on government projects all of the time and NEVER get reimbursed for it. So why should highway engineers get special treatment? Welcome to Texas where the highway kings reign supreme!

Then, after consulting with a bond attorney, we found that the RMA’s intention to reimburse itself from capital improvement project bonds on 281 is illegal! They cannot reimburse themselves for salaries and operating expenses from capital improvement bonds.

Of course, when questioned, they said they could. Once again, looks like a court will have to decide. But if you take the RMA’s logic to its conclusion, the City of San Antonio could float bonds for street improvements and then use those bonds to pay City employees salaries and operating expenses. That’s not the purpose of public bond debt for a tangible capital project like a road. Not to mention, the RMA is relying on financial advice from a former City finance official who was reportedly fired from his job having been found in a drunken stupor at his desk. Gives you great confidence that the government is lookin’ out for us, eh?
Paying the losers
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
October 11, 2007Just one vote made the difference Wednesday to let San Antonio’s toll agency to pay losing bidders on a U.S. 281 tollway project.

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority board voted 3-2 to pay losers either $200,000 or 0.1 percent of the project’s cost, whichever is lower, for their detailed proposals.
Voting for:

  • Bill Thornton
  • Jim Reed
  • Reynaldo Diaz

Voting against:

  • Maria Cristina Rodriguez
  • Jesse Jenkins

Officials say the payments encourage more bidders to take a shot with projects such as the U.S. 281 tollway, in which design and construction phases are combined, by reimbursing them for their work. The mobility authority will own the losing plans and can implement any good ideas.

RIC WILLIAMSON1.jpg
Ric Williamson

The stipends are sore spots with critics, who call them give-aways that would be better spent on actual construction. The Texas Department of Transportation is paying millions of dollars worth of stipends for toll projects around the state.

Texas Observer reporter Eileen Welsome said in a December story that Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson called the stipends “nutty as a fruitcake” and said they might be a holdover from an era of big government. But it was an omnibus transportation bill passed by the Legislature in 2003, giving TxDOT tolling and privatization powers, that ushered in the payments.

Not just any company can submit a detailed bid. They have to be invited after first showing their qualifications.

The mobility authority is accepting credentials from companies through Oct. 19 for the U.S. 281 project. The agency will shortlist proposers Oct. 24 and begin seeking detailed bids Nov. 29. Final bids are due Feb. 28.

Construction to rebuild U.S. 281 into a tollway with non-toll frontage roads from Loop 1604 to Marshall Road or beyond could start soon after and be open by 2012. Toll fees could start at 17 cents a mile.

Also Wednesday, the mobility authority board voted to use upcoming bond funds to reimburse itself up to $250 million for development of the U.S. 281 tollway.

The board also agreed to exempt $42,000 a year in U.S. 281 toll fees for VIA Metropolitan Transit, enough to allow buses and vans to ride free. Adding in other VIA vehicles such as vanpools would cost, but the transit agency gets to choose how to divide the exempted fees among its various vehicles.

Other recent news about the mobility authority:

Bandera Rd doesn't need tolls, community group concludes

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Link to article here.

It’s once again, very clear that the Alamo RMA, the tolling authority, WILL NOT listen to the community. They exist to toll roads, period. They’re paid NOT to consider other alternatives, regardless of what the community wants! They’ll pretend otherwise, but it’s been made clear in countless public statements by the RMA, no matter what is done on Bandera Rd., it must be tolled if the RMA is going to make inprovements.

Bandera Road panel sees no need for tolling
Amanda Reimherr Buckert
Express-News
09/27/2007

After nearly a year of work, the Bandera Road Community Working Group has identified possible solutions to alleviate the traffic and congestion problem along Bandera Road — none of which includes toll roads.The next project the working group is tasked with is to create a Context Sensitive Solutions strategy for the 61/2-mile stretch of road between Loop 410 and Loop 1604, and the public has been asked for input.

“CSS is an approach that determines what the unique characteristics of a community are and how those can be enhanced to create a design standards book for an area,” said Leroy Alloway, spokesman for the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

The authority created the Bandera Road group last October after a public outcry against toll roads as a solution to the traffic problems. The Texas Department of Transportation has allocated no money to improve Bandera Road, so the Alamo RMA was charged with finding long-term solutions.

A total of 21 options are being considered, but the only one that can fund any improvements is tolling.

“Some of the interim improvements the group has suggested are synchronizing traffic lights, extending turn lanes and other traffic access management options; but a long-term solution must be a build option,” Alloway said.

More coverage
KENS video: Alternative to Bandera toll road proposed

But no traffic relief solutions that include building or expanding roadways can be done until an Environmental Impact Statement required by the Federal Highway Administration is completed in 2010 or 2011.

Numerous residents have opposed either elevated or at-grade toll lanes, and they suggest that other options are available.

Marcy Meffert, a former mayor of Leon Valley, is a member of the working group.

“This is my personal opinion, I am not a spokesperson for the group, but we need to do something about this traffic. A toll road — elevated or not — is not the answer,” she said.

However, Alloway said nothing is final.

“Nothing can be official until the (environmental) study is completed, but the likelihood of an elevated toll lane is now significantly less,” he said.

During the CSS process, the Alamo RMA is seeking as much public involvement as possible, Alloway said.

People are encouraged to submit their input on what is important to them or what they would like to see in the area by contacting the Alamo RMA at (210) 495-5256 or e-mailing info@alamorma.org.

TxDOT irks local officials as it pursues giving 1604 to private entity

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Link to article here. Once again, TxDOT flouts the LAW, this time SB 792, which put 281 and 1604 under the private toll moratorium. TxDOT has no use for the law, so it’s seeking to go around it against the will of the Legislature and our local officials. At best, they’re burning every bridge they ever had with the Bexar County Commissioners. At worst, they’ll break the law AGAIN! Even TxDOT’s PR campaign won’t be able to spin their way out of going to jail!

Toll road control splits state and locals
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News Staff Writer
09/22/2007

Local and state officials once again are tugging for control of planned Loop 1604 toll lanes.At issue is whether toll lanes to be added to the freeway, arcing across the North Side from Braun Road to FM 78, should be operated by a private corporation or a public agency.

At stake is how high toll fees could be, and maybe how fast lanes can be built.

The project is far from a done deal — environmental clearance, funding and staunch opposition sit in the path — but the scuffle over setting and collecting tolls has been revived.

Texas Department of Transportation officials argue that private companies have more cash to throw at projects and can get more done faster.

But TxDOT also wants to set fees as high as motorists can stand, and some of the profits would leave town. So, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority wants to put a lid on the rates and keep all profits to use on other projects.

The disagreement opens a wound from two years ago over the same issue, when Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said TxDOT was being pushy and rude. The standoff ended when TxDOT promised not to do anything without local blessings.

“Apparently they’re switching gears again,” Wolff said Friday. “They know I don’t like it. They make it very damned difficult to get an understanding of what the hell they’re trying to do.”

The difference now is last spring’s Senate Bill 792, which rearranged the tolling game.

RMA officials say the new law allows them to take over toll projects in San Antonio. They decided Tuesday to seek bids on rebuilding U.S. 281 into a tollway, at least from Loop 1604 to Marshall Road and maybe as far as Comal County, and plan to do the same with Loop 1604.

However, TxDOT officials say the part of Loop 1604 that is a freeway is exempt from a local grab, and they’re evaluating whether it still makes sense to let a private consortium develop and operate toll lanes there under a concession contract. They expect to decide soon.

“Just because we’re looking it over doesn’t necessarily imply that it won’t end up being an RMA project,” said Ric Williamson, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission. “It just means we’re doing what we’ve always done, and that is we’re assessing the best contract procedure.”

RMA Chairman Bill Thornton said that breaks the spirit, if not the letter, of SB 792 as well as a 2001 state law that created regional mobility authorities to develop transportation projects. Both laws gave local officials more control of toll roads.

“Why are they resisting us?” Thornton said. “Tell me why? I simply don’t get it. We, more than TxDOT, represent what the local citizens are saying and certainly what our local elected officials are saying. I’ve not heard one local elected official tell me they want the concession.”

Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Joe Krier said it would be worthwhile to at least see what TxDOT comes up with.

“We ought to look at it and see whether or not it makes sense for the driving public and taxpayers,” he said. “The business community’s message is, ‘Guys, let’s get this worked out pretty quick.'”

RMA Director Terry Brechtel said the disagreement might simply have to be sifted through legal and political channels.

“We’re not in a big fight over anything,” she insisted.

Nevertheless, both sides have trump cards for a stare down.

TxDOT needs Commissioners Court, which has to approve any toll concessions in Bexar County, including for Loop 1604, according to SB 792.

“I would say it would be very difficult to get it through the court,” Wolff said.

But the RMA needs TxDOT, which loaned $8.5 million to the local agency because it has no dedicated source of funding yet, and the latest terms don’t allow spending for Loop 1604.

“We do want a good working relationship with them,” Wolff said of TxDOT.

Thornton: "The prize is only 5 months out"

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Yesterday’s tolling authority (Alamo Regional Mobility Authority) meeting was interesting theater. Executive Director Terry Brechtel came under fire by Board member Bob Thompson, who also acted aggressively toward yours truly. Thompson, appointee of Commissioner Lyle Larson, seemed visibly shaken that the RMA doesn’t seem to have the money to pull off the first toll project, US 281. He recognized that even if there’s not one hitch, it’s teetering on the edge of “no go.” Brechtel and Chairman Bill Thornton explained they’re doing the best they can and the project has now been delayed for FOUR MONTHS in order to accommodate Washington Mutual’s offices and employees by extending the project to Marshall Road.

So for all the tens of thousands of motorists who use Hwy 281 daily, you don’t have the RMA’s ear, but if you’re Washington Mutual who already received millions in tax breaks, you get special treatment. So when TxDOT tells you that a lawsuit by concerned citizens caused delays to the fix on 281, remember that it’s TxDOT who intentionally delayed it to turn it into this toll project and now even the RMA is causing further delays. So all this time we’ve been told tolling is the ONLY option to accelerate these road projects….but the opposite is true if you look at the FACTS.

The original gas tax FUNDED improvement plan on 281 would have already been finished by now (funding became available 2004). The funding for the Borgfeld overpass has been available since 2003, and now even with the toll road, it won’t be extended past Marshall Rd for the foreseeable future. Brechtel admitted they plan to use the “surplus revenue” from 281 users to make improvements to 1604 rather than extend the improvements to Borgfeld as has been promised, funded, and on the books since 2003!

Even more telling was Thompson saying he was FOR the toll roads and eager to use that slush fund gathered from 281 users to fund mass transit. While we are FOR more mass transit options, taxing one corridor to death in order to fund other roads or programs is a discriminatory and unequal distribution of taxation (WITHOUT REPRESENTATION I MIGHT ADD).

So I asked if Thompson had checked with Commissioner Larson’s constituents who are very much opposed to tolling 281 if they support his pro-toll position to fund mass transit, and he came unhinged trying to defend himself having let the cat out of the bag.

It also became clear that TxDOT WANTS the RMA to fail so that it can then advance the CDA private toll contract for Loop 1604. The RMA wants the pot of money, so they’re against the private stuff, but TxDOT has not released Loop 1604 to the RMA because it still wants to give it to Cintra-Zachry. The same could be said of Hwy 121 in the Dallas area. TxDOT wants the public tolling authority’s bid to fail so it can give the project back to Cintra-Zachry. TxDOT is not only flouting the law, the leopard is showing its spots. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the road lobby that is burning any bridges it had left with County Judge Nelson Wolff and other local officials.

So the RMA’s venture into tolling has a rough road ahead, with more bumps coming….

Thornton, eager to get access to your wallets, had this to say to the road contractors who filled the room: “The prize is only 5 months out.” Well, not if the citizens have anything to do with it!

Tolling Authority Chair calls "debt the breath of life"…see it on YouTube

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At last week’s tolling authority Board meeting, Alamo RMA Chairman, Bill Thornton, not only called “debt the breath of life” invoking scripture where God breathed life into Adam, he admonished the Board and TxDOT that he will name names over any further delay of into getting into debt and moving dirt for the first toll roads in San Antonio. Now if that doesn’t offend you, I’m not sure what would! Since Thornton has become fond of quoting scripture, let’s remind how the Bible calls debt a CURSE, a far cry form the breath of life! Also, he speaks like a true government bureaucrat in a rush to get TAXPAYERS into debt (that can only be paid back BY US through extremely high market-based tolls) for roads we’ve already built and paid for and to “move dirt” as if that’s somehow progress. They’re going to bulldoze an existing, already paid for freeway and rebuild it to convert it into a tollway, and that’s “progress” according to our tolling authority Chair…only for road builders and government bureaucrats, Mr. Thornton!
Do these people hear themselves talk? They’re giddy about DOUBLE TAXING us and paying this unnecessary debt back with interest on toll roads just to go to work! If you can’t pay the toll…their answer to you even though you pay gas taxes and a host of other “fees” for highways is “you can eat cake” and be a second class citizen held hostage to gridlock (since ALL new road improvements will be tolled per the Transportation Commission Minute Order of Dec. 18, 2003).

View it yourself on YouTube!

SA Biz Journal: 281/1604 toll projects to cost $2.2 Billion & can still use "private partner"

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In an article in today’s San Antonio Business Journal entitled Toll road projects set to get off the ground in San Antonio, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA or tolling authority) gets giddy over the prospect of raiding motorists’ wallets by tolling existing corridors already built and paid for with YOUR gas taxes. The most shocking detail is the 281 & 1604 project cost. It went from $1.3 billion in July 2005 to an astronomical $2.2 billion in July of 2007! What do they plan to do? Pave them with GOLD?! That’s $50 million a mile (for 48 mile project) or $5 million per lane mile (according to the Government Accountability Office, the national average per lane mile is $1.6 million). For further context, the original plan for 281 improvements as a non-toll freeway was $100 million in 2004, and now in 2007 as a tollway it’s up to $400 million for 8 miles!

Considering TxDOT has already been found guilty of defrauding the public and betraying the public trust by LYING about their figures, we obviously cannot trust what should be simple projects to add some lanes down the middle of two freeways which has now turned into a feeding frenzy at the expense of battered motorists already facing $3 a gallon at the pump! And this is BEFORE the NEW TOLL TAX kicks in! Someone’s gettin’ rich off this scheme and it ain’t the taxpayers!

Of course, the Biz Journal blocked public access to the article (only paid subscribers can access the article, yet an article on TxDOT losing another $72 million in gas taxes to the feds is there to scare the public into thinking tolls are the ONLY solution). I have the print copy…

RED FLAG #2 –

They must be planning to continue at least 1604 as a private toll deal using a CDA (Public Private Partnership or PPP) or some other loophole in SB 792 since ARMA Executive Director, Terry Brechtel, states: “private toll firms will still be allowed to participate in the toll projects…”

The purpose of the private toll moratorium was to STOP any private toll contracts from moving forward for the next two years, yet this veiled language seems to indicate they will anyway. Get out your legal pads, I feel a lawsuit coming.

Politician revolving door– a big rip-off for taxpayers!

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Link to Express-News blog article here.
Link to article about Governor Rick Perry’s revolving door aides who go back and forth between public service and BIG FAT private sector jobs after securing MILLIONS in taxpayer money to enrich their companies here.
It’s clear that the majority of our politicians don’t even pretend to serve the public any longer. The system is so corrupt that now holding political office is more about passing legislation to benefit special interest groups, like road builders, and positioning oneself for a lucrative private sector job in one of those special interest industries than it is about being a honest public servant.

Lest we think the examples below are a fluke, let’s recall that the former Executive Director of the San Antonio MPO, JoAnne Walsh, left her job for a six figure income with road builder Parsons-Brinckerhoff (a contractor in Boston’s Big Dig debacle that caused a woman’s death last year) after allocating $500 million in YOUR gas taxes to build toll roads. Then there was Tom Greibel, former Executive Director of the Bexar County tolling authority, who jumped ship to another high priced private sector job with road builder Pape-Dawson shortly thereafter.

Other side of the fence
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
February 19, 2007

Officials at the helm of two of the big three tollway systems in Texas said last week they’re headed to the private sector.

North Texas Tollway Authority Director Allan Rutter resigned Wednesday after a closed-door board meeting, the Fort Worth Star Telegram reported. The former Federal Railroad Administration chief and Gov. George Bush’s transportation adviser, will seek his fortune in public-private toll opportunities.

The change came after months of wrangling, and then reaching an agreement, with the Texas Department of Transportation over who will build a host of toll roads in North Texas, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The next day, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels announced he will step down, KHOU reported. Re-elected just three months ago, he has had job talks with law and investment banking firms in Houston and Washington, the Houston Chronicle said.

Last June, Harris County commissioners decided to keep their toll roads instead of selling them or leasing them and collecting a windfall ranging from $5 million to $20 million (see blog). A study said they could do themselves what a private firm would do to boost profits — raise toll rates on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle says a top contender to replace Eckels is transportation consultant Ed Emmett. He was a state representative from 1979 to 1987, served as interstate commerce commissioner under former President Bush and was CEO of the National Industrial Transportation League before starting his own consulting firm.

By the way, the state’s other big toll system is TxDOT’s Central Texas Turnpike in Austin.

Toll Party to ARMA: We're not going away…represent us or expect toll projects to be tied up until you do

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Governor Perry has no mandate…he’s weak, battered, and pathetic….

We come today very proud that the majority of Texans voted AGAINST this Governor. If anything, voters had too many anti-Perry choices. When 60% voted against this Governor…that didn’t happen by accident.

We also come today to send a clear message…we’re NOT going anywhere and this issue is not going away. This massive shift to tolls, especially on roads we’ve already paid for and for the Trans Texas Corridor transcends Party and has brought rural and urban Texans together in an unprecedented grassroots effort that now enjoys national attention and a resolution before Congress.

We have a documentary film made on this subject, that’s gripping and powerful and as we continue to educate more and more people through it and every other means, we continue to add more to our ranks. The more Texans and Americans who find out what’s going on, it’s a no-brainer to work to oppose every incarnation of this toll scheme. Carole Strayhorn made clear that we can relieve I-35 congestion without tolls and we can meet all of our transportation needs with our existing funds. This myth that we’re out of money or that there’s not enough for future needs is just that, a myth! Read Jerry Corsi’s article in Human Events just days ago that affirms this.

Many in the Legislature are hungry to rein in our out of control Department of Transportation and their obsession with tolling everything they can get their hands on regardless of what we, the taxpayers, want. Up until now, this body has not reached out to us, brought us to the table, and, frankly has not considered our alternatives or concerns. Our elected officials have reached out to us, and we’re receiving many invitations from politicians who are eager to sign-on to our legislative agenda. The hogs are still at the trough, so we have two choices: we, meaning you and the PEOPLE, either rein them in and you start listening to the people or we’ll tie up every toll road plan in town using whatever means at our disposal until you represent us! So our question is, are we going to continue in this fight with line in the sand stalwart opposition to one another, or are we going to find common ground with what the people want?

The people have spoken, the choice is yours.

SA Current article: Thornton shows yet again how out of touch he is with citizens, yet perfectly in touch with Perry's agenda

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Link to article here.

Thornton demonstrates his elitist “we know best” attitude once again, and also shows how out of touch he is with those he’s charged with representing. That’s the problem with UNELECTED tolling authority board members. They do the bidding of politicians and the highway lobby without all the inconvenient backlash at the ballot box, they stick it to the taxpayers so “they come to depend on tolls,” and they go home skipping down the lane enjoying all the perks of the job like all expense paid trips to Toronto to “promote” the NAFTA corridor nobody but road builders and foreign interests wants.

He also continually spouts that we’re advocating doing nothing. Again, he ignores the alternatives posed by both the public and elected officials: install the original FUNDED plan on 281, build 1604 with gas taxes as promised when 1604 was built or with bonds, improve the traffic flow on Bandera (one alternative is 100% funded by the feds) with a less invasive option, install the orginal plan for Wurzbach that has had funding programmed for more than a decade, and use TxDOT’s own original plans for I-35 prior to this statewide shift to tolls (in order to create a crisis to benefit the highway lobby and fleece the taxpayer)!

Thornton again makes the oft repeated remark somehow trying to compare selling off control of our public infrastructure to Toyota coming to town. He, along with all the tollers, neglect or ignore a HUGE distinction which has the taxpaying public’s hackles up…Toyota isn’t buying up control of our limited public infrastructure, is still subject to competitors, and it isn’t taking FREEways and replacing them with tollways using 50 year SECRET sweetheart deals with non-compete agreements FORCING drivers to pay up a toll or sit in unbearable gridlock. Toyota is still subject to free market economics, the foreign companies buying up our infrastructure will not (read more here).

Thornton is either ignorant or has blinders on
About this created congestion crisis and potential alternatives…I guess Bill Thornton didn’t read the story in the Express-News that says commute times are going down (“Average commute time is getting shorter”). In San Antonio, commute times have gone up a measly 3 minutes in 25 years. Guess he also failed to read (or rather he ignored?) that roundabouts are the fastest growing traffic control method in the U.S., and they’re such a safety improvement over intersections, that the feds will pay for it all 100% (read about it here). He said he’d skip down the lane hand in hand if we showed him a funding source, there it is, but he brushes it off as unrealistic because it doesn’t involve tolls for Zachry.

Guess he failed to read 281 improvements are 100% paid for with gas taxes (which TxDOT’s David Casteel again reiterated on the radio August 31 that the full $100 million ORIGINAL plan, not just the $48 million for the first 3 miles, has been and still is 100% funded with our gas tax dollars so there’s no need to toll 281), and Loop 1604 can be paid for 100% with bonds (identified in TxDOT’s own feasibility studies for Loop 1604). Guess he failed to read that the Governor admitted (in this Statesman article “Perry’s road revolution could take electoral toll”) their “funding gap” is a wish list (used to create a crisis in the minds of taxpayers to justify tolls in the hands of foreign companies).

Guess he failed to read the Comptroller’s identification of two STATE reports (“Alternatives offered for Trans Texas Corridor”) to relieve I-35 traffic ALREADY VETTED BY TXDOT prior to the shift to tolls whose viability has already been determined that would negate the “need” for the TTC and tolls on existing portions of I-35 in the RMA’s projects, AND the $7 billion in mobility and revenue bonds (see it here) right now available today to build FREEways not tollways. Nope, they say that bond money is already “allocated.” ANY AND EVERY SOLUTION PRESENTED, even TxDOT’s own solutions, are rejected or seemingly ignored by the pro-tollers. So it begs the question, are they that ignorant of reality or are they wearing blinders supplied by the highway lobby?

For Whom the Ledge Tolls
By Keli Dailey
San Antonio Current
August 29, 2006

By accepting Governor Rick Perry’s invite to again chair the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority — described as a mini-TxDOT and endowed with special powers by the state lege to find money to build and operate roads (read: to usher in a shiny alloy era of Bexar County toll roads) — Dr. William Thornton starts his second term with the Alamo RMA and extends a long career of enduring angry, contorted faces. (You’d think he’d have his fill as a practicing oral surgeon and former SA mayor and councilman.

Toll-opposition groups like Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, the San Antonio Toll Party, and city councils in Helotes and Leon Valley have thrown symbolic stuff into a figurative harbor to protest the Alamo RMA’s pending toll projects. In August, Helotes and Leon Valley adopted resolutions condemning a proposal for an elevated (or maybe not) toll road along Texas Highway 16, aka Bandera Road, that would be a 6.5-mile link from 410 W to 1604 W — just one of four tolling projects that Thornton’s RMA is working on.

The project with the most traction to date, a proposed 47-mile toll connecting U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 (currently delayed by legal challenges to its environmental studies), involves TxDOT, Cintra (a Spanish company) and Cintra’s minority partner Zachry Construction of San Antonio — aka Governor Perry’s little darlings, who won the bid to fund, build, and collect user fees along the first leg of proposed tollway behemoth the Trans-Texas Corridor alternative to I-35.

The Current caught up with Thornton at Jim’s on 410, where the oral surgeon was wearing blue scrubs, eating an omelette, and extolling the virtues of tolling.

With the recent flap over Dubai’s port deal, you can see why people aren’t happy about selling vital infrastructure to foreign companies, right?
Do they have a problem with Toyota? Toyota’s from Japan. Look, there’s no way the toll roads are going to pick up and move to [Cintra’s homeland] Spain. It’s an investment. It’s a financing of a significant, important infrastructure to meet our needs. If they’re going to take the risk in that investment, they should get a return. And because of that, we’re able to accelerate from 20 to 7 years our transportation projects.

But what if cities still don’t want tollways? Look at Helotes and Leon Valley’s resolution to reject the elevated tollway.
Look, there were 10 to 12 different options discussed on Bandera. There’s not much patience around this community project. There are 17 significant intersections from 1604 to 410. I find it interesting that at the public hearings people went so far as to suggest roundabouts, you know, the ones you see in quaint European movies. That’s what some of the toll opposition has suggested instead. Can you see between here and Selma 17 roundabouts? Somewhere reality’s got to come into play.

Nationwide, though, the track record for tolls even as a revenue source is iffy. And an AP story said tolls are more dangerous — Indiana’s I-90 toll road has many accidents. They’re also seen as a double taxation particularly hard on low-income people.
I would argue that the low-income individuals who use it, will come to depend on it to get to work, and that the loss of potential income if they didn’t have a toll road makes up for what they’re spending … I would challenge those who say it is not affordable for lower-income people and say the discretionary income factor is more important … The only other option is to raise property taxes, or the gas tax.

C’mon, isn’t there money out there for transportation projects? Look at that $286-billion Republican highway bill just signed by President Bush that’s earmarked with all kinds of pet projects, like that $223 million bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
Well, you need to be talking to the state legislature, then Congress. The percentage of dollars that comes to Texas, that we’re competing for, and right now we’re working to involve every voice in San Antonio that we can get to address things now. We can’t wait for the federal dollars, because in the meantime, we sit here in gridlock.
And another thing about the gas tax — as a funding source, there’s a concern because it’s diminishing. People are getting better gas mileage. Twenty years from now, if things continue and cars get more fuel efficient, a future based on a gas tax won’t be as predictable as it used to be. I think one of the things in talking is we’re trying to present more options. One of the options people are calling for is to do nothing and I think that’s irresponsible.

But what about the man at a Bandera hearing who said he didn’t want to pay 25 cents to go up to H-E-B and get bread …
They need to go to an H-E-B closer to the house.

What if it’s along a route he normally takes to the store, now suddenly made into a toll …
No, no existing roads would be converted into a toll. We don’t even know where the entrance or exits would be on our projects yet. This is a way for us to take control of what will be done and how money will be spent locally. Maybe we can create a multi-modal mobility authority that works with VIA and the City and County and, dare I say, somewhere in the future maybe explore mobility opportunities for light rail.

It’s easy to sit on the outside and shoot arrows toward the middle, it’s easy to talk about what the future might be if the legislature were to raise the gas tax. The reality is we have a problem today and I don’t see that many additional sources of revenue to solve this problem. If someone can tell me what these sources are, I’ll join hands with them and skip down the road.