Toll Party response to A&M report that we don't need tolls

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IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Terri Hall, Regional Director, San Antonio Toll Party

A&M Report: Don’t need to raise gas tax; don’t need tolls
TxDOT overinflated “needs” by $30 billion;
Pulls rug out from under pro-toll arguments
San Antonio, TX, December 13, 2006– In a stunning admission that increasing the gas tax and tolls are NOT NEEDED for future transportation projects, a Texas Transportation Institute report called “Shaping the Competitive Advantage of Texas Metropolitan Regions: The role of Transportation, Housing & Aesthetics” affirms what San Antonio Toll Party.com and citizens groups across the state have been saying. The report discussed in testimony before the Study Commission on Transportation Financing (November 28, 2006, can be viewed here also revealed that TxDOT over-inflated their “funding gap” figures by $30 billion.

“This is proof positive that we DO NOT NEED TO TOLL ROADS or raise the gas tax AT ALL much less $1.09 a gallon in order to fix our roads (as TxDOT contends) and keep people moving. It’s TxDOT who lacks credibility, not the folks who have questioned TxDOT’s figures and brought their misstatements to light,” says an elated Terri Hall, Regional Director of San Antonio Toll Party.com.

The report further bolsters the grassroots movement taking hold throughout Texas which are working to promote non-toll transportation solutions and rid the state of the controversial and detested Trans Texas Corridor.

“The second most important thing to take away from this report is that TxDOT and the road lobby have been doing fuzzy math and prosecuting a propaganda campaign to mislead the public into thinking there’s a transportation funding crisis that can only be solved through tolls under the control of foreign companies. The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) is like the right arm of TxDOT and for them to come out with this information further shreds TxDOT’s credibility and puts a nail in the coffin of TxDOT’s shift to tolls,” explains Hall.

“Our Legislature cannot ignore the TRUTH and FACTS this report reveals and we believe they’ll finally take action to rein in this out of control agency that has purposely inflated their figures to push an agenda against the public’s best interest,” Hall contends.

With several toll roads set to go to contract in early 2007, this report certainly gives citizens the ammunition they’ll need to keep TxDOT’s version of tolls from coming to San Antonio.

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