Texas Toll Road Plan Stirs Grassroots Protest

Human Events ^ | March 12, 2007 | Gary Hoitsma

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The conventional wisdom among conservatives about the benefits of privatizing government programs is being severely tested in a heretofore largely obscure controversy that is now blossoming in America’s heartland. When up to several thousand people gathered in vigorous protest March 2 at the majestic state capitol in Austin, there were echoes of the formative beginnings of similar grassroots protest movements of other eras, in which the organizers were not professional political activists, but rather genuinely fed-up ordinary citizens motivated by a combination of self-interest and patriotism to seek a legitimate redress of grievances. Almost 30 years ago, a similar citizen protest movement in California over high taxes (the Prop 13 movement) sparked a national political wave that helped elect a conservative president in 1980.

It remains to be seen if the current brewing controversy in Texas will have the same kind of political “legs,” but it is surely worth watching. At issue is the efficacy and wisdom of Texas’ grandiose public plan to phase in the construction of a statewide network of over 4,000 miles of new toll roads designed to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure to meet the demands of expected booming population growth in the 21st Century. The heavily-traveled Laredo-to-Dallas route, currently served by Interstate 35, is the initial focus of attention. The plan, which is strongly backed by Texas’ Republican Governor Rick Perry, was authorized in state law several years ago with relatively little fanfare by bipartisan majorities in the state legislature.

The plan’s central feature calls for the financing of the new highways through so-called “public-private partnerships” in which private companies will be permitted to invest billions of dollars in up-front capital to build the roads (or sections of roads) in return for the lion’s share of the revenue that tolls on those roads will generate over contract periods of 50 years and more. The tolls are supposed to not only pay the private companies back for the cost and maintenance of the roads, but also to provide these companies’ private investors with a healthy long-term profit.

Such an arrangement sharply breaks tradition with how major highway infrastructure has been financed and built in the United States since the highly successful Interstate highway program began in the mid-1950’s. The building of America’s Interstates, widely considered to be one of the largest and most positively consequential construction projects in human history, was the result of a wholly-owned multi-billion dollar government program financed on an essentially pay-a-you-go basis through Federal and state excise taxes levied on gasoline.

By contrast, the Texas toll road plan, commonly known as the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), is being promoted by its backers with the confident assertion that it will involve no new taxes and no government funds or public-account deficit spending, state or federal. Instead, it is claimed that the vaunted “private sector” will bear all the costs, debt, burdens and risks involved. And it will get new roads built, relieve traffic congestion and bring economic benefits to local communities at least 30 years faster than could be possible with the existing gas-tax funded programs. So who could possibly be against that?

Enter Hank Gilbert, businessman, rancher, and last year’s unsuccessful Democrat candidate for state agriculture commissioner, who played a central role in organizing the eclectic March 2 protest rally against the toll road plan at the state capitol. The sign-waving gathering of many farmers and ranchers included assorted “Reagan” Democrats, conservative Republicans, and independents of varying stripes. “There’s no doubt there’s a huge groundswell of opposition to the TTC,” Gilbert said, noting that after examining the emerging details of what they voted for, “politicians will realize that those of us who’ve been fighting this thing are not just lunatics.” He cited one of the bill’s original co-authors in the legislature who now has major qualms about how it is being implemented.

TTC opponents, who overwhelmed a recent open legislative committee hearing with requests to speak, cite a litany of concerns. While some on the other side suggest these concerns are wrong, overblown, or dip into “black helicopter” territory, it is clear that most of these issues are not going away anytime soon. For example, it is said by TTC opponents that:

• “Private sector” in this case largely means foreign-owned financial holding companies that will end up essentially owning vital U.S. transportation infrastructure in perpetuity along with preferential rights to concessions and economic development activities (including the building of hotels and shopping malls) within the roads’ rights-of-way.

• The necessary abrupt taking of private property through “eminent domain” and the lack of adequate interchanges and on-off ramps on the proposed new toll roads will wreak havoc on property owners, countryside landscapes and local communities, unnecessarily disrupting traditional in-state travel patterns and forms of commerce.

• The real hidden purpose of the project has little to do with benefiting the citizens of Texas, but is rather designed to facilitate burgeoning NAFTA freight traffic--shipping imports arriving at Mexican ports directly to points north--to Kansas City and beyond. The idea is to help create an eventual “North American union” of essentially borderless commerce whose unintended consequences will involve more illegal immigration, smuggling, and foreign terrorism.

• The tolls will be configured in a way to benefit foreign investors, meaning they will be higher and much longer-lasting (if not permanent) than commonly used tolls merely designed to pay off costs of construction and maintenance. Indeed, the necessarily higher interest costs will make the actual overall costs of the roads themselves considerably higher than if funded through normal government mechanisms.

• The difference between “taxes” and “tolls” will be lost on road users, who will end up paying twice for transportation projects as the plan envisions no elimination or reduction of existing gas taxes.

• In sum, the project threatens the safety, security, and sovereignty of America in the name of globalization and unfettered free trade.

On the other side, TTC supporters, who include officials of the Texas Department of Transportation and many Republicans led by Governor Perry, reject all of these arguments. They point to the huge potential economic benefits of improved transportation and the innovative leveraging of private financing that can be a model for the rest of country, saving taxpayers billions of dollars over the long term.

In the process, they suggest that conservatives should be pleased to endorse the implementation of their own long-standing rhetoric about the positive idea of “privatization” as a better and more efficient way to do jobs that government bureaucrats need no longer do. Judging by the “conservatives” standing for hours in the Austin sun the other day, it appears that many are not yet so pleased.

Mr. Hoitsma, a managing associate with Carmen Group, Inc., a Washington, D.C., government affairs firm, made his way from his home state of New Jersey to be a youth field coordinator on the 1976 Texas Reagan campaign.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Nichols throws former peers a toll curve

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE

Monday, March 12, 2007

Robert Nichols couldn't have been more shocking if he'd shown up on the floor of the Texas Senate in a silk muumuu and pink boa.

Now that I have your attention . . .

You might not be familiar with Nichols, given that the Republican from the East Texas burg of Jacksonville is serving his first term in the Senate. But people in transportation certainly know Nichols from his eight years on the Texas Transportation Commission, when there wasn't a more dogged defender of building toll roads.

In December 2004, Nichols shared a dais with commission Chairman Ric Williamson and Gov. Rick Perry, all of them fairly bursting with triumph as they announced that Cintra-Zachry, in return for 50 years of toll revenue, had promised to build 300 miles of Trans-Texas Corridor tollway paralleling Interstate 35. AND pay the state $1.2 billion.

This was what toll roads could bring, they said. Philosophically, it seemed you couldn't fit a Kleenex between Williamson and Nichols.

In June 2005, Nichols, 62, quit the commission to run for Senate. When he won, the assumption was that Nichols would be the Transportation Department's legislative champion.

The first hint something was afoot came March 1, when Nichols hit Williamson with tough questions about private toll roads at a committee hearing. Then last week's stunner: Nichols, with 24 Senate co-sponsors, was filing SB 1267 to put a two-year moratorium on private toll road contracts.

Say whaaa?

Nichols made it clear he still supports toll roads, even private ones. But not in the way the state is about to do them.

"I'm an engineer," Nichols told me, "and engineers believe the world is held together by tiny pieces. And if you disrupt those tiny pieces, it starts a chain reaction that can have negative consequences."

Nichols reminded me that at the 2004 press conference, the commission and Cintra-Zachry said their contracts would have no non-compete clauses, which would force the state to pay Cintra-Zachry compensation if some new free roads cut toll revenue. Expansion of I-35 would be exempt, at least in the pending Texas 130 contract.

Nichols, before he left the commission, fought to control what the state might have to pay if it decides to take back that Texas 130 section. Nichols wanted a set formula, but Cintra-Zachry wanted the nebulous "fair market value."

The pending contract has the non-compete clause and fair market language. If those provisions aren't taken out, he said, future Texans could end up "having to pay the piper."

Nichols, mind you, asked for a moratorium on private toll roads, not a ban. A cooling-off period, he said, might stop angry legislators from scuttling toll roads entirely. He doesn't want that to happen.

So, no muumuu. A boa, around the Transportation Department's wrists? Maybe.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Trans-Texas Corridor PING!

[alloysteel]

First off, make the entire route an elevated roadway. That way, the sovereignty of Texas is not infrimged upon, and Texans may move from one side to the other without having to regard this roadway as a barrier.

With no intersections at any point before arriving at the terminal point.

Treat the terminal like what it is, an international port of entry.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The real hidden purpose of the project has little to do with benefiting the citizens of Texas, but is rather designed to facilitate burgeoning NAFTA freight traffic--shipping imports arriving at Mexican ports directly to points north--to Kansas City and beyond. The idea is to help create an eventual "North American union" of essentially borderless commerce whose unintended consequences will involve more illegal immigration, smuggling, and foreign terrorism. . . . "conservatives" standing for hours in the Austin sun the other day, [tells us] that many are not . . . pleased.

Tomorrow's headline? "Popular talk show host Michael Medved 'goes nuts.' Neighbors alarmed, call police. 'Something about a 'corsi' I think he said -- then a string of obscenities, wow. I am glad the kids were away at school.'"

[BaylorDad]

First off, make the entire route an elevated roadway.

Yours is the first alternate plan put forth. I am sure all those protesting will go for it, as long as they can bash Gov. Perry for not proposing it himself. Now if you can propose a reasonable construction schedule and payment plan, I'll jump on board.

[stevie_d_64]

Nichols in a mumu and a boa???

MY EYES!!! MY EYESSSSS!!! burning...melting!!!

Thanks!!!

One thing you have to ask yourself...Is the bill that puts a moratorium on the TTC for two years a good thing???

I believe they will still be working on "things" that can be done under the radar like interjecting things into the Texas Transportation Code, that allow for the beauracracy, regulations, ordinances and the like to be worked on to pave the way for the fight later on to be harder to stop in two years...

Send me a PM (remind me)...I have something at the house I want to post here to show what they are doing (have done already) to the Texas Transportation Code...

Sec.545.110???? Something like that...I forgot the exact number...But its close...

Its to allow the TTC commission to prepare to regulate speed limits and toll charges on these "roads"...

Or somebody could go and find it before I can get to it...

Its there...

This is part of all that "work" being done without any public discussion or debate...Doesn't look like much on the surface...But if you think nothing else is getting done, I got some land I wanna give you fair market price for...hehehe

[wolfcreek]

Thanks for posting the Nichols story.....I got a kick out of it when I read it this morning. It also provided some interesting info about the non-compete clauses and the buy-back plan.

[Ben Ficklin]

(New Harris) County Judge hopes to get things moving

[wolfcreek]

If an elevated roadway with no exits/entrances would keep the state of Texas from doubling it's pop, I would sign on. Although, I would imagine the costs, once at $15 billion, now at $105 billion, (already making the tolls outragious) would increase further essentually, pricing foreign investors out of the market.


***As a person of some American Indian heritage, I would like to know WTH your tagline means?***

[wolfcreek]

Stevie, please FReepmail this info? Sounds interesting!

[Xenalyte]

Perhaps I'm dense, but I can't see where on earth Michael Medved comes into this.

[Plains Drifter]

Good story on this highway in "Range Magazine,5 pages with maps. The story talks about the ranchers who will lose old family ranches over this foreign owned toll road.

[Red6]

Texas charges bellow the average for gasoline tax per gallon.

Texas has some of the better highways in the US.

Unlike some other places, in Texas we actually manage to complete MAJOR highway construction ahead of schedules such as the the tollway construction in Frisco.

How is this paradox possible?

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/statistics/gas_taxes_by_state_2002.html

Tolls in Texas are neither new, nor have the tolls been permanent in the past since some roads that were paid for with tolls are free today, now that they are paid off. Please do a "fact check" before you write.

Bottom line: roads cost money. It makes sense to let those who use them pay for them. Likewise private firms have "proven" themselves to be more efficient, making timetables, keeping down costs, and with better customer service. The alternative to no tolls is increasing the fuel tax. North Dallas is expanding rapidly as is Texas as a whole both in population and economy. The infrastructure needs expanded to meet future demands so that we don't end up with catastrophic traffic meltdowns as is common in some other major cities. The California Gray Davis do nothing technique is a method that might not stir up the bees, it also gives you power brownouts years later down the road. IMHO-

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[wolfcreek]

"The story talks about the ranchers who will lose old family ranches over this foreign owned toll road."


I personally know folks who stand to lose. This is not the Texas they planned for their families future. Glad it's getting a variety of different exposures.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Tolls in Texas are neither new, nor have the tolls been permanent in the past since some roads that were paid for with tolls are free today, now that they are paid off. Please do a "fact check" before you write.

I posted the articles. I didn't write them.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

bump.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Oh, it's kind of an inside "joke."

Mr. Medved went wild denouncing people who believe that there may be plans to combine Mexico, the U.S., and Canada into one "community."

And I mean wild! I happened up on it early one morning when I tuned into a rebroadcast of the previous day's show. I thought I'd get a thoughtful argument. I got instead the most outrageous (and I mean "Grossly offensive to decency or morality. Being well beyond the bounds of good taste") language I've heard on over-the-air AM radio.

No obscenities but grossly irrational, drooling ranting. I read his corresponding blog comments, they were the same.

'corsi' is Dr. Jerome Corsi a Harvard PhD who's been tracking the "community" plans.. and lots more.

[Plains Drifter]

Like I said earlier, the magazine's name is "Range", May 24th issue. The story is told by Analiese and Robert Kunert of San Antonio. The highway is the Trans Texas Corridor to run through Texas to the Canadian border, four football fields wide, foreign owned, foreign funded and as I read the article foreign built. This is part of the current administration's goal to meld Canada, the United States and Mexico into one country. I personally don't think this is good for this country and don't like it.

[GQuagmire]

By contrast, the Texas toll road plan, commonly known as the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), is being promoted by its backers with the confident assertion that it will involve no new taxes and no government funds or public-account deficit spending, state or federal. Instead, it is claimed that the vaunted “private sector” will bear all the costs, debt, burdens and risks involved. And it will get new roads built, relieve traffic congestion and bring economic benefits to local communities at least 30 years faster than could be possible with the existing gas-tax funded programs. So who could possibly be against that




Be afraid. Be very afraid. Up here in the People's Republic o Mass. we have a toll road, the Mass.Pike. Bonds were floated to build the road in the late 40's or very early 50's.In 1987 were bonds were paid off. The tolls were supposed to come down.The Mass. Turnpike Authority ,rather than disband and turn the road over to the state and remove tolls,instead floated more bonds to keep the tolls coming in and suck more money from the public.(All were done with the approval of the Mass.Legislature). Once a toll road ,always a toll road.