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Anti-toll guerrilla has moved on down the road
The Austin American-Statesman ^ | November 17, 2008 | Ben Wear

Posted on 11/19/2008 11:54:28 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Texas politicians who support toll roads won't have Sal Costello to kick them around anymore.

Costello and his family moved to a small town in Southern Illinois this summer. He announced it on his blog Sunday, quietly, an adverb seldom associated with Costello in the past.

Costello, if you're new around here or have forgotten, was a Southwest Austin graphics designer who in 2004 made a warp-speed trip from obscurity to notoriety after politicians pushed through a plan to build seven more toll roads. The plan included putting tolls on three roads that were already under construction using nothing but tax money. After a three-month sprint through the political process, the tollway program was approved by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board that July.

End of story, it seemed.

No, says Costello, who organized something called the Austin Toll Party and began high-tech guerrilla warfare against the plan and the politicians who voted for it. Costello, who's now 44, sustained the jihad for the next three years or so, often making personal attacks (many, but not all of them, factually accurate, but far too many of them unfair or beside the point), on officials who advocated toll roads. This newspaper, after allowing him to blog on Statesman.com for a time, eventually took him off the site because of his attacks.

Costello — in spite of or perhaps because of his whatever-it-takes tactics — made a difference, though.

One of those tax-built roads, the William Cannon Drive bridge on MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1), fell out of the toll plan within a few months of Costello's offensive. The other two roads, pieces of Texas 71 and U.S. 183 in East Austin, after spending a couple of years officially as future toll roads, are now to remain free to drive in perpetuity. Several election officials who pushed for the roads have left or are leaving public office. None of the other toll roads in that July 2004 plan have begun construction.

With other activists around the state — there is now a Texas Toll Party — Costello helped delay or kill other toll roads and made the Trans-Texas Corridor plan a top issue in the 2006 governor's race and 2007 legislative session. It's safe to say that absent Costello's activism, you'd be driving on more toll roads right now and more in the future than you will with his participation.

Some people will say that's a bad thing, that a number of roads won't get built or will get built much slower because of the anti-toll movement, making our roads more congested. You can make up your own mind about that.

I often wondered how Costello continued to make a living and sustain a marriage, given his obsession and bruising approach. The answer, Costello says now, is that by 2007, he was in financial straits and his marriage was troubled.

"Basically, my wife was saying 'I've had enough of this,' " Costello says now. "She was saying, 'Hello, are you in there? I know you're obsessed with this toll stuff, but I'm here too.' "

Costello, in a final post on his anti-toll blog, says his crusade succeeded but that "success can take a toll on other areas of one's life. I decided to move on."

They put their house up for sale in July , sold it quickly and, telling almost no one he knew in Austin, moved to a town of about 400 people near Carbondale, Ill . His wife, who grew up in that area, works for a nearby university. Costello says he has a freelance marketing contract with a school that serves children with learning disabilities.

Looking back, does he rue the cards he chose to play in the toll debate? Costello accused dozens of politicians and other officials of corruption or other venality, often based more on inference than evidence, and on his blog accused one toll official of being a deadbeat dad. Incorrectly.

"I don't have any regrets how I did things," he says. "Sometimes ,if you want to get things done, you have to bust up some eggs. I'm proud we helped educate some folks."

There are no toll roads anywhere near his new town (he didn't want to reveal its name), and Costello says he doesn't want to get anywhere near political activism ever again. It, uh, took a toll.

"I'm retired from that," Costello says. "It doesn't pay, and it's a long road. It's a lonely road."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 2004; 2006; 2007; austin; austintollparty; campo; infrastructure; loop1; mopac; opposition; politicians; salcostello; sh71; texas; texas71; texastollparty; tolling; tollroads; tolls; tollways; transportation; transtexascorridor; ttc; tx; txdot; txlegislature; us183

1 posted on 11/19/2008 11:54:29 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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To: TxDOT; 1066AD; 185JHP; Abcdefg; Adrastus; af_vet_rr; Alamo-Girl; antivenom; AprilfromTexas; ...

Trans-Texas Corridor PING!


2 posted on 11/19/2008 11:55:31 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvxiG56M-eU)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

How many of these toll roads were going to be sold to foreign interests with clauses that prohibited expanding roads that would compete against toll roads?


3 posted on 11/19/2008 12:09:58 PM PST by weegee (Global Warming Change? Fight Global Socialist CHANGE.)
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To: weegee
I don't know the exact number--but it was a lot.

Our state gasoline tax is supposed to go for road building and repair. Some years back, I read that it was dumped into the "General Fund" as a lot of other taxes passed for specific purposes were.

That's the problem with most politicians---they forget about the promises they made when levying new taxes.

I, for one am totally opposed to toll roads and will go miles out of my way to avoid them, on principle.

4 posted on 11/19/2008 12:14:32 PM PST by basil (Support the 2nd Amendment--buy another gun today)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

BTTT


5 posted on 11/19/2008 12:15:28 PM PST by E.G.C. (Click on a freeper's screename and then "In Forum" to read his/her posts)
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To: basil
In Houston, there is a feeder road that runs parallel to our loop toll road system (I think there are only a few places with no feeder).

The traffic lights on the feeder are deliberately out of phase to cause congestion so that even with toll gate stack ups, the toll road will always get you down the road faster than using the feeder. Congestion by design. The civil engineers intentionally cause road rage and aggravation.

If you get over to some of the roads parallel to the feeder roads, you can travel much quicker.

Our government doesn't work to solve the traffic problem, it works to control the traffic and keep revenue coming in (tolls, speeding tickets, red light tickets...).

6 posted on 11/19/2008 12:35:16 PM PST by weegee (Global Warming Change? Fight Global Socialist CHANGE.)
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To: weegee
I don't think any of the proposed toll roads in Austin were going to be foreign built/managed. (with the exception of section 5 and 6 of SH 130)

They would have probably been built and managed as these are. (but don't get me to lying because some of the investors might be foreign)

http://www.centraltexasturnpike.org/

7 posted on 11/19/2008 12:38:52 PM PST by wolfcreek (I see miles and miles of Texas....let's keep it that way.)
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To: weegee

What’s the speed limit on the toll road loop?


8 posted on 11/19/2008 12:45:42 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvxiG56M-eU)
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To: weegee
I should have mentioned that I am not a daily commuter, as most people with jobs have to be. I guess there's not much way a commuter can avoid the toll roads.

I was referring to the times that I am on the highways going from city to city to visit our kids or whatever.

9 posted on 11/19/2008 12:53:50 PM PST by basil (Support the 2nd Amendment--buy another gun today)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Last time I was there it was 55, and lots of ticket revenue.
Another planned money trap..
10 posted on 11/19/2008 1:10:28 PM PST by MaxMax (I'll welcome death when God calls me. Until then, the fight is on)
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To: MaxMax; weegee

55??? Sheesh. There’s their problem; they should put the speed limit up to 65 or 70, and coordinate the frontage road traffic lights while keeping that speed at 45 or 50. How hard can it be for these people to THINK?

Oh, that’s right, they’re thinking only of themselves, of course.


11 posted on 11/19/2008 1:26:15 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvxiG56M-eU)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
I forgot what year, but Houston changed the limit to 55 from 65.
The police wrote over 300K tickets in the first month and commuters
refused to pay. Well, they couldn't arrest them all so they changed it
back to 65 and forgave the infractions.
I always wondered if the Mayor was reelected after that fiasco.
12 posted on 11/19/2008 1:38:39 PM PST by MaxMax (I'll welcome death when God calls me. Until then, the fight is on)
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To: weegee
The traffic lights on the feeder are deliberately out of phase to cause congestion so that even with toll gate stack ups, the toll road will always get you down the road faster than using the feeder. Congestion by design. The civil engineers intentionally cause road rage and aggravation.

It's not the engineers, it's TxDOT. TxDOT and Perry's office, plus CAMPO and the other regional groups made it very clear when they were pushing for out-of-phase lights on the feeders to try and force people onto the tollways. I can dig them up, but I've seen a few interviews where they were very clear that they were going to do everything possible to get people on the tollways.
13 posted on 11/19/2008 2:18:53 PM PST by af_vet_rr
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To: wolfcreek

It also depends on your view of what’s “foreign”. Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte SA bought into some Texas companies to try and get the whole “foreign” label removed.


14 posted on 11/19/2008 2:20:50 PM PST by af_vet_rr
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I seem to recall many moons ago that toll roads were built and then once revenue paid off the construction, the toll booths were removed. I30 between Dallas and Fort Worth was once a toll road (can’t remember what they called it back then, but remember paying the darn tolls). Maybe some DFW area Texans a few years older than me can recall the details.


15 posted on 11/19/2008 2:46:21 PM PST by Kandy Atz ("Let him rave on that men may know him mad.")
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
"Costello... sustained the jihad... often making personal attacks (many, but not all of them, factually accurate, but far too many of them unfair or beside the point)..."

And for this the "Statesman" dropped his blog???

When he had learned that journalistic approach from them?

16 posted on 11/19/2008 3:00:42 PM PST by Redbob (W.W.J.B.D.: "What Would Jack Bauer Do?)
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To: af_vet_rr

I mentioned that in my post. One thing about Globalism, you never know where the money’s from.


17 posted on 11/20/2008 4:00:42 AM PST by wolfcreek (I see miles and miles of Texas....let's keep it that way.)
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