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Follow TURFShould voters promote pro-toll Burkett to senator?
By Terri Hall
November 9, 2017
With Cindy Burkett throwing her hat in the ring in an attempt to unseat grassroots conservative stalwart Senator Bob Hall, the voters of Texas Senate District 2 need to know about her record. Burkett was quick to support selling off Interstate 635 E to the highest bidder using a controversial toll contract known in Texas as a comprehensive development agreement (or CDA) that gives control of our public roads to private toll companies.
Interstate 635 toll lanes from I-35E to the Dallas North Tollway are already operated by Spain-based Cintra. Commuters in the Metroplex face paying upwards of $24/day in tolls to this foreign corporation just to get to work, and no elected official has any control over how high those toll rates can go. Burkett wants that tax burden to extend to commuters in her own district from US 75 to I-30.
Such contracts give private corporations the exclusive right to extract the highest possible toll from the traveling public in a 50-year monopoly. The private entity receives millions in gas taxes to subsidize their ‘private’ project along with federal loans and bonds backed by taxpayers. CDAs contain non-compete agreements that penalize taxpayers for the expansion of free routes, manipulate speed limits on free routes, and use the power of the state for toll collection and to block your vehicle registration or impound your car if you don’t pay up.
During the public hearing earlier this year on the bill, HB 2861, that would have handed I-635 E to a private toll operator, House colleague and former Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Joe Pickett insisted toll managed lanes do not solve congestion problems because so few can afford to utilize them. Another colleague, Rep. Ron Simmons, maintained tolls, particularly CDAs, are a targeted tax on certain areas while other Texans get their roads fixed without the additional tax burden of tolls. Simmons even asked how can pushing the most controversial and expensive form of tolling be reconciled with Governor Greg Abbott’s promise to fix our roads without new tolls or debt?
But rather than express similar sentiments or concerns about the oppressive tax burden of $200-$400/month in tolls such a deal would impose on her constituents, Burkett sat silent or left the room altogether. Burkett voted in favor of it in committee and again on the House floor, but the bill was ultimately defeated by a vote of 85-51.
In the prior session, Burkett not only supported HB 3556 — the first attempt to toll I-635 E that also failed to pass — she authored it. Though it started as bill restricting the use of tolls, she changed the language giving the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) a free pass to impose tolls if they determined there wasn’t enough traditional funding to do the project. Burkett knew full well that the excuse for why the project hasn’t commenced is because TxDOT claims there isn’t enough funding unless it’s tolled. Burkett even acknowledged that her constituents have made it clear that they don’t want tolls, but she insisted it remain an option until the state boosted road funding.
Well, Texas voters did just that when they voted to give TxDOT $5 billion more per year in new road funding when they overwhelmingly passed both Prop 1 in 2014 and Prop 7 in 2015. Yet Burkett apparently thinks that’s still not enough and came in the very next session pushing the bill to not only toll but also to privatize I-635 E anyway.
TxDOT has since conducted a toll feasibility study for I-635 E and Burkett now knows that TxDOT’s study shows the project isn’t toll viable. So why would she twice vote to support a CDA bill this year to allow a private toll corporation to slap tolls on it for a half century, especially since public subsidies would be needed to build it, setting up a double tax scenario?
While Burkett has filed bills to increase transparency on toll studies and at the North Texas Tollway Authority, her penchant for tolling I-635 E, selling it off to a private entity in a sweetheart deal backed by taxpayers (clearly the most expensive option), and advocating for the double taxation of her constituents, outweighs that legislation.
This is no time for lukewarm or playing footsie with special interests like Cintra who clearly wants to get its hands on the rest of I-635 E to extend its toll road all the way to I-30. The ever increasing tax burden is choking Texas residents on every front. Between the House’s failure to enact property tax reform and Burkett’s push to privatize and toll a major interstate residents rely on for daily living, the best choice in the race for Senate District 2 is the current Senator Bob Hall.
In contrast to Burkett, Hall has fought new toll taxes on every front. He’s filed and passed bills to prevent both free lanes and HOV lanes from being converted into toll lanes (as is the plan on I-635 E), as well as filing Senate Bill 84 to fight for a way to fund I-635 E without tolls by tapping some of the new sales tax revenue that would emerge from commercial development once the frontage roads are built.
Hall has also filed bills to abolish wasteful toll authorities as well as subject them to sunset review, co-authored the bill to block state funds from subsidizing toll projects (to prevent double taxation), and force disclosure of toll viability studies. He currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee and has earned the trust and respect of his colleagues. He’s earned an A+ from anti-toll groups both sessions he’s served as a senator. Together with his pro-taxpayer record on every other issue aside from transportation, Bob Hall is a fierce, faithful taxpayer champion in the Texas Senate.