Sunset Commission asks for public comment on re-review of TxDOT

The Sunset Commission is seeking public comment on TxDOT's "re-review." Certain state agencies are up for sunset every 10 years, and the Sunset Commission is charged with determining if the agency is still needed and if so, to identify waste, duplication, and inefficiencies and recommend legislation to reform the agency. TxDOT was reviewed in 2009 during the 81st legislative session and the Sunset Committee issued a scathing report on TxDOT's shorfalls, but the TxDOT sunset bill got loaded down with 38 pieces of legislation and failed to pass. So the review of TxDOT has been pushed to the 82nd session to begin in January 2011.

To submit comments send an email to  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by October 29 (originally, we only had one week's notice, they extended it one more week).

The Texas Legislature tried to severely limit the scope of TxDOT's re-review, however, in the first round it failed to adopt two key reforms the majority of the public asked for: ELECTED leadership to head TxDOT as well as an end to selling our public freeways to foreign entities using controversial contracts called Comprehensive Development Agreements also known as public private partnerships (PPPs), the financing mechanism that allows the Trans Texas Corridor to proceed and that results in toll rates as high as 75 cents PER MILE in urban areas. Both need to top our list of reforms in order to restore the trust the public has lost in this agency.

Remember this agency is responsible for:

- $1.2 billion dollar accounting error
- fraudulent environmental studies
- hiring lobbyists with taxpayer money to promote the Trans Texas Corridor, tolling, and privatizing our public roads by selling them to the highest bidder on Wall Street (that charge us 75 cents PER MILE to drive our PUBLIC roads)

The recent Grant Thornton management audit of TxDOT revealed a deep-seated belief among top management that TxDOT is doing everything right and its the public who doesn't get it and fails to understand how "right" the agency is. It also uncovered gross financial mismanagement that's so bad the auditors could not even verify TxDOT's financial reports, as well as a lack of consideration for saving taxpayers money by doing projects more efficiently and chronically high ratings for employee performance reviews despite nearly every department's failure to execute its duties up to minimum requirements/standards.

For ideas for comments, see our analysis of the most recent TxDOT audit here.

To review our prior comments to the Sunset Commission, go here and here.

To watch the sparks fly from the last sunset committee hearing on TxDOT go here.

Here's our take on what needs to be fixed at TxDOT:

1) We need ELECTED leadership at TxDOT

2) End inefficiencies, demand accountability, especially financial accountability using ZERO-BASED BUDGETING

3) An end to CDAs/PPPs that sell our Texas roads to private, foreign companies: TRANSPARENCY, NOT LIP SERVICE -- No more SECRET contracts; these contracts are STILL kept SECRET from the public until AFTER they're signed. Ending CDAs also includes an END TO “BEST VALUE” PROPOSALS (instead of awarding based on low bid), PAYMENTS TO LOSING BIDDERS, NON-COMPETE AGREEMENTS that forbid or penalize free road expansion surrounding toll roads, manipulation of SPEED LIMITS on free roads to drive more traffic to toll roads, and guaranteed profits.

4) NOT JUST PUBLIC “INVOLVEMENT,” BUT PUBLIC VETO POWER
TxDOT has NOT heeded the public feedback/opposition to tolling on the majority of toll projects around the state. Also, the highway lobby often attends meetings to make it appear there is more support for tolling than there actually is. Anyone with ties to the road building industry or whose company would potentially profit from the project should be required to disclose it when submitting comments or testimony.
5) End the reliance on tolling, debt & borrowing to build roads, and using taxpayer money to subsidize loser toll projects.

6)  ABOLISH UNACCOUNTABLE RMAS, FIX MPOS that also fail to listen to and heed the public feedback

SA Council votes for RMA bailout


On October 14, 2010, the San Antonio City Council unanimously voted to give the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) a BAILOUT on the City's $500,000 loan to the toll road agency. The RMA defaulted on the loan September 1, 2010, and the City Council voted to breathe new life into the controversial toll agency that's been on the ropes since the clearance for its first toll project, US 281, got yanked in 2008, by voting to give the RMA a one year extension on repayment of the loan.

Taxpayers asked the Council to pull the plug on the RMA, whose salaries exceed $1 million/yr for just 10 employees, and whose sole existence relies on levying NEW toll taxes and keeping free lanes jammed so that congestion weary commuters will part with more of their hard-earned cash. Councilwoman Jennifer Ramos did take RMA Executive Director Terry Brechtel to task prior to the vote. The RMA has no revenue stream to pay back the loan other than tolls, so the vote showed unanimous support by Mayor Julian Castro and the Council in FAVOR OF TOLLING this community. The estimated tab to the average family will be $2,000-$3,000/yr in NEW taxes just to get to work.

However, to say they have no revenue stream may be true, but it's not the same as having no money. The RMA has been skimming multi-millions in management fees (at least $15 million that's over and above their salaries and operating expenses) off the TxDOT grants for the environmental work on 281 & 1604 and off the interchange project. So they're not exactly broke...just really good at balance sheet chicanery.

The attitude of some RMA Board members at their Board meeting after they appeared at Council was "Why would they expect us to pay the loan back after all we do to serve this community?"

Can we get our loans forgiven because we serve the community? Such a cavalier attitude when it comes to the taxpayers' money is truly astonishing...they think they're entitled to everyone forgiving their debt just because they're the RMA. They're seeking to have TxDOT forgive some of their debt, too.

So when you're struggling to pay your tax bill and to keep food on the table, remember who voted to give a failing government bureaucracy a bailout with YOUR money citing government’s “financial hardship,” while making YOUR financial hardship greater.

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RMA loan extended

By Josh Baugh - Express-News

Web Posted: 10/14/2010 7:25 PM CDT

The City Council on Thursday agreed to give the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority — the agency that would build toll roads in San Antonio — another year to make good on a $500,000 loan that it can't afford to pay.
Toll-road opponents, including members of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, decried the move, saying it was essentially a vote in support of tolling.

TURF founder Terri Hall, who wasn't at the meeting, said that extending the term of the five-year-old loan allows the RMA to continue to exist. She and her group are lobbying state lawmakers to repeal the law that allows regional mobility authorities to exist.

“We want these RMAs to go away,” she said. “They're a big waste of money and a second-tier bureaucracy.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Pro-toll McNeil's operative jailed for trying to steal election

Let's not forget Sheila McNeil stole her first election against anti-toll Tommy Adkisson back in 2007 when she stole the MPO Chairmanship out from under him the day she walked into her first MPO meeting in San Antonio. Then, we caught her on camera saying it was fine to toll the 281 corridor because "those people can afford the tolls," but indicated it was another matter if they came after her district and tried to toll I-35 (newsflash to McNeil: I-35 is already in the MPO plans as a toll road). Her campaign to oust Adkisson from his County Commissioner seat was bankrolled by chief pro-toll highway contractor Zachry. This after revelations another operative tried to buy votes. So let's hope the fact yet another operative tied to McNeil has been jailed will finally END her political career in this town. Shows that pro-tollers will stop at nothing to railroad taxpayers with their personal agendas...even break the law to tap the vein of your wallets!

Councilwoman’s notary jailed

By Gilbert Garcia - Express-News

Web Posted: 10/15/2010 12:00 AM CDT

A notary who works with former Councilwoman Sheila McNeil at the George Gervin Youth Center was arrested Wednesday on a charge of falsifying affidavits McNeil submitted to the Texas Secretary of State's office.
Ester Sandoval Martinez-Moreno, 59, was incarcerated in Bexar County Jail and released later Wednesday on $1,600 bail.

The affidavits she notarized were part of McNeil's request for an investigation into possible voter fraud in the March 2 Democratic primary race for Precinct 4 Bexar county commissioner between McNeil, incumbent Tommy Adkisson and political newcomer Anna Campos.

Adkisson won the primary, but McNeil argued some people who cast ballots for her during early voting were not included on the Bexar County Elections Department's early voting list.

Three individuals provided affidavits for McNeil's complaint. During interviews with investigators from the Texas Attorney General's office, however, two of them said they “did not sign their affidavit in front of a notary” and “were not present when the notary signed and stamped the document,” adding that they never saw their affidavits after they were notarized, according to a county search warrant.

Read the rest of the story here.

Council votes for RMA bailout


RMA loan extended

By Josh Baugh - Express-News
Web Posted: 10/14/2010 7:25 PM CDT


The City Council on Thursday agreed to give the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority — the agency that would build toll roads in San Antonio — another year to make good on a $500,000 loan that it can't afford to pay.
Toll-road opponents, including members of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, decried the move, saying it was essentially a vote in support of tolling.

TURF founder Terri Hall, who wasn't at the meeting, said that extending the term of the five-year-old loan allows the RMA to continue to exist. She and her group are lobbying state lawmakers to repeal the law that allows regional mobility authorities to exist.

“We want these RMAs to go away,” she said. “They're a big waste of money and a second-tier bureaucracy.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Cintra secures financing for North Tarrant Express project

Link to article here.

Note the purpose of "congestion pricing" and "managed" toll lanes, is not to provide actual congestion relief, but rather is a means of "managing" traffic. Let's look at how well the government "managed" the mortgage crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it ought to make us all think twice before we grant the control of our freedom to travel over to a private entity in a government-sanctioned monopoly! Also of significance is the amount of taxpayer subsidies that went into propping up this sweetheart deal for Cintra...over $1.6 billion of the project cost is being fronted by the taxpayers, compared to less than $500 million by the private entity. Hinkle makes a note of the State not being responsible for the $400 million in private activity bonds in the case of default; however, WE THE PEOPLE are still on the hook for that money on the
FEDERAL level! This is THIEVERY folks!

Team led by Cintra secures financing for North Tarrant Express toll project

    12:14 PM Thu, Dec 17, 2009 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Michael Lindenberger/Reporter      Bio |    E-mail  |  News tips

A team of private companies led by Spanish toll firm Cinta has secured its financing for the mega toll project known as the North Tarrant Express. The toll project will rebuild existing lanes along Interstate 820 and portions of SH 183, and add new managed lanes as well.(A map of the project is here.)

Construction should begin in late 2010, and it will be the first privately financed toll road in North Texas. A similar project, also led by Cintra, to rebuild LBJ Freeway with a mix of free and paid lanes is expected to begin construction shortly afterward.

The managed lanes on both projects will be costly during rush hours, with rates going up as the traffic on the adjacent free lanes gets heavier. It's an approach to "manage" traffic by continuing to jack up rates when demand is strong, and by doing so keeping traffic moving freely on the paid lanes no matter how slow it becomes on the free lanes.

The financing secured today will pay for completion of Segments 1 and 2, and will cover the segment of I-820 from the Interstate 35 interchange north of Fort Worth to near Northeast Mall by SH 183, said project spokesman Robert Hinkle. It will also add lanes along SH 183 from near the mall toward Irving.

The $2 billion project was approved in January in Austin with heavy encouragement from Tarrant County elected officials.

Tolls from the managed lanes will be used to repay the debts required to build the project and provide profit to Cintra and its partners, which include the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.

Here's how the team found the money for the project:

Investors put $427 million cash into the project, including about $43 million from the Dallas fire and police pension fund, according to Hinkle.
The U.S. government approved a so-called TIFIA loan in the amount of $650 million -- a federally backed loan that provides generous interest rates and lenient repayment schedules.
$400 million in private activity bonds have been issued by the state on behalf of the project. Hinkle said the bonds are "unwrapped" -- meaning that they do not expose the state of Texas to risk default.
Taxpayers contributed $573 million in tax dollars to help finance the project.

Existing freeways 360, 161 could be tolled

Not only is tolling existing FREEways a huge DOUBLE TAX, Michael Morris, the Executive Director of the Regional Transportation Council, is using taxpayer money to lobby AGAINST the TAXPAYER for such a DOUBLE TAX! Every political party in the state has a plank in its platform AGAINST tolling existing freeways, yet the RTC is brazenly lobbying to thwart the grassroots and the PEOPLE that keep this great state moving. Note how the article says the final say will be from the legislature and NOT the PEOPLE. That's the other sore spot on tolls. They've shoved this down our throats without asking us at the ballot box if we want this runaway, unaccountable taxation! They already know our answer. Weigh in on Dickson's blog here. If Morris and politicians fear opposition, let's give it to them!

The puff piece in the Dallas Morning News beats all. Rick Perry's loophole laden law that passed in 2005 (HB 2702) allows exceptions to tolling existing FREEways already. He has the audacity to expect us to believe he's suddenly seen the light as he talks tough on tolling existing freeways two weeks out from re-election after 5 years of locking horns with Texans over this issue (for his refusal to listen to taxpayers)? Please, Texas, don't be fooled. He's the precise reason for the taxpayer revolt against toll roads!

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Texas Gov. Rick Perry vows to stop NTTA from tolling stretch of State Highway 161 in Irving

03:40 PM CDT on Thursday, October 14, 2010

By MICHAEL A. LINDENBERGER / The Dallas Morning News
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Under a plan floated this week by the North Texas Tollway Authority, a three-mile stretch of free highway in Irving could soon be tolled if legislators agreed to make an exception to state law that bars tolls on existing free roads.

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The segment is State Highway 161 between Belt Line Road and State Highway 183. Under an agreement with NTTA, the Texas Department of Transportation has agreed to rebuild the four-lane road, expanding it to six lanes by 2019.

NTTA would like to see it rebuilt sooner, in part because traffic leaving the six-lane President George Bush Turnpike – which is SH 161 farther to the north – now backs up as it enters the narrower, untolled segment of SH 161. The tollway authority is offering to pay for the reconstruction itself – if the state will agree to allow it to toll that segment.

NTTA executive director Allen Clemson said the proposal, still in the discussion stage, could save TxDOT at least $75 million and remove a bottleneck for drivers.

A second segment, of less than two miles, on State Highway 360 near Interstate 20 could also be tolled if lawmakers embraced the approach, Clemson said, though it's not yet clear whether that would be necessary.

Clemson said he has discussed the item with TxDOT officials and leaders in Irving. But the ultimate say will come from state legislators, who would have to amend the law to permit the tolling of an existing free highway.

Clemson said if area partners embrace the idea, NTTA will lobby legislators in January to change the law.

However, Gov. Rick Perry made it clear in an interview today that he'll oppose any effort to carve an exception that would allow NTTA, or anyone else, to toll existing highways.

"They can't do that," the governor said. "They better find a way to get around me."

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October 14, 2010
By Gordon Dickson
Star Telegram -- Honkin' Mad blog

Existing freeways could be tolled

Tolls could someday be placed on portions of Texas 360 in south Arlington and Texas 161 in west Irving that are currently free.

The Regional Transportation Council by its own rules is not allowed to put tolls on existing free lanes. In many cases state and federal law prohibits the conversion of free lanes to toll lanes as well.Tx161

But members of the RTC, the Metroplex's federally-recognized official planning body, are weighing whether to go to Austin and ask for permission from state officials to convert a couple miles of freeway into toll roads on Texas 360 south of Interstate 20, and Texas 161 from Texas 183 to the President George Bush Turnpike.

 "Would the public fully understand or would we lose the support we have now, in ... converting free lanes into toll lanes?" said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas

Morris wanted to bring the issue up for debate, but cautioned that it may not be wise to ask legislators for permission to increase the use of toll roads in the region at a time when the state is dealing with straining issues such as an $18 billion budget shortfall, immigration and redistricting. One train of thought is to wait until the 2013 legislative session, instead of pushing the idea during the 2011 session that is scheduled to begin in January.

"As a staff person, I am very nervous," Morris said. "Maybe we can hold off on this, and maybe put it into another legislative session. It could be like the Trans Texas Corridor, where once the opposition started you couldn't have a conversation about it."

But Dallas Councilman Ron Natinsky said the idea merits further discussion.

"At some point, I think we need to test the idea with some legislators, and see if it’s going be an idea that will float," Natinsky said. "I think we need to do our homework on that."

On Texas 161, the North Texas Tollway Authority could remove the state of a $74 million commitment to rebuild a two- to three-mile section of the four-lane freeway and expand it to six lanes in exchange for the right to convert the road into a part of the Bush Turnpike, tollway authority executive director Allen Clemson told an RTC committee Thursday. That road is already bumpy -- a stark contrast from the smooth pavement on the adjacent turnpike -- and needs to be rebuilt by 2019, officials said.

On Texas 360, the need is further down the road, maybe 10 years or longer. But the tollway authority also is probing the possibility of converting a two- or three-mile portion of the nontoll road near Southeast Green Oaks Boulevard into a toll road. While that news may be unsettling for residents of south Arlington and Mansfield, the tollway authority is already responsible for planning a southern extension of Texas 360 into the Mansfield area, so the question is really just how far north should the tollway authority's jurisdiction be allowed to reach.


Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/honkin_mad/2010/10/existing-freeways-could-be-tolled.html#ixzz12MOFiA3z

Castro meets with President to talk transportation

I hope Mayor Castro is telling the President San Antonio can't afford toll roads or the RMA, local road bureaucracy, and its $1.2 million dollar salaries for only 10 employees!

The key points in the column by Scott Stroud are:

"But if shovel-ready is still one of the criteria, the fun political play for Castro might be to look for federal assistance in finally doing something about congestion on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 — easily the most talked-about local traffic problem. With enough federal help, maybe it’s possible to find a fix that doesn’t involve toll roads.

"There are legal complications to moving quickly on that, most notably a pending lawsuit. But if Castro could somehow find a way to remove or work around that obstacle, a grand-scale widening of those two roads could take an issue off the table that has tormented local politicians for years...

"From Castro’s perspective, that’s perfect. He’d win favor with North Side Republicans for addressing a longstanding congestion bugaboo, and wouldn’t have to worry all that much what they think of Obama."


Castro goes to Washington with an eye on transit, roads

By Scott Stroud- Express-News
Web Posted: 10/11/2010 6:36 AM CDT

Mayor Julián Castro has an appointment in Washington today to talk about transportation, summoned on short notice by an Obama administration that might be slightly panicked by last week’s dismal job news.

A briefing for reporters has already been scheduled for immediately after the meeting, which the White House said last week would be about “investing in America’s infrastructure.” No one said anything about bringing shovels along for groundbreakings, but it wouldn’t have been a surprise if they did.

Administration officials clearly see transportation projects as the shortest path to creating the kind of jobs that would blast the economy out of its current lethargy. On Sunday, they said they planned to ask Congress for a front-loaded $50 billion investment in the nation’s infrastructure.

Read the rest of the story here.

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S.A.’s Castro in group meeting with Obama

By Gary Martin - Express-News
Web Posted: 10/12/2010 12:34 AM CDT
 
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met with several governors and mayors, including Julián Castro of San Antonio, on Monday as he sought Republican support for a six-year, $50 billion bill to revamp the nation’s roads, rails and runways with an effort that would create jobs.
“This is work that needs to be done. All we need is the political will,” Obama said in a Rose Garden ceremony after his meeting with mayors, governors and transportation officials.

Obama said Democrats and Republicans have supported infrastructure projects in the past. He called for similar bipartisan support for a transportation and infrastructure bill when Congress returns after the Nov. 2 election.

“It should not take another collapsing bridge or failing levee to shock us into action,” Obama said.

The president was flanked by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, as well as past secretaries Sam Skinner, who served under President George H.W. Bush, and Norm Mineta, who served under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Also attending the event were current and former mayors from Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Denver, Atlanta, Baltimore, Oklahoma City, Charleston, S.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Castro said San Antonio has many eligible projects that could use federal funding immediately, including improvements along the U.S. 281 corridor and its interchange with North Loop 1604.



Read the rest of the story here.

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Link to article here.

Castro meets with Obama about transportation projects

by KENS 5 staff

kens5.com

Posted on October 11, 2010 at 6:19 PM



Mayor Julian Castro met face-to-face with President Obama on Monday at the White House.

Castro was one of just a few leaders invited by the president to talk about transportation projects.

The president is pushing a $50 billion transportation proposal that he says will put more Americans back to work.

He listened to Castro and other mayors and governors about the needs in their communities.

"I think it's important for San Antonio to have a voice at the table when the administration and Congress come up with a plan on transportation funding," Castro said.

Castro also talked about the efforts to bring light rail to San Antonio.

The president wants Congress to approve billions of dollars to repair and upgrade the nation's roads, rails and runways.

The measure would create new jobs, but members of Congress are worried about the deficit and are not likely to sign off on more spending.

The president is trying to show voters that Democrats have a plan to fight unemployment.

Jobs and the economy are dominating the discussion ahead of November's elections.

MoPac toll proposal called low profile

Link to article here.

Adding toll lanes to MoPac, on existing right of way paid for already, is a DOUBLE TAX. It's also unsafe as they'll have to narrow lanes below highway standards to 11 feet wide (from 12 feet wide) in  order to fit them, as well as eliminate shoulders. I find it interesting this Statesman article fails to mention the other toll proposal for MoPac, which is to toll EXISTING lanes in order to modify behavior -- to kick motorists off MoPac and into mass transit. The proposal also includes "dynamic pricing," otherwise called congestion pricing/tolling, which is code for government managed traffic control. They jack up the toll to intentionally tax people off of their own public roads when the government deems it's too crowded!

MoPac toll plan coming into focus

Low-profile flyovers would link new paying lanes with West Fifth, Cesar Chavez streets.

By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

A plan to add a fourth, tolled lane to each side of MoPac Boulevard, resuscitated after a few years of financial doubt, would involve a substantial makeover at the highway's already complex interchange near downtown.

Engineers foresee building two overpasses to link toll lanes north of Lady Bird Lake to West Fifth and West Cesar Chavez streets.

Northbound drivers coming from south of the lake could also access the toll lane, which would extend 11 miles to near Parmer Lane. And southbound drivers in the toll lane could continue south to MoPac's free lanes.

Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority , which would build the project and collect the tolls, says the new flyovers wouldn't tower above nearby buildings as elsewhere on MoPac (Loop 1), Interstate 35 and other Texas highways.

"It's lower profile than some of the stuff that's there (at that interchange) now," Heiligenstein said. "It does exactly what we want to do without getting up in the air too high."

Heiligenstein said that an environmental study should be complete within two years.

"If all the financing falls into place the way we think it will, we're looking at 2013 for construction to start and 2016 to have it all wrapped up," he said.

The mobility authority and the Texas Department of Transportation, which owns MoPac and would continue to be responsible for its six free lanes and frontage roads, have agreed on a base toll rate of 22 cents a mile for the toll lanes. But drivers would rarely pay that amount.

Instead, as officials have said previously, tolls would fluctuate depending on the traffic volume. Elsewhere in the country, this approach is called "dynamic" tolling. The authority prefers the terms "time-of-day" or "demand-based" tolling.

"We're talking about whatever it takes to keep that lane moving," Heiligenstein said.

At times of truly sparse traffic, Heiligenstein said, the tolls might be well below 22 cents a mile because vehicles would be able to drive at highway speed for free in the main lanes alongside the toll lanes. But the tolls would never go to zero, even in the middle of the night, he said, "so that people would always sense that that is a toll lane."

Transit buses and emergency vehicles would be able to drive in the toll lanes for free. Everyone else would have to pay.

The four existing Central Texas toll roads operated by TxDOT have an average toll of about 12 cents a mile . The mobility authority's 183-A tollway in Cedar Park costs toll tag users more than 40 cents a mile to drive its 4.5 miles.

The area's transportation planning board, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, voted in 2005 to add "managed lanes" to MoPac between Lady Bird Lake and Parmer. TxDOT at that point began the design and environmental work in earnest.

But TxDOT, after double-counting $1.1 billion of its revenue in 2007 and then discovering the error, had to cancel or defer various road projects around the state. The MoPac managed lane project was one of the casualties, languishing for the next two years or so.

Earlier this year, state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin , and Texas Transportation Commission Chairwoman Deirdre DeLisi jointly announced that the project was back on track. TxDOT has pledged to provide at least $69 million in tax money toward the $250 million price tag.

The rest probably would be money borrowed on the bond market, the typical model for financing toll road projects. The key uncertainty at this point is just how much revenue the toll lanes would generate, and thus how much money the mobility authority could borrow. A traffic and revenue study is under way.

The project's main engineering challenges, aside from crafting efficient ways to get toll lane drivers in and out of downtown, are squeezing four lanes into the constrained right of way south of RM 2222 and deciding where and how to let drivers enter and exit the toll lanes. North of RM 2222, when the Union Pacific railroad is no longer in the median and where TxDOT owns a wide swath of land, putting in a fourth lane on each side is no problem.

A fourth lane would fit by narrowing the main lanes from 12 feet wide to 11 feet wide and virtually eliminating the shoulders in the tightest area near West 35th Street , TxDOT engineers said in 2007 .

The toll lanes could be accessed south of Parmer, at U.S. 183 and perhaps between RM 2222 and Far West Boulevard, Heiligenstein said. The toll lanes could be segregated from the main lanes by concrete barriers in areas where there is room and perhaps by some other means in the narrow stretches.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; 445-3698



Public open houses

As part of the environmental study, the public is invited to open houses, both from 6 to 8 p.m.

Tonight: Murchison Middle School, 3700 North Hills Drive

Thursday: O. Henry Middle School, 2610 W. 10th St.

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/mopac-toll-plan-coming-into-focus-956008.html

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Road money hard to find

Texans need to pressure their elected officials to STOP borrowing money for roads. Taxpayers are already under water to the tune of $25 billion in debt for roads. Even the recent TxDOT management audit states the debt is at unsustainable levels. Debt means a deferred tax increase, folks. Far better to modestly raise the gas tax and pay as you go than to dig generations deeper into debt they cannot repay without confiscatory taxes down the road...

Money for new roads in Texas faces struggle

By Peggy Fikac - Express-News
Web Posted: 10/04/2010 12:00 AM CDT

AUSTIN — If you like traffic congestion, you'll love Texas' funding outlook.
The state's highway fund is projected to run dry of dollars for new construction projects in 2012, but with the state already facing a massive budget shortfall, any drive for major new transportation money could face a rough road.

The state's 20-cents-a-gallon gas tax hasn't been raised since 1991, and leading lawmakers give its chances of increasing in the coming legislative session as slim to none. GOP Gov. Rick Perry ruled out the idea; Democratic challenger Bill White said such an increase is “not where you start.”

“It's going to be hard just coming up with billions of dollars to put into new construction. Everyone is taking these oaths. ... No new taxes,” said House Transportation Committee Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso. “I'm trying to make small changes that over time could make a difference. ... Because I can tell you right now, Pickett trots out there with a gas tax bill, I think we'll get 160 votes against it (in the 150-member House).”

Pickett said any proposed gas-tax increase would have to follow a move to end diversions of gas-tax revenue from transportation. He cited other revenue possibilities, such as making vehicle registration fees uniform — meaning some would pay more — and asking communities that get state bond money to kick in for the interest.

He expects pressure for more borrowing but voiced concern over the cost, which is taking a $1.64 billion bite out of the current two-year Texas Department of Transportation budget.

Read the rest of the story here.

Senator's firm profits from toll road bonds

Link to article here.

For those who may not know, the 121 tollway, known as the Sam Rayburn Tollway, was surrounded in controversy. A foreign company based in Spain, Cintra, was awarded the contract for the project, but when lawmakers found out about the sweetheart provisions in this 50 year contract, it put a freeze on the contracts (known as public private partnerships, PPPs or CDAs in Texas), and eventually yanked the project from Cintra and gave it back to the public toll entity, the North Texas Tollway Authority. Rodney Ellis sat on the Senate Transportation Committee that determined the course of this toll road, the same committee that put the brakes on such contracts. It's simply stunning to find out his firm personally profited from that decision, to the tune of $825 million! Such conflicts of interest should NEVER happen in the Lone Star State!

Texas State Sen. Rodney Ellis' firm profits from bond business with local public agencies, including many he represents in Austin

Mon. Sep 27, 2010, By Jennifer Peebles & Steve Miller

Ellis' investment bank involved with $50 billion worth of bond issues by Texas public agencies, including billions with city of Houston, Harris County and Houston Metro; expert says work poses conflict.

A new warehouse for lunchroom food for the Houston school system. Reliant Stadium, the Toyota Center, the Harris County Civil Justice Center and the Hilton Americas Hotel next to Houston’s convention center. A giant water pipeline, seven miles long, to provide water to millions of Houston-area residents. A 15-story expansion of a tower at Texas Children's Hospital.

The projects have three things in common: They all cost millions of dollars to build. They were all paid for, or financed by, government agencies who would likely look to state Sen. Rodney Ellis to help them get things done in Austin. And Ellis' investment bank stood to profit from the construction of all of them.

Ellis’ Houston-based firm, formerly known as Apex Securities or Apex-Pryor but now largely using the name Rice Financial Products, has been involved in nearly $50 billion worth of bonds issued by government entities in Houston and elsewhere in Texas since Ellis took his Senate seat 20 years ago, a Texas Watchdog analysis found.

Additionally, Rice Financial, Apex’s New York-based parent company, has been involved in another $4 billion in bond transactions with Texas public entities since it bought Apex in 1998, records show.

Ellis’ firm has done bond business with nearly 80 public entities in Texas during his Senate tenure, including the city of Houston, Harris County, the Houston Independent School District and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, whose leaders would likely call on Ellis for changes they want to see in state law or state financial matters.

His firm has also worked on hundreds of millions of dollars in bond issues for transportation agencies, including Houston’s public transit system, Metro, while Ellis served on the state Senate committee overseeing transportation policy. Ellis has advocated for light-rail as a lawmaker, and at the same time, Ellis’ firm was involved in and stood to profit from the millions of dollars in bonds Metro has issued in the past two years to build additional light-rail lines.

(Click here to jump down to a spreadsheet listing the bond issues Ellis' firm has worked on with Texas governments.)

Ellis’ firm does not do business with the Texas state government – the agency that issues the state’s bonds, the Texas Public Finance Authority, felt Ellis' involvement with the company might pose a conflict of interest, Executive Director Dwight Burns said. But as a prominent political figure in Houston, Ellis’ work with local government agencies who would likely call on him for support or representation could also raise ethical questions.

“This is a problem of the first order,” said Russell Muirhead, the Robert Clements associate professor of democracy and politics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "This points to one of the fundamental problems in money and politics and to the kinds of ethical conflicts of interest that can afflict people who are trying to do business with public entities at the same time they're trying to represent those entities.”

Others disagree.

"I think we have to realize that these guys are part-time legislators and full-time something else," said John Breeding, president of the Uptown Houston District, a small local agency overseeing a special tax zone around Houston’s swanky Galleria area. Rice and Apex have worked on six of the district’s bond issues, worth $83 million, since 2002.

"As long as there are ethics rules that our elected officials have to operate under, I'm comfortable with that,” Breeding said. “We also have rules we have to operate under, and as long as we meet those rules, I'm OK. I don't think you can make it perfect either way."

Some other examples of the bond issues in which Ellis’ firm was involved and stood to profit:
 

Construction of new schools in Aldine and Rosenberg, both in Houston's suburbs, in the early 2000s. Ellis’ firm made $13,000 profit off bonds sold by the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District in Rosenberg, records show.
Construction of 15 additional stories on the West Tower of Texas Children's Hospital several years ago, a $100-million-plus project financed by a nonprofit arm of the Harris County government.
Construction of a giant water pipe nearly 15 years ago to carry water from Lynchburg Reservoir, near the San Jacinto Battlefield Monument, to a City of Houston water plant for cleaning and treatment.
The borrowing of nearly $240 million by Houston's Metro system last year to extend the city's light-rail system.
The borrowing of $825 million last year by the North Texas Tollway Authority to fund additional construction of the Sam Rayburn Tollway and the President George Bush Turnpike Eastern Extension near Dallas.
Bond maturity schedule
Maturity schedule showing future interest payments
for a bond issue on which Sen. Rodney Ellis' firm
served as an underwriter.Ellis’ firm’s role in most of the transactions involved selling newly issued government bonds, a process called underwriting. Underwriters buy up the new bonds at a discounted price and make profits selling them at higher prices.

Exactly how much profit Ellis' firm has made off of its work in Texas is not clear, as many public agencies said they do not keep records of how many bonds are sold by each firm on a given bond issue, or of fees or profits paid to those firms.

Using the state public records law, Texas Watchdog sought such records for more than 100 bond transactions involving Rice or Apex in the past decade -- about a third of all the transactions the firm handled in Texas since 1992 – but found that the government agencies in question could make available records of underwriters' profits in less than two dozen cases. The total amount paid to Ellis' firm in that small group is $261,000.

The available records show Apex and Rice were minor players in most of the bond transactions the firm worked on in Texas, and, in that role, experts said Ellis’ firm would have likely garnered just a fraction of the profits off each set of bonds issued.

Through a spokesman, Ellis declined to comment for this story. A Democrat who, as a former Senate speaker pro tem, was once third in the state's line of succession, Ellis faces minimal opposition in the general election this November in his bid for a seventh Senate term.

Continued on Page 2: Harris County among bond underwriting clients for Sen. Rodney Ellis' firm

Later in the story:

Page 3: Finance director denies political influence in choosing Sen. Rodney Ellis' firm; expert sees ethical conflict

Page 4: Mayor Annise Parker: Sen. Rodney Ellis 'not an active participant' in city's bond business

Page 5: Sen. Rodney Ellis serves on transportation committee while Ellis' firm underwrites bonds for transportation agencies

Page 6: 'Politically connected': Sen. Rodney Ellis mixes business and politics, but profits hard to estimate

Ellis' firm's bond work with Texas public agencies

State Sen. Rodney Ellis' investment bank, initially called Apex Securities but later referred to as Apex-Pryor and more recently as Rice Financial, has been involved in nearly 400 bond issues with governments and public entities in Texas during Ellis' Senate career. The spreadsheet below includes bond issues Apex worked on from 1992 to the present -- Ellis took his Senate seat in 1990 -- as well as bond issues Rice Financial worked on since 1999 (Rice bought Apex in 1998). The list below does not include bond work by Pryor McClendon Counts prior to Rice's purchase of that firm, at which time Pryor was merged with Apex to create Apex-Pryor. The data was provided by Thompson-Reuters News Service, which publishes The Bond Buyer, a prominent trade publication.

Have PPPs reached boiling point?


Link to article here.

Remember that this article is written by those who profit off these sweetheart deals known as public private partnerships or PPPs. It underscores the mentality inside the industry and government - that government is broke and the private sector can fix it. While both may be true in some respects, the question we ask is at what cost to taxpayers/commuters? In Texas, we're already under water with debt and borrowing for toll roads that aren't paying for themselves. Toll roads nor PPPs have solved either the funding or congestion problems that face our state. When a PPP toll road, like the two in North Texas, I-635 and the North Tarrant Express, costs commuters 75 cents PER MILE to get to work, how is that not a tax increase? It's not a user fee as PPP advocates claim, since $1 billion in gas taxes are propping up those two projects, with $8 billion in future gas taxes also at risk for the Hwy 161 toll project that couldn't get financing without taxpayers being on the hook for the losses. Regardless of whether the public sector or private sector slaps tolls on our public freeways, the end user, you and I, are footing the bill. PPPs remain the MOST expensive way to fund roads with the most long-term ill effects to taxpayers, like non-compete clauses that prohibit or penalize the expansion of free roads surrounding toll projects.

Has US PPP reached boiling point?

Project Finance Magazine, 24 September 2010

Strains on local government, combined with an established US PPP track record, are prompting greater government interest in public-private structures. By Robert Gibbons, partner, Ivan Mattei, partner, and Michael McGuigan, associate, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP.

Read more: [us] [ppp] [tifia] [legislation] [states]

Severe cost cutting at various levels of government across the US has resulted in painful and widely publicised cutbacks in a wide range of governmental services that had once almost been taken for granted. If, as seems increasingly likely, these budgetary constraints are structural and not merely transitory, they will force government to explore calling on private capital and expertise to develop, construct, operate and maintain transportation infrastructure in the United States. These developments are coming to a head at a time when the volume of completed PPPs has grown to a level sufficient to create broad and growing awareness among public officials of their potential benefits.

The track record of private involvement in US transportation infrastructure projects includes the well-publicised monetisations of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge and the Indiana Toll Road, as well as the use of PPPs to procure numerous other significant transportation facilities, such as the Dulles Greenway, SR-91 in California, the new international air terminal (Terminal 4) at JFK International Airport, the Port of Miami Tunnel, the North Tarrant Expressway and I-635/LBJ Freeway in Texas, and Denver’s FasTracks commuter and light-rail project.

These projects demonstrate, most notably, the fact that PPP procurement compels all parties to plan and budget for the full life cycle costs of maintaining and operating (and not just building) the transportation facility in question. This is a sea change from the traditional model of transportation infrastructure procurement in which the life cycle costs to be incurred years and decades into the future are neither considered nor budgeted for at the time of procurement. Aside from leaving state and local governments with a potentially significant overhang of unfunded operation and maintenance obligations, the traditional procurement model has not always focused the parties’ attention on the fact that design decisions at inception can have important effects on life cycle costs.
While the current environment creates an opportunity for PPPs to flourish in the US transportation infrastructure industry, obstacles certainly remain. Proponents of PPPs have encountered difficulty in achieving effective PPP-enabling legislation at many levels of government, as legislators attempt to balance transportation infrastructure needs with the concerns of their constituents. But governments must also avoid imposing terms and conditions on PPPs (whether substantive or procedural) that result in unnecessary delay or expense in the procurement process or that undermine the viability of projects by shifting risks to the private sector that it is not well equipped to bear. These dangers are particularly acute at a time when financial markets remain unsettled and lenders are reluctant to stretch to finance projects presenting unusual risks.

This article discusses the status of PPP-enabling legislation in the US at the state and federal levels and identifies some of the key transportation infrastructure PPP projects that have recently been procured or proposed in the US and their related financing structures.

PPP-enabling legislation

As a general matter, governmental entities in the United States must be authorised by statute to use PPPs to procure transportation infrastructure projects. Recently, there have been both advances and setbacks on this front.

States

A number of states have enacted some form of PPP-enabling legislation. However, the scope and substance of state PPP-enabling statutes tends to differ significantly from state to state and, indeed, the lack of a uniform national framework has dragged on the PPP market in the US. Some states have broad, sweeping PPP-enabling statutes that permit an array of projects, thereby facilitating the use of PPPs in those jurisdictions. Yet, other states’ PPP-enabling legislation is narrowly drafted, sometimes specifically identifying permitted projects and/or requiring prospective projects to be approved by a specified officer or body of the state, thereby subjecting PPPs to greater political scrutiny and generally inhibiting their application in those jurisdictions.

Legislators in Illinois and Indiana have paved the way for procuring the estimated $1 billion Illiana Expressway project, a 37km eight-lane expressway connecting interstate highways in Illinois and Indiana, through a PPP. In June 2010, Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed a bill authorising the state to seek a private partner to develop, finance, construct, maintain and operate the new road. Indiana governor Mitch Daniels had signed a similar bill in March.

In 2009, California enacted comprehensive PPP-enabling legislation that vastly expanded the state’s PPP program for, among other things, transportation infrastructure projects, and Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed a bill authorising the state to enter into PPPs to construct, finance, operate and maintain transportation projects and to issue toll revenue bonds to finance them.

However, there have been setbacks. Most significantly, in 2007, Texas instituted a partial, two-year moratorium onprivately financed toll roads throughout the state (with exemptions for some existing projects). Although the partial moratorium expired on 1 September 2009, the Texas legislature failed to extend the PPP-enabling legislation that authorised comprehensive development agreements for transportation infrastructure projects, and the authority expired on 31 August 2009.

In May 2010, the Michigan house narrowly voted in favor of a bill to permit the Michigan Department of Transportation to enter into PPP agreements to design, construct, operate, or maintain public transportation facilities. However, the state senate has gone into recess without acting on the legislation. If the state senate had passed the bill, the $2 billion Detroit River International Crossing project could have been procured as a PPP. A similar setback occurred in Hawaii, where a proposed bill that would have authorised PPPs for transportation-related projects failed.

Federal – highways

US law generally restricts the tolling of roads that are constructed using federal funding, a class which includes most interstate highways in the country. As such, statutory exemptions to federal law are necessary in order to allow PPPs to charge tolls on such roads. The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) was signed into law on 10 August 2005 and contains a number of such exemptions to federal law.

Among other features, SAFETEA-LU provides for an Express Lanes Demonstration Program, which authorises 15 express toll lane projects on congested interstates, high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes projects where existing high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes may charge tolls to vehicles that do not meet the passenger requirements, an Interstate Construction Toll Pilot Program, under which up to three states may impose tolls on new interstates to support the financing for their construction, and up to $15 billion of tax-exempt private activity bonds (PABs) for PPPs in which a private partner has a long-term interest.

SAFETEA-LU was set to expire on 30 September 2009. James Oberstar, Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and an opponent of PPPs, has proposed the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009, which would overhaul federal transportation programs and compromise the ability to use PPPs for highway projects in the US. The vote on the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 has been deferred until the end of 2010. In the interim, in March 2010, President Obama signed into law the $17.6 billion HIRE Act, which contains language extending SAFETEA-LU through the end of 2010.

In addition to the various programs available under SAFETEA-LU, the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998 (TIFIA) authorised the US Department of Transportation to assist in financing up to 33% of the cost of transportation infrastructure projects, including PPPs, with a value of at least $50 million. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2009, introduced in the US House of Representatives in June 2009, could increase the maximum loan amount for certain transportation infrastructure projects from 33% to 49% of the cost of the related project.

Federal – aviation

In the airport sector, the PPP debate arises in the context of the necessary reauthorisation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), including its airport privatisation pilot program. The US House of Representatives passed its version of the FAA Reauthorization Act in 2009 (FAARA), and that bill is now in the US Senate. The House bill, which was also proposed by Representative Oberstar, contains two significant changes to the airport privatisation pilot program that would adversely affect prospects for privatisation of US airports. First, the bill would increase from 65% to 75% the percentage of airlines using an airport that must approve its privatisation. Second, the privatised airport would not be entitled to some of the discretionary funds available to other airports. As the House and Senate continue to prepare an agreed-upon version of FAARA, the latest FAA authorisation has been extended until 30 September 2010.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), passed in February 2009, includes over $48 billion for shovel-ready US transportation projects. While these projects are generally not suited to procurement as PPPs, the availability of such funds to state and local governments may have contributed to the recent lull in PPP activity in US transportation infrastructure.

Recent US transportation infrastructure PPP projects

California

In May 2010, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) approved the use of a PPP to procure the Presidio Parkway, a $1.045 billion project that will refashion the south access to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) subsequently issued a draft RFP, which indicated that Caltrans will apply for up to $500 million in PABs and request $309 million in TIFIA financing. This would be the first PPP project under California’s new PPP-enabling legislation. In February 2010, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to launch strategic studies of six PPP projects that would re-develop the area’s highways and public transportation. Although California’s PPP efforts encountered a slight setback in August 2010, when the California Public Infrastructure Advisory Commission determined to procure the $1.1 billion Gerald Desmond Bridge project as a design-build project rather than a PPP as originally anticipated, the PPP movement remains strong in California.

Colorado

In June 2010, the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD) selected a consortium to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the $2.1 billion PPP portion of the $6.5 billion FasTracks commuter rail development project that includes a train to Denver International Airport. On 12 August 2010, the initial $1.6 billion phase of the project achieved financial close with a financing package that included roughly $400 million in PABs and $52.3 million of sponsor equity, in addition to roughly $1.15 billion in progress payments to be provided by the RTD.

Florida

In February 2010, ground was broken on the I-595 express lanes PPP project in Broward Country, Florida. The US Department of Transportation provided $603 million in TIFIA financing in March 2009 toward the total project cost of $1.8 billion. The Florida Department of Transportation will use federal funds and toll revenues to make payments to the private operator under a 35-year design-build-finance-operate-maintain concession. In October, 2009, the Port of Miami Tunnel PPP project reached financial close. The financing for the project consisted of a $340 million TIFIA loan, $340 million of senior debt from a syndicate of ten banks, and $80 million of sponsor equity. The city of Miami also provided a $50 million letter of credit to backstop its obligations.

Georgia

Georgia passed PPP-enabling legislation in 2009 that allowed the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to establish a PPP program using solicited bids. In June 2010, GDOT short-listed three consortiums to bid on the West by Northwest project, which includes a 50-year concession to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a managed lane system on segments of I-75 and I-575, as well as the addition of managed lanes to portions of I-285 and I-20. GDOT, which has estimated the aggregate cost of the project at over $2.3 billion, originally expected to issue the RFP in late 2010 but has extended the timeline of the RFP process to allow the short-listed bidders more time to study the draft RFP, and the RFP is now expected in January 2011. GDOT is currently considering eighteen separate projects that could be valued at over $16 billion.

New Jersey/New York

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the Port Authority) issued a request for information in May 2010 for a 30- to 40-year concession to design, build, finance and maintain a replacement to the Goethals Bridge. Operations, including toll collection, will remain under the Port Authority’s control. It has been reported that the Port Authority expects to issue an RFQ in August 2010 and to select the winning bid by late 2011. It has also been reported that the Port Authority is looking to lease the Outerbridge Crossing and the Bayonne Bridge, which also connect New Jersey to Staten Island.

Puerto Rico

The Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnerships Authority (PRPPPA), which was established in 2009 to launch infrastructure PPPs, has started its first PPP process. In June 2010, the PRPPPA issued a RFQ for a 50-year concession to finance, operate and maintain the PR-22 and PR-5 toll roads, and by late July 2010, eight consortiums had responded to the RFQ. The 84km PR-22 is the most traveled highway on the island and generated $85 million in revenues in 2009. PR-5 is located in the San Juan metropolitan area and generated $4.2 million of revenues in 2009.

Puerto Rico also plans to seek a private partner for the financing, operating and maintenance of the existing PR-52, PR-20, PR-66 and PR-53 toll roads. While the PRPPPA has the authority to form committees that can issue RFQs and negotiate contracts for infrastructure projects, final decisions rest with the governor of the island.

Texas

The 52-year concession to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a managed lane system along I-635/LBJ Freeway reached financial close in June 2010. The $2.7 billion financing included $615 million in PABs, a $496 million loan from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), $665 million of sponsors’ equity and a $850 million TIFIA loan – the second-largest loan in the history of the TIFIA programme. The $2 billion North Tarrant Expressway project, which reached financial close in December 2009, was financed with a combination of PABs, a TxDOT contribution, sponsors’ equity and a TIFIA loan.

Virginia

On 5 May 2010, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) solicited proposals for the 89km greenfield US Route 460 toll road project, which VDOT is procuring as a PPP under the Public-Private Transportation Act of 1995. The project is estimated to cost roughly $1.5-2 billion and, initially, no state or federal funding was expected to be available to finance the project. However, VDOT has acknowledged a potentially significant gap in toll revenues and debt service and supplemented the solicitation for proposals with an addendum that provided for a public subsidy. Conceptual proposals are now due in early September 2010 and the detailed RFP is expected in January 2011.

Airports

After collapsing in 2009, the privatisation of Midway Airport may move forward. The FAA has granted the city of Chicago’s latest request to extend its inclusion within the pilot privatisation programme, which permits the privatisation of five airports, and the city of Chicago now has until November to submit its plans and timetable for privatising the Airport. As a large hub airport, Midway occupies the sole slot available for such airports under the pilot programme.

The FAA has also accepted preliminary applications to privatise three non-hub airports, thereby allowing the airports to seek a private partner before submitting a final application to the FAA. In September 2009, the FAA accepted New Orleans’s Louis Armstrong Airport’s application. In December 2009, Puerto Rico’s Luis Muñoz Marín Airport was selected as the third airport. Finally, in May 2010, the FAA accepted the application from Georgia’s Gwinnett County Airport, leaving one last non-hub slot available. The RFQ for the Gwinnett County Airport project was issued in July 2010 and three consortiums responded; the RFP is expected in October 2010.

Conclusion

In order for PPPs to flourish, PPP-enabling legislation must be effective, workable and compatible with private sector concerns and objectives. Reliance on the private sector for transportation facilities long-provided by governmental authorities may seem a risky proposition at first. However, dire economic conditions and the escalating need for reliable transportation facilities may well allow PPPs to establish a prominent role in the development of transportation infrastructure facilities in the US.

Lawmaker: privatized toll road experiment failed


Link to article here.

Bauer: The benefits of sharing power in the Statehouse

1:30 PM, Sep 25, 2010  |  The Indy Star
By Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend
 


Star file photo

The last time there was one-party rule in Indiana:

A budget was passed that caused a property tax crisis for home owners.

The Indiana Toll Road was leased to foreign investors, paving the way for two toll increases.

We were the laboratory for a $1 billion taxpayer-funded "experiment" to privatize our state's system to help Hoosiers most in need.
Unfortunately, funds from the toll road deal already are running short. Projects are being delayed and awarded to out-of-state contractors hiring out-of-state workers.

The privatization of social services has proven to be a calamity that will be draining Hoosiers' pocketbooks for years to come.

With both parties sharing power and Democrats in charge of the House, there will be no foreign powers taking over our interstates. More Indiana workers will be building our roads.

House Democrats have pledged to avoid all tax increases. Republicans have not made this promise, despite how shameful it would be to increase taxes on Hoosier families now.

We will continue our commitment to creating jobs for Hoosiers, a commitment that was lacking from Republican leaders in the Daniels administration and legislative branch this past session.

Thanks to House Democrats, we were able to provide tax credits to new employers, expand incentives to small businesses, and provide the potential for creating new jobs through a plan to bring $100 million in federal dollars back to Indiana to help employers hire Hoosiers.

That this program has gotten nowhere reflects on an executive branch that chooses to cite praise from The Wall Street Journal rather than admit it is not doing anything to create new jobs. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that 40,000 jobs they claim to have created don't even exist.

House Democrats will offer two incentives to assist small businesses: a job creation tax credit and low-interest loans to help them weather a tough economy.

More importantly, we will insist that projects funded by Indiana tax dollars employ Indiana residents before anyone else. The strongest engine we can have to power our state's recovery is doing everything we can to get Hoosiers back to work.

Our commitment to education will continue. We promise to pass a school funding formula before any other spending bill, work to cap class sizes to make sure dollars go to the classroom, and seek accountability standards that rely upon input from parents and students as well as teachers and administrators.

We will put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts that place the interests of professional sports teams over working Hoosiers.

We can do a better job of making sure businesses that receive taxpayer-funded incentives live up to promises to create and retain jobs. If not, we have every right to take those incentives back.

We can help save money for taxpayers and businesses that follow the rules and bring hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue simply by exposing tax cheats using worker misclassification to avoid paying their fair share.

We will demand that state government lift the veil of secrecy on the effectiveness of job creation and the impact of state budget cuts on programs and services.

We will put an end to "pay to play" in Indiana. If you bid on a state contract, you should not be able to give political contributions to the people who award those contracts.

In short, we will be continuing to question the effectiveness of those in control of this administration. We will point out where they have not done well and where they ignored the law.

We will remind everyone that the strides forward that have taken place in recent years -- property tax relief and the Healthy Indiana Plan, to name just two -- have come when two parties work together.

It has proven to be a better plan than one party -- and one man -- giving the orders and being accountable to no one.

More public subsidies for Austin toll projects

Link to article here.

Note the massive amount of taxpayer subsidies for these LOSER toll projects. If these were well-conceived toll projects that could pay for themselves, that would be one thing, but using taxpayer money to build them only to charge taxpayers AGAIN to use them, is clearly an egregious DOUBLE TAX.
___________________________________________________________________

Friday, October 1, 2010

Central Texas gets $153M for transportation projects

Austin Business Journal


The Texas Transportation Commission has approved $153 million for work on several toll roads on Mopac, U.S. 290, U.S. 183 and others.

The Texas Department of Transportation and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority will use grants for work on:

 

Manor Expressway project (126.7 million)
the MoPac Improvement Project ($5.4 million)

Oak Hill Expressway


"The Mobility Authority Board, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) and the Texas Transportation Commission all came together to prioritize funding for these vital Central Texas Projects," says Heiligenstein. "With so many unmet needs statewide, getting scarce dollars isn't easy these days. We made a good case that Central Texas was in critical need of these funds, and we came to the table with a promise of local funding in the form of toll revenue bonds. As a result, we were rewarded with $153 million in grants."

The $500 million Manor project will create a toll road from U.S. 183 on U.S. 290 to Parmer Lane. It is also being paid for through issuance of toll revenue bonds or other creative financing methods, according to a press release. Due to funding limitations, TxDOT will provide the grant money over a three-year period between 2012 and 2014.

The Mopac Improvement Project proposes to construct express lanes along an 11-mile stretch of Loop 1 from Cesar Chavez Street downtown to Parmer Lane. The TxDOT grant will pay for an environmental study that was halted in 2007 due to funding issues.

The Oak Hill Expressway seeks to alleviate traffic at the "Y" on U.S. 290 in Oak Hill. The grant money will be used to complete a comprehensive environmental impact statement that would allow for construction of the expressway.

The 3.5-million Manchaca Expressway project proposes four tolled lanes and non-tolled lanes connecting Mopac in southwest Austin to FM 1626 and I-35. The latest grant money will be used to complete an environmental impact statement.

The eight-mile Bergstrom Expressway project will make improvements to U.S. 183 South from Springdale Road to Patton Avenue.

I-35 hearings push more toll roads to benefit Cintra


To find out where the I-35 workshop is in your area. Go here.

To download the flyer below to distribute at the meetings, go here.

DO YOU WANT TOLL BOOTHS ON I-35?
SAY ‘NO’ TO DOUBLE TAX TOLLS!

Tolling EXISTING LANES on I-35 is just ONE of the many toll proposals by the I-35 Corridor Segment 3 Committee...get your comments ON THE RECORD!

Four toll proposals...

1)Add toll lanes to I-35 called “I-35 HOV / Toll Lanes from SH 45 SE to I-10”
2)Toll US 290 from Austin to the SH 130 toll road (FYI, the only free lanes will be access roads, not expressway lanes. TxDOT info very misleading on this project!)
3) Convert existing lanes of I-35 to toll lanes and expand routes (SH 21, SH 71, SH 80, SH 290) that could feed more traffic to the SH 130 toll road a higher priority than non-toll improvements to our public freeways. Did you know that TxDOT signed a contract that gives it a higher share of toll road profits if it feeds more toll payers to Cintra’s SH 130 toll road? That’s why its pushing these connectors routes to be expanded instead of just expanding I-35 and keeping it a FREEway.
4) The other, called “I-35/SH 45 SE/SH 130 Improvements” is to remove the interstate designation of I-35 and re-designate it “Business Route I-35” making the SH 130 and 45 SE toll roads the de facto interstate that runs throughout our state...problem #1 - it’s approx. 30 miles to the east of existing I-35 and significantly out of the way and is currently so underutilized it serves next to no practical purpose for those traveling to major urban areas like Austin. In part, they’re throwing this one in there in order to have people “reject it” and push other proposals that feed traffic to Cintra’s SH 130 toll road.

What’s the best solution?

Expand I-35 and keep it a FREEway. Support the project proposal called “I-35 improvements from SH 195 to I-10” and “I-35 improvements from SH 195 to Williamson/Bell County Line.” Say ‘YES’ to all non-toll FREEway improvements in the master plan.

What makes no sense...unless you’re the Spanish Company Cintra?

The proposal called “I-10 Improvements” that would expand I-10 from San Antonio to the Cintra-owned SH 130 toll road in Seguin. There is no significant traffic or congestion problems along this portion of the interstate, so why should taxpayers pay to expand a route that primarily benefits a private toll operator instead of fixing the heavily congested I-35? Say ‘no’ to the I-10 improvements proposal.

Also, the New Braunfels and San Marcos Outer Loop projects make no sense, unless you’re a developer. These projects constitute eminent domain abuse and will pave over private property to primarily benefit DEVELOPERS, not for a legitimate public use. There is NO congestion problem in these areas. These are greenfield projects that heist private property to essentially benefit another private entity.

Lastly, most rail projects are taxpayer-funded boondoggles. The cost to build and maintain these systems far exceeds the cost of expanding highways.

The SNEAKY reason for tinkering with FREE routes...

...contract signed with Spanish Company


The non-compete agreement in place for the SH 130 segments 5 & 6 toll road prohibits FREE road expansion surrounding that toll road...this is a fraud upon the public and puts private interests over the public interest of a public road system freely accessible to ALL Texans, not just those who can afford toll taxes (especially when those tolls taxes go to a private, foreign company).

TxDOT claims it's responding to the public backlash to the Trans Texas Corridor plans for TTC-35, by soliciting public input on what to do on I-35 now that they've pulled the plug on TTC-35. However, if you look at TxDOT's 100 Most Congested Roads list, it labels improvements to I-35 as tolled.

Cintra-Zachry won the only Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 segments that will be built (called SH 130 segments 5 & 6). The State signed a contract in 2007 that granted Cintra-Zachry a non-compete agreement (prohibiting the State from building FREE roads/lanes within a certain mile radius of the toll road). So the toll option remains a part of the plans for I-35 despite the opposition to tolling by citizens on the committee.

Why? So the State won't violate Cintra's non-compete agreement by building FREE lanes on I-35 that would draw traffic away from Cintra's SH 130 toll road where they're GUARANTEED profits!

Moving the alignment of I-35 and tinkering around with its interstate status is NUTS! TxDOt needs to leave I-35 an interstate, expand the lanes without tolls, make SH 130 a free road (so trucks not destinating in Austin can take it), and expand our other public roads WITHOUT tolls! Tolls are the MOST EXPENSIVE way to fund roads and are far less efficient than gas tax-funded roads.

The whole reason for this exercise is the absolute FAILURE of SH 130 to provide congestion relief on I-35. Why would anyone want to go 35 miles out of their way to take a toll road that doesn't end up saving you any time because the distance is too far flung from Austin and other destinations? Obviously, the answer is very few since so few take SH 130. Tolling ANY existing lanes is DOUBLE TAXATION which Texans oppose. Making SH 130 a FREE route would incentivize trucks needing to bypass Austin to use it (which in turn would relieve congestion from I-35). However, merely reducing toll taxes won't do the trick. It needs to become a free road in order for people to go out of their way to use that bypass route.

No toll should be on 45 SE given the fact it was 100% built and paid for with gas taxes! So, yes, take the tolls off that FREEway. Removing tolls on 45 SE should NOT be tied to tolling existing lanes on I-35, which is also built and paid for. Expand ALL these suggested "alternate" routes and make them freely accessible to ALL Texans, without tolls.

For more information go to: www.TexasTURF.org

UBS backs Obama's infrastructure bank

Link to article here.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that UBS, Goldman Sachs, Macquarie et al back an infrastructure bank. They're the ones who will primarily benefit from taxpayer money bailouts used to subsidize LOSER toll projects. Such private companies wouldn't touch most of these toll projects with a 10-foot pole without taxpayer-backed guarantees that they won't lose money if the traffic doesn't show up. Oh, and UBS is part of the Spanish consortium awarded with the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 development rights...is it any wonder why they lobby at the public trough for more "infrastructure"? Sadly, these same folks brought Texas an infrastructure bank years ago..WAKE-UP Texas! The same corporate hogs at the trough are raiding your pocketbook...it doesn't matter which Party is in charge, they BOTH raid YOUR wallet to benefit their cronies and campaign contributors.

UPDATE 1-UBS Americas backs infrastructure bank funded by U.S.

Reuters -- Wed. Sep 22, 2010 12:50am BST

* UBS Americas CEO recommends no private ownership

* Says bank should be capitalized by Treasury Dept

* Proponents see revenue from projects, tax savings

* Pensions funds, private equity could invest

(Adds infrastructure investment figures, companies, Sen. Kerry quote)

By John Crawley

WASHINGTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - UBS Americas (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) threw support behind the Obama administration's proposal for a U.S. infrastructure bank on Tuesday, but warned against creating a quasi-government agency like housing finance enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Creating a national infrastructure bank is an idea whose time has come," Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS Americas, told a Senate Banking Committee hearing called to explore alternatives for financing infrastructure projects.

Wolf said Congress should establish an institution that would leverage private investment to finance transportation and other big-ticket projects like rail, road, water, broadband or airport upgrades.

He recommended that it not have private shareholders. Rather, Wolf said, it should be capitalized through the U.S. Treasury to avoid the problems experienced by hybrids Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) that were held by private shareholders but benefited from government sponsorship.

Fannie and Freddie were seized by Treasury two years ago after losses during the U.S. housing market collapse and recession. Taxpayers have poured $150 billion into the lenders to keep them afloat.

Obama proposed a $50 billion infrastructure spending program earlier this month to rev up the economy and create jobs. The bank, Obama said, could be one way of financing the highest-priority projects through grants and loans. Wolf favors a loan-focused arm.

Obama envisions creating the bank as part of long-term infrastructure spending legislation expected to take shape in 2011. Presidential advisers have suggested capitalizing the bank at $25 billion.

Obama, many in Congress and transportation experts acknowledge that present infrastructure funding mechanisms that leverage gas taxes and other user fees cannot keep pace with necessity and demand and that other options are necessary.

Last year, the federal highway trust fund nearly ran dry before Congress rescued it with emergency cash.

Public investment in transportation infrastructure in 2006 was about $140 billion, split between the federal government and state and local governments.

The U.S. has been slower than other regions to adopt forms of private financing for infrastructure. Europe's infrastructure bank, the European Investment Bank, financed $350 billion in projects from 2005-09 to help modernize ports, reconfigure city centers and expand airports and rail lines.

Australia's Macquarie Group (MQG.AX) is the global leader in private infrastructure investment, according to Infrastructure Investor magazine rankings.

Others include Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Alinda Capital Partners, the largest U.S. manager of pension funds for infrastructure investment.

Companies like equipment maker Caterpillar Inc (CAT.N), General Electric Co (GE.N) and privately held engineering firm Parsons Corp could benefit from stepped-up spending in this area.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it will cost more than $2 trillion to bring roads, bridges, and other infrastructure to a state of good repair.

"We're talking staggering sums here, and it clearly reflects just how much we have neglected our infrastructure," said Senator John Kerry, who is a lead voice for an infrastructure bank in the Senate.

Proponents have said that investments from private equity and pension funds and other sources would complement federal capital.

Projects could generate revenue through tolls or other fees that would provide long-term, low-yield returns for investors. Other projects would offer tax advantages as the primary benefit of investment.

Wolf, who said any infrastructure bank should be transparent and work alongside other government-run credit programs for infrastructure construction, cited figures that show $180 billion in private capital available for infrastructure investment.

"When I hear that an infrastructure bank will not cost taxpayers a dime, I wonder why federal resources and guarantees are needed," Senator Richard Shelby said during the hearing.

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell said a bank would be a part of an effort that would include more traditional transportation funding and other successful subsidy programs like Build America Bonds, taxable financing that has lowered borrowing costs for state and local governments. Obama has proposed making this program permanent.

(Reporting by John Crawley; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Private toll firm claims government immunity

Link to article here.

Published: July 18, 2010 3:00 a.m.

Sued over crash, Toll Road firm claims immunity

Niki Kelly

The Journal Gazette

 
INDIANAPOLIS – An accident on an icy Indiana Toll Road almost two years ago is at the heart of a legal battle over whether the company operating the road under a 75-year lease enjoys governmental immunity.

Chicago resident Aimee Campbell has sued ITR Concession Co. for not closing or adequately maintaining the road, which was allegedly dangerous for travel on Dec. 22, 2008.

A Spanish-Australian consortium paid $3.8 billion to the state in 2006 to rent the Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years. That group formed ITR Concession Co. to operate and manage the road.

According to the court file, Campbell was driving east on the road about 10:30 a.m. when she lost control of her car on the ice and snow, rolled three times and ended up at the bottom of a 40-foot embankment in LaGrange County.

She suffered a broken arm, cuts and bruises.
According to Campbell’s amended complaint, she had been driving on the road for more than two hours and saw no plows, salt trucks or other ice- or snow-removal equipment.

She also saw multiple cars and tractor-trailer rigs on the side of the road as the result of crashes.

“They had the opportunity to close the road,” said Michael Ely, attorney for Campbell. “If it’s open, they are saying it’s good to go.”

A major ice storm, along with blustery winter conditions, gripped the northern part of the state just days before Campbell’s crash.

ITR Concession responded in court filings that the road surrounding the crash spot received 33 tons of salt and 74 gallons of anti-icing solution the day before the crash and had been plowed and received anti-icing solution Dec. 22.

But a key argument in the case is that ITR Concession is claiming a type of legal immunity usually reserved for governments.

State law, for instance, says governmental entities or employees cannot be held liable if a loss results from the “temporary condition of a public thoroughfare … that results from weather.” The court filing claims the operation and maintenance of the road constitute “governmental functions undertaken for the public purpose” and that governmental tort immunity should extend to ITR Concession.

A tort is a civil wrong that could be cause for liability.

Norman Barry, attorney for the Toll Road company, said this is not a new legal theory.

“Other quasi-governmental entities have been afforded immunity under Indiana law,” he said. “We are asking the same.”

A federal judge in Illinois, where the case was filed, initially declined to dismiss the case but hasn’t definitively ruled on the issue.

“Traditionally, common law is that governments can’t be sued for weather-related issues,” Ely said. “I have no problem when the government claims immunity. I have a serious problem when a private company does.”

Such immunity is not provided for in the exhaustive contract between ITR Concession and the state, said Rep. Win Moses Jr., D-Fort Wayne.

“But nothing about (this deal) surprises me anymore,” he said. “If they negligently cared for the road, then it’s a legitimate question for the woman to pursue. It will be settled in the courts.”

Rep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, didn’t remember the issue of immunity coming up in the debate but said it makes sense that the private company would be afforded the same protection for performing the same function as the state.

“If they are subject to a level of liability that government doesn’t experience,” he said, “why would anyone ever agree to run the road?”

Professor Andrew Klein, a tort law expert from the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, said he has seen similar theories used for military contractors engaging in activity on behalf of the government.

“I wouldn’t immediately dismiss the argument as implausible. On the other hand, I’m not aware of any precedent that makes it a definitive winner,” he said. “It’s an interesting issue. Then again, I’m a torts professor.”

Farm Bureau won't back Perry due to Trans Texas Corridor

Link to article here.


Texas Farm Bureau declines to endorse in governors race

 4:38 PM Wed, Sep 22, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Wayne Slater/Reporter -- Dallas Morning News      Bio |    E-mail  |  News tips
The Texas Farm Bureau -- which has always endorsed Rick Perry  in the past -- voted today not to endorse anybody in the governor's race. The decision by the bureau's political committee is a victory of sorts for Democrat  Bill White. Perry was state agriculture commissioner -- and the Farm Bureau's Friends of Agriculture fund endorsed him twice as the state's agriculture chief and in his last two races for governor. Since it began making endorsements in 1990, the bureau has always picked the Republican at the top of the ticket. But not this year. Spokesman Gene Hall says the board voted today to stay neutral in the race. Otherwise, the bureau is pretty much endorsing Republicans down the ballot in statewide races. Hall says he'll leave it to the campaigns themselves to interpret the decision.

Both Perry and White appeared earlier this year at the Farm Bureau's convention. White directly addressed one of the bureau's top issues -- eminent domain -- in his address. Perry didn't. In the Republican primary, the Texas Farm Bureau endorsed Kay Bailey Hutchison over Perry because of his land-consuming Trans-Texas Corridor project and his 2007 veto of an eminent domain bill favored by farmers but opposed by business. Moreover, a Perry campaign spokesman dismissed the Farm Bureau as "an insurance company that supported the (federal) bailout." Avoiding the bureau's top issue of eminent domain at its summer convention, Perry delivered a patriotic speech underscoring anti-Washington and pro-states rights themes.

Fuel tax theft? Dozens of gas pumps not inspected, out of compliance under Staples

To see more about the lack of gas pump inspections and pumps that are out of compliance, go to Hank's web site here (scroll down to the video section called "Hank's Channel").



CBS 19 News in Tyler, TX, did an expose' on Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples' widespread lack of timely inspections of gas pumps. Staples' opponent, Hank Gilbert, who helped establish TURF, found dozens of gas stations that have outdated inspection stickers and/or are out of compliance, and he found many that had NEVER even been inspected EVER with NO sticker at all (meaning they're NOT paying the state ANY gas tax revenues, they're completely "off the grid" so to speak)! Hank even found one that hadn't been inspected since Rick Perry was Agriculture Commissioner in 1997! Such a shoddy inspection process potentially costs taxpayers millions in lost gas tax revenue badly needed to fix our roads and keep them FREEways. Staples, like Perry, seems all too happy to starve the gas tax so they can push TOLL ROADS, which cost the taxpayers 10-1,000 times more per mile than gas tax.

Watch the CBS 19 TV report here.

Get a load of this...at the exact same time Hank was holding a press conference to expose this neglect, someone from the Ag Dept shows up across the street to FINALLY inspect the pump that hadn't been inspected since 1997. He says those that aren't licensed don't get inspected and that there's no mechanism in place for them to know if a station is unlicensed so they essentially stay "off the grid" unless they get complaints about it. You bet Todd Staples heard complaints about this pump and rushed his guy out there to update those stickers (too bad for him Hank and the TV cameras were there, too!).



Check out the lack of stickers and expired inspection stickers in just ONE county here.

Toll tunnel can't pay its debt

Link to article here.

Ailing tunnel project takes toll on investors

By Annie Guest

Updated Thu Sep 2, 2010 7:48pm AEST

Audio: Litigation funder eyes off toll road problems (PM)
Map: Brisbane 4000

Related Story: Too early to say if Clem7 going broke
Investors in Australia's latest ailing toll road project have turned their attention to legal action over grossly over-estimated traffic forecasts.

Brisbane's cross-river Clem7 tunnel opened in March with great ceremony and high hopes of easing the city's traffic congestion.

Traffic forecaster Maunsell Australia predicted 90,000 motorists a day would use the tunnel, but in reality the figure is less than 30,000 and that is with the toll slashed.

Tunnel operator Rivercity Motorway revealed this week it is struggling to pay debts exceeding $1.5 billion and Maunsell Australia is not speaking publicly about its wayward predictions.
Andrew Charles from litigation funder IMF says it has responded to investor inquiries about potential legal action against Maunsell.

"The figures that have come out in terms of the actual traffic compared to the forecast are very different," Mr Charles said.

"The question becomes... were all steps taken to give the best, accurate picture?"

The Clem7 tunnel was proposed by the Brisbane City Council, but it says the private sector now bears the risk.

Rivercity Motorway granted indemnity to Maunsell for claims over $500,000 made by a third party, but Mr Charles says that is not the end of it.

"That's however a loss they would only bear through their shareholding in Rivercity Motorway. If the investors themselves sued personally against Maunsell Australia, I don't see that indemnity would affect them," he said.

But Mr Charles says he is not aware of any precedents of investors taking successful legal action against traffic forecasters on unsuccessful toll roads.

Maunsell has not returned the ABC's calls, and Rivercity Motorway declined an interview.

Public-private partnerships

This debacle will further cool the enthusiasm for public-private partnerships.

But the company behind Australia's biggest road project - Brisbane's $5 billion Airport Link - is not flinching, publicly at least, despite its toll road eventually connecting to the under-patronised Clem7 tunnel.

Airport Link's operator BrisConnections also declined an interview but released the following statement:

"BrisConnections is confident its forecast traffic numbers remain sound," it said.

"Clem7 provides a component of our traffic, however we are satisfied the feeder roads including Clem7 will provide sufficient traffic flow for Airport Link."

But that is mocked by transport expert Dr John Goldberg, an honorary associate of the University of Sydney.

"I don't believe it, frankly. I've analysed the whole thing on the basis of the product disclosure statement. Unless I've made gross mistakes in arithmetic, I can't say that they've got any hope at all," he said.

BrisConnections has attracted considerable controversy in just over two years of operation, with investors brought to the brink of bankruptcy.

But Dr Goldberg says BrisConnections has rockier times ahead.

"If you pay the equity returns to investors, the company will never be able to amortise the debt; never be able to pay the debt back," he said.

"And the debt is far higher; we're looking at $1 billion, maybe $2 million more than the Clem7. The modelling is virtually identical; it's what they call a work-back.

"The work-back model is where they start with the returns to equity investors and work back to traffic forecasts, which will satisfy that. It's got nothing to do with the interaction of land use and transport."

Dr Goldberg has previously predicted the financial failure of Sydney's Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels.

Tags: business-economics-and-finance, company-news, industry, road-transport, australia, qld, brisbane-4000

First posted Thu Sep 2, 2010 7:45pm AEST

TxDOT deception, attempt to change the law to skirt open records law

Link to article here.


TXDOT data reveals San Antonio's worst spots for wrecks


    The Riverwalk District, the Six Flags amusement park and a major suburban shopping mall are among San Antonio's worst hot spots for wrecks, a Texas Watchdog analysis finds.

Sun Sep 5 06:56:00 2010 CST
By Jennifer Peebles

Remember the Alamo – and don’t forget to use your turn signal as you drive past it.

The area around San Antonio’s popular Riverwalk District – an attraction for locals and tourists alike -- is one of the three most wreck-prone spots in downtown San Antonio and one of the six most wreck-prone spots in all of Bexar County.

That’s according to a Texas Watchdog analysis of nearly three years’ worth of wreck data from the Texas Department of Transportation – data that our partners at WOAI-TV Channel 4 in San Antonio fought for two years to access under state public records laws.

Even though the Riverwalk and its restaurants, shops and scenery are on an all-pedestrian level below that of the city’s automobile traffic, much of the touristy surrounding area – and the several blocks stretching north to Travis Park -- have one of the highest concentrations of wrecks in the county for 2007, 2008 and most of 2009. And the most wreck-prone spot in San Antonio is in that neighborhood, near the corner of St. Mary's and College streets.

DowntownMost of the Bexar County wrecks in TxDOT’s database for the given time period included latitude and longitude coordinates of the crash, recorded by the police officers who investigated the wrecks. At the request of WOAI, Texas Watchdog used special mapping software to plot the wrecks on a map and analyze the results to find the areas with the highest densities of wrecks.
Aside from the Riverwalk area, another major wreck hotspot was a section of the South Pan Am Expressway – a conjoined section of interstates 10 and 35 between West Martin and West Commerce streets, not too far from Christus Santa Rosa Hospital -- as well a third area around Methodist Hospital and Interstate 35.

The most wreck-prone spots in Bexar County’s suburban areas were the Loop 410 exit for Ingram Park Mall, at Wurzbach Road; the intersection of I-10 with Loop 1604, near Six Flags Fiesta Texas theme park; and the U.S. 281 junction with Loop 1604.

 

WOAI investigative reporter Brian Collister, with whom I serve on the board of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, first asked TxDOT for access to its wreck database two years ago.

Mall wrecks
I’ll let Brian tell how it played out from there. Here’s an excerpt from a blog post he wrote earlier this year:

My fight to get these records started back in 2008 when I filed an open records request for the entire database. The Attorney General ruled it was public, but TXDOT challenged the ruling in court. It feared the ruling would mean that ambulance chasing attorneys and chiropractors would have access to the names and address of crash victims. (Ironically, they already get that information from our local police departments.)

To calm those concerns, our attorney reached a deal with TXDOT. The state would provide the data without any personal information and we would withdraw our request. But for some reason, the agency at the time was slow to finalize the deal... the reason now is clear.

This is when TXDOT decided to get sneaky.

Late one Friday afternoon last March, while the lawsuit was still going on, I stumbled across a bill filed in the legislature that would make the entire crash database secret!

It turns out that TXDOT officials had quietly gone to Senator John Carona of Dallas, the head of the Senate's Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, and begged him to file a bill to ban release of the data - forever. The TXDOT officials decried the AG ruling and claimed it would spell disaster for accident victims who will be further besieged by rogue lawyers and doctors.

But TXDOT conveniently forgot to tell the senator about our lawsuit and the compromise it had agreed to. It also conveniently forgot to tell our lawyer that they had gone behind our back in a shameful attempt to shut off the data with a new law.

Once we learned what was going on, we sprung into action. I testified to the senate committee along with representatives of several open government and media groups. Luckily, the lawmakers listened and the governor eventually signed a bill making the data public - minus the personal information.

So why would TXDOT fight so hard to try and keep this information from you? I don't know and could never get an honest answer from anyone at TXDOT.

I’ll add that FOIFT was among the open government groups that pushed for the release of the information. You can also read another summary of Collister's fight for the TxDOT wreck database, and all its twists and turns, written by the San Antonio Express-News' John Tedesco.

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