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Follow TURFDOUBLE TAX: TxDOT gives $300 million in tax money for 249 toll road
Yet another example of taxpayer money being used to build toll roads - this time for a toll road in Montgomery and Grimes counties (for economic development, read it at the end where the Montgomery County Commissioner is excited about this road opening up 12,000 acres to development and hence a new tax base for Montgomery County). If $300 million in taxpayer money will be used to build the road, NO ONE should have to pay a toll to actually use the road, too! This is a rip-off of our pay-as-you-go taxpayer money for FREE roads going to TOLL roads! All for what? A few seasonal game days for the Aggies?
We've tried for FOUR legislative sessions to prohibit ANY taxpayer money from going to fund, bail out, or subsidize toll roads. To no avail. So what can one conclude from that? They all want to DOUBLE TAX Texans!
State to fund Texas 249 toll road
By Howard Roden
The Courier
Posted: Thursday, August 29, 2013
The Texas Transportation Commission added $297 million to the state’s 2014 Unified Transportation Program Thursday that ensures creation of the Texas 249 toll road.
Once completed, the road will extend 14.3 miles from Spring Cypress Road in Harris County to FM 1774 at the Montgomery County line. From there, a four-lane toll road will go north about 20 miles to Texas 105, at a point somewhere between Plantersville and Navasota in Grimes County.
“I’m so excited we were able to obtain the funding for this project,” Montgomery County Precinct 2 Commissioner Craig Doyal said at the TTC meeting in Austin.
The money authorized by the state’s UTP did not include an additional $60 million from other sources,” he said.
The project will “speed travel through the use of toll roads that will eliminate traffic jams at signals along the current roadway,” Doyal said.
By taking the highway from Pinehurst (FM 1774) all the way to Texas 6 at Navasota, it will ultimately create what has been dubbed the “Aggie Expressway.” That could alleviate traffic along U.S. 290 on Texas A&M game days, as well as ease the congestion along FM 1774 during the Renaissance Festival.
Doyal said there are three times as many crashes along FM 1774 than comparable roads.
“This will create a much safer corridor on which to travel east and west,” he said.
Construction of a major thoroughfare will open thousands of acres to development. With 12,000 acres under private ownership a tremendous development can open in the far western portion of Montgomery County, Doyal said.