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Follow TURFGo to TURF's toll glossary and read the loopholes for yourself under HB 2702 passed in 2005. Loopholes notwithstanding, this half-baked plan to toll existing I-35 and convert the tollway SH 130 into I-35 would require even greater overreach by converting free lanes on I-35 into toll lanes without leaving the same number of free lanes that exist today.
So if this makes your blood boil, do something about it. Call your state legislators TODAY and tell them NO to tolls on I-35 or ANY existing Texas FREEway! They're in session and will pass important legislation that can either fix the loopholes and STOP the conversion of our Texas highways into tollways or make them worse. Without YOUR involvement, it will most surely be the latter!
Link to article below here.
Could Texas 130 become the new I-35?
Review of I-35 suggests shifting interstate designation east; move would have significant hurdles
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 8:51 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28, 2011
A state-commissioned study of Interstate 35 released late this week includes a number of eye-popping, expensive and politically problematic suggestions for relieving traffic on the clogged main vein of Texas transportation.
The most startling: Remove the interstate designation from I-35 between Georgetown and Buda and instead slap that label on the eastern loop formed by the tollway twins Texas 130 and Texas 45 Southeast . Those two roads, which run from north of Georgetown to south of Austin, would have their tolls removed.
Then, posits the 122-page draft report, one of the existing lanes on each side of the "old" I-35 through Central Texas would become a "managed" lane with tolls that would fluctuate in cost depending on the traffic load.
I-35 through that 44-mile section generally has three lanes per side now, although there are sections in Central Austin that have four going north and four going south.
The toll revenue from what is now I-35 could be used to replace at least some of the revenue from the still lightly used Texas 130 and Texas 45 Southeast, providing a portion of the debt service on the more than $2 billion in bonds used to build the Texas 130, Texas 45 North and Loop 1 tollways. In addition, the study theorizes that much of the truck traffic clogging Central Austin on I-35 would move to the eastern loop.
That loop is about 12 miles longer than the straighter route that I-35 now cuts through Central Texas. And some of those trucks now on I-35 have loads to drop off or pick up in Austin and thus might be unlikely to take the loop.
The report, which was prepared by community leaders up and down the I-35 corridor throughout Texas, is advisory in nature only and will obligate neither the Texas Department of Transportation nor another part of Texas government to carry out its recommendations.
Mike Heiligenstein , executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, called the costs of the report's suggestions "daunting." But he applauded the authors for regarding I-35 and Texas 130 as part of a system.
"In the past we've looked at the two as separate and distinct, as two roads that have nothing to do with each other," Heiligenstein said.
As for putting tolls on an existing lane of I-35, Heiligenstein said that alternatively, he could support adding a tolled lane from Round Rock to San Marcos. No free lanes would be lost under that scenario.
State law requires that if tolls are put on an existing road, that lane or lanes must be replaced by newly constructed free lanes nearby. Carrying out the I-35/130 swap might require at least two elections, as well as changes in state law and federal action.
Bob Daigh , Williamson County's infrastructure director and a member of the 20-member committee that produced the report, said its departure from conventional thinking should be considered a virtue.
"It's time we look to try out-of-the-box, innovative solutions to address our congestion short-term and long-term," said Daigh, TxDOT's Austin district engineer from 2003 to 2009 .
The report also suggests that an extension of Texas 130 currently under construction and due for completion in late 2012 , a 40-mile stretch from Mustang Ridge south of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to Interstate 10 near Seguin , would likewise have its tolls removed. However, that road is being built and would be operated under a 50-year agreement with TxDOT by a private consortium that hopes to reap profits over the decades from the road. Making the road free would require addressing that situation.
The report, partly the result of 20 public forums held in communities along I-35 throughout the state, recommends widening the existing part of Texas 130 and Texas 45 Southeast from their current four lanes to six as part of making them the new I-35. And it recommends that the state invest heavily in passenger and freight rail, in part to take traffic off of I-35.
The report says a cost estimate to do all this "cannot be determined at this time." It recommends that the Legislature, through a constitutional amendment requiring approval by the public, authorize using gas tax revenue for rail projects. The Texas Constitution stipulates that the tax money as well as some vehicle-related fees be spent only on highways.
"Such arbitrary statutory barriers should be systematically removed to allow all transportation modes to compete fairly," the report says.
The authors acknowledge that their recommendations face some tall hurdles.
"Many complex legal and policy changes would need to occur, the initial (Texas) 130 project bonding would need to be revisited, federal approval would be needed for the interstate redesignations, environmental studies may have to be completed, and public consensus would need to be achieved at several of these milestones," the report says.
In general, the report says that addressing the I-35 situation and achieving the many changes suggested — including building a commuter rail line between Georgetown and San Antonio — would require $487 billion by 2030. But projected revenue is $155 billion , the report says, leaving a $332 billion gap. That represents about 40 years of TxDOT's $8 billion annual budget.
The report's authors decided in the end that it was not their charge to address how this extra money would be raised.
"We have taken it as a foregone conclusion that existing funding mechanisms are not sufficient to meet the staggering needs of this fast-growing state," the report says. "That challenge can only be addressed by the Texas Legislature and the United States Congress."
Interstate 35 and Texas 130 by the numbers
24,000:Daily truck traffic on I-35 through Central Texas in 2007
7:The percentage of trucks on I-35 that had local business in 2005
2,200:Daily truck traffic on Texas 130 in 2009
Source: Texas Department of Transportation. Numbers are latest figures available.