Corte chose to back the Governor’s controversial plans to turn TX freeways into tollways
By Terri Hall, Founder, San Antonio Toll Party
Express-News
February 15, 2008
The most politically radioactive issue in San Antonio today is toll roads, and State Representative Frank Corte chose the wrong side. Corte chose to endorse Rick Perry’s new policy of turning FREEways into a network of toll roads where they’d like to charge us for every mile we drive in addition to gas taxes.
The Republican candidate running to replace Corte is Tony Kosub, who has the full endorsement of the San Antonio Toll Party. Kosub adamantly opposes double tax toll roads that charge us twice for the same stretch of road, and will work to rein in TxDOT that’s prone to $1 billion accounting errors and bloating their budget by $30 billion.
Toll roads will cost the average family $2,000-$4,000 a year in new taxes to drive on what was once a freeway and will price commuters off our public freeways. This leaves those who cannot afford toll taxes with few alternatives to sitting in traffic. In fact, in many places, the only non-toll lanes will be access roads with stop lights and slower speed limits making those who can’t pay tolls second-class citizens on permanently congested streets, while those that can afford the tolls get their own personal lanes to bypass traffic.
Studies have shown toll roads force more traffic onto our neighborhood streets making them more congested and less safe as accidents increase. This increased traffic on neighborhood streets will cost the City and County more money and could result in further tax increases to pay for it.
Even worse, those toll lanes are being subsidized with taxpayer money, lots of it, but you won’t be able to drive on those lanes without paying another tax, a toll tax, for every mile you drive.
Corte voted to toll our freeways every chance he got despite massive opposition by his constituents. It’s time for the taxpayers of District 122 to elect a legislator who will represent their best interests instead of special interests.
Road contractors stand to make four times the money off tollways compared to freeways. The choice is clear, Corte is a vote for higher taxes to benefit special interests, and Kosub is a vote to keep our FREEways free.
Terri Hall is Founder/Director of the San Antonio Toll Party, a tax revolt like the Boston Tea Party. SA Toll Party.com is a non-partisan grassroots group working to stop toll roads. She’s a mother of six children and was named San Antonian of the Year in 2007 for her work educating and mobilizing concerned citizens to keep FREEways free.