Editorial: Leaving 281 off most congested list wreaks of politics

Link to editorial here. Link to KTSA initial story on the blunder here.

KTSA reported the TxDOT blunder first. TxDOT's response to them initially was essentially that it simply didn't rank. Then, by the time the Express News printed a story on it, they were already acknowledging something was amiss. Now the Editorial Board is chiming in on what seems to be, quite obviously, politics playing a role in allowing 281 north of Loop 1604 to wither on the vine indefinitely. TxDOT and the RMA want to punish the citizens for daring to oppose their toll road agenda. It's their way or interminable gridlock.

09/14/2009

Answers needed on TxDOT report

At first glance, it seems like a joke.

The Texas Department of Transportation compiles a list of the 100 most congested road sections in the state, and what is widely believed to be the most congested road section in Bexar County doesn't even make the list: U.S. 281 from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line.

Eight roadways in Bexar County did make the list, including multiple segments of Interstate 35 and Interstate 10. The worst-ranked section locally — 10th on the statewide list — is a portion of Interstate 35 from U.S. 90 West on the Southwest Side to U.S. 281 north of downtown.

A TxDOT explanation of the congestion on this stretch of Interstate 35 notes: “A trip that takes 20 minutes in free-flow conditions will take approximately 33 minutes during rush hour.”

While that may be bad, many commuters can attest that the rush-hour congestion on U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 is much worse. So how is it possible that TxDOT failed to place it on the list?

The TxDOT methodology describes a multistep process of compiling a statewide database of major roadways, review by “transportation staff familiar with the local road network” and the calculation of congestion measures by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Perhaps the initial database was deeply flawed and failed to identify U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 for congestion problems. Even if this were the case, TxDOT experts who have familiarity with Bexar County roadways should have caught this glaring error as part of their review.

Either way, TxDOT — not the Texas Transportation Institute — flubbed the process. And the result is much worse than a joke.

Highway funds will naturally flow to the worst congested roadways in the state. Assuming the legal and environmental hurdles for construction on U.S. 281 are ever surpassed, it's not even on the list of priority projects.

Localleaders should be outraged at the TxDOT report. Bexar County residents who suffer through bumper-to-bumper commutes on U.S. 281 deserve to know whether something more than incompetence on the part of the state's transportation authorities is to blame.

Toll operator sues company for agressive toll road traffic forecasts

Link to article here.

Aggressive traffic projections are coming home to roost these days, as motorists shun the extra toll taxes to get to work. Now toll operators are turning on the their own industry and suing companies who overpromise and underdeliver traffic for toll roads. The blood is in the water...here come the sharks!

Leighton starts lawsuit against ConnectEast
BY MARTIN COLLINS: John Durie | September 09, 2009

Article from:  The Australian

EVER since global credit markets shut 12 months ago, the infrastructure debate has centred on how to attract funding, and now Leighton has provided one more cause for concern.

Its contract dispute with ConnectEast highlights the fact that while developers and operators want the government to take on more risk in the aftermath of the GFC, the private sector operators are masters at minimising their own risks.

Leighton isn't getting as much money as it thought it would because the traffic estimates were too high.

Ask the company whether it would have handed the money back if the estimates were too low, and the response is laughter: "We had a contractual right."

It would all be a great game if the consequences were not serious, but at risk is the level of infrastructure development and who shares the risks and rewards.

In the dispute, Leighton wants to add cream to its considerable booty from the project and in the process hurt minority shareholders by kicking $50 million from ConnectEast's market value.

You would think Leighton would want ConnectEast to have more, not less, money to pay it.

The dispute creates even more doubt over the aggressive traffic claims bidders use to win the multi-billion-dollar projects.

Unfortunately the system now rewards bidders for being too aggressive.

Behind the facade of nation building, financiers and contractors use every bit of leverage to maximise their take at the risk of hurting the small shareholders who were mistakenly happy to back the project.

After watching this performance they have another reason to think again and -- just like last week's decision by Brisbane City Council to go it alone on the $1.8bn Northern Link Tunnel -- taxpayers will have to pick up the tab.

To be fair to Leighton and its chief operating officer David Stewart, the ConnectEast dispute is a straight contractual fight -- which means there will be rights and wrongs on both sides -- but it's the timing of this stoush and the regularity of Leighton's use of lawyers to top up its money jars that raises questions.

Leighton handles virtually 100 per cent of the big road construction in Australia, with most big contracts a battle between its divisions rather than against another firm. The $2.5bn ConnectEast's East Link project was no different.

The ACCC was happy to wave through mergers among the big developers to leave Leighton in control.

Leighton's John Holland boss Glenn Palin and Thiess's Neville Power were negotiating with ConnectEast's John Gardiner until last Friday when talks broke down.

As it happens, ConnectEast is in the middle of a $420m capital raising, with the institutional issue formally closing yesterday and raising $309m.

As part of the spoils for winning the project, Leighton picked up a $7.5m bonus on completion and 260 million shares in ConnectEast -- of which it still owns 113 million. It decided against participating in the capital raising and -- as was its right -- collected $2.3m for selling its rights.

That after all was the virtue of ConnectEast chair Tony Shepherd's offer structure, which gave every shareholder a right to participate and to collect some value if he or she decided against taking up the rights.

So Leighton pocketed the money, then dropped the bombshell with news of the litigation, which helped push ConnectEast below the rights price for the first time in over a week, with the stock closing yesterday down 5.4 per cent at 35c.

Maybe Leighton didn't plan it that way, but it just so happens the litigation threat came at the point of maximum leverage over Shepherd and potentially maximum harm to his capital raising. The claim itself is over traffic forecasts made by Hyder Consulting, which was hired by the bid team that included Leighton, Macquarie Group and ConnectEast.

Hyder said by April the road would carry 258,000 cars a day, but so far it has been more like 159,000.

The difference mattered in several respects, but the important things to know are that Leighton has had a representative on the board the entire time, so knew all about traffic numbers and was happy to pay Hyder's costs.

One of the problems when governments sell tollroads is they encourage bidders to overestimate traffic numbers -- the more cars on the road, the lower the tolls that can be charged and the lower the costs.

In this case, Leighton collected a $7.5m success fee, $2.5bn in constructions fees, plus equity in the project and, as late as yesterday, its $2.3m for forgoing its rights.

All of this because the traffic estimates were higher than reality, which meant Leighton would get a lower bonus for completing the road five months earlier.

The bonus was linked to traffic use and the time of completion with the risk, of course, that finishing late would have resulted in millions of dollars in penalties.

The big rewards are designed to reflect the risks taken, but the dispute throws into doubt the level of risks.

The published claims of $400m in damages are fairyland stuff because the actual amount at risk is more like $75m, of which ConnectEast has already provided for $30m.

When projects are delayed, Leighton sues the government and anyone else to blame them to recover funds, and when the numbers fall short of projections it attempts to recover its upside.

Downside doesn't seem to be in the equation, which, of course, means risk is not large.

Brookes' float pitch

ONE of the problems with high-profile floats is they let insiders air their claims, as has happened already with some Myer staff complaining about being forced to work too many weekends, under pressure to sell more and in the process staff morale is at an all-time low.

The retailer rejects the claims and when Saint Bernard Brookes hits the podium on Friday, he will talk up cultural change in the company, helped by the fact that some 18 per cent of full-time staff are on short-term incentives and 400 are in the equity pool, which owns 7.5 per cent of the company.

Saint Bernard also invested in the $1.4bn buyout, but the size of his stake was not divulged yesterday.

Store managers are encouraged to run the business like its their own, with 10 key criteria for their bonuses including sales, costs, shrinkage (theft), profits, customer care, sale of house brand products, maximising sales per transaction, safety and selling warranties with electrical products.

Before TPG acquired the business, it was earning between $60-$100m a year and now, the 2009 year earnings before interest and tax will be more like $235m with earnings margins up from 2 per cent to 7 per cent.

Debt will be cut further from the float proceeds from $660m to around $450m.

With all that profit growth in the past, how much can be expected in the future?

There is no doubt TPG and Saint Bernard have fixed a broken company and in the process have also grown profits dramatically.

So if they are selling a business on historical EBIT multiples of 13 times, even with over $400m in capital expenditure, ask yourself how much in costs have been removed which will have to be replaced?

The good news is TPG's global track record for retail floats is 27 per cent-plus outperformance against the relevant indexes for the likes of Petco, J Crew, Burger King and Debenhams.

This time, the pitch will also start with Myer One club members being certain targets for the float team of Macquarie, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.

Public private partnerships spread to real estate


Link to article here.

Rick Perry brought public private partnership toll roads to Texas in 2003. Now public private partnerships are spreading to real estate. Even worse, this version allows China to buy-up distressed U.S. real estate using public money.

China Ramps Up To Buy Cheap U.S. Real Estate
Thursday, September 10, 2009 3:29 PM
By: Julie Crawshaw and Dan Weil
Newsmax.com

China Investment Corporation, China's $300 billion sovereign-wealth fund (SWF), is preparing to buy distressed U.S. real estate assets.

It will do so using the U.S. Treasury Department’s Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) to fund the investments, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, several Chinese officials warned that Wall Street isn’t taking the recession seriously, and that much more pain is in store for U.S. investors in the near term.


The PPIP program, which limits investments by any single investor to no more than 9.9 percent of each fund, is designed to help U.S. banks get rid of toxic mortgage assets by financing investors’ purchases of such securities.

CIC officials reportedly have held talks with U.S. private-equity fund managers, including BlackRock, Invesco, and Lone Star Funds, about buying securities backed by office buildings, hotels, strip malls and other commercial property, and about buying ownership interests in buildings as well.

Though CIC spent only $4.8 billion in global financial markets last year, it invested that much in a single month recently, CIC Chairman Lou Jiwei said last month.

He said that if future returns are good enough, it might ask the government to let it invest more of China's $2.132 trillion foreign-exchange reserves.

CIC recently invested in a real-estate trust in Australia and in an owner and developer of office towers and retail stores in London.

The SWF also is considering investing in Hollywood production firms, the Times of London reports.

The move could give Beijing a direct stake in a variety of foreign media content "from South Korean television dramas and Japanese game shows to Hollywood blockbusters.”

The Chinese onslaught against the United States over economic issues continues, with Bank of China Vice President Zhu Min criticizing Wall Street for complacency in the wake of the financial crisis.

Bank of China is the country’s third largest bank.

“You go to Wall Street, the people feel the crisis never happened,” Zhu told Bloomberg. “It’s not only overconfidence, it’s over-myopic. This is too much.”

Much of China’s criticism has focused on the growing U.S. debt burden and the dollar’s role as the sole reserve currency.

In March, Premier Wen Jiabao said he was “worried” about China’s investment in U.S. Treasuries, now $776.4 billion, and wanted assurances that they were safe, Bloomberg reports.

As for Zhu, he told Bloomberg that the credit crisis isn’t over yet. “It’s sort of stabilized from a cliff drop,” he said. “But the real economic crisis has just started.”

Zhu expressed some concern about China’s economy too.

“The potential risk is that a lot of liquidity goes to the asset market,” he said. “So you see asset bubbles in commodities, stocks and real estate, not only in China, but everywhere.”

The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has soared 61 percent this year, topping the MSCI World Index by 41 percentage points.

China’s concern about the United States apparently hasn’t spread to its sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. The fund is looking at plowing some of its $300 billion kitty into U.S. real estate.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Taxpayers get shafted in toll deal with Spanish company

TxDOT inks LBJ toll deal with foreign toll operator, Cintra
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
September 10, 2009

Is there ANY elected official looking out for the taxpayers anymore? So much for taxpayer protections and oversight from Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott. Even after Abbott held-up several controversial comprehensive development agreements (CDAs, also known as public private partnerships, PPPs) for months declaring them unconstitutional, he recently gave final approval to allow a contract with Spanish toll operator, Cintra, to takeover parts of the LBJ freeway, I-635, in Dallas. The deal will use Dallas Police and Fire Pension System and will charge 75 cents PER MILE to use toll lanes, and even worse, a half a billion in gas taxes will subsidize the deal with Cintra, in a massive DOUBLE TAX scheme.

It's the hefty amount of public money in the deal that caused Abbott to deem it an unconstitutional - to have one Legislature bind a future Legislature with its obligations. Wasn't this a major objection to the Wall Street bailouts? Privatizing profits and socializing losses?

Governor Rick Perry, who has grown fond of criticizing Washington, has taken a page out of their playbook and applied it to Texas toll road. There's a reason these deals are called public private partnerships.

Read the complete Examiner article here.

Re-named TTC alive and well in Loop 9 project

Link to article here.

TxDOT continues to mislead the public into thinking the Trans Texas Corridor is DEAD when in fact, it's just been renamed. If you read this article carefully, they even say so. The new name is "innovative connectivity plan" where they plan to break it up into segments instead of build the massive new corridor all at once. It'll still be a gigantic foreign-owned toll road.

Our tax dollars at work...in order to truly KILL the TTC and reform this rogue agency, we need a new Governor. The current regime is a one trick pony...mislead and railroad the public until it's too late to stop it.

Trans Texas Corridor as such is gone

Regional segments, such as Loop 9, part of new vision

Leslie Gibson
Rockwall County Herald-Banner
September 9, 2009

Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has no intention of developing the Trans Texas Corridor TTC, said agency spokesperson Chris Lippincott, on Wednesday.

He confirmed what was said by transportation planners in the Aug. 26 Rockwall County Road Consortium meeting, that the TTC is almost gone. Instead, local input will be key to developing transportation segments serving regional needs, through a new plan, Innovative Connectivity in Texas/Vision 2009.

The vision was unveiled in January at the fourth annual Texas Transportation Forum, in which TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz outlined new plans for corridor width, transportation mode, use of existing facilities, timelines, and level of involvement of local officials and citizens in the planning.

“Texans have spoken, and we’ve been listening,” said Saenz. “I believe this transformed vision for the TTC and other major corridor development goes a long way toward addressing the concerns we’ve heard over the past several years.”

Focus will be on segments closer to 600 feet wide, rather than the 1,000 plus of TTC, and be named per the highway numbers originally associated with each segment, such as I-69, SH 130 and closer to home, Loop 9.

Loop 9 is proposed to be a 44-mile-long new road running along the southern edge of Dallas County, dropping into Ellis County, and turning north through the western edge of Kaufman County and back east into Dallas County in order to connect Interstate 20 and US 287, as well as major cross streets. It was first conceived in the 1950s. “It may be developed by the private sector, it may end up as a toll road because of lack of resources,” Lippincott said.

It is a TxDOT project.

It’s east-west portion would also tie into the Outer Loop, a ring of connected roadways around the Metroplex, being coordinated by North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG).

At the Kaufman/Dallas County border, where Loop 9 heads northwest, the Outer Loop would break off and head northeast into Rockwall County if Rockwall County’s preferred Outer Loop alignment is ultimately chosen, or into Hunt County.

“North Central Texas COG is as sophisticated an agency of this type as there is in this state,” Lippincott said in the phone interview. “The means it has are vast,” he said, noting NCTCOG, as the other metropolitan planning areas in the state, receive some federal funding.

When told that some citizens expressed concern at the Consortium meeting that the Outer Loop is a Trans Texas Corridor in disguise, he said, “I don’t want to minimize questions. They (the citizens who are concerned) should stay involved.”

“Every time we build a road, we’ve got to listen and work with the people,” he said.

Right of way can not be purchased until there is money, and not until an environmental impact statement is approved. A draft environmental impact statement for Loop 9 is due in late 2009.

“At some point we will have to acquire the land if we build Loop 9,” Lippincott said. On that subject, he said roads “mean different things to different people. “If you’ve got a McDonalds or a 7/11, Loop 9 could be the greatest thing that could happen. If you’ve got a retirement home, you’ll have a different view,” he said.

TxDOT is expected to hold a public hearing on Loop 9 in the fall; the date is yet to be announced.

Though TTC is essentially gone, “what remains is the challenge created by traffic across our state,” Lippincott said, noting that Texas grows by 1,000 people a day. To that end, TxDOT is still holding public meetings on the 600 mile I-69 project.

Officials ink LBJ toll deal with Cintra


Link to article here.

Does the state really need Spanish money to rebuild LBJ?
By Rodger Jones / Dallas Morning News
September 8, 2009

The answer is heck yes.

News from Austin may come as a provocation to situational toll-road critics, especially those whose blood last boiled because of Spanish money's interest in the SH 121 project that eventually went to NTTA.

TxDOT signed an agreement last week with a consortium headed by the Spanish company Cintra. It will put up money along with the Paris-based Meridiam Infrastructure Fund. The complete list of the LBJ project's partners includes the probable investment by the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.

After completion about six years from now, the new LBJ will be part free, part tolled, with the private developers getting tolling rights. The new roadway will have more free lanes, but the three tolled lanes will be VERY expensive -- like maybe 55 cents a mile to start off.

I don't see how this roadway gets built if not for this kind of exotic arrangement and outside capital.

See if you agree:

The project was tentatively awarded to the Spanish-group in February but now the deal is signed and the consortium lines up financing.

Why that outside money is critical: The local share of the state's hard-pressed construction funds have dwindled to the point that the local TxDOT district couldn't reasonably do the $2 billion LBJ project even over time. And under that scenario, no other new projects could go forward.

Financial background information from a district spokesman, Mark Pettit. [Bracketed comments, like this one, are mine.] :

It is our understanding the Dallas District will only have $171M for FY 2010 for new construction (that excludes 14M ARRA [stimulus] and $266M RTR [redistributed 121] funds). This is mostly due to lower than normal gas tax revenues, federal recisions [broken promises] and prop 14 [state borrowing program] debt.
To the point ... so if everything in the universe remained unchanged for the next 20 years, Dallas will have accrued $3.4B. And if it was all put toward the $2B LBJ project it would still not be enough, because we have to account for inflation and construction cost increases. Extremely conservative inflation estimates of %3 raise the project cost to approx. $3.6B.

Meanwhile nothing else gets built (Pegasus I-30 bridge, Loop 9, SH 183, Trinity, SH 175, I-35E ... basically anything in the seven counties not maintenance related).

Not a good picture. If there's a way to keep building major urban roadways short of inviting private money and giving up toll rights, the model hasn't been proposed. Start with the fact that lawmakers have refused to raise the gas tax.

NTTA has said it's not interested in part-toll roads. NTTA's list includes the Trinity and the Loop 9 super-outer-loop. And make no mistake: NTTA doesn't do these projects without a good bit of tax money. The $2 billion LBJ project, for example, includes about a half-billion in tax money.

Meanwhile, the North Central Texas Council of Governments lists tens of billions of dollars in unfunded but needed road projects.

There two other part-toll roads moving ahead in North Texas, both with Cintra-led outside partners. The others are the DFW Connector (led by Kiewit Texas Construction, Fort Worth, and Zachry Construction, San Antonio), and the North Tarrant Express (a Cintra-led project). I-35E will be part-tolled, but there's no money for it yet.

Where does the financing come if not from abroad? Are critics of toll roads willing to press lawmakers for higher fuel taxes? Some of them say the state should start by ending the raids on the highway fund that's made up of fuel taxes. But those so-called "diversions" amount to less than $1.5 billion every two years, and Dallas gets only a fraction of that.

If it was your choice, would you turn to Cintra or higher gas taxes first?

Man wears monkey mask for red light cameras

Link to article here.

Don't think someone won't try this to avoid paying tolls. too.

Man Dons Mask for Speed-Camera Photos
AOL.com
September 8, 2009

(Sept. 8) - An Arizona man who has been served 37 speeding tickets in the mail is refusing to pay them because he says the pictures captured by the state's photo-enforcement cameras don't show that it's him driving, AZcentral.com reported Tuesday.

"Not one of them there is a picture where you can identify the driver," said Dave Vontesmar, a flight attendant who works at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. "The ball's in their court. I sent back all these ones I got with a copy of my driver's license and said, 'It's not me. I'm not paying them.' "

But police disagree and say they've been watching him closely.

"We watched him four different times put the monkey mask on and put the giraffe-style mask on," Officer Dave Porter told AZcentral.com. "Based on surveillance, we were positive that Vontesmar was the driver."

Still, Vontesmar is confident that he won't have to pay the fines, which could exceed $6,500.

"It's obviously a revenue grab," he said of the new photo-enforcement program. "They're required by law to ID the driver of the vehicle. If they can't identify the driver or the vehicle by the picture, what are they doing to identify the driver?"

Arizona police are having a hard time getting a lot of speeders to pay tickets they receive in the mail. Read more about that on AZcentral.com

2009 AOL LLC. All Rights Reserved.
2009-09-08 22:32:57

Citizens file lawsuit over Virginia toll road abuses

Link to Examiner article here.

You gotta love this group of sharp citizens who have made the exact arguments so many of their fellow Americans have been making (like TURF, the Toll Party tax revolt), regarding these toll road boondoggles. The politicians pass the buck (of raising taxes) to unelected bureaucracies who have no legitimate authority to levy taxes.

Examiner Exclusive: Federal lawsuit challenges funding of Dulles Rail
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
Washington Examiner
08/07/09 3:08 PM EDT

Christopher Walker, owner of commercial property in Reston and president of the Dulles Corridor Users Group, has filed a 131-page federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the validity of the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority’s (MWAA) takeover of the Dulles Rail project.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to force MWAA to return the Dulles Toll Road (DTR) to the Commonwealth of Virginia and to refund some $300 million in tolls it claims have  been illegally collected, as required under Virginia’s Revenue Bond Act. Gov. Tim Kaine handed over the toll road to MWAA on March 28, 2006.

Walker maintains that MWAA has no legal authority to impose tolls on the general public or even to build a construction project outside airport property. He also accuses MWAA of deliberately lying about the official cost of Phase I, which will not reach the airport. MWAA advertised the cost at $2.5 billion; according to the lawsuit, the full funding agreement with the Federal Transit Administration officially lists the price tag at $3.1 billion.

The suit also charges that MWAA inserted “hell or high water” language in its July 21 proposed bond prospectus that assumes unilateral authority to raise tolls as high as it wants: “At no time will [MWAA] subject its exclusive right to establish, charge and collect Tolls and other User Fees for the use of the Dulles Toll Road to the approval or consent of any other individual or entity, government or otherwise.”

This means that MWAA plans to impose the largest tax in Virginia history – to cover 75 percent of the $6 billion total initial construction costs of the Silver Line and another $14 billion in interest over the 40-year life of the project - without the consent of the governed. The lawsuit points out that Section 11 of the Virginia Constitution requires that all tax increases first be approved by the General Assembly.

“The sole reason that MWAA is involved in this project in the first place is that nervous politicians tried to hide the ball from their tax-shy constituents,” the lawsuit claims. “Their way out was to pass the hot potato to an unelected authority... just a scheme to insulate the politicians from the effects of inevitable tax increases resulting from this boondoggle.”

The suit has been assigned to federal Judge Gladys Kessler. We’ll be following it closely.

___________________________________________________________

Link to article here.

Note: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's bill to prevent federally funded highways from being tolled, since it's a double tax to charge taxpayers to use what's already built and paid for.

Dulles Toll Road Faces Lawsuit
Critics Say Backing For Bonds Illegal
Bond Buyer
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
By Audrey Dutton

WASHINGTON - An advocacy group in Virginia is suing federal and state transportation officials over the Dulles Toll Road, arguing that drivers are being illegally charged tolls used to back bonds issued for a Dulles Metrorail project.The 130-page lawsuit was filed last month in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia and Eastern District of Virginia by the Dulles Corridor Users Group against James Bennett, president and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, as well as federal transportation officials and the Virginia Transportation Secretary. It asks for a refund of $200 million of tolls already collected and for the road to be made a free highway.

The complaint was filed three days after the MWAA sold more than $900 million of bonds to fund construction of the new Metrorail line that will transport riders to the Dulles International Airport.

"We don't see at the moment the authority behind the taxing power for the toll road that is the basis for payment on the bonds," said Christopher W. Walker, who founded the civic group. "They've cut corners; they don't have an elected group of people."

The complaint comes in anticipation of a 25-cent toll increase on the road, and as lawmakers in Congress are pushing to ban tolls on federally funded highways, arguing that those tolls amount to double taxation because taxpayers already paid for them.

The Virginia civic group charges that tolling drivers on the Dulles Toll Road is illegal based on state law.

According to the complaint, state law requires that when payments have been made, or set aside, for bonds issued for a project, tolls can no longer be charged - except to pay for maintenance, repairs, operations, improvements, and reconstruction on the projects, or if they are pledged to the transportation trust fund.

In addition, the toll revenues could only be diverted to another project aside from the toll road if approved by the state General Assembly, and that body has taken no action, the lawsuit says. "This pork-fest has gone on too long by parties who have ignored the law in favor of interested parties who want to receive fees," it says.

The group claims that the Dulles corridor is "in danger of being taxed to death," in part "to subsidize the money-losing rail venture" that will add a new Dulles Metrorail line to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority transit rail network.

In addition, the group alleges that 75% of the money for the first phase of the Dulles Metrorail project will unfairly benefit private landowners in Tysons Corner, a suburban area in Fairfax County, Va., that contains a major shopping mall and upscale shopping centers.

The Dulles Toll Road, part of a Virginia state highway, was built in 1984 and was operated until 2006 by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The 16-mile stretch of highway is now operated and financed by the MWAA, and part of its revenues are dedicated to financing the planned Metrorail line.

The MWAA and Virginia DOT have diverted $133 million of surplus toll road funds to pay for rail operations already, the group said. The complaint says that a 2008 Virginia Supreme Court ruling set a precedent that taxes cannot be levied by non-elected officials, and decided that the appropriate remedy is to repay taxpayers.

The lawsuit - which points to a YouTube.com rap music video about Arlington, Va., as a parody of smart growth in the corridor area - also claims that the Metrorail line is a poor investment driven by political interests.

The MWAA declined to say when it would file any court action in relation to the lawsuit. The deadline is Oct. 15, according to Walker.

"We are in the process of reviewing the complaint, and the airports authority will respond appropriately in court," said MWAA spokesman Rob Yingling.

The legal battle against the Dulles Toll Road comes as lawmakers are mulling whether to ban states, private parties, and others from adding tolls on existing untolled federal highways, bridges, or tunnels that have been constructed with federal funding.

A bill introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex., in May would prohibit such tolls nationally. Hutchison already successfully banned the tolling of existing federally funded highways in Texas by adding a provision to a fiscal 2008 appropriations bill that was enacted. That prohibition expires at the end of this month.

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Schwarzenegger ousts appointee for objecting to PPP toll road

Link to article here.

These Republican Governors have one playbook...rip-off the taxpayers to benefit their cronies. Mitch Daniels (Indiana), Arnold Schwarzenegger (California), and Rick Perry (Texas) are the three muskateers of taxpayer abuse, all the while Perry is running a re-election campaign contrasting Texas to financially bankrupt California. Perry conveniently overlooks his own similarities to Schwarzenegger in pushing risky public private partnership (PPP) toll road schemes that sell-off public highways to foreign toll operators. Throw in Pennsylvania's Democrat Governor, Ed Rendell, and it demonstrates PPPs and toll roads provide a bi-partisan, equal opportunity fleecing.

Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to oust transportation commission appointee
The governor withdrew his reappointment after the businessman objected to the administration's plan for a public-private partnership for freeway construction. But state senators saved his post.
By Patrick McGreevy and Evan Halper
September 2, 2009
Los Angeles Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week tried to yank one of his appointees from a state board after the man balked at an administration-backed proposal he considered too risky for taxpayers. But lawmakers, in an end run, kept the San Francisco businessman on the panel.

The appointee to the California Transportation Commission, James Ghielmetti, objected to an administration plan to accelerate the expansion of private companies' role in freeway construction. He advocated giving regulators more time to assess the potential effects of such a move.

Schwarzenegger, who has aggressively pushed public-private partnerships, then withdrew Ghielmetti's reappointment to the commission.

But Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) agreed with Ghielmetti. Within hours, he and other senators voted Ghielmetti back onto the panel as their own appointee. In an interview, Ghielmetti said the governor's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, was behind the withdrawal.

"She saw this as a chance to get rid of me," Ghielmetti said.


Ghielmetti said Kennedy accused him of conspiring with Democrats in the Legislature to change the administration's plan, something he denies.

Administration officials declined to discuss Ghielmetti's interactions with Kennedy. "The governor is looking for strong advocates for public-private partnerships to get jobs online as quickly as possible," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear.

He said the administration looks forward to appointing "individuals who share the governor's commitment to rebuilding the state's infrastructure and creating jobs."

The owner and chief executive officer of Signature Properties, a Northern California land development and home-building firm, Ghielmetti said the guidelines for public-private partnerships should include detailed provisions for every possibility, including terms for repayment of money from private firms in the event of default, lease terms and other protections.

He complained that Kennedy and Dale Bonner, secretary of the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, pressured him to adopt a more "loosey-goosey" approach even though the commission is independent from the administration.

"I felt we were being told what the guidelines should be," he said. "It's inappropriate."

Ghielmetti is the latest Schwarzenegger appointee to be jettisoned after straying from the administration's agenda. Last year, the governor dropped his brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, and fellow action hero Clint Eastwood from the state parks panel after their opposition helped derail plans for a toll road through San Onofre State Beach in San Diego County. Schwarzenegger supported the project.

In 2007, the chairman of the state Air Resources Board, Robert F. Sawyer, said he was fired by Schwarzenegger for pushing for anti-pollution measures beyond what the governor's office wanted. Also in 2007, R. Judd Hanna quit the Fish and Game Commission at the administration's request after Republican lawmakers urged his ouster because he had sought to ban lead bullets in condor territory.

TxDOT leaves 281, 1604 out of its “most congested” list


Link to story here.

Here's more proof that TxDOT politicizes transportation policy. It notably leaves 281 north of 1604 and 1604 at Braun Rd. off its list of the top 100 most congested roads in Texas. Anyone with a pulse knows 281 and 1604 are two of the the most congested areas in San Antonio. Considering TxDOT's own traffic assessments of 281 and 1604 have been at the worst level of congestion, traffic level F (the worst rating), for years, this "Top 100 Most Congested Roads" list is suspect at best.

It also shows that just as a political poll can get the results the authors want it to, TxDOT's data can yield the results it seeks to push it's agenda. Ironically, if 281 and 1604 aren't measuring on its most congested list, and toll roads require congestion to work, TxDOT may have inadvertently made our case against toll roads!

TX-DoT Releases List Of State's Most Congested Roadways
By Christian Bove
KTSA Newsradio 550
September 2, 2009

The Texas Department of Transportation has released a list of the most congested roadway segments in the state, and you may be surprised by which local segment didn't make the list.

TX-DoT used methodology developed by the Texas Transportation Institute to identify the 100 most congested roadway segments on the state highway system.

"Total in Bexar County there are eight roadway segments that were identified as being among the top one-hundred most congested in the state," said TX-DoT Spokesperson Karen Amacker.

A segment of I-35 from Highway 281 to Highway 90 topped the list for Bexar County as the tenth most congested segment in the state.

One local segment which didn't appear anywhere on the top 100 list is Highway 281 outside Loop 1604.

"I understand when you're frustrated and sitting in your car, you think that is the most congested road anywhere. I've been there, but sometimes other places seem to have it worse." said Amacker.

You can find the entire list on TX-DoT's website.

Sale of Texas roads to foreign entities dies

In one of the best developments Texas taxpayers have had all year, the authority to enter into contracts that sell-off Texas freeways to foreign corporations, called Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDAs or PPPs), expired August 31. Spoiling the good news is the fact that about a dozen CDAs were removed from the moratorium placed on CDAs in 2007, so many are at risk of being signed despite the grassroots victory that KILLED CDAs during Rick Perry's special session of the Texas Legislature in July.

CDAs would charge Texans extremely high tolls to access public roads. The published figures for toll rates on two such deals in Dallas-Ft.Worth are 75 cents PER MILE, totaling $13 daily or over $3,000 a year in new taxes to get to work. One of the most insidious provisions include non-compete clauses that forbid the state from expanding or building roads within a certain mile radius of the toll road as a means to guarantee congestion on the free routes. CDAs also guarantee the private toll operator profit (one proposed amendment by Senator Robert Nichols tried to guarantee they'd never lose money), and they authorize toll hikes for more than 50 years.

In other words, CDAs equal government-sanctioned monopolies and wreak of sweetheart deals and cronyism. The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, held up several contracts during the 81st legislative session, only to move them along since. Perry fondly refers to CDAs a "innovative financing," but they're more aptly called taxpayer rip-offs.

CDAs are also the mechanism through which the Trans Texas Corridor will be built. Two such contracts have been signed, and a third has been awarded but still not signed. In March of 2005, Perry inked a deal with Cintra for the development rights to the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35, a super-sized toll road projected to be 1,200 feet wide, taking 146 acres of private farm and ranch land per mile of corridor for auto and truck lanes, commuter rail and freight rail lanes, telecommunications, and more. It's been dubbed the biggest land grab and eminent domain project in U.S. history.

In March of 2008, Cintra snagged the CDA to build SH 130 segments 5 & 6, which is part of TTC-35. Cintra is a consistent player vying for many other Texas toll roads. ACS of Spain was awarded the development rights for TTC-69, but the CDA has yet to be signed. In fact last week, in spite of claims by Perry and lawmakers that the Trans Texas Corridor is "dead," Perry-appointed Transportation Commissioner Ned Holmes just asked TxDOT to accelerate the TTC-69 CDA through the Attorney General's office in order to ink the deal as quickly as possible.

Attorney General Abbott has a fiduciary duty to Texas taxpayers to hold-up these remaining CDA contracts indefinitely. Perry and pro-toll lawmakers have promised to re-authorize CDAs in the next legislative session. It's Texans' job to ensure that NEVER happens.

Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 still alive and well

Link to article here.

Looks like Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor is still alive and well to me...(see end of article). Also, looks like TxDOT can get FREEWAY improvements paid for when they set their minds to it. Note the many pots of money...

I-35 Strike Force Formation Discussed
August 31, 2009
Hillsboro Reporter

Staying on top of Interstate 35 construction projects through Central Texas is expected to be the major goal of a strike force that is being proposed by state-elected officials.

Representatives Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, and Charles (Doc) Anderson, R-Waco, were in Hillsboro recently to meet with local business leaders and elected officials at the Hillsboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

While other transportation corridors have been discussed, the interstate was identified as the “absolute common corridor” for commerce across Texas.

Those in attendance learned the significance of Prop. 12, Prop. 14 and TIGER grants, when it comes to highway funding.

Among the Texas Department of Transportation officials on hand were John A. Barton, assistant executive director in charge of engineering operations; Coby Chase, director of the government and public-affairs division; Richard Skopik, Waco District engineer; and Tony Moran, area engineer.


According to Barton, an ongoing cooperative effort should accelerate the development of the Interstate 35 corridor.
The immediate goal is to have the interstate at least six lanes from San Antonio to the east-west split north of Hillsboro, and then to Dallas and Fort Worth.

That has been accomplished with the exception of TxDOT’s Waco District, which stretches from the Williamson County line in the south to the northern boundaries of Hill County.
But, Barton explained that could change in the coming years with the recent commitment of the Texas Transportation Commission (TTC).

The widening project from farm roads 310 to 1304 south of Hillsboro has now been funded and is scheduled to be let for bids in March of next year.

Money for the project was allocated from Proposition 14 or Prop. 14 bonds that were funded during the July special session of the Legislature.

The proposed safety rest areas south of Hillsboro are not expected to be bid until toward the end of the widening project to assure service roads and ramps are in place, Barton said.

Where the exit ramps at Farm Road 1304 will be located has yet to be settled.

A rider that left the ramps unchanged was attached to the transportation bill, but it failed to be passed during the regular session.

The configuration approved by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) would move the southbound exit back to the north near the proposed rest area.

Skopik said that his staff is looking at plans that would move the ramp about 1,000 feet rather than the proposed 2,000 to 3,000 feet to the north.

“We have to educate the FHWA and get them to agree to the decision since it was approved in a public setting,” the district engineer said.

Voters approved $5 billion in general-revenue transportation bonds in 2007, but due to the economic downturn, only $2 billion were funded during the special session.

According to Representative Pitts, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, the state couldn’t afford the payments on the full $5 billion.

Of the $2 billion, half was placed in TxDOT’s Infrastructure Bank, which provides funds for local entities to borrow against for transportation-related projects.

The other $1 billion was made available to the TTC for projects of their choice.

Federal stimulus money has been allocated to reconstruct I-35 from just south of Salado into Temple. That work will be let in May.

The other state-funding source for projects includes Prop 12, which is known as the Texas Mobility Fund, which was created by voters in 2003.

According to Skopik, those bonds must be repaid with gas-tax or vehicle-registration revenue rather than general-fund revenue.

“But we’re about to use up the authorized spending from Prop 12,” the district engineer added. “It is projected by 2011 or 2012 TxDOT will have fully used that funding.”

TIGER is the latest funding acronym to surface in transportation circles.

Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants are the last subset of the federal-stimulus money, Skopik explained.

It makes $1.5 billion in competitive grants available nationwide for highway, rail and ports.
The amount each state can receive is $300 million, according to Chase.

“Interstate 35 is main street Texas, and there will be agonizing decisions on where the money will be spent.

“We will be working with our friends (Texas delegation) in Washington to make sure we get a fair shake,” Chase added.

The competitive grant process has a September 15 deadline, and the Waco District is seeking money to reconstruct the interstate from Bellmead to just south of West.

If that project is funded, it would just leave a stretch from south of West to north of Abbott and between Waco and Temple to be widened to six lanes.

A second commitment of Prop. 14 funds from the TTC in January puts the engineering of those remaining sections on the front burner.

According to Barton, the commission has provided the funds to have all sections in the Waco District and up I-35E ready when right-of-way and construction funds become available.
Skopik and his staff have until the end of 2011 to complete the engineering work.

A similar deadline has been given to the Dallas District office for I-35E from the Hill County line north to Dallas.
The roadway is currently six lanes from Dallas south to near Waxahachie.

The money has yet to be allocated for engineering on Interstate 35W to Fort Worth because “the demand is not quite there,” Barton said.

Hillsboro Mayor John Erwin, who serves on TxDOT’s I-35 segment committee, questioned what happens after the interstate is expanded to six lanes.

Barton said that he was “optimistic” that the end is near on getting the funding to widen the interstate to six lanes.

“We don’t need to wait, we need to talk today about what we will do after I-35 is expanded as much as possible,” the assistant executive director pointed out.

Chase pointed out, from a statewide perspective, widening I-35 to six lanes only keeps up with the congestion, it doesn’t relieve it.

Mayor Erwin said that he thought high-speed rail needed to be a major part of the solution.

Hillsboro has remained active in the Texas High-Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation, which has the Texas T-Bone plan to run high-speed rail from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Antonio and “T” off at Killeen to go to Houston.

The results of an environmental impact study on the old Trans-Texas Corridor that passed through eastern Hill County remains in the pipeline.

A ruling on the study by the FHWA is expected by the end of the year.

Barton said that TxDOT had to follow through with the process, but there has been no decision on what to do with the study if it is approved.

The corridor system proposed by Governor Rick Perry fell by the wayside following political pressure from rural Texas residents.

Two cities to challenge San Antonio toll roads

Link to article here.

You may remember we've been working with American Stewards of Liberty (formerly Stewards of the Range) on forming these subregional planning commissions all over the state, called 391 commissions. We refer to them as 391 commissions because that's where the authority to form them comes from in the local government code. It forces federal, state, and local agencies to meet their legal requirement to "coordinate" with local governments. For instance, if one of these cities or counties says in its regional plan that no toll road can come through its jurisdiction (or in an area that impacts its residents), then these agencies (RMA/TxDOT) basically can't do it.

Up until now, they've all been in rural cities and counties in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor (using it as a means to stop the TTC). Well, weeks ago, after two long years of work, the cities of Hollywood Park and Hill Country Village formed one. It is the first one formed in an urban area. Hollywood Park is right at 281/1604 (ideal to stop the tolling of both highways) and Hill Country Village is just south of Hollywood Park (on the west side of 281), still in the project area.

Government to government challenges are FAR stronger than citizens to their government. We see what the government thinks about citizens...we're just a loud "minority" or some other dismissive attitude. But they cannot ignore these two cities. Since they wouldn't listen to us or two lawsuits, we changed our government so we could challenge them from within...

Cities partner to address 281/1604 together
By Christine Stanley
August 27, 2009
North Central News

Hill Country Village is joining forces with Hollywood Park to form a sub-regional planning commission that would tackle the U.S. 281/Loop 1604 interchange revamp — and any other state or federal project that may affect the two cities.
Hollywood Park City Councilman Bob Sartor got the green light from his colleagues to start work on the commission last month. Hill Country Village council members approved the move Aug. 20.

State and federal law allows for at least two governing agencies — at the city or county level, or both — to form a sub-regional planning commission to promote the coordinated development of a particular region.

Such a commission can do that in a number of ways, including recommendations to higher governmental authorities on how to proceed with a particular project.


In this case, the sub-regional planning commission would focus on Alamo Regional Mobility Authority's proposed $140 million plan for the 281/1604 interchange.

ARMA plans to build four elevated “direct connectors” between the two highways that would connect travelers on 281 north to the east and west sides of 1604, and two more connectors would take travelers from both sides of the loop to 281 south.

Construction could begin as early as next year.

ARMA is reaching out to Hollywood Park, Hill Country Village and surrounding cities through its own citizen advisory groups and public meetings, but Sartor reminded Hollywood Park residents last month that the agency has no legal obligation to meet with any community.

By law, ARMA would have to meet with the sub-regional planning commission and take any of its recommendations into consideration before making a final decision on the connector project.

Hollywood Park council members have expressed concern about negative impacts to their constituents during and after construction.

Hill Country Village Mayor Kirk Francis said he is worried about ARMA's true intentions. He reminded his colleagues that ARMA was originally created by the state Legislature as a tolling authority.

“So I'm kind of curious why ARMA is hosting all these meetings that have to do with what's supposed to be a TxDOT project,” Francis said Aug. 20.

ARMA has stressed on its Web site and in recent public meetings that the 281/1604 interchange will not be tolled.

Francis said the two cities will work out bylaws for the sub-regional planning commission during the next few weeks. It appears the commission will include Francis and Hollywood Park Mayor Richard McIlveen, a council member from each city and a resident designee appointed by each mayor.

“Right now, (ARMA) can tell us after the fact, they can invite us to meetings — that's their form of communication,” Francis said.

He said the panel would also bring both cities closer in addressing health and safety issues of mutual interest.

Hill Country Village council members also approved a contract with Acadian Ambulance Service Aug. 20.

Francis was the tiebreaker in a vote to sever ties with San Antonio EMS last month. He broke a tie between council members Gabriel Durand-Hollis and Margaret Mayberry, who were in favor of sticking with San Antonio EMS, and Register and Elizabeth Worley, who wanted to switch to Acadian.

The ambulance provider would incorporate Hill Country Village into its coverage area for free, saving the city about $35,000 each year.

RMA lies about size of 281 toll road

The RMA purposely misleads the public in this article. Read what happened when we shined the light on these falsehoods here. See the proof that shows the 281 toll road is twice the footprint of the FREEway plan at www.281OverpassesNow.com.

Web Posted: 08/23/2009

Agency ‘aggressive’ on U.S. 281 environmental review

By Josh Baugh - Express-News

By 2012, the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority is hoping to have wrapped up the most extensive environmental review ever conducted on U.S. 281, the prerequisite to any long-term relief on the region's most gridlocked stretch of highway.

The results of the federal “environmental impact statement,” or EIS, will dictate if and possibly how the U.S. 281 corridor from Loop 1604 to the Comal County line will be improved. No capacity can be added to U.S. 281 without first completing the EIS. It's typically a five-year process, but the RMA hopes to complete it in three years.

“That is the bestthe best-case scenario in any circumstance,” said Terry Brechtel, executive director of the RMA. “We have decided to be aggressive and do some things to try to get this through. A lot of people and a lot of resources are trying to get it done.”

Improving U.S. 281 has been a controversial issue here for years because of the potential for toll roads, and it likely will continue to be as the RMA moves forward on its EIS.

Toll critic Terri Hall, the agency's most outspoken opponent, has suggested that the cumbersome environmental review isn't necessary — at least not anymore. Hall was part of a 2008 lawsuit that demanded that an EIS be conducted before any improvements were made to U.S. 281.

Her aim is to take toll roads out of the mix.

The EIS will evaluate, among other things, potential environmental, social and economic impacts that the highway's expansion could have on the corridor. The study is supposed to take in a lot of public input.

It's the type of study that toll opponents and environmental activists sought in a 2008 lawsuit they filed against the Federal Highway Administration, the RMA and the Texas Department of Transportation. Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom sought an injunction blocking tolled highway expansion until an EIS was prepared in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

The groups wanted an EIS conducted jointly on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. But the RMA is conducting an EIS separately for each highway. AGUA President Enrique Valdivia said that in itself taints the EIS process because it signifies the RMA putting its mark on the process before any outcome is reached.

Clearance yanked

In 2007, the Federal Highway Administration had given environmental clearance to the project based on a lower-level study — an environmental assessment — but the federal agency pulled the OK in 2008 after TxDOT announced that it had discovered irregularities in how its San Antonio district had procured scientific services.

The highway administration then sent a letter to the RMA requiring that an EIS be prepared for any future federal transportation project in the U.S. 281 corridor.

Environmentalists and toll opponents point to their lawsuit as a victory in stopping the project.

But Hall — TURF's founder and director, and a plaintiff in the 2008 lawsuit — says the cumbersome EIS process could be avoided if plans to toll the highway were jettisoned.

RMA officials say it's clear that there's no way around conducting an EIS before adding capacity to U.S. 281. The Federal Highway Administration has said as much in a letter requiring that the study be done before any federal money is spent on U.S. 281. But Hall contends that the yanked environmental clearance only applies to the plan to build toll roads. Based on Hall's reading of the National Environmental Policy Act, a non-tolled plan could undergo an “environmental assessment,” or EA, which is a lower-level study.

“We would argue that if you look at NEPA, you could actually do an expedited EA, meaning even faster than a normal EA, which is pretty quick compared to an EIS. And one of the things it says there in NEPA is that you don't have to have public hearings, even. That's a very long process.”

Hall advocates for TxDOT's “original plan,” which called for two additional main lanes, bringing the total on U.S. 281 to six, along with four lanes of frontage roads. All the lanes were to be built as non-tolled.

But Leroy Alloway, the RMA's director of community relations, says the footprint has never changed from the “original plan.”

“If you look at the plan she's talking about, which is overpasses and frontage roads, and you look at the 2005 plan, they're identical,” he said. “You look at the 2007 plan, it's still the same footprint. You're still building the exact same thing. The only difference was the expressway lanes would have been tolled. The frontage roads would have stayed as frontage roads. ... That footprint didn't change.”

That's why the EIS should move forward, he said.

Solution sought

Now nobody knows what will be built. That's where the public comes in.

On Thursday, the RMA will hold the first of several public meetings to gather input on how to deal with gridlock in the U.S. 281 corridor. In technical terms, the RMA will determine “need and purpose” that will help guide the outcome of the study — what the “preferred alternative” could be.

Maybe it's the “original plan,” or the six tolled lanes that currently appear in the Metropolitan Planning Organization's fiscally restrained Transportation Improvement Plan. Maybe it's passenger rail, bus rapid transit or high-occupancy-vehicle lanes.

Throughout the process, a residents advisory group — which includes seats for AGUA and both of Hall's groups, TURF and the San Antonio Toll Party — will meet and offer input for the EIS.

For Hall, though, it's all for naught.

“At the end of the day, we want to get the overpass and original expansion plan for U.S. 281 funded and fixed and move forward with an expedited EA, and this whole EIS thing will be moot,” she said. That is, without toll roads on the drawing board.

But RMA officials say the U.S. 281 corridor is now a “blank slate” and that the EIS will determine the best way to address congestion there. There are a couple caveats: The preferred plan doesn't have to be the most environmentally friendly, and funding sources have to be identified.

The RMA's Brechtel says tolls are on the table and will remain so until another funding source becomes available. There's not enough money from the state or federal governments to build the estimated $450 million project.

Hall said TURF would push in the 2011 Legislature for an indexed gas tax increase that would cover the cost of constructing freeways.

There are other options, Brechtel says, adding that San Antonio and Bexar County could decide to create a public improvement district or use property taxes to fund the project. More stimulus money could become available. Or a local-option sales tax — shot down in the Legislature this year — could take the place of tolls.

“Federal law says to keep a project going through an environmental study process, you have to have a reasonable revenue source, and today that reasonable revenue source is tolls,” Brechtel said. “I've been explaining that to folks on the MPO so they understand how this works.”

Brechtel wouldn't speculate on the possibility of shifting trends at the MPO, the local agency that oversees more than $200 million of federal transportation dollars. Its new chairman, County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, is a toll opponent and ally of Terri Hall.

Hall said she thinks the MPO could vote to rescind its approval of tolls, effectively deflating the RMA. If Brechtel's concerned about that, she wouldn't say.

A toll-road vote isn't on Monday's MPO agenda, she said, so she's not worried about it “this month.”

Divide & Conquer: the 281 nightmare continues

First decode the jargon:

ARMA = Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA), a misleading name for tolling authority, whenever you hear "mobility" it's code for tolling

MPO = Metropolitan Planning Organization is the local transportation planning board

NEPA = National Environmental Policy Act, federal law that guides environmental review for highway projects

___________________________________________________________________

The RMA can't seem to tell the truth. At yesterday's MPO meeting, Executive Director, Terry Brechtel, couldn't even tell the Board how many toll lanes the agency is planning to build on 281. She's either incompetent or intentionally hiding the truth. I believe it's the later.

The point of the discussion was to get to the bottom of what happened to the $100 million in gas taxes dedicated to fix 281 (some became available in since 2003, the rest by 2006, documents showed it was still there through 2007) and how to move forward with an immediate solution. For the scoop on how a non-toll plan for overpasses and expansion on 281 was promised in public hearings in 2001 and funded with gas taxes since 2003, go to: www.281OverpassesNow.com.



Every project needs environmental clearance and funding. Sufficient funding, despite TxDOT's best attempts at hiding and spending every cent available to fix 281, is still available. But yesterday, Clay Smith of TxDOT NEVER answered Rep. David Leibowitz' direct question asking where the $100 million in gas taxes went. Brechtel also tried to claim the cost difference between the 20-lane toll road and 10-lane freeway plan was a mere $20 million.



TxDOT nor the RMA ever has to answer for its defiance, not as long as we have Rick Perry as governor and a sheepish legislature that's too afraid to fix the big bad wolf. Guys like Commissioner Tommy Adkisson (new Chair of the MPO) and Rep. Leibowitz are in short supply in Austin. However, Bexar County Commissioners appoint the RMA Board and have floated the idea of dissolving it. Let's insist they do.

The other hurdle in getting 281 fixed becomes the environmental clearance. The clearance for the toll road was pulled October 1, 2008. TxDOT royally botched the 281 toll road environmental study that was found to be rigged and fraudulent for which one employee was fired, two others "re-assigned," and caused TxDOT to be banned from doing the new study (totally unprecedented).

The clearance was pulled for the toll road only. Federal law, NEPA, provides for a different course of action to advance in place of the toll road, particularly one that's different in size, scope, and impacts. The original non-toll plan for 281 fits the bill, and yesterday we laid out how to get environmental clearance expedited for 281. It was abundantly obvious that TxDOT and the RMA continue to dismiss ANY other solution other than converting our existing FREEway into a tollway. Every non-toll scenario is shot down.

Brechtel and sidekick Leroy Alloway blatantly misled the public in Sunday's Express-News article stating that the footprint for the freeway plan and the toll road are identical when the RMA's own web site (see inset photos) and even past Express-News reports show otherwise. The original freeway fix is 10 lanes and the toll road is up to 20 lanes wide. We don't need a mega toll road to fix 281, we need overpasses and access roads.



The toll road has detrimental impacts that the non-toll plan does not. There are significant negative economic impacts such as $2,000-$3,000 a year in new toll taxes and a higher cost of goods, indirect effects such as traffic diverting to neighborhood streets, environmental impacts due to continuous frontage roads that induce overdevelopment of the aquifer and a larger footprint creating greater impervious cover.

In addition, the criteria to determine what level of study is needed states controversy as a reason to do a full environmental impact statement. The toll roads are extremely controversial. The FHWA already required the RMA to do a full impact statement for the <a href="http://satollparty.com/post/?p=630">Bandera toll road</a> for that reason.

Public meetings this week:
"Open House" means silence opposition
 The RMA is hosting two public hearings this week, one tonight on the 281/1604 interchange at Harvest Fellowship off 1604 (just west of 281) at 5:30 PM, and a 281 Scoping Meeting Thursday at St. Mark's Church off Thousand Oaks at 5:30 PM. The Open House techniques being utilized by the RMA for its public hearings do not comport with federal law, NEPA.

An open house format does not allow the public a chance to hear a formal presentation all at one time, with identical project information. The public has to read handouts, look at posters and project drawings spread around the room, and ask one-on-one questions of people from ARMA and the consulting firms in order to gain any understanding of the project. There is no official record of the questions and answers from the comments/concerns expressed in such one-on-ones. For a public hearing, there is a comment and response report where you can read the agency's official response, but not with an open house.

TxDOT in recent years has begun to use the open house so that those opposed to a project don't get to express their opposition during an open comment period at the end of a meeting where the audience hears these concerns and sometimes applauds and may cause some people to change their minds about a project. The open house format is a divide and conquer technique designed to silence those who may oppose the agency's preferred alternative, which is always toll roads.

At the RMA's open house for the 281 superstreet, attendees were not even made aware that in order to have their comments appear on the official record, they had to go submit them to the stenographer. We had many folks tell us they didn't even know a stenographer was present.

The open house format is not a proper format for public hearings and it must be stopped or it can and will be challenged.

Here's what you can do...

1. Head straight to the stenographer to get your comments on the official record.
2. Express your concerns with the Open House format where dissemination of info is not uniform and citizens cannot benefit from hearing other attendees thoughts about potential impacts.
3. Specifically for the interchange meeting, ask to see the document you're supposed to be commenting on. (they're holding a public meeting for comments on a document we believe is not even completed yet, which is cart before the horse and another violation)

Texas Bank seized by Spanish firm with ties to Cintra, China


Link to article here.

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria purchased Laredo National Bank in 2005, Compass Bank in 2007, and now Guaranty Bank in 2009. They've also partnered with China on a deal in 2006. Here's the kicker, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria is a financial advisor to the parent company that owns a 100% stake in Cintra, known as Grupo Ferrovial. Cintra owns the development rights to the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project.

Seized Texas Bank Sold to Spanish Firm
Guaranty Deal Shows FDIC's Willingness to Broaden Search for Buyers

By Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 22, 2009

The federal government is casting more broadly as it seeks buyers for a growing number of failed banks, including entertaining bids from foreign firms and seeking to attract new investors to the industry by easing restrictions.

The results were on display Friday, as regulators seized Guaranty Bank of Texas and immediately sold its branches, deposits and most of its assets to Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

The failure of Guaranty, with $13 billion in loans and other assets, was the 10th-largest in U.S. history and the fourth-largest since the financial crisis began last year.

Regulators have sharply increased the pace of seizures this summer after months in which they left many unraveling firms untouched. The resulting spike in failures appears at odds with other signs that the economy is starting to mend, but analysts say the failures actually are an important step toward recovery. The seizure of a bank is in many ways the end of a problem, as the federal government absorbs the losses before selling the healthy parts to a new owner, setting the stage for renewed lending.


The greatest threat to that process is the dwindling supply of buyers. Guaranty is the 106th bank to fail since the beginning of 2008, and some healthy banks have sated their appetites for acquisitions. Regulators liquidated a Nevada bank last week after failing to find a buyer.

"The more institutions they are able to sell, the more market demand is met," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics.

Petrou said the government is moving too slowly to seize troubled institutions, allowing problems to fester and increasing the eventual cleanup costs. That adds urgency to the search for more buyers.

Casting a Bigger Net

The sale of Guaranty to BBVA is the first to a foreign buyer during this crisis. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which sells failed banks, also is considering rules that would make it easier for private investors to participate in the bidding, which is generally restricted to healthy banks. The agency already sold BankUnited of Florida to private investors in May.

Proposed rules issued in July were widely panned by potential investors as overly restrictive, but the FDIC's board is expected to pass a less onerous version when it meets Wednesday. The agency is juggling its need for bidders against a concern that investors will use acquisitions as personal piggy banks. The original proposal required buyers to hold stakes for at least three years and to maintain significantly larger cushions against unexpected losses than the prevailing standard. The rules also strictly limit the use of acquired banks as a funding source for other investments.

The FDIC's board may also reduce the size of the required capital cushion, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal is not final.

Guaranty Bank, based in Austin, has its roots in the nation's previous banking crisis, the savings-and-loan failures of the late 1980s. The company was created from the pieces of several troubled Texas savings and loans, and then later expanded into California.

Guaranty's troubles stemmed mostly from its mortgage lending business. The bank made billions of dollars in high-risk mortgage loans in booming markets such as California and Florida, and it invested billions more in loans made by other companies. Spiraling losses ate through the company's capital cushion, leading it to issue a highly unusual public prediction earlier this month that it would be seized by regulators.

The failure of Guaranty is another black mark against the Office of Thrift Supervision, the federal agency that regulates banks specialized in mortgage lending. Most of the largest firms to fail during the current crisis were regulated by the OTS, including Washington Mutual, IndyMac Bancorp and now Guaranty. As with the other OTS failures, Guaranty's troubles derived in large part from the sale of "option ARM" mortgages, adjustable-rate loans that were specifically structured to allow people to borrow more money than they could afford.

Option ARM loans made up about one-third of Guaranty's portfolio of mortgage loans, according to the company's financial disclosures.

Financial analysts considered it only a matter of time until a foreign bank would prevail in the bidding for a failed U.S. bank. Several foreign banks have large footholds in the United States, including HSBC, Toronto-Dominion and the Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns Citizens Bank. Toronto-Dominion has made bids for failed banks through its U.S. subsidiary, TD Bank, but analysts said many foreign banks have been preoccupied healing their own wounds.

BBVA and its major Spanish rival, Banco Santander, are notable exceptions. Spain's unusually stringent banking regulations kept both banks relatively healthy, and they have emerged from the crisis looking to expand. Santander bought struggling Sovereign Bank last fall.

BBVA expanded its U.S. presence with its $9.6 billion purchase of Compass Bancshares in 2007, giving the company almost 600 branches from Alabama to New Mexico. The Guaranty deal gives the company more than 150 additional branches split between Texas and California.

The company also owns the largest bank in Mexico, Bancomer.

3 Other Bank Seizures

Regulators seized three other banks Friday night, including Ebank and First Coweta Bank of Georgia, and CapitalSouth Bank of Alabama. The failures comes one week after regulators seized Colonial Bank of Alabama in the largest failure of 2009.

When a bank fails, the FDIC repays depositors to the extent that the bank's own coffers have been depleted. The money comes from a tax on the banking industry, not the general public, although the FDIC can borrow money from the Treasury Department if the need arises. The rising number of failures have drained the FDIC's insurance fund. About $13 billion remained at the end of March, but the agency estimates it will spend $5.8 billion on the failures of Colonial and Guaranty alone.

The FDIC already has increased the assessments on banks significantly. The agency plans to collect $17.6 billion from banks this year, which it estimates is the equivalent of a 5 percent tax on industry profits. That is more than five times the amount collected in 2008.

The agency already has laid the groundwork for an additional special collection before the end of the year.

Hank Gilbert running for Governor

Link to article here.

Hank has served on the Board of TURF for several years and has fought alongside us to STOP Rick Perry's Trans Texas Corridor, the sale of TX roads to Spain (CDAs), and the proliferation of toll roads. He is President of the Piney Woods Subregional Planning Commission formed to stop the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-69 project, and Hank was instrumental in KILLING CDAs and protecting pension funds during the special session in July.

Gilbert announces Democratic bid for governor
By R.G. RATCLIFFE AUSTIN BUREAU
Aug. 26, 2009, 9:53PM
 
 photo
AUSTIN — The second highest vote-getting Democrat from the 2006 elections, agriculture commissioner nominee Hank Gilbert, said Wednesday he plans to join the fight for his party's gubernatorial nomination.

Gilbert, 49, a Tyler-area rancher, received 42 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Todd Staples for agriculture commissioner.

In the current governor's race, Gilbert said he can bridge the gap between Democrats and moderate Republicans who are “disgusted” with incumbent Rick Perry's service. Gilbert said he does not believe U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison can defeat Perry in the GOP primary.

Gilbert's entry into the race became another potential stumbling block for Fort Worth businessman Tom Schieffer, who received endorsements Wednesday from some of the top state House Democratic leaders.

They included Reps. Garnet Coleman and Jessica Farrar of Houston, Jim Dunnam of Waco, and Pete Gallego of Alpine. The group said Schieffer will be able to govern the state by bringing Democrats and Republicans together.

Schieffer has been struggling to win over hard-core Democrats because he was business partners with former President George W. Bush and served in his administration as ambassador to Japan and Australia, where he had to defend the policy of indefinite detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Former party railroad commission nominee Mark Thompson also is in the race, and humorist Kinky Friedman is expected to join the fray.

Schieffer said he had hoped that Gilbert would run for agriculture commissioner again on a ticket with him.

“Ten days ago, Hank Gilbert talked to me about being part of the team and running the ag race. His exact words to me were: ‘You need to cover me in the urban areas, and I'll cover your back in the rural areas,' ” Schieffer said.

Gilbert said he had told Schieffer that at a Democratic summit in Tyler, but he said he changed his mind and decided to run for governor after listening to Schieffer speak.

“The man is very intelligent,” Gilbert said. “But he just didn't inspire me. I was looking for that spark.”

RMA open house on 281/1604 interchange a farce


Link to article here.

See why the "open house" format is an affront to federal requirements for public involvement here.

Web Posted: 08/26/2009 12:00 CDT

Study on highway project disputed

By Josh Baugh - Express-News

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority on Tuesday held its lone public meeting for plans to build four non-tolled direct connectors between U.S. 281 and Loop 1604 — a plan that's expected to ease congestion in one of the city's worst intersections.

But the RMA's efforts to quickly move through a low-level environmental review came under fire from critics who've raised concerns about everything from environmental impact to the method in which the meeting was conducted.

The RMA will use federal stimulus money to pay for the $140 million project that will connect northbound U.S. 281 with eastbound and westbound Loop 1604 and connect eastbound and westbound 1604 to southbound 281. The northern side of the project can't be built, RMA officials said, because the agency doesn't have environmental clearance for work north of the loop.

Enrique Valdivia, president of Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, said his group advocates a more holistic approach. AGUA believes that the environmental review ought to include the Loop 1604 and U.S. 281 corridors as well.

“What we've been arguing all along is that any long-term solution needs to take in the entire area — not a piecemeal approach,” he said.

The RMA is conducting three separate environmental reviews on the two highways and the direct-connector project.

Valdivia said he's concerned that constructing the direct connectors will predetermine the scope and plan of expanding Loop 1604 and U.S. 281.

His group, a co-plaintiff with Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, hasn't ruled out reopening a federal lawsuit to ensure that the proper level of environmental review is done.

Stacey Benningfield, a consultant handling the RMA's environmental review, said the level of review isn't up to the RMA. Rather, it's decided by the Federal Highway Administration. That agency has directed the RMA to do the lowest level of environmental review — a categorical exclusion — for the interchange project, Benningfield said.

Agency officials based that recommendation on other similar projects and what they knew about the RMA project, Benningfield said. The federal agency has the final say in approving the document and based on the review could require a higher-level study.

Tuesday's meeting was a successful one, RMA officials said. RMA board members attended and helped answer specific questions from the public.

“This is an opportunity for the public to really get engaged,” RMA Executive Director Terry Brechtel said. “Look around. People are talking. They're asking questions.”

The RMA hopes to hire a contractor by next spring to design and build the project.

First TX road under foreign control underway

Link to article here. This article bills this leg of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project as a way to avoid congestion to Houston when the original sales pitch for the loop was to relieve traffic on I-35 (which the segment from Georgetown to the airport has not done). However, the first leg of SH 130 (the name of the TTC loop around Austin under the control of a foreign company for the next 50 years) is sooo empty, that a plane landed on it during peak traffic. It begs the question, if no one can afford to use it, why are we building it? We also need to ask: will it truly relieve congestion?

Construction revs up on new tollway toward Seguin
New section will offer less congested route to Houston.
Monday, August 17, 2009

You have to know what you're looking for to see the beginnings of construction on yet another Central Texas toll road, at least at the part nearest Austin.

Crews have dug the holes and laid the foundations of some of the columns that will be the interchange between Texas 45 Southeast and the new, 40-mile-long extension of Texas 130 as it heads to Lockhart. Near Maha Creek, the median between the north- and southbound lanes of U.S. 183 is a mishmash of black-dirt hillocks as crews work on future bridges over the creek.

Further south, near where U.S. 183 crosses Texas 21, owners of an Exxon station recently moved it several hundred feet east of U.S. 183 to make way for the wide tollway and access lanes to come. And down near Seguin, where Texas 130 will meet Interstate 10, concrete pillars for an interchange are poking out of the ground.

Construction of Texas' first public-private toll road began quietly several weeks ago, with a lack of fanfare given all the controversy such tollway agreements have generated over the past five years. A consortium called SH 130 Concession Co., led by Spanish toll road operator Cintra and Zachry Construction, is financing the $1.35 billion project and will operate it (and, it hopes, profit from it) over the next 50 years. It should open to traffic in 2012.

Just two other public-private tollways in Texas are in the works, both at least two years further back in the development process and unlikely to break ground soon. Cintra is the lead actor on both projects, which involve adding toll lanes on Interstate 820, Texas 183 and Texas 121 in Tarrant County and on the LBJ freeway in Dallas.

The new section of Texas 130 (the Texas Department of Transportation built the first 49 miles from Georgetown to Mustang Ridge) will offer a new possibility: getting from Austin to Houston without having to drive through the traffic lights and growing congestion on Texas 71 in Bastrop. But that may be a tough sell.

From east of the Austin airport, it's about 85 miles on Texas 71 to Columbus, where Texas 71 meets Interstate 10. Take Texas 130 and I-10 there instead, and the trip will be almost 135 miles, at a cost of more than $7 for a car, close to $30 for big trucks, plus extra gasoline or diesel.

Even with higher speed limits — as much as 80 mph on the tollway — that alternative is unlikely to entice many people. It might make sense for people bound for Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley.

But Texas 130's main reason-to-be was as a bypass of Interstate 35 in the San Antonio-to-Georgetown corridor. So far, traffic on the 49-mile piece east of Austin that opened in 2006 and 2007 has been light, about 9 percent below projections this budget year. And for an 18-wheeler to take the entire 89 miles, once it's open, the one-way price will be more than $50.

Stout. Truckers may need a bypass when they see that, the kind that requires a surgeon.

Report: Impose 65 cent per mile toll to access ALL metro cities in America!

Okay, if you thought selling our public highways to Spain using PPPs was bad, along comes a report that the FHWA, FTA, and EPA were a part of, that is advocating the government impose a 5 cent per mile minimum toll to use our EXISTING federal interstates and that it impose a 65 cent per mile toll to access ALL 125 metro areas in the country (their definition of metro includes Modesto, CA) in an effort to reduce carbon emissions! It also advocates a steep parking tax in downtown areas and a $400 biennial residential on-street parking permit. Innovation Briefs newsletter dated August 18, 2009 outlines the proposals in the report below. Link to pdf of a presentation about the report here. (To get a copy of the report done in part with tax-funded federal agencies, you have to pay $24.95!)

If we think for ONE MINUTE that tolling isn't about stealing our freedom to travel (using behavior modification), this report is proof-positive it most definitely is. INCONCEIVABLE!

From the Innovation Briefs Newsletter -

August 18, 2009

A Tendentious Report Has the Transportation Community Up in Arms


While the nation at large and the political community are consumed by the current debate about health care, another controversy is being played out on a smaller stage but with no less intensity. The object of the controversy is a recently released report entitled "Moving Cooler". The report, unveiled with great fanfare on July 28 before a large gathering of  the Washington environmental community, purports to estimate the potential reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that can be achieved from surface transportation. The report’s authors conclude that a combination of strategies and policy actions involving changes in vehicle and transportation system operations, travel behavior, land use patterns and level of transit service could reduce annual GHG emissions by up to 24 percent from the expected baseline levels in 2050. The authors further maintain that with "strong economy-wide pricing measures" (read, VMT fees and PAYD insurance), annual GHG emissions could be reduced by up to 47 percent.



The report was commissioned by a group of sponsors and written by a well-known transportation consulting firm, Cambridge Systematics. Sponsors included two environmental advocacy groups (Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council), several foundations, the American Public Transportation Association, the Urban Land Institute, ITS America, Shell Oil Company and three government agencies – Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), one of the original sponsors, withdrew its support after concluding that the study "did not produce results upon which decision-makers can rely." Specifically, AASHTO expressed concern that decision-makers could be led to rely on the study’s conclusions "without understanding the drastic steps that would have to be taken" to achieve the promised reductions.

At an August 13 meeting convened by AASHTO to discuss the report, many of the study assumptions were described as "extreme, unrealistic and in some cases downright impossible." A list of 37 specific issues challenging the report’s methodology and requiring clarification was presented by a team of researchers that analyzed the study. Transportation professionals reached after the meeting were equally blunt. "This is an advocacy document pure and simple, couched in the form of a pseudo scientific analysis," one state DOT official told us. Other transportation professionals, speaking on background, criticized the study as "not meeting scientific standards," "using implausible assumptions," "failing to adequately disclose key analytical assumptions," "lacking in objectivity," " a deeply flawed analysis," and "following a questionable peer review process."

Precisely what kind of assumptions did the report use to warrant such a severe condemnation? Here is a partial list of measures assumed by the report’s authors that would be needed to achieve the estimated reductions:

- Institute tolling of all interstate intercity highways throughout the U.S. by next year (2010). Minimum toll would be 5 cents/mile. As the presentation to AASHTO pointed out, this would require immediate Federal legislation to authorize tolls and a massive crash effort to install toll equipment on these highways within the next year. The tolls would likely shift some traffic to other roads and hit rural areas hardest. According to the analysis, a 5 cent/mile toll would be equivalent to increasing the gas tax for interstate trips by $1.10/gallon for vehicles that get 22 MPG and $1.75/gallon for high-efficiency vehicles.

- Impose congestion pricing in 125 metropolitan areas, at 65 cents per mile. The presentation to AASHTO pointed out that a 20-mile round-trip commute trip would cost an additional $26 each day . Service workers and delivery vehicles could face much higher increased costs. The top 125 metro areas where congestion pricing would be imposed include such small urban areas as Canton, OH; Jackson, MS; Flint, MI; Modesto, CA; Greenville, SC; and Lancaster, PA.

- Impose or significantly increase parking fees in the CBD and require $400 biennial residential on-street parking permits

- Reimpose a national 55 mph speed limit

- Invest $1.2 trillion over 40 years in expanding urban transportation. Increase transit operating subsidies by next year to allow transit fares to be cut by 50% in all regions.

- Increase highway capacity above the baseline by either $640 billion ("aggressive deployment") or $1.2 trillion ("Maximum deployment") over 40 years.

- Add bike lanes and paths at 1/4 mile intervals in high density areas (more than 2,000 persons/square mile.)

- Require at least 90% of new development to be in compact, pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly neighborhoods with high quality transit. The report notes that the land use measures "may require strong regional land use planning and oversight agencies,... may result in higher housing prices and...some people might need to live in smaller homes or on smaller lots than they would prefer."

While the report’s authors acknowledge in the body of the report that implementing the strategies at their "maximum deployment level" would require a major shift in national attitudes and political will, the presentation and press releases distributed at the July 28 report rollout ignored this caveat. They also ignored the report's conclusion that lower emission reductions would be achieved at less intensive -- and more realistic-- levels of deployment. Thus, an impression may have been created, says Allen Biehler, Director of PennDOT and AASHTO’s President, that emission reduction targets in the range of 24 to 52 percent are reasonably achievable. This, in turn, could lead to their adoption in EPA rulemaking and legislation pending in Congress.

Environmental sources contacted for this story allege that the threat of climate change is no less urgent  than the threat of air pollution was 30 years ago, and the means  to combat it happen to be largely the same: reduce reliance on  and volume of automobile travel, greatly expand public transit, support nonmotorized travel (biking and walking), and change development patterns to achieve more compact "walkable" communities.  They had to be reminded that improvements in air quality over the last 30 years have been almost entirely achieved  through changes in vehicle and fuel technology and not through changes in travel behavior and land use patterns. Indeed, urban air pollution has been substantially reduced from its 1970s levels despite rising vehicle-miles of travel (VMTs) and continued dispersal of homes and jobs.

Be that as it may, the present controversy is not about  challenging the legitimacy of the emission reduction strategies advocated in the "Moving Cooler" report. It is, rather, about using allegedly flawed analysis and unrealistic assumptions that could mislead policymakers and the public and raise unreasonable expectations about how much progress can be achieved using these strategies. Evidence from  the last 30 years shows that "travel demand management" and "smart growth" have been largely ineffective as a means of reducing auto dependency and automobile trips. There is thus good reason to question whether these two strategies, applied in a reasonable manner,  would be any more effective in reducing future vehicular-based GHG emissions.

Lance Neumann, President of Cambridge Systematics, the consulting firm that authored the report, responds:

Unfortunately, there has been considerable misinformation circulated regarding the Moving Cooler study.  Contrary to some reports, Moving Cooler does not advocate for any particular approach to reducing GHGs, nor does it assess the political feasibility or the overall merit of the strategies examined.  Rather, it presents estimates of how much GHGs might be reduced for a very large number of measures and under a very wide range of assumptions about how aggressively they are implemented.  For Moving Cooler, organizations with varying perspectives were invited to join the steering committee, and members collaborated in selecting the specific measures and the range of implementation assumptions for each measure to estimate strategy effectiveness in reducing GHGs.  It is intentional that the implementation aggressiveness of each measure reflected a wide range of assumptions.

Given the range of measures and implementation scenarios examined, it is not surprising that AASHTO disagrees with some of the assumptions used.  Many members of the Steering Committee  also disagreed with some of the implementation assumptions that were evaluated.  However, there was consensus among Steering Committee members that exploration of the strategies under the range of assumptions defined was a worthwhile exercise to inform public debate.  We believe that Moving Cooler provides additional objective information to inform the debate, whether you agree with all of the assumptions or not.

It should also be noted that, although the study did not explicitly analyze fuel efficiency, it did use for its baseline forecasts more aggressive estimates of future fuel efficiency improvements than were used by the Department of Energy in its forecasts of future fuel efficiency.  So,  Moving Cooler analyses clearly acknowledge the absolutely critical role of fuel efficiency improvements in reducing GHG emissions.

Ed. Note: The Steering Committee that Mr. Neumann refers to included representatives of the American Public Transportation Association, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, ITS America, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Shell Oil Company, the Urban Land Institute and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Additional sponsors (but not members of the Steering Committee) included the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.

Link to "Moving Cooler" web site here.

C. Kenneth Orski is the author of Innovation NewsBriefs


A reminder of who Orski is: He was one of 4 who were members of President Bush's Transportation Policy Team & later transition team (Federal Surface Transportation Program input with recommendations in 1999 which were largely followed & later shaped Mary Peters' policies at US DOT).  The 4 cheerleaders for transportation infrastructure privatization are: C. Kenneth Orski, Stephen Lockwood, Alan E. Pisarski, and Robert W. Poole Jr. (Reason Foundation Libertarian think tank founder & public member of the Sunset Advisory Commission).

Normally we're on opposite side of Orski's thinking, but we agree that these proposing are an OUTRAGEOUS threat to our freedom to travel.

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