Posted on 12/21/2008 6:50:19 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Confronted with a struggling transportation fund, lawmakers in Texas soon are expected to wage battle on various methods to help generate $14 billion for roads and bridges throughout the state. Another bill is intended to sideline the planned Trans-Texas Corridor.
A report released this week from the Texas Department of Transportation says that the state will need to come up with $313 billion by 2030 for road and bridge maintenance and for congestion solutions.
The report’s unveiling happened a couple of weeks before the Texas Legislature is set to convene its 2009 session. Lawmakers say they already were committed to providing TxDOT with new money.
Several options to address the state’s struggling transportation fund have been prefiled in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 13 start date of the regular session.
Multiple efforts have been offered by Sen. John Carona. The Dallas Republican is an advocate for preventing transportation money from being diverted for other uses.
One of his bills – SB216 – would limit the use of state highway funds for highway-related projects. It also would authorize highway funds to be used for loan repayment as appropriated by the Texas Constitution, and approved by the Legislature.
Concern about less revenue being generated from the state’s 20-cent-per-gallon fuel tax has spurred Carona to file for consideration multiple measures – SB217 and SJR8 – that would index the tax on gasoline and diesel to inflation. The tax rate would be adjusted Oct. 1 of each year.
Gov. Rick Perry is believed to be receptive to signing the legislation if lawmakers endorse it.
Another effort – SJR9 – would limit the use of tax revenue from the fuel taxes and taxes from the sale of lubricants for vehicles to highway use and schools. Three-fourths of the revenue would be directed for roads with the rest going for education.
The proposed amendments to the state’s Constitution would require voter approval.
Other transportation bills include an attempt to sideline the planned Trans-Texas Corridor project. Sponsored by Rep. David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, the measure – HB11 – would repeal the authority for the establishment and operation of the corridor.
Spurred by Gov. Rick Perry’s $184 billion pet project, the bill would prohibit TxDOT from buying land or issuing contracts for the corridor project. The corridor plan calls for private contractors to build and operate billions of dollars of toll roads in the state.
The tab for driving along the corridor would run nearly 50 cents a mile for large trucks and about 15 cents for cars.
Critics of the corridor say it would destroy rural Texas as we know it.
As planned, each route of the 4,000 mile network of transportation corridors would include utility zones and separate lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks, freight railways and high-speed commuter railways.
To view other legislative activities of interest for Texas, click here.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
please unping me.
I remember how Perry and his friends pushed the message “we need more and more transportation projects, and we’ll be able to easily pay for them so we should do it”. Now things have changed quite a bit...
1. Audit currently planned transportation projects. Any project that is not necessary to maintain the safety of vehicles and their passengers or to expand road capacity to handle the states growing population or to cut down on congestion should be eliminated.
2. This should go without saying but, transportation funds should ONLY be spent on road and highway projects, not diverted to any legislators pet project.
3. Index the Gas Tax to inflation. This is not a tax hike, it only maintains the inflation adjusted value of the levy.
BTTT
I first moved to San Antonio in 1968. At that time, I-35 between S.A. & Austin(80 miles) was being widened from two lanes to three. The project was well underway.
Here it is, some 386 years later, and the project is still not complete.
I wonder if the project cost has gone up any.
Your first 2 suggestions are fine, but I'm absolutely against any taxation that is pegged to "inflation". That's just asking for trouble.
Ya. But until they stop stealing gas tax revenues for the bottomless pit of "education" and other purposes, there is no way in hell that I want them to be able to index the tax, because once a tax is indexed, it's a free tax increase for legislooters.
Also, legislooters are always complaining about there being so many more vehicles on the road and other such whining. Would seem to me that if there are more vehicles, that means more tax, yet they always claim to not have enough money for infrastructure, even as they steal the money for other projects.
Then there is the ongoing boondoggles of "mass transit", that is an abject failure everywhere in the state, yet they still pour endless amounts of money into it.
I'm sorry, but if they are going to want more money, they are going to have to be straightforward about it and not get regular increases from a stealth mechanism. Indexing taxes to inflation, (which is government created in the first place), is wrong IMO.
I totally agree that gas tax money should only be used for maintenance of roads and highways as well as any new roads or road expansions. That’s it. No raiding for pork barrel projects or to fund education (last I checked isn’t that why they also soak us in Property and Sales Taxes?).
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