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Having tolls removed from a major route in British Columbia, Canada, has taken some of the sting out of the cost of operating a trucking business in that province, but there’s still plenty of sting to go around. In late September, the government removed a $20 truck toll and $10 passenger vehicle toll from the Coquihalla Highway, which connects the city of Hope to Kamloops, B.C., in the Canadian West. Provincial officials said that truckers were pleased with the move, and they were. “Given the price of fuel, truckers are very happy with this,” Bridgitte Anderson, spokeswoman for British Columbia...

State transportation officials are poised to issue billions of dollars in debt to help speed road construction, a move that will keep Dallas-area projects on schedule for now but will do little to shore up the state's long-term road-funding crisis. The Texas Department of Transportation will likely begin issuing $1.5 billion in bonds within 60 days, pending the recovery of the nation's upended credit markets, and is taking steps to borrow another $6.4 billion over the next few years. Historic turmoil in the credit markets is already costing the department hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra interest payments each...

The Texas Department of Transportation, which has alternated between fiscal gluttony and subsistence the past few years, may be about to belly up to a feast again. A feast paid for with money to be borrowed, mind you. Given the state of credit markets, one hesitates to reach for the salt right away. But absent the financial Armageddon that the president and others have been gabbing about, TxDOT might be sitting on an $8 billion stash this time next year. Even in the zero-laden world of government spending, $8 billion would be a significant infusion into TxDOT's budget. Without that...

The Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission met Thursday to hear a presentation by the commission's president, Hank Gilbert, who said the plans to move the Trans-Texas Corridor to the current U.S. Hwy. 59 location may not come to fruition. The Texas Department of Transportation initially planned to build a new highway system, which would have been as large as 1,200-feet wide, that would run through rural areas of East Texas, including Nacogdoches County. However, TxDOT scrapped those plans in June and announced a new proposal to build the TTC along the existing route of U.S. Hwy 59. But Gilbert, of the...

It's good to see the state's top three leaders now on the same page – literally – on at least a few ways to attack the problem of under-funded roadway needs. Breakthrough No. 1 – admitting a problem. Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick – never political chums – all put their signatures on a joint statement last week conceding that Texas' "ability to fund needed transportation projects in the future is limited." Breakthrough No. 2 – committing to specific fixes. The most welcome one was a pledge to quit siphoning off road money...

Governor Perry and other state leaders have agreed to bring a halt to the practice which some say has led to toll roads...the diversion of money from the state's highway fund to other projects, 1200 WOAI news reports. "Implement a plan that sets a definitive course to end the practice of funding the Department of Public Safety with gas taxes that are needed for road construction, and return to funding the DPS with general revenue," is the first goal in a long term transportation funding plan released by Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Tom Craddick. 1200 WOAI...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Public investment funds based in Texas could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped road-building projects and led to a series of clashes between the governor and the legislature, who now have agreed on a compromise plan. Developers, including overseas companies, investment banks and private equity funds all vie...

Gov. Jon Corzine said today he is "not taking anything off the table" as he develops a new plan to pay for the state's roads, bridges and mass transit. But two prominent state senators said prospects for one option -- increasing New Jersey's gasoline tax -- are dimming. Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) said there is "no way" the Legislature could consider raising the tax when drivers are already facing sticker shock at the pump. Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) called it the "least likely possibility" among an array of options. Lesniak said those other options include hiking rates on the...

Rep. Rod Hamilton helped pass a gas tax hike, thinking improvements to the road were promised in return.Six months ago, Rod Hamilton was center stage in the biggest drama at the State Capitol. And so was Hwy. 60, a crucial roadway splitting southern Minnesota that many believe is in need of expansion and improvements. Today, the theatrics continue, with Hamilton in effect complaining that he was duped, and Hwy. 60 is no nearer to getting the attention he thinks it needs. In February, Hamilton was one of six Republican legislators whose votes were needed to override Gov. Tim Pawlenty's veto...

The high price of gas has driven down demand. Now politicians like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty are worried gas taxes might not be able to fund infrastructure projects. Pawlenty proposed a consumption tax on driving as a possible replacement for the gasoline tax. He is rumored to be a possible running mate for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain.

One year ago today, when the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during the evening rush-hour commute and killed 13 people, the disaster sparked a furious national debate about the crumbling state of our infrastructure. So quickly are such catastrophes forgotten that a major-party presidential candidate can now propose eliminating the tax that pays for bridge repair, and few bat an eyelash. About a quarter of the public road bridges in the United States are considered functionally obsolete or structurally deficient, according to the American Assn. of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Fixing them would cost roughly $140 billion, but...

BAGHDAD -- A political turf war is threatening the stability of Iraq's biggest cash cow: the embattled but so-far dependable South Oil Co. After chasing gunmen off the streets of the southern oil city of Basra this year, Iraq's central government is trying to reassert control over South Oil, the state-owned oil company based there. In May, Baghdad said it was reassigning the company's top executive, Jabber el-Leaby, to an advisory position at the Oil Ministry -- a move many observers see as a demotion. Mr. Leaby is widely credited by U.S. officials and Iraqi oil technocrats with having led...

Paraphrasing, here's how the exchange went between congressional Democrats and the president over lifting their respective bans on offshore drilling: President Bush: "We need to lift the bans. Americans are being hammered by high gasoline prices." Democrats in Congress: "You go first." President Bush: "OK, I hereby lift the presidential ban on offshore drilling. Your turn." Democrats in Congress: "Forget that. Gasoline prices are too low. Let's raise the gasoline tax 56 percent instead." Why would they propose that? Because next year, the Federal Highway Trust Fund, where gasoline-tax receipts collect, will be at least $3 billion in the red;...

Fox News did a segment this morning about the propsed gas tax increase. They asked both a Republican and Democrat. Demint appeared for the Republicans and since no Demorats wanted to appear Fox News used an empty chair instead of a reluctant, non appearing Democratic congress critter. Great stuff.

GLENN: Now, here's one of the most incredible stories I have read today and I've read a lot of incredible stories. Wait until I get to the John Edwards story. I've read a lot of incredible stories today. Here's one from the DNC host committee in Denver, tanking up at city gas pumps to avoid paying the $0.40 a gallon in combined Federal and State gas taxes. Let me repeat that. The DNC would like to save money for their convention and so they have decided that they're going to buy it from the State gas pumps. You know where...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention has used the city's gas pumps to fill up and apparently avoided paying state and federal fuel taxes. The practice, which began four months ago, may have ended hours after its disclosure. An aide to Mayor John Hickenlooper released a statement Tuesday evening saying that Denver 2008 Host Committee members would pay market prices for fuel and would also be liable for all applicable taxes. However, Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs told City Council members just hours before that host committee members were fueling up at the city pumps. The city does not...

The committee hosting the Democratic National Convention is using the city's gas pumps to fill up on fuel, avoiding state and federal highway taxes, officials said today. "There's something there that just doesn't seem right to me because, in a sense, you're saying then that the officials who pass the laws are not willing to live by them, and that concerns me," Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. The issue came up during the council's weekly meeting with Mayor John Hickenlooper when the Public Works Department requested authorization to be reimbursed by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee for use of "fueling...

Good-bye summer gas tax holiday. Hello, higher gas taxes. If you are outraged that gas taxes might go up instead of coming down for the summer, we don't blame you. But the way things are going, it's a possibility that we will be paying more to Uncle Sam when we gas up. Just as the country was digesting the possibility of the 90-day hiatus on gas taxes for the summer to alleviate gas prices, lawmakers learned that a trust fund that pays for road construction and repair countrywide is actually heading in the red, and needs every dime it can...

The Grinch nixes another holiday. What's next? Roast beast tax?Everyone down in Whoville liked tax holidays A LOT. But, the Grinch, who lived north of D.C., the Grinch he DID NOT! The Grinch hated tax breaks. Don't ask the reason. It took money from the quote-unquote "poor"... and cut cash for his sleazing. So the Grinch growled, his fingers nervously drumming. I must. I must keep this gas tax holiday from coming. Then a thought dawned and turned into a smile. The grin the Grinch shows when he's about to defile. I'll take this tax break and turn it inside...

Melissa mayor mailing resolutions to fellow mayors to stop state from using gas tax funds for non-road projects BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette Melissa Mayor David Dorman said he sits in his office everyday and watches as cars zoom down State Highway 121, a road that will soon start collecting tolls from drivers who use it to get to Dallas, McKinney, Frisco or the Dallas North Tollway and back again. Dorman said before that happens, he wants to know the roads his citizens and drivers are paying the state to use will be maintained and built with those funds. “I...

AUSTIN — The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday selected San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and a Spanish toll road developer to plan a superhighway from Texarkana to Brownsville. The $5 million contract calls for Zachry American Infrastructure and ACS Infrastructure to create a financial plan for the Interstate 69 segment of the Trans-Texas Corridor. "This team represents the best in the balance of local and global expertise necessary to complete a project of this scope," said David Zachry, chief operating officer of Zachry Construction Corp. The private developers' plan calls for seven new loops around Corpus Christi and other cities...

Let the little people pay higher gas taxes. That was the harsh message for beleaguered motorists delivered yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg. With drivers around the country fuming about rising gas prices, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell into their tanks yesterday by calling for increased fuel taxes to cut consumption.

The controversial project known as Interstate 69/TransTexas Corridor became a little less so last week after the Texas Department of Transportation announced it would recommend utilizing existing highway routes rather than building new ones. The announcement comes after months of public meetings during which residents along the path of the proposed path of Interstate 69/TTC voiced varying concerns. TxDOT has designated four priority corridors to address the state's transportation needs in the next decade. "The preliminary basis for this decision centers on the review of nearly 28,000 public comments made on the Tier One Draft Environmental Impact Statement," TxDOT Executive...

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Soaring gas prices at the pump means more drivers are going to have a bumpier ride no matter where they go because economic pressure is forcing states to cut back on repaving projects. Americans drove fewer vehicle miles this year than last year, which means that states have less state and federal gasoline excise tax money to pay for the soaring cost of asphalt to repave roads. Asphalt is made from a combination of rocks and sand mixed with liquid asphalt, made of crude oil, to hold it all together. Soaring oil prices have caused asphalt...

Drivers who get safely off Interstate 35E after arriving in Dallas from Austin or San Antonio have a certain look of relief – like they just outran a buffalo stampede. Only on I-35, the stampede is trucks. The white-knuckle experience helps make the case for some kind of reliever road, even a tolled one. Making that same case has been a harder sell for U.S. highways along the Gulf Coast and East Texas. Drivers there can judge their own level of congestion, and they have insisted that their mostly rural corridor doesn't warrant the major undertaking of a parallel turnpike....

Responding to concerns that a superhighway project running from East Texas to the border with Mexico could cut through private lands, state transportation officials said Tuesday that they will only consider putting it along existing roads. State officials have held almost 50 public meetings and received about 28,000 responses from residents about the proposed Interstate 69 project, which would be part of the so-called Trans-Texas Corridor network of toll roads. The "overwhelming sentiment" of the comments from the public was that the state should focus on using existing roads instead of carving new ones out of the countryside, said Amadeo...

The Texas Transportation Commission sounded the right notes last month in its first meeting under new leadership. Deirdre Delisi, recently appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to chair the commission, and her fellow commissioners finally seem to have gotten the message — the Texas Department of Transportation has lost the public's trust. For those with short memories, here are a few highlights that explain how that happened: •TxDOT fought to keep details of Perry's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor secret. It denied repeated requests from the media and landowners to let the public view a plan that calls for hundreds of miles of...

Gas prices topping $4 a gallon. Freeways that have become parking lots — if you can get to them through surface-street traffic jams caused by fast growth, urban sprawl, and inadequate road planning. Transportation planning in Texas in general seems to have turned into a careening Mack truck that’s just as liable to plow into a city as help it. New highways are needed to get more and more people to work and get NAFTA traffic from the Rio Grande to the Red River, but the state says it doesn’t have the money to build the roads and bridges and...

Many in the great state of Texas have a lot to say about a proposed network of toll roads and railway lines known as the Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation received more than 27,000 public comments during a three-month comment period on a proposed corridor project called the TTC-69, said TxDOT spokesman Mark Cross. Transportation officials had 47 public hearings in February and March and accepted written comments through April 18 on the environmental and social impact of the corridor. Comments ranged from flat-out opposition to the corridor to suggestions about how to lessen its impact, Cross told...

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst said it’s time for Texas transportation officials to talk about real reforms to address the public outrage over the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. The Brenham Republican’s reaction followed Thursday’s actions taken by the Texas Transportation Commission. The panel adopted a set of guiding principals and policies which will govern the development, construction and operation of all toll road projects on the state highway system and the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor. Bob Colwell, Texas Department of Transportation public information officer for the Bryan district, said the adoption of the guidelines does not reflect the final approval of Interstate 69...

McALLEN -- State senators on Tuesday ordered transportation officials to assess Texas' highway system and prioritize which regions are most in need of new roads. "We're expecting a full report, not some two-page letter," said state Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security. "You can't begin addressing the funding problems until you know when the roads are expected to come on line." The transportation committee, which met Tuesday morning at McAllen City Hall, has been at odds with the Texas Department of Transportation since earlier this year, when the agency announced the halt...

AUSTIN — Deirdre Delisi once aspired to be a diplomat, and Gov. Rick Perry may have finally granted her wish. As head of the Texas Transportation Commission, Perry's former chief of staff will test her diplomatic skills in an emotion-filled arena in which a state senator has already called her a "political hack." In an early sign of her peacemaking potential, the 35-year-old Delisi scheduled one of her first meetings as chair with that senator, Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas. "I was left with the impression that she genuinely wants a new and fresh start for...

(L)ocal Indiana media "relentlessly hammered" Clinton's gas tax proposal -- using local economists to dismiss the merits of the plan. O'Bannon faced nowhere near the level of scrutiny and negative coverage back in 2000 (in his gubernatorial race against a Republican.)

It's obvious that the presidential race is heating up. A really dumb idea - a summer-long cut in the federal gas tax - is getting serious treatment from major candidates. Both Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton likely know better. Congress isn't likely to grant their wish for a break from the 18.4 cent per gallon tax. The list of what's wrong with this gimmick is a long one. Cutting a tax sounds mighty, but the savings on a pump price of $4 per gallon totals less than 5 percent. The cut also works against the notion of conservation, global...

Actually, Barack, there are only two economists I care about. And they are Joe and Betty America as they sit down at the kitchen table to pay the bills. From their standpoint, cutting the gasoline tax is a good idea. From their standpoint, cutting any tax any time for any reason is a good idea. So save the self-righteous lectures about how suspending the gasoline tax for the summer is a bad or simplistic idea. You keep bringing down a household income of a million dollars a year and leave the real world to the rest of us. The idea...

Obama & Energy Politics --Dumb, and Dumber Written by Melanie Morgan    Sunday, 04 May 2008 The polls are showing that despite the Reverand Wright's "God Damn America" scandal that has consumed the Obama campaign, his supporters are blowing past it. In fact, the Senator is picking up in the tracking polls. BUT. There is another lurking issue that may provide some rocket fuel to Hillary's campaign. In Indiana this weekend, BHO scoffed at the fact that Mrs. Clinton (and Senator McCain) are advocating a suspension of the gasoline tax to help bring down prices during the summer time when they traditionally rise...

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Barack Obama said Friday that Hillary Clinton and John McCain were "reading from the same political playbook" in pushing a gimmicky summertime federal gas-tax holiday aimed more at generating populist support than a long-term solution to the nation's dependence on oil. As the Democratic presidential contenders entered the final weekend before key primary contests in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday, Clinton told voters in Kinston, N.C., that their state's balloting would be a "game changer" in her bid to overtake Obama. Speaking to reporters in Indianapolis, Obama sought to put behind him a difficult week marked by a public...

A lot of people are having a good chuckle over Hillary Clinton's frustrating encounter with a coffee maker at the gas station market. If she's not ready to make a latte from Day 1, she won't be awake enough to take the 3 a.m. phone call. While the coffee maker was rejecting Clinton, economists and policymakers were reacting the same way to the proposal she'd gone to the gas station to promote. Clinton's proposal to lift the 18-cents-a-gallon federal gas tax has been roundly criticized by experts of all ideological stripes for doing little to lighten the burden on drivers...

County commissioners reaffirmed their stance against the Trans-Texas Corridor, and they took another step toward keeping county government transparent when they met Tuesday. First up on the court's agenda, commissioners heard a presentation by Connie Fogle on behalf of the newly formed Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission. According to Fogle, the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, requires state agencies to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." "Critical in the code is the word 'coordinate,'" she said. "This does not mean the commission has to cooperate. The intent is to...

A gas tax holiday proposed by U.S. presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Clinton is viewed as a bad idea by many economists and has drawn unexpected support for Clinton rival Barack Obama, who also is opposed. "Score one for Obama," wrote Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. "In light of the side effects associated with driving ... gasoline taxes should be higher than they are, not lower." Republican McCain and Democrat Clinton, who is battling Obama for their party's nomination, both want to suspend the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax during the...

He says he is — seriously devoted to building and maintaining highways. But he is just as devoted to fencing state government into fiscal straits that make these goals impossible without privatizing highways through tolls. Perry last week said that going full-bore with toll roads is the only way for Texas to build new highways. That’s not so. The history of Texas tells us it’s not. Toll roads have their function without question. But so do bonds. So does a gasoline tax that has not kept pace with inflation. So does a reexamination of how Texas funds highways in general...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

Texas Farm Bureau offered several viable transportation and funding alternatives to the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) in meeting Texas’ future transportation needs during testimony before the Senate Transportation Committee. “Let me assure you, as an industry we absolutely support and recognize the need for building and maintaining roads in Texas,� said Texas Farm Bureau State Director Tom Paben. “We feel this can be accomplished within the current framework of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).� “However, there is a need for redirection, as well as a review of the current priorities of the agency,� Paben added, noting several concerns about...

AUSTIN — Maybe Texas’ transportation problems are a lot simpler to understand than recent fights over toll roads make it seem, North Texas leaders told state senators Wednesday. “My first recommendation: You need to provide a lot more revenue for transportation,” Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the Texas Senate transportation committee. That was hardly the only suggestion from Mr. Morris or the many others who spoke to the committee, which is seeking input as it readies an approach on toll roads, TxDOT and more for the next legislative session. But it might...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry promised to keep fighting for private toll roads and his other transportation priorities Tuesday during his first major speech on the subject since the death in December of transportation commission chairman Ric Williamson. "This is a place for big challenges, not big excuses," he told state Transportation Department employees and highway experts from around the country at the annual Transportation Forum. Next year's legislative session, he said, can't be anything like last year's. "The Legislature must understand that 'no' is not a solution," Mr. Perry said. "It is an abdication of responsibility." Before last year's...

Gov. Charlie Crist suggested this morning that a temporary cut in the state’s share of the tax on gasoline would be a welcome respite for Floridians. Crist’s buddy, GOP presidential candidate John McCain,, had suggested a similar cut on Tuesday. Crist was speaking with Radio Caracol, a Spanish-language station in south Florida. “I think with the high price of gas, it might be a way we can alleviate some financial difficulties for our fellow Floridians,” Crist said in a radio interview in the Capitol on a day celebrating Colombians’ contributions in the state. “It’s ridiculous to me what’s being charged...

Texas Department of Transportation that claims it has no money for roads uses $20 million in gas tax funds to build a park. Woodall Rodgers ParkThe Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation announced yesterday that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) would hand over $20 million in gas tax funds to help build a 5.2 acre park near downtown Dallas. The $67 million park is intended to serve as a model public-private partnership with a restaurant, a children's playground and a dog park. It will have no roads. "The park... will connect Uptown, Downtown and the Arts District, and is expected to...

Several Oklahoma legislators are concerned that individuals and organizations are quietly working on plans to create a privately-operated tollway in Oklahoma. Many referred to Spain-based Cintra, which has been involved in the development of a proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. Cintra also took over the operation of the Indiana East-West Toll Road from the Indiana Department of Transportation in 2006. Oklahoma State Sen. Randy Brogdon and state representatives Eric Proctor, Richard Morrisette, Scott Inman and Charles Key all expressed concern that efforts to open up Oklahoma to a privately operated tollway system were being kept out of the view of the general...

For Peyton Gilbert, the battle over the Trans-Texas Corridor is reminiscent of the moment in 1836 when Lt. Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and invited those willing to fight thousands of Mexican soldiers to step across. "That line in the sand is the Trans-Texas Corridor, and it's a threat to our sovereignty again, just like at the Alamo," said Gilbert, 14, who is from Whitehouse, near Tyler. Gilbert was among a large crowd of people who marched down Congress Avenue to the Capitol on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the proposed highway-rail-utility corridor...