Debate coverage here.

See David Hendricks’ commentary saying pro-tollers won the debate and that our side has no arguments. Apparently he didn’t show-up to the same debate, or perhaps this pro-highway lobby columnist prefers to see it that way: see “article” here. Did Joe Krier help you write this, sir? Wanna chime in? Write more Letters to the Editor to the Express-News here. Be sure your name, address, and phone are listed and be as brief as possible (under 250 words, under 100 is best).

The only two points Thornton and Krier said the entire debate were the usual:
1) We have no money and tolls or a 50 cent gas tax are the ONLY solutions
2) User of the road pays for the road

The TRUTH!
1) Tolls haven’t hastened the 281 improvements, they’ve delayed them by 2-3 years. They’ve had the gas tax funds to install the overpasses and add lanes on 281 since 2004. (See original plan and article clearly stating even tollway already funded with gas taxes) Wurzbach Pkwy’s completion has been planned for 30 years, with funding programmed for 15 years. Completion was promised over 10 years ago. See story here.
2) The improvements to 281 are already paid for with gas taxes, so the users aren’t paying for the improvements. TxDOT has admitted they’re using the toll revenues on 281 to fund more toll lanes on 1604. (See story here.) How is that user pays? Also, Commissioner Lyle Larson has stated TxDOT is not being honest about how these projects are being funded. All of them are using gas taxes because “they can’t make it work otherwise.”

“TxDOT is playing games with how these projects are going to be paid for. They’re saying it’s going to be paid by the tolls. That’s not an accurate assessment.” (Larson)

“You’re saying even if they’re toll roads there are significant tax dollars involved?” asks Coyle. (Reporter)

“Yes, there’s going to be a lot,” replies Larson. “They can’t make it work otherwise.”

See the full story here

Chamber crowd hears tolls’ pros and cons
Web Posted: 03/30/2006 12:00 AM CST
Amy Dorsett
Express-News Staff Writer

Photo by Robert McLeroy/Express-News

ARGUING AGAINST TOLL ROLLS: Terri Hall (left), founder and director of San Antonio Toll Party; and Bill Barker, a San Antonio transportation consultant.

Some 200 people shelled out $40 for a catered lunch of sandwiches and pasta salad at a downtown hotel ballroom Wednesday to hear a debate on the merits of toll roads.

Although nothing new about current toll proposals emerged in the debate, sponsored by the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the discussion apparently accomplished its main goal.

“It informs people,” said Helotes resident Diane Skillrud. “It gets people to think about it.”

Skillrud said she hasn’t made up her mind about tolls, but believes the U.S. 281 toll project would have an impact on the entire region.

Photo by Robert McLeroy/Express-News

ARGUING FOR TOLL ROADS: Bill Thornton (left), chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority; and Joe Krier, president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

Arguing for tolls were former Mayor Bill Thornton, chairman of the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority; and Joe Krier, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

They said that assessing tolls on drivers who actually use the roads is more fair than imposing more taxes on everyone, and that traffic congestion relief would come quicker than relying on more traditional ways of highway funding.

“San Antonio has congestion problems and it’s worsening every day,” Thornton said. “Tolls are paid only by those who choose to drive on toll roads.”

Arguing against tolls were Terri Hall, founder and director of San Antonio Toll Party, and Bill Barker, a local transportation consultant.

They argued that San Antonio already has a dedicated sales tax supporting road projects, and that toll road rates are being grossly underestimated by toll proponents.

“Building more highways doesn’t always result in less congestion and shorter commute times,” Barker said.

The Texas Department of Transportation has proposed more than seven miles of toll lanes along U.S. 281, from Loop 1604 to Comal County. Work on the first three miles was supposed to start in January but was halted by a lawsuit filed by Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and People for Efficient Transportation.

The project will be delayed for at least a year while additional environmental studies are conducted.

Hall said the decision for toll road should be made at the polls.

“The decisions are being made for us by unelected bureaucrats,” she said. “This should be in the hand of voters.”

But Krier said the public can easily have its say on the issue.

“The nice thing about tolls is you get to vote for them everyday, anytime you want to use them,” he said. “And we have elected officials who are held accountable.”

The South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, which hosted “Toll Roads: The Great Debate” at the Marriott Plaza hotel, has not decided whether or not to endorse toll roads.

“We’ve had questions from our membership and we wanted to have an informative luncheon to let folks know what is happening,” said spokeswoman Suzann Haces. “It’s good to know what’s going on.”

Governor-appointed Tolling Authority Chair Bill Thornton showed he and the toll-pushers have no clue the economic impact of their decisions and doesn’t care a stitch about anything other than taking more of YOUR money:

When a supporter asked him to be careful with our tax money before the debate started, Thornton’s response:

“I’m only interested in tolls, tolls, tolls.” (Guess what, Mr. Thornton? Tolls are a TAX!)

Then Thornton made his usual swipe at supporters in Spring Branch. Then our supporter said: “Don’t you think people in Spring Branch drive into San Antonio to go to work?”

He said:
“I don’t know.”

Then the supporter asked, well do you know how many folks in Spring Branch come into town to shop?

He said:
“I have no idea.”

Then during the debate Thornton actually said this when asked about a foreign company’s involvement in the toll rates:
“We don’t know who will set the toll rates.”

The Chairman of our tolling authority actually said he has no idea who will set the toll rates! Isn’t that his job?! Local control, my foot! Cintra is driving this train not our unelected tolling authorities nor our politicians. Does this give you the impression that Thornton not only doesn’t know anything, he doesn’t much care either? Doesn’t it seem mildly relevant to a “local” tolling authority to know how much sales tax and gas tax revenue Bexar County will lose if Bulverde and Spring Branch residents shop elsewhere or take alternate routes? Doesn’t that seem like an important factor to know: whether whatever they GAIN in toll revenues will be LOST in sales tax and gas tax revenues? As we said before, during, and after the debate, not one agency has studied the economic impact or repercussions of ANY proposed toll road and yet 70 miles are already in the plans for Bexar County!

The push for tolls has no relevant study or data driving it except this: to create a slush fund for roads. Our highways have been hijacked by the highway lobby!

Link to Express-News article here.

Another misleading headline and statements in the article below. Why? Because it makes it seem as though authorities are just thinking about tolling Wurzbach Pkwy. Well, guess what folks? It’s officially been in the toll plans since last fall. These reporters keep making it appear as though there are other options still on the table and we all know that’s not true. When a tolling authority officially places a road in the toll plans and spends $6.5 million on preliminary engineering of toll roads on these highways, when they start talking private contracts or CDA agreements (see toll glossary) on Bandera Road before there’s EVER even a public meeting, you can bet that means they’re gonna toll it! The money was programmed for Wurzbach Pkwy. and scheduled for completion by now, yet those funds have disappeared into TxDOT’s mysterious black hole and suddenly the only way to get it done is to toll that one new stretch of an already free road! What a joke!

Then for TxDOT and the RMA to act like they’ve yet to “study” it for toll feasibility and to say they’re going to see how much money they can make on it is also disingenuous. The fact is they’ve already studied 3 scenarios on how to toll Wurzbach Pkwy. charging anywhere from 25 cents a mile up to a $1 a mile to use the interchange! Tolls are being railroaded and TxDOT and the RMA are not being honest about the timelines and how far they already are into the tolling of I-35, Wurzbach Pkwy., and Bandera Rd.

Wurzbach Parkway span may be toll road
Web Posted: 03/22/2006 12:01 AM CST
By Nicole Lessin
Express-News Staff Writer

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is looking into developing toll lanes on a segment of the proposed Wurzbach Parkway running from West Avenue to Jones-Maltsberger Road, with an interchange at U.S. 281.

“This is still preliminary,” said Terry Brechtel, executive director of the RMA. “Unless we do the toll alternative, there are no additional dollars available.”

In the 1980s, plans for the Wurzbach Parkway showed a continuous, 12-mile stretch of road that went from Interstate 35 to Lockhill-Selma Road.

While the goal was to provide an alternative to Loop 1604 and Loop 410 on the city’s North Side, officials from the Texas Department of Transportation said they have only had enough money to build the span in segments.

Those completed so far include Wetmore Road to Nacogdoches Road, started in 1994; Nacogdoches to O’Connor Road, started in 1999; O’Conner to Interstate 35, started in 2001; and Lockhill-Selma Road to Northwest Military Highway, started in 2003.

Frank Holzmann, an area engineer with TxDOT, said construction on segments from Wetmore to Jones-Maltsberger Road and Blanco to West Avenue will begin in the next 18 to 24 months with a price tag of about $43 million.

Area resident Janet Ahmad doesn’t understand what the holdup is.

“Between 15 and 20 years ago, (TxDOT) had a design; they knew what property they had to buy up and they didn’t do it,” said Ahmad, who also is the president of Homeowners for Better Building.

“They spent our tax money somewhere else. And now they are going to build it … and then you have to pay to get on. That’s shameful,” she added.

The RMA, which currently is overseeing or working in tandem with TxDOT on adding approximately 70 miles of tolled lanes throughout the metropolitan area, got the authority from the Texas Transportation Commission in November to study the feasibility of tolling the 281-interchange section of the Wurzbach Parkway.

RMA officials said $5 million — an amount they say is not enough — is designated toward this project from the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which allocates funds for road building.

“It was a gap there,” Holzmann said. “TxDOT is a pay-as-you-go system. You are limited on the amount you can build.”

Brechtel said tolling the project could accelerate the timetable for construction, which she estimates could be completed as early as 2009.

But not everyone is buying that argument.

Terri Hall, a Spring Branch resident who is the regional director of the San Antonio Toll Party, an organization opposed to tolling, said this project could be funded in other ways.

“For them to say the only fix is to now toll is disingenuous,” she said.

John Kight, who retired as TxDOT’s director of transportation planning and development in 1993, said before he retired he expected the entire project to be funded by a mix of federal, state and local funds.

“The money was not sitting there,” he said “(But) it was anticipated that they would continue funding it. They didn’t continue funding it.”

Still, Kight said it is not right to toll a section of the Wurzbach Parkway.

“I do not support taking a road that was developed as a nontoll road and making it a toll road,” he said.

However, RMA officials are not guaranteeing the tolled section of the Wurzbach Parkway will happen.

The agency is simultaneously figuring out how much the project could cost, followed by a traffic and revenue study to see how much money it could bring in as well as an environmental study, Brechtel said.

The agency has to see if the project is financially viable, Brechtel said.

While Jack Pellek, an area resident, said he probably would be willing to pay a toll to use the parkway to reach the South Texas Medical Center, he thinks it’s strange that only a small segment would be tolled.

“I don’t understand the whole approach to the Wurzbach Parkway,” he said. “What’s done of the Wurzbach Parkway is very useful, but they need to finish it.”

Ready for some more fodder to get your blood boiling?

Try this….Henry Munoz, I believe he’s Commissioner Chico Rodriguez’ appointee, stated this while trying to get a handle on where and how to fund these toll projects even with the private money (since NONE of the plans pay to build the toll lanes, tolls only cover operation and maintenance…and profit!): “There’s money everywhere (meaning federal sources, state sources, etc.), it’s just a matter of finding it and applying it to the right project.” Of course, this money only drops out of the sky to build toll roads, not free roads! See the shell game going on here? Then, the presenter from Estrada Hinojosa said this choice quote: “Design it to maximize the amount of traffic taking the toll road.” He repeated several times that the purpose of these toll projects is to maximize revenue. Thank you, Mr. Gonzales, for so blatantly confirming what we’ve known all along! There really isn’t a true non-toll option; there’s just economic misery and more misery for options!

Executive Director Terry Brechtel and Chair Bill Thornton also stated repeatedly that the Alamo RMA is quickly running out of loan money and that they’ll need more, lots more for what they have to do in order to start getting their own revenue. How you may ask? Tolls, of course. This agency spends its LOANED taxpayer money like it grows on trees without ANY revenue stream of its own. That’s the trouble with bureaucracies, they keep getting fed! When Bob Thompson, Commissioner Larson’s appointee, tried to call them on spending $1,000 a month on legal fees for a lawyer (the one who redefined “existing road”…that earned his keep alright!) who has done next to NOTHING for the last year, Brechtel’s answer: “We’ll be needing to spend a lot more in coming months.”

SLAPPING TOLLS ON EXISTING ROADS DELAYING PROJECTS
So much for CDAs (public private partnerships…ie- the secret deals) speeding up highway projects. The review of the CDA proposals take one year, then the next step (request for detailed proposals) takes another year, then the notice to proceed with the project after that! So on 281, the earliest they’d let a contract is 2008! Just more proof that these secret toll deals aren’t about accelerating projects or congestion relief (that’s the PR angle to “sell” them), they’re about REVENUE GENERATION and a whole new DRIVER’S TAX to benefit foreign toll operators!

WURZBACH PARKWAY
Then as diplomatically as he could, Chair Bill Thornton stated the Wurzbach Parkway project that has had the funding, design, and even environmental clearance 10-15 years ago, has to now be re-done due to design “flaws.” The original design was apparently so driver “unfriendly,” they’re insisting upon a re-design. The new design requires purchase of yet MORE right of way and more delays…apparently 30 years hasn’t been long enough to get that road finished!

WATCH OUT FOR “SOCIAL” and “HUMAN” IMPACT BUZZ WORDS
HNTB, the engineering firm who was just awarded the $6.5 million for preliminary engineering for 3 toll projects (I-35, Wurzbach, Bandera Rd.), gave a presentation on NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, that was the law TxDOT violated on the 281 project. Board members heard two key words and latched on…the social and human impact of these projects. To the public, that means the social and human impact of economic hardship and double taxation to drive on existing highways like emotional stress of sitting on permenantly congested free lanes, the time TxDOT and the City are already stealing from us through traffic signal manipulation and project delays to turn it into a toll road instead of putting in less invasive and quicker overpasses, the noise, the increased pollution, damage to property values, unequal access to roads we’ve all paid for, damage to the aquifer, etc.

BUT to Christina Rodriguez (appointed by Judge Wolff) it meant the opposite. To her it was an excuse to say once again, “It’s tolls or sit in traffic and risk heart attacks!” (I’m not making this up!). Oh my, how shrill! She went on a rant about the human and social impacts of doing nothing vs. the silver bullet of tolls. She apparently fails to remember every RMA meeting we’ve attended since last summer when we’ve vocally reminded the Board DOING NOTHING is NOT an option; we expect them to implement the ORIGINAL, ALREADY FUNDED plan for overpasses at the lights on 281 and keep our FREEway FREE! So expect to hear Thornton and others tout the equivalent of this: “if we don’t toll that road, people are going to die from heart attacks sitting in the current congestion!” NEVER MIND WE’RE ONLY SITTING IN CONGESTION BECAUSE TXDOT DELAYED THE PROJECT TO TURN IT INTO A TOLL ROAD AND HAND IT OVER TO CINTRA-ZACHRY! The absurdity is astounding…do they honestly expect any THINKING person to buy into this twisted logic?

MY STATEMENT TO THE RMA:
What a difference a month makes! Last meeting we sat here and continued to hear how the 281 toll road was a done deal and now the toll road that couldn’t be stopped has been halted! Mr. Thornton is fond of quoting the RMA’s push poll financed with tax money saying 67% of Stone Oak wants a toll road, acting like it’s a genuine reflection of the people of Bexar County. Well, scientific or not, the San Antonio Business Journal saw fit to publish an article about the OVERWHELMING opposition to private toll road plans for Bexar County Monday, it was 74% against and only 20% in favor. Even your push poll, when you actually interpret a particular question correctly also showed 27% wanted toll lanes and 74% didn’t.

So why are you still sitting here pursuing multibillion projects that are enormously unpopular, that will likely change the leadership in Austin, and could easily fail altogether? If travel and growth projections are incorrect, as they were on the Camino Columbia Toll Road in Laredo, who will bail them out? The taxpayers. As we witnessed at the last meeting, you are tasked with being a mini-TxDOT and were essentially created to sell bonds. The Legislature didn’t fund you and now you’re allocating loaned toll equity grants to HNTB to the tune of $6.5 million dollars with no way to pay it back without charging us tolls. And this was while there has been a steadily rising drumbeat of public opposition with legitimate questions surrounding the financing of this entity and these toll projects, yet you press on, shall I venture to say, foolishly.

Let me re-cap what’s gone on in just the last month:
TxDOT, who Mr. Thornton calls your “natural partner,” has broken the law on the 281 project, has demonstrated total ineptitude on the first toll project as well as fiscal mismanagement that some would say is tantamount to fraud. You’re negotiating toll formulas with two foreign companies in SECRET for freeways we’ve already paid for. TxDOT holds a CDA Workshop putting over 1,000 people in the highway lobby on notice that private Texas land taken through eminent domain is up for sale for private gain. Then just yesterday, TxDOT wrapped up their bond buyers party in Austin promoting CDAs for which there are only preliminary guidelines as to their use.

Frank Holzman at TxDOT tells a group of citizens at Encino Park ON CAMERA that what I drive on today will be tolled, while Joe Krier of SAMCO gets on KTSA radio and states the complete opposite proclaiming what I drive on today will NOT be tolled. The City of San Antonio has admitted they’ve tweaked the timing of the stop lights on 281 to steal motorists valuable time to perhaps make them cry “Uncle” in hopes of getting us to beg for a toll road. Christina De La Cruz said TxDOT gave the City new traffic counts for 281 while Tom Wendorf states in a letter to Commissioner Larson that traffic has essentially stayed the same, then the City goes out of its way to deny it touched the lights at all, and we’re supposed to believe you’re acting in the public’s best interest? It’d be a JOKE if it weren’t so absolutely serious. What’s happening is deception, lies, half truths, and highway robbery, and it’s nothing short of criminal!

You may sit there and proclaim you share our concerns and act like we have every reason to trust you with our best interests, but the PUBLIC isn’t buying it; its’ a disgrace and this fraud is going to stop. Our grassroots citizens are building a coalition that will see to it!

NOTE: TXDOT PUBLIC MEETINGS ASKING FOR ALTERNATIVES ON 281 SET FOR MARCH! (We’ll post dates as soon as we know them).

Think your side of town is exempt from these detested toll plans? Think again! It’s officially out of the bag…TxDOT is following orders and plans to toll anything and everything they can manipulate into calling “toll feasible,” including tolling federal interstates! You read that correctly, though many were lead to believe interstates were off the table for tolling, not true. Un-elected bureaucrats want your money to pad their budgets and our politicians see toll slush funds as the answer to all of our state funding woes. They’ve already demonstrated that penchant since 25% of our state gas tax money already goes to fund public education.

Once these guys build-up a toll slush fund, can you guess what will happen to our gas tax money? Suddenly it won’t go to highways, but all the politicians’ pet projects. Even the toll revenues are up for grabs for things not related to highways like private rail lines. Governor-appointed Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson said just before the November election (2005) that they could use toll money to pay off the Prop 1 rail fund bonds (Read about it in the Star-Telegram). The Governor wants to give your hard earned tax dollars over to private rail companies to move their lines into the Trans Corridor.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect to the toll slush funds are that the federal law that stopped US 281 (National Enviornmental Policy Act or NEPA) won’t apply to toll revenues. TxDOT could literally have total authority to take your private land and stick a highway anywhere they want without ANY enviornmental considerations and without concern for the impact on Texans, property values, businesses, or your pocketbook! Toll money is totally unregulated by ANY federal law. Up until now, nearly every state highway in Texas has used some portion of federal gas tax money and hence has been subject to very specific procedures for building highways outlined in federal law. No such hassle with toll money. TxDOT can and WILL do whatever they want no matter if it’s wasteful, harmful, or a detriment to the community.

Read about it in the Express-News.

The most significant event at today’s Alamo RMA (Regional Mobility Authority or tolling authority) meeting was their vote to commit an enormous sum of taxpayer money to HNTB (engineering firm) for preliminary engineering for I-35, SH 16, & Wurzbach Parkway toll projects. First concern, Wurzbach Pkwy’s completion has been planned for 30 years and funded for 15, why are we commiting millions in taxpayer money to “study” toll lanes when it’s already paid for and has an original plan. Can you say, this is the US 281 debacle all over again?

Then, the HNTB (ie- special interest highway lobby firm coming to the public trough) presenter (whose name is no where on the agenda for the public to see) stated they could do the studies in 18 – 24 months and he PLANNED into the projects the lofty assumption that they’d only do environmental assessments (not environmental impact statements as required by law to study a highway’s impact on human health and the environment) AND he assumed they’d receive “findings of no significant impact” on all of them so they could steamroll 3 more toll roads down our throats with NO INPUT!

Thankfully, Commissioner Lyle Larson’s appointee, Former City Councilman Bob Thompson, spoke up and insisted the RMA do the full environmental impact statements (or EIS) versus the lesser environmental assessments and he recognized the need to do it primarily to get COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT AND BUY-IN on these projects. While the EIS do take longer to conduct, he correctly stated that it would save them in the long run (since skirting the law has already delayed the 281 project with a lawsuit). To this bunch, public buy-in is a foreign concept! Thank you for finally injecting some sanity into the process, Mr. Thompson!

Some of the more insidious happenings…
I noted that their agenda said their would be project status updates on 281/1604 project among others and all they said was they’re in contract neogitations. So I noted that they’ve signed non-disclosure statements forbidding them from telling the public what’s in the contracts and that’s why they aren’t giving project updates on it. It’s SECRETIVE, a VIOLATION OF THE PUBLIC TRUST and an OUTRAGE! Then Jim Reid made an interesting note. He said they came up with a document last November that put sepcific limits on what these private agreements (CDAs) could have in them. He said they prohibited the non-compete clauses and some other key concessions. He promised to get it to me this week. So let’s see what they do.

Other Board members tried to assure us that they share our same concerns about the non-competes and no limits on toll rates, etc. One said they do care about public input and asked us to provide more alternatives rather than just say what they’re doing wrong. I later stated that a panel discussion on toll roads at Encino Park just last night did just that, offered at least a dozen other ways to “fix” 281 without tolling it. I tried to make the point that TxDOT’s own original solution (to put 4 overpasses at the lights) that’s nearly half the cost is all the solution that’s needed rather than tolling existing highways and, of course, they denied they were tolling existing roads. That “alternative has been on the table for 6 years, but they push that aside because that option doesn’t bring in new toll taxes!

So much for public input. They pick and choose what input they accept and implement. That’s been the problem all along!

An article in the Express-News today (read it here) addresses the need for government agencies to release public records more easily, except when you’re TxDOT! Here’s my letter to the reporter and submitted as a Letter to the Editor…

I appreciated your article on Open Records. If you’d like a glaring example of violation of Open Records laws and abusing the request for an Attorney General’s opinion in order to stall the process, look no further than the Texas Department of Transportation! I made a request for information in August for toll feasibility studies for Bexar and Comal counties and did not actually receive the information until November! I made another request on September 8 and STILL have not received the majority of the information.

The Governor’s shift to privatize our public FREEways is largely being done under the cover of darkness (under the shadow of legal protection and political cover) without the public having input or access to the most crucial aspects of the contract negotiations. This secrecy breeds corruption, defies the transparency necessary for privatization projects, and violates the public trust. If privatizing our FREEways and slapping toll lanes on existing highways is the best deal for San Antonio, why can’t the public see what’s in these contracts?