Posted on 10/16/2006 6:45:49 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Do you remember voting on the Trans-Texas Corridor?
Me neither. But I think I might have. Sort of.
Toll road proponents have said over the past couple of years that Texans had voted to authorize what has turned out to be a very aggressive push for toll roads. Gov. Rick Perry said as much in the Oct. 6 gubernatorial election debate.
One of the moderators relayed a question from a McKinney woman asking why Texans haven't gotten to vote on the "Trans-Texas Corridor and related toll highways."
The corridor is Perry's 4,000-mile plan of tollways, railroads and utility lines.
The governor's response was deft.
"First and foremost, the people of Texas had the opportunity to vote on a substantial amount of that in a constitutional amendment," he began, going on to say that the Legislature had debated and passed toll laws in several sessions. The voters, he said, "sent a clear message of how we're going to build infrastructure."
What actually happened is that in a September 2003 election, 810,855 Texans said yes to ballot language that only the most wonkish among them could have known authorized wholesale borrowing for toll roads. The 45 words on the ballot, in fact, do not include the words "toll" or "turnpike."
Here's what Proposition 14 proposed:
"The constitutional amendment providing for authorization of the issuing of notes or the borrowing of money on a short-term basis by a state transportation agency for transportation-related projects, and the issuance of bonds and other public securities secured by the state highway fund."
I was told at the time that the purpose of this was to allow the agency to borrow here and there against future gas-tax revenue to address cash-flow problems. And that, in fact, is what the first part of the language refers to.
But then there's a comma, and some more words. Some technical but powerful words that amounted, apparently, to the electorate saying, "Whoo-eee, slap some toll roads on us, baby!"
Now, Texans did approve another constitutional amendment, this one in 2001, that created the Texas Mobility Fund, and it actually said the money could go to "state highways, turnpikes, toll roads, toll bridges, and other mobility projects." A total of 543,759 Texans said yes to that one.
In 2003, lawmakers dedicated some fees allowing that fund to borrow $4 billion or more.
And as the governor said, that same year the Legislature approved a huge bill allowing the creation of the Trans-Texas Corridor. That bill, passed in a session marked by Democrats fleeing to Ardmore, Okla., and a $10 billion budget gap, got little press coverage.
Did Texans vote on the Trans-Texas Corridor? Not in any real sense.
Did we vote on a "substantial amount" of the toll road revolution? Yes, technically, in a special September 2003 election with predictably poor turnout and all the focus on other amendments, we gave the Texas Department of Transportation carte blanche to borrow for roads and charge tolls.
Who knew? Almost no one.
You probably can't discern it but the toll roads in Texas, all local in nature, are run by the public sector.
These new statewide wide toll roads are being proposed as a Public Private Parnership and the apparent winner in the bidding on the first road is Cintra, a foreign company.
I thought that it was 1/4 being (mis)used for education thanks to a constitutional amendment passed around 60 years ago. Furthermore, I'm under the impression that about 1/4 is used for other non-transportation purposes, but I could be wrong (and hope that I am).
Try taking the "frontage" from Burnet Road up 183 to 620 some time. Or the I-35 frontage from Grand Avenue Parkway down to Oltorf.
Sounds to me like you're upset because you want the new construction but don't want to pay for it.
Well, subtract the $4.5 billion we've already siphoned off from the gas tax for other purposes that was supposed to pay for new roads and we're already half way there.
Does you reply #99 mean I won the argument? If you can't beat them, malign them.
Nope. We've BEEN paying for it. Now they want to charge us AGAIN.
Regardless, this is all separate from the TTC except for possibly 130 which was going to be a tollroad anyway. The local CTRMA is to blame for those decisions.
Or are you ready to admit that I am FOR tolls, but only tolls, as a means of paying for roads? Are you also ready to admit that soaking us for the current billions, plus another $10 billion in tolls probably is NOT going to be that good for the loca economy?
One way would be to have a private company build, operate, maintain, and lease the road. It won't eliminate the threat of mismanagement or corruption, but certainly reduce the possibility of the same.
I read that funding for the first few miles of the planned U.S. 281 improvements north of San Antonio was secured from traditional methods, but they were planning to toll the road, anyway. The road is currently not being rebuilt due to an envirowhacko lawsuit.
I fail to see how the gas taxes you are paying now, and paid in the past, have paid for roads/lanes that haven't been constructed.
Correction, are currently under construction. Everything was bonded out before they began building.
You have different Regional authorities involved with these local/regional toll roads..... Then there is the TTC system basically under TxDot with ties to some of the regional authorities.... The following are three of the major regional authorities. I'm not sure if there is one in South Texas. So you get regional plans mixed with TxDot and the landscape gets blurred.... jmo.
http://www.ntta.org/ [North Texas... Dallas - Fort Worth]
http://www.hctra.com/hctra/ [Harris County ... Houston area]
http://www.centraltexasturnpike.org/ [Centeral Texas .. Austin]
Its just a fact of life that you should get used to, you, and I, will have higher transportation costs and that higher cost will depend on how much we use the roads, and the quality of the roads that we choose to use.
So what's Cintra's $10 billion for? Shrubbery?
That'll do wonders for the loca economy... NOT...
Or, at least of Gonzalo Ficklin and his shareholders...
You will be able to avoid the tolls. Will it be worth your time?
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