Guerra: TxDOT didn't coordinate with Aquifer Authority on 281 toll road


Link to article here. What's so damaging about this revelation is that the feds gave a "Finding of No Significant Impact" on this project over the Edwards Aquifer (extremely environmentally sensitive area and the sole source of drinking water for nearly 2 million people)when TxDOT didn't even solicit comment from or coordinate this massive project with the Edwards Aquifer Authority!

The email correspondence showing that the management of TxDOT pre-determined the outcome of "no significant impact" along with the fact that they didn't bother to coordinate with the AQUIFER AUTHORITY on potential impacts to the aquifer (when they state in their study that they had) proves a fraudulent study was submitted to the feds. TxDOT just can't seem to play by the rules. They have to deceive and rig the results in order to railroad their agenda. Well, the light of day is now shining on these ill-conceived toll plans, and the citizens are seeking justice.

NOTE: AGUA and People for Efficient Transportation (PET, Inc.) filed the lawsuit in 2005. TURF and AGUA filed the current lawsuit in February this year.

TxDOT documents not reassuring about toll-road concerns
By Carlos Guerra
Express-News Columnist
August 9, 2008

Long faulted for its arrogance, the Texas Department of Transportation also is under fire for embracing toll roads.

They are forced to because gas taxes can't meet growing highway needs, TxDOT officials say. So they will finance a lot of new highway lanes by tolling new and existing roads, and by handing some publicly owned right-of-way to private toll-road builders and operators in exchange for letting them collect tolls for decades.

TxDOT and the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority plan to pay for a huge expansion project by tolling 70 miles of U.S. 281, Loop 1604 and other area highways.

“It's a massive, multibillion-dollar project over the most sensitive parts of the (Edwards Aquifer) recharge zone,” says Bill Bunch, an attorney who, along with Andrew Hawkins, represents Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas and Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Construction on the 281-1604 project — which will be 19 lanes wide in parts — started in late 2005, and within weeks, a contractor ruptured a sewer main, spilling raw sewage for three weeks before it was fixed.

The two groups sued TxDOT and the regional mobility authority over their environmental assessment — required by the National Environmental Policy Act to get federal funds — which the groups say is flawed and grossly insufficient.

And they sued the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for approving TxDOT's environmental assessment and demanded a more extensive environmental impact statement (EIS) before irreparable harm is done to the aquifer.

The massive highways will traverse numerous recharge features and a lot of the Edwards' contributing zone. That notwithstanding, TxDOT's environmental assessment included a “finding of no significant impact,” which in bureaucratize is written: “FONSI.”

Bunch and Hawkins pressed their case, and just before it went to court, TxDOT and the RMA raised the white flag and the federal agency “disapproved” TxDOT's environmental assessment, forcing the state agency and the RMA to conduct the much more extensive EIS.

In the conduct of legal discovery, the attorneys recently uncovered some apparently damning documents.

In TxDOT's environmental assessment, the agency asserts that it “coordinated with” and “solicited comments and input regarding the proposed action and potential issues that should be considered during the development of the environmental assessment” from a number of agencies, one of which was the Edward Aquifer Authority.

“Hogwash,” says Hawkins. “We scoured everything in (TxDOT's) administrative record and found no letter asking for comment or coordination.”

In fact, all they found was a “Record of Conversation” of a 25-minute phone call made by a TxDOT contractor to an aquifer authority staffer asking for technical info. That isn't exactly “comment and coordination.”

But to be on the safe side, the attorneys checked with the aquifer authority for any correspondence whatsoever from TxDOT from December 2005 to the present concerning the planned toll roads on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604. “And they wrote us back saying we have nothing, no e-mail, no correspondence. Nothing,” Bunch says.

The lawyers did find two e-mails from a TxDOT geologist and a biologist that raise questions about the impartiality of their science.

In one to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the biologist wrote: “At the moment we are trying to get a FONSI from the FHWA by September.”

And the geologist wrote a colleague at TxDOT saying that he was “unclear on ... the extent to which we need to study (the) 1604 corridor,” before adding, “plus I know mgmt want to get (the) FONSI on 1604 right after 281 so we really need to get working on both.”

Texas School Land Board votes to invest $100 million in toll roads

Link to article here. Even more appalling than this investment handed to Goldman Sachs (for presumably a variety of toll road infrastructure projects), is the fact that the GLO has already given that amount to a single company, Australia-based Macquarie. This is the same company that bought dozens of Texas newspapers in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor to control the negative press it's been getting, a bidder on many Texas toll projects, and proposing to takeover the Austin airport.

Texas Land Office commits $100 million to infrastructure fund
By Robert Elder
Austin American Statesman
August 5, 2008
The Texas School Land Board today voted to invest $100 million in an infrastructure fund run by Goldman Sachs. (To recap the hierarchy of these investments: The school land board approves investments for the General Land Office, which does real estate and land investing on behalf of the Texas Permanent School fund. Income from the PSF helps pay for public education. Got it?)

Rusty Martin, deputy commissioner for funds management, told the land board that the Goldman fund will top out at about $7.5 billion and invest primarily in transportation and utilities infrastructure.

The generally dismal state of global infrastructure has spurred great interest in infrastructure as an investing asset class. The need is obvious, from bridge collapses in the U.S. to China’s goal of adding the equivalent of the U.S. highway system in the next few years.

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The area has also drawn the attention of Texas lawmakers such as Sen. Steve Ogden (right), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Bryan Republican has floated the idea of Texas public pension funds as a source of capital for infrastructure in the state. If the funds are investing — or contemplating investing — in infrastructure deals all over the world, Ogden reasons, why not put some of that money work in Texas?

To date, Texas public pensions have not committed large sums of money to infrastructure, although some funds hold stock in publicly traded infrastructure companies.

The Goldman Sachs investment is the General Land Office’s second infrastructure deal. The GLO in February committed $100 million to Macquarie Infrastructure Partners II. Macquarie Group Ltd. is an Australian investment bank.

Tolling Authority did inadequate toll study for 281, no study of impact of high gas prices

Link to article here. See the letter the State Auditor sent to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority (ARMA) warning them of their inadequate toll viability study that failed to take into account high gas prices. High gas prices have been responsible for declines in driving and toll road use. Yet the ARMA continues to stick its head in the sand and ignore the economic signs that the 281 and other toll projects are in jeopardy due to high gas prices. And who will pay for such malfeasance? The taxpayers left to bailout the bonds when the toll roads default.

U.S. 281 toll-road planners didn't figure on costly gas
By Patrick Driscoll
Express-News
August 8, 2008

Gas prices shot through the roof this year and a debate drags on over what the future holds, but none of that was reflected in recent traffic and revenue projections for the planned U.S. 281 toll road.

As a result, the estimates got a thumbs-down last month from State Auditor John Keel, who meted out his case in a single page of bean-counter lingo.

“Explicit consideration for the possible effects of higher motor fuel prices on the usage of the toll facility and, therefore, on revenues would seem warranted,” he concluded in a letter to the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority.

The state auditor doesn't actually sign off on traffic and revenue reports from toll agencies. According to a 2007 tolling law, the auditor just reviews and comments on them.

Alamo Regional Mobility Authority Director Terry Brechtel noted that in a letter responding to Keel, saying the audit's over.

However, she said the local agency agrees with his criticism and already had asked the consultant, URS Corp., to do a gas-price impact analysis.

“We will nevertheless forward to you a copy of the fuel sensitivity analysis once it is completed,” she said.

Such an analysis was a no-brainer to toll-road critics as long as two years ago.

Activists had tried to get the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which approved 70 miles of tollways in San Antonio, to study rising gas prices and the impacts to toll bonds that can stretch over several decades. The MPO board refused.

“It doesn't make sense,” said Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom. “We're glad the state auditor has the same concerns that we do. Will this road even be viable in 10 years with the trends we're seeing in gas prices?”

Wary motorists have been scaling back in the face of gas prices soaring to a record U.S. average of $4.11 a gallon last month, according to AAA.

Americans drove 2.4 percent fewer miles through May compared to the same time last year and rush-hour congestion eased in many U.S. cities from March through May, federal data show.

San Antonio drivers spent 4.7 percent less time stuck in traffic, though officials say new lanes opening on Interstate 10 and new ramps at two Loop 410 interchanges helped.

Americans also have started avoiding some toll roads, with Houston reporting a 3 percent drop in traffic from March through June, and Dallas seeing a 2.3 percent slip in June on its President George Bush Turnpike. Growth on the Dallas North Tollway was flat.

Dallas' North Texas Tollway Authority asked its consultant to take another look at traffic projections for planned toll lanes on Texas 161.

“But they're not anticipating any change,” Dallas toll spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said.

Unlike San Antonio's toll-road consultant, Moody's Investors Service took rising gas prices seriously Thursday when it issued a stable but cautious report on U.S. government toll roads through 2009. The long-term outlook was more uncertain.

“Gas prices at around $4 per gallon for a prolonged period could have a dampening effect on traffic and revenue and, if declines are not offset by rate increases, it could cause Moody's to change our stable outlook,” Moody's Senior Vice President Maria Matesanz said in a statement.

Federal forecasters say gas prices will spike even higher next year, but where they go from there is wrapped in a muddy debate on when global oil production will peak and begin to slide. Some say it's happening now; others say there's a four-decade cushion for technologies to come to the rescue.

San Antonio toll officials, getting ready to sell 40-year bonds later this year to help fund toll lanes on eight miles of U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604, are undeterred. They point to the success of Austin's 65 miles of toll roads, which began opening in late 2006 and are raking in more money than expected.

“If we get higher fuel efficiencies in our vehicles, that could have an impact,” Alamo Regional Mobility Authority spokesman Leroy Alloway said. “People are still going to be driving, we're still a very auto-centric country.”

Still, many toll critics aren't sold on the car-dominated vision.

“It's time for us to shift to sustainability, by moving to mass transit, or pay the price,” Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson said. “All the warning signals are there.”

ACS of Spain wins 50 year right to develop TTC-69, without competitive bidding!

Link to ACS statement here.


TxDOT has repeatedly misled the public about the Trans Texas Corridor projects and has denied they're part of any effort to economically merge (through trade and commerce) the U.S. with Canada and Mexico through key transportation corridors. Yet the release by ACS below clearly states the opposite. TxDOT also tried to misrepresent the breadth of the TTC-69 development contract awarded to ACS/Zachry in June leading even lawmakers to believe it only included upgrading Hwy 77 to interstate 69.

Yet as TURF warned (and the media has failed to report), the devil is in the details and the request for proposals by TxDOT clearly stated this contract was for the long-term development of the TTC. TxDOT also denies this grants ACS/Zachry the right of first refusal (preferential contracts without competitive bidding) for TTC-69 segments, but again, this statement by ACS tells its investors otherwise.

Read more about the egregious contract and taxpayer rip-off on the first segment of TTC-69 in the Rio Grande Valley here.

ACS to participate in the development of a great transportation infrastructure corridor in Texas

Iridium and the North American Zachry have been chosen by the State of Texas as strategic partners for 50 years to design, plan and develop a great infrastructure corridor of 1,000 kilometres in length.

The estimate project investments, involving the construction of road and railway infrastructures, exceed 30,000 million dollars, 5,000 million during the first seven years.


The I-69/TTC (Trans Texas Corridor) will connect the Mexican border with the Gulf of Mexico coastline, Houston and major industrial and logistics centres in Texas with the north of the country.

This is the second concessions project awarded to ACS in North America in seven days, after last week being awarded the A-30 highway in Canada.

Madrid, June 26, 2008. ACS Infrastructures Development, the North American branch of Iridium, the concession development company of ACS, and the Texan concessionaire Zachry American Infrastructure have become the successful bidders for the design, planning and development, as strategic partners of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), of the I-69/TTC infrastructure corridor for the next 50 years.

The I-69/TTC will be a great road and railway infrastructure corridor that will cross the State of Texas from north to south. Specifically, it will start in the Rio Grande valley to Houston offering new exits towards the centre of the Union from large industrial and logistics centres in the south of the State, including a branch towards the Gulf of Mexico and the port of Corpus Christie. The estimate investment for the entire project is around 30,000 million dollars, of which 5,000 million shall be invested during the first 7 years.

With the award of this project, ACS and Zachry, the largest construction group in the State of Texas, have become strategic partners of the Texas Department of Transportation and shall propose the development of specific projects and activities for which they will have a preferential negotiation option without public tender. In fact, the consortium is already considering the renewal of a first route whose concession will be negotiated with the Texas Department of Transportation, the US 77, which shall include the construction of a series of highways under concession regime connecting to it and which shall require an investment of 2,500 million dollars.

The I-69/TTC development project includes, in its initial design, the construction of a 1,000 kilometre network of highways and roads as well as railway lines. Based on this, ACS and Zachry will draft a Master Plan with the Texas Department of Transportation to establish the priority activities as well as the form and deadlines for their execution.

The winning consortium for the project, led by Iridium and Zachry, and which has UBS as its financial advisor and SDG as infrastructure planning consultant, also enjoys the involvement of Dragados, the parent company of the ACS construction area, and SICE, company belonging to its Industrial Services area and which has extended experience in the installation of traffic control systems, as well as other engineering and construction companies in the State of Texas.

The I-69/TTC is one of the high priority transportation infrastructure corridors identified by the State of Texas, the first of which has already been set in motion. In total, it entails an infrastructure network of around 3,000 kilometres and investments of 150,000 million euros to improve State communications with Mexico, centre and north of the country and Canada. Eight States of the Union, including Texas, which is the developer, are involved in the project.

Second concession in North America in one week

The awarding of the I-69/TTC represents the consolidation of the presence of the ACS Group in United States, where it already has considerable presence in civil works, and is the second concession won by Iridium in North America in seven days. Last week the ACS concessions developer was awarded by the State of Quebec, together with Acciona, the project to finance, build and operate for 35 years the A-30 highway in Canada, a project with an investment of 1,000 million euros, which shall require the execution of important civil works to connect the south of Montreal with the North American border. The A-30 is also the first concession awarded to Iridium in Canada.

This way, ACS continues its expansion process in North America, a market it has defined as strategic. Through Dragados, the parent company of its construction area, is already present in United States in its civil works activities since 2005, when it became the successful bidder for the first expansion of the New York Subway; a large engineering project connecting the Grand Central Station in Manhattan to Queens under the Hudson River, representing 400 million dollars. Later Dragados assumed new projects in the north east of the country to improve roads, dams and subways, and recently was awarded the construction of a dam in Puerto Rico and the first contract for the expansion of Miami airport. In December 2007, it acquired 100% of Schiavione; a company specialized in construction in the north east of the country.

Iridium, the ACS concessions company, has been for the last ten years the greatest private transportation infrastructure investor in the world, with promoted investments exceeding 22,000 million euros. The infrastructure and public equipment company participates in the management of more than 40 companies of these characteristics, encompassing the entire concessional business value chain.

TTC-69 lobby group, Alliance for I-69, takes their show on the road

Link to article here.

Alliance for I-69 is the biggest pro-TTC-69 lobby group in the state. Their chief lobbyist, Gary Bushell, is also the same lobbyist TxDOT illegally hired with our taxpayer money to lobby elected officials in the path of the TTC-69. Bushell is also a notable campaign contributor to MANY politicians, Bexar County Rep. Frank Corte among them. Today, Alliance for I-69 teamed up with Zachry, who along with Spanish company ACS won the development rights to TTC-69 in June, hit Victoria with their dog and pony show, and they've been in Austin hitting up lawmakers, too. Their logo on the material they left with lawmakers even has a Canadian, Mexican, and U.S flag morphed together, yet TxDOT denies the Trans Texas Corridor is about NAFTA, international trade, the movement of freight/goods, or the economic integration of the three countries.

I-69 partners make presentation
Victoria Advocate
August 05, 2008

The Alliance for I-69 Texas and U.S.-owned company Zachry American Infrastruture have partnered up and are traveling across the state giving presentations on I-69. On Tuesday, they stopped in Victoria.

During the short initial meeting, city leaders met with Gary Bushnell of the advocacy group and Gary Kuhn, senior project manager for Zachry, the firm awarded the contract for the superhighway.

The Interstate 69 corridor project is a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways, utility right-of-ways and toll roads. Zachry was awarded the contract for the project in June by the Texas Transportation Commission.

The presentation focused on ways Victoria could use I-69 to their economic advantage and about the potential the corridor has in terms of new transportation technology.

According to Kuhn, Zachry is working on a master plan that takes into account local projects Texas communities want to do and how the company can help improve local economic development. Kuhn also discussed Zachry’s proposal for a freight shuttle that would go alongside the existing route of U.S. 77 in Victoria. According to Kuhn, the freight shuttle combines the best characteristics of the rail and truck transportation, but is more efficient, cheaper and causes less pollution. He added that it would run on electromagnetic pulses that create motion and a freight shuttle system across Texas could be up and running by as early as 2015.

“We’ve been working with the Alliance to visit all the communities involved in the I-69 Interstate. There is a lot of collaboration that needs to take place among these communities,” Kuhn said. “It’s a kind of one for all and all for one deal.”

The meeting included Mayor Will Armstrong, Dale Fowler of the Victoria Economic Development Corp. and Lee Swearingen of the Victoria County Navigation District.

TxDOT caught in deception, hid docs from the feds that prove violation of the law


Link to article here. This violation of federal law is much more than a "snag," it blows a hole right through the 281 toll project. TxDOT was caught in willful deception, so this story is the understatement of the year!

Planned U.S. 281 tollway hits another bump
By Pat Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
August 7, 2008

A federal lawsuit blasted as frivolous has dug up some documents that throw yet another curve at San Antonio's planned U.S. 281 tollway.

The documents were uncovered in a discovery process for the lawsuit, which challenges the thoroughness of the tollway project's environmental study.

The Texas Department of Transportation, which did the study, won't say what the documents are but is handing them over to the Federal Highway Administration, which approved the study last year.

“We wanted to take the cautious advice of the attorneys and give the FHWA another opportunity to review this project,” TxDOT Director Amadeo Saenz said in a statement.

TxDOT asked the court's judge to delay the lawsuit for two months to give federal officials time to review the documents and decide whether to amend the environmental study or reconsider approval. Pulling the clearance would delay the toll project even more.

Widening eight miles of U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 has been on hold for years, first as TxDOT waited to build it as a freeway and then converted to a tollway plan, and then after activists filed a 2005 lawsuit to force a redo of the environmental study.

The more recent lawsuit, filed in February by Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and Aquifer Guardians in Urban Areas, is similar to the 2005 suit in that it calls for a closer look at impacts to motorists, water and wildlife.

One of the documents missing from the latest environmental study is a report on how the 10- to 20-lane tollway could affect the Edwards Aquifer, which supplies most of San Antonio's drinking water, said TURF founder Terri Hall.

“They have withheld information from the Federal Highway Administration that could blow a hole in the middle of the 281 project,” she said.

The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority, which took over the $472 million toll project from TxDOT, hoped to sell bonds in October and planned to start opening new lanes in three years, now must push its schedule back at least two months.

BREAKING NEWS: TxDOT caught withholding 281 docs from the feds

CAUGHT IN DECEPTION!

TxDOT asks court for 60 day delay on 281 case

In what amounts to a total victory for the grassroots, TxDOT has to ask the court for a 60 day delay in the 281 lawsuit so they can beg the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) NOT to yank their environmental clearance for the 281 toll project. Through the discovery process of our lawsuit, the Judge required TxDOT to hand over the complete administrative record for 281, including all the financials and the stuff from when the improvements were funded with gas taxes that would keep 281 a FREEway. It's been discovered that TxDOT withheld key documents not only from the public and our attorneys, but also the feds!

There are a heap of emails that show TxDOT tried to "fix" the environmental work for 281 to pre-determine a "Finding of No Significant Impact" (or FONSI) BEFORE the study even began. They rigged it! That is a DIRECT VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW! TxDOT then hired a company, HNTB, to do the so-called "independent" environmental study even though HNTB has a MAJOR conflict of interest, in that, the tolling authority (ARMA) also hired HNTB to do the preliminary engineering for all their toll projects! So HNTB had a vested interest in a "Finding of No Significant Impact" (or FONSI).

Then, it's also been discovered that TxDOT purposely withheld a key study from a geologist they hired that stated the potential harmful effects of the toll road on the Edwards Aquifer. Such a study didn't conclude what TxDOT wanted it to in order to get clearance from the feds, so they intentionally hid the report and failed to submit it to the FHWA who uses that crucial information in their decision on whether or not to give federal approval for the project.

TxDOT, thanks to our lawsuit, now has to submit these documents to the feds who will completely re-consider their previous approval of the 281 toll road. It's likely the feds will yank their environmental clearance for the toll road in light of this deception by TxDOT. If they don't, the court is likely to do it for them. So TxDOT is in total damage control mode and released a statement about their motion for a 60 stay in our lawsuit that tries to minimize what the documents reveal and, of course, blames us for the delay instead of their own incompetence and deception. As usual, they seem to think they can wiggle out of their corruption without consequences simply by supplementing the record. They were FORCED to come clean through a lawsuit brought by concerned citizens, not by them being forthcoming. The tactics at TxDOT never cease to amaze.

So stay tuned, we'll see how the Judge rules and what other damaging information these "other" documents reveal.

Official TxDOT propaganda on the request for a stay in litigation...


The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has asked a federal district court judge to issue a stay of the litigation regarding the expansion of U.S. Highway 281 in San Antonio.  We recently located documents which they feel may need to be reviewed by federal officials as part of the environmental evaluation of the transportation project.
 
In the process of responding to discovery requests for the lawsuit, staff identified documents that had not previously been submitted to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).  TxDOT will submit these documents to FHWA for their review.  FHWA will then determine whether the administrative record for the U.S. 281 project should be amended and whether the project's prior environmental clearance would need to be reconsidered.  In order to provide FHWA time to review the documents, TxDOT requested that the ongoing litigation be delayed up to 60 days.
 
"Every day that this project is delayed is another day that Bexar County drivers are stuck in traffic," said TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz.  "Nevertheless, we are committed to making sure that the 281 project complies with all federal and state requirements.  The extension we requested would allow FHWA to review these new documents and come to an independent decision about how to proceed.  We recognized that we should bring these documents to the attention of FHWA, and we want to make sure they have the time they need to review them."
 
Saenz said that the documents will be submitted to the FHWA out of an abundance of caution.  "A new, more conservative view of TxDOT’s records related to the 281 project would require these materials to be forwarded to FHWA," he said.  "We wanted to take the cautious advice of the attorneys and give the FHWA another opportunity to review this project.  On balance, this is a small addition to the 24,000-page administrative record, but it deserves scrutiny from FHWA."
 
In its filing with the court, the department wrote that it has no intention of delaying the proceedings but wants to ensure that the FHWA has ample time to examine the recently identified information to determine whether the administrative record should be amended.
 
We recently adopted new policies on how to assist FHWA in the preparation of the administrative record showing the environmental review of a transportation project.  "Preparing the administrative record for a complex transportation project is an enormous task.  We will do our part to make sure the process is the best it can be," said Saenz.

Senate questions value of public-private toll roads

Link to article here.

Senate subcommittee questions value of public-private partnerships
Landline Magazine
July 31, 2008

Though public-private partnerships have been discussed at both the state and federal level for quite some time, there are still some areas of the controversial plans that have yet to be fully explored.

The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources and Infrastructure examined some of those areas, including taxes and financing, at a hearing Thursday, July 24.

Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, started off the hearing by saying he has mixed feelings about public-private partnerships.

Bingaman said that, although he’s not necessarily opposed to the idea of private investment in U.S. highways, he’s also not convinced that it is the silver bullet that many of its proponents make it out to be.

 
“There’s no denying the seriousness of our surface transportation funding challenges, but the question is whether our federal response should be to encourage states to essentially sell off vital components of the Interstate Highway System,” Bingaman said.

“I am personally open to the role of the private sector, but I have real concerns about this rush into public-private partnerships and its adequacy to replace or supplement a strong and vital federal infrastructure program. Before we move away from our long-term state and federal highway partnership, we must better understand the consequences of doing so.”

Bingaman went on to say that he was concerned about the practice of selling longer and longer leases in order to take advantage of subsidies in the tax codes.

JayEtta Hecker, director of physical infrastructure issues for the Government Accountability Office, testified that, in addition to Bingaman’s concerns, there are other pitfalls of public-private partnerships to be on the lookout for. Not the least of which is the very real possibility of increased tolls for those who use the roads.

“There are, however, potential cost tradeoffs. It is a concern that there are views that this is somehow free money,” Hecker said. “The reality is that these techniques are going to result in higher tolls to the users because of the way they’ve been managed relative to a publicly owned toll road.”

Hecker went on to say that the way these deals are typically done in the U.S. is vastly different from the way they are done overseas – something the GAO would like to see change.

“In the deals that we looked at domestically, where this process is just beginning, a lot of the focus is on the contract terms. ... it was just kind of a big numbers game and getting the terms right,” Hecker said.

“This contrasts very significantly with the experiences in the rest of the world. They have much more rigorous up-front analyses, varying multiple-staged reviews of public interest, multiple dimensions, they have public-sector comparisons – how it compares to what the public sector could do – and those are very distinct, very well developed and present an opportunity for a lesson learned in the U.S., and that was one of our main recommendations.”

Bingaman came back to Hecker’s criticism of the bidding process later in the hearing when he mentioned testimony from another witness at the hearing – David Enright of the New Jersey-based financial consulting firm Northwest Financial.

Enright testified that if state and local officials in the U.S. had done the kind of analysis that officials in Europe do, there probably wouldn’t have been approval for as many road and bridge lease deals in this country.

“Do you have any views on that?” Bingaman asked Hecker.

Hecker said she didn’t think such reviews would have necessarily meant that U.S. officials wouldn’t have gone along with the transactions, but she did qualify her statement.

“I think that the public management of much infrastructure has not been very efficient and there are opportunities to gain benefits and efficiencies,” Hecker testified.

“I don’t think the full costs were very transparent. I don’t think they were detailed. I don’t think potential impact of transfers from the interstate commerce that would fund this, and transferring that to lower stake roads, was really evaluated.”

The GAO’s Hecker also said that she thought that there were a host of issues that weren’t fully evaluated. She said she would “have to agree that the cost of borrowing for these was more expensive ...”

“It’s more expensive for the private sector to borrow or to use equity than it is for the public sector to use municipal debt,” Hecker testified. “But it’s whether you get enough benefits in exchange. There are no deals in Europe or anywhere where they monetize the assets the same way we’ve seen here. We never saw that anywhere.”

Bingaman asked her to explain that statement further.

She explained that the focus of both the mayor and the governor in many of the other deals now is to say to the advisors, “Get me a deal that maximizes the cash that I can take out of this asset.” Hecker added that the bid process used in the U.S. has fallen short.

“They (state and local officials in the U.S.) take pride that their whole bidding was a piece of paper with a single number on it – their whole focus. In Australia, in Europe and other places, the bid (process) is competition for the lowest tolls,” she testified.

Bingaman asked Hecker to confirm that what she was saying was that the competition in other countries is about who can keep the tolls the lowest, rather than who can give the government the biggest up-front payment.

“Right,” Hecker testified.

Later on, Bingaman asked the New Jersey financial consultant, Enright, a question that cut right to the heart of the debate over public-private partnerships. Specifically, Bingaman wanted to know which would ultimately cost the public more money – a publicly run highway or a privately run highway?

“Mr. Enright, maybe I’m reading too much into your testimony, but my impression is that your conclusion that the public sector can finance road infrastructure more cheaply than the private sector can and therefore these so-called public-private partnerships end up costing people more in the long run than if the government just went ahead and maintained the roads,” Bingaman said.

“You’re correct,” Enright said. “The public sector is in a position to deliver a much lower cost of capital and therefore keep the user charges as low as possible.

“The private sector (has the incentive) to make a profit, that’s their job. We did separate analyses for both Chicago and Indiana – very extensive – and concluded in both cases that the public sector could have done just as well and held on to the asset and charged lower tolls and made the same amount of money. The problem in infrastructure in (this) country is not capital, the problem is the willingness to charge people for the infrastructure that they want to use.”

In the end, Bingaman promised to schedule more hearings to further examine who really benefits from public-private partnerships.

– By Terry Scruton, staff writer

Toll road traffic down due to high gas prices


Link to article here. Once again, the price of gas is causing driving to go down, including on toll roads. There isn't enough money in the family budget to pay for tolls on top of high gas prices. We've been sounding these warning bells for years, when will politicians and the pro-tollers listen? They're foolishly putting generations into risky leveraged debt in order to build what they believe will be cash cow toll roads only to have them all fail due to high gas prices. We don't need another mortgage crisis for the taxpayers to bail out in keeping with the "too big to fail" mantra of government.It's time to rethink this toll proliferation.

Toll roads feeling the fuel-price pinch
Landline Magazine
August 1, 2008
Traffic is decreasing on some toll roads around the nation and officials say it’s because of high fuel prices.

It’s happening in Texas, where dozens of toll roads and tolled metro loops are being designed and built to handle a steep increase in population and traffic.

The North Texas Tollway Authority, which operates the 30-mile President George Bush Turnpike in the North Dallas area, saw traffic decrease by 1.4 percent in May and 2.3 percent in June compared to those same months in 2007.

“Historically, we have seen slight decreases in traffic when fuel prices spike and that traffic adjusts as prices decline,” NTTA spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt told Land Line.

Traffic on the Dallas North Tollway has increased, but by just 0.1 percent during the same timeframe. That’s much lower than the 3 percent growth seen from January to June of this year.

“Fuel prices may be one factor in the change,” Coffelt said.

It’s also happening in Maine where officials with the Maine Turnpike Authority publish a monthly vehicle count. The latest count shows the number of Maine Turnpike users decreased from 5.66 million to 5.34 million – 5.7 percent – in June 2008 compared to June 2007 traffic. Click here to view the chart.

“We believe it’s probably the increase in the cost of fuel,” spokesman Bruce Pelletier told Land Line. “Commercial vehicle traffic is down also, and that’s an indication that the economy is weakening or slower as well.”

Pelletier said traffic on weekdays remains steady, but weekend traffic that includes tourists is down.

He said overall traffic counts on the turnpike are down 1.8 percent year-to-date for 2008.

– By David Tanner, staff writer
 

Electronic tolling nightmares: $200 in fines!

Link to article here. We've heard from many North Texas motorists who have been fined when they didn't even take the toll road (a relative or friend used their cars). For those who did take the road, there is no way to pay without an electronic toll tag, so those just passing through or making spontaneous trips and who have to wait to be billed get taken to collections for the crime of not having their current address on file with TxDOT. Can you say bureaucratic nightmare and guilty until proven innocent? This is also government coercion to buy into their TxTag system, or else!

Motorists fuming over past-due toll road bills
By GORDON DICKSON
Star Telegram
July 31, 2008


 Woman gets toll road bill for $101.90 Related story
HURST — More North Texans are coming forward with complaints that a collection agency hired by the Texas Department of Transportation is unfairly demanding large past-due payments for driving on the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties.

"This is highway robbery," said Brian Wilson of Hurst, who two weeks ago received a bill for $76.60 for a $1.60 toll he incurred on a boating trip to Lake Texoma in June 2007. "This is bureaucracy at its worst. I’ll never use that road again."

Texas 121 is the region’s first all-electronic toll road. Toll payments can be made either by an automatic account such as a TollTag or by standard mail. For those paying by mail, the common practice is to wait until the Transportation Department’s Texas Tollways office sends a bill and then send a payment.

But that system doesn’t work when the bill gets mailed to the wrong address.

On Monday, the Star-Telegram published a story about Norma Bartholomew of Fort Worth, who had been contacted by a collection agency for a past-due toll that the Transportation Department had sent to an address where she hasn’t lived since 2004.

She had traveled on the road in February 2007, but never received the original bill for $1.90 in tolls, and a few weeks ago was shocked to learn that the state now wanted $109.90, including $100 in fees.

A Transportation Department official said it was a rare incident. The woman’s account was eventually cleared after she lodged complaints with the Texas Tollways office and state elected leaders.

But since then, four other readers have contacted the Star-Telegram to complain that the Transportation Department sent bills to their old addresses and — in all but one case — turned them over to a collection agency, too.

In each case, the readers felt the Transportation Department ought to know their correct address. All said they had submitted address changes to the department after moving, and are currently receiving auto registration renewal notices in the mail.

Wilson’s case

Wilson and his wife, Sharilyn, traveled on Texas 121 in June 2007, using their pickup to tow the family boat to Lake Texoma.

A few weeks after the vacation, they received — and promptly paid — a bill for $3.40 in tolls, charged to the account of their boat trailer.

But at the time they didn’t realize that the camera system on the road had captured not only an image of the license number on their trailer, but also on their pickup. While the bill for the boat trailer toll was sent to their current address, the toll for the pickup — another $1.60 — was sent to Brian Wilson’s old address. Wilson said he never saw the original pickup bill.

Two weeks ago, Wilson opened his mail and found a collection letter demanding $76.60 for that unpaid toll.

Wilson called the Texas Tollways customer service line, but the call taker was unsympathetic, he said.

The call taker did, however, offer to cut the bill almost in half to $39, if Wilson would agree to open a TxTag account so that his tolls could be collected automatically.

Wilson reluctantly agreed, even though opening the TxTag account cost him an additional $20, so he paid the $59 to avoid letting the whole affair smudge his credit rating.

But now he wants his money back. "I felt like my arm was put behind my back and twisted," he said during an interview at his home, where the unused TxTag remains in its envelope on his kitchen counter.

Others

In addition to Wilson, the Star-Telegram also spoke to or exchanged e-mails with:

Richard LaChance of Fort Worth, who received a collection notice for nearly $700. He agreed to open a TxTag account in exchange for cutting the late fees in half. But he later called again to complain about the original toll bills, which were mailed to an address he hadn’t used in nearly five years, and persuaded Texas Tollways to rescind the charges. "The whole time I was wondering how many other people were treated this way," he wrote.

Steven Maas of Fort Worth, who was billed for $125 in fees. Maas has since signed up for a TollTag, another form of automatic toll collection operated by the North Texas Tollway Authority, to prevent the problem in future transactions. But Texas Tollways considers the TollTag a competitor to its TxTag and won’t waive his fees.

When Maas complained to Texas Tollways, a call taker confirmed that his original toll bills had been returned to the Austin office, stamped "Return to sender." But apparently no one investigated whether his address had changed.

"Yet they still invoked . . . the fees. That’s just ludicrous and completely preying on people."

Joseph Rivera, a former Fort Worth resident now living in Plano, who was told he owes $12 for a 90-cent toll accrued on Texas 121 on Christmas Day 2007. The bill was originally sent to his old Fort Worth address, where he hasn’t lived in nearly three years. "When I talked to them they were very standoffish," he said.

Don’t let it linger

Transportation Department officials say they’ll work with people on a case-by-case basis, and remove fees deemed improper. But spokesman Christopher Lippincott urged motorists who have used the Texas 121 toll road to avoid problems now by updating their vehicle registration information, rather than waiting for a collection agency to find them.

"There is no substitute for Texas drivers ensuring that their registration information is correct and up-to-date," he said.

What you can do

Since April 4, tolls collected electronically on Texas 121 in Denton and Collin counties are billed through the North Texas Tollway Authority, not the Transportation Department. However, there is still the potential for bills being sent to an old address, because the tollway authority gets its vehicle registration data from the Transportation Department.

Steps to take to avoid getting slapped with late fees:

Visit your county tax office and make sure your vehicle registration information is current. Check all three address fields in the database: the vehicle owner’s address, the renewal recipient address and the vehicle location address.

Call the Transportation Department’s vehicle titles and registration division regional office. In the Fort Worth area, call 817-649-5938.

If you suspect you owe a toll but haven’t received a bill, call the Texas Tollways customer service line toll-free at 888-468-9824 and ask for your vehicle information.

If you believe you’ve been erroneously charged late fees and the call-taker won’t budge, ask to speak with a supervisor. If that doesn’t work, consider complaining to a state senator or representative.

Car owners are responsible for tolls, even if the toll is accrued by someone else. However, if you get a bill for tolls on a car that was sold or stolen, you may download a toll violation defense form at www.gotxtag.com/violation.

Consider signing up for a TollTag, a windshield-mounted transponder that makes it possible to pay tolls automatically. TollTag accounts are usually backed by a credit card. The North Texas Tollway Authority administers the accounts and may be reached at www.ntta.org or toll-free at 877-991-0033.

The Transportation Department offers a TxTag, which is similar to a TollTag. For information visit www.txdot.gov or call toll-free 888-468-9824. TollTags and TxTags work on tolls roads in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.

FHWA pushes for more public-private toll roads

Link to article here. Try to follow this logic...driving is down due to high gas prices, therefore road maintenance costs will also drop, and so will congestion & gridlock, yet the FHWA and the Bush Administration call for more risky leveraged debt to prop up an unsustainable toll road scheme that requires motorists to ante up a minimum of 20 times more money than gas taxes? What's broken is our government run by politicians and bureaucrats who continue to indebt generations for today's private profiteering. Yet again, we see a government agency lobbying on the taxpayers' dime.

FHWA director: U.S. transportation system broken
Tom Greenwood / The Detroit News
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
SOUTHFIELD -- James Ray, Acting Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, called on Congress to engage in serious dialogue on maintaining and improving the interstate highway system.

"Without a doubt, our federal approach to transportation is broken," said Ray, who spoke at a press conference at the Eaton Corp. Tuesday morning.

"And no amount of tweaking, adjusting or adding new layers on top will make things better."

Ray said it was paramount that new forms of revenue be considered to supplement the current gas tax, which he described as "unpredictable and unsustainable."

According to the agency, gas tax revenues have declined as American motorists have dramatically cut back on driving due to a sagging economy coupled with record high gasoline prices and increased vehicle fuel efficiency. Ray noted that increased production of hybrid vehicles was a double edged sword in that they diminished the country's reliance on oil, but at the same time reduced tax revenue at the gas pump.

Ray said the Bush administration was in favor of a "more progressive direct user fee" similar to a system that is currently being tested in Oregon. Under that pilot program, cars were equipped with on board mileage counting equipment that was read by pumps equipped with mileage reader devices.

When refueling, the mile counters communicated with the mileage readers at the pumps, which then automatically deducted the standard gas tax and substituted a user fee, instead.

Ray said the Bush administration was offering a number of ways to overhaul the U.S. transportation system, including:

• Streamlining the federal review process for new transportation projects, which takes 13 years to design and build new highway and transit projects.

• Consider more direct pricing options like tolls based on miles driven instead of a flat gas tax paid at the pump.

• Develop a Metropolitan Innovation Fund that would reward cities for creative solutions to transportation problems.

• Cut red tape by reducing over 100 federal transportation programs down to eight comprehensive programs that would focus on transportation problems and solutions.

• Allow states and cities to have a greater say in addressing their most needed transit and highway priorities.

• Encourage greater participation by private companies in public roadways by allowing them to lease federal highways and maintain them through tolls.

• Offer economic incentives to motorists not to drive during peak travel periods.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, drivers traveled nearly 10 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than at the same time period in 2007. Additionally, for the first five months of 2008, U.S. motorists drove nearly 30 billion fewer miles than in 2007, which will result in a nearly $4 billion shortfall in gas revenues for 2009.

Ray said the Bush administration was not in favor of raising the federal gas tax, which currently stands at 18.4 cents per gallon.

"We're not looking at raising the federal gas tax," Ray said.

"The fact is that it's dying ... and relying on a gas tax will not work. We need something which is more agile and responsive than the current gas tax."

Driving down again, even during peak summer season

Link to article here. Driving continues to go down as gas prices stay high. What other evidence do bond investors need to realize these toll roads are a BAD investment and will likely default given the dramatic drop in driving as people tighten their belts? There just won't be enough money to ante up for a toll, too.

Summer driving season started with a flat tire
By Pat Driscoll
Express-News
July 28, 2008
The "slip" in how much Americans are driving, or the "blip" as another expert called it last week, has extended into another record monthly drop as motorists continued adjusting to high gasoline prices.

miles.driven.0708.jpg
"Slip" and "blip" in U.S driving, as shown in latest federal Traffic Volume Trends report.
Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May compared to last year, according to the latest data from the Federal Highway Administration.

The 3.7 percent "slip" is the largest for any May, which kicks off the summer travel season, officials said. And it's the third largest drop for any month in 66 years of gathering such data.

The "blip" has now stretched to seven months, and includes the three largest monthly declines ever seen. March tops the drops with 4.3 percent, followed by December at 3.9 percent.

Driving on Texas roads dropped four months in a row from a year ago, including 2.3 percent in May and a revised 3.8 percent in March.

High gas prices = less time in traffic = toll roads not viable

Link to article here.

High gas prices easing rush-hour traffic
By Pat Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
July 29, 2008
Americans cutting back on driving to soften the blow of high gas prices has loosened gridlock in San Antonio, Houston and some other major U.S. cities.

congestion.0708.jpg
(Urban Congestion Report)
Crunch-time on San Antonio roads tracked by TransGuide shrank by more than an hour a day from last year.
Rush-hour travel times dropped 2.6 percent from March to May compared to a year ago in 23 cities with traffic monitoring systems such as TransGuide, according to a recent Federal Highway Administration report.

The California cities of Riverside-San Bernardino and Sacramento led the way with drops of 7.6 percent and 6.6 percent respectively. Just two cities had increases.

San Antonio motorists spent 4.7 percent less time stuck in traffic, saving a little more than a minute a day, despite twice as many construction zones than a year ago. Houston drivers shaved 1 percent off commute times.

Traffic experts, including those who size up the profits and risks of toll roads, consider work commutes to be a mainstay of urban traffic. People will cut out some vacations, entertainment and even errands to save on gas but will make sure they get to work to keep the paychecks coming.

Nevertheless, as these numbers indicate, commuters are now finding other ways to get to work, such as switching to transit or sharing rides with other motorists.

Rush-hour traffic in the two dozen cities looked at was down 1.4 percent, said Texas Transportation Institute researcher Shawn Turner, who compiles the report for the Federal Highway Administration. Weekday traffic around the clock dipped up to 3 percent while weekend travel dropped up to 5 percent.

All travel on U.S. roads declined 2.4 percent from January through May, a federal report released yesterday says.

In a seeming contradiction, 6.2 percent more cars squeezed onto San Antonio's highways during peak hours while travel times shortened. One reason could be that as jamming eases the roads can handle more traffic, Turner said. Of six hours a day that's tracked, just under two hours were congested, down from just over three last year.

Or the figures could be off, Turner said.

"There's a number of reasons that could be," he said.

• URBAN CONGESTION REPORT

Yesterday's report on all U.S. travel:

• Summer driving season started with a flat tire

Other related reports:

• High gas prices no problem, toll-road officials say
• Rising fuel prices too much for transit
• High gas prices met by record drop in travel
• Drop in driving, and nagging questions
• Record oil prices just a start

Legislature investigates TxDOT's propaganda campaign


Link to article here. TURF testified before the House State Affairs Committee regarding TxDOT's illegal propaganda and lobbying campaign, Keep Texas Moving. The legislators were shocked at how far over the line TxDOT has crossed, and will likely seek changes in the law that TxDOT claims allows them to advertise toll roads and restrain any attempts by a state agency to advocate or lobby. The legislators asked specifically for what legal ramifications there would be both criminally and civilly for TxDOT's violations. Though TURF's case against TxDOT was dismissed in trial court before the case was ever heard (the court upheld TxDOT's plea of sovereign immunity) and before our evidence was presented, it's now pending appeal.

Legislators want state to tell, not sell
By Peggy Fikac
San Antonio Express-News
July 19, 2008

AUSTIN — Government spending on advertising is being put under a microscope by state lawmakers who say they want to ensure public funds are used to inform — not unduly influence — Texans.

The effort was sparked by concerns over a divisive toll road campaign by the Texas Department of Transportation, which was in a familiar spotlight at Friday’s House State Affairs Committee hearing on the issue.

“We get all of the advantages of the toll roads, and yet there are a lot of people that see a lot of disadvantages,” said Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Canton, State Affairs member. “It seems like there was almost an effort to go beyond what the legislative intent was. ..... We have an agency here that kind of has their agenda that is different from ..... legislative intent. I guess that’s what our concerns are.”


Coby Chase, director of TxDOT’s government and public affairs division, responded, “We have most certainly, certainly heard that.” He said that the agency is “reassessing everything.”

Some $4.5 million has been spent on the Keep Texas Moving campaign, but there are no additional big advertising pushes in the works under its banner, according to TxDOT. The campaign originally was proposed at $7 million to $9 million. Chase called it a response to concerns that people didn’t understand toll roads.

The ad campaign had a ripple effect by prompting Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, State Affairs vice chairman, to call for the committee to study advertising practices across state government.

State agencies’ public awareness campaigns often give useful information, but “some state agencies may have overstepped their bounds by actually advertising their programs in an effort to lobby the public to support their agenda or utilize a particular service,” Paxton said.

The committee gave an initial look Friday to everything from health officials touting the benefits of breast feeding to promotion of state agricultural products to the Texas Lottery Commission’s advertising.

It’s unclear just how much state agencies spend on promotions, since state records don’t precisely track them.

But an examination of state records last year by the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle found the tally for advertising, publications and promotional items could easily reach $100 million or more in state and federal funds just for fiscal year 2008.

The tourism section of Perry’s office, for example, has a $40 million advertising budget; the Lottery Commission spends $31 million; TxDOT budgeted $18.4 million for advertising, aside from the Keep Texas Moving program; and the secretary of state’s office had an estimated $4 million budget for such efforts.

Some efforts draw more attention than others, such as those of the Lottery Commission. Flynn said many people are offended at ads they see as urging people to gamble for children’s futures, since lottery money flows to public education.

Anthony Sadberry, Lottery Commission executive director, said the agency is sensitive to such concerns. He said it has a mandate to promote the lottery but to not unduly influence people to play. Asked how the agency achieves that, Sadberry said dryly, “Well, it’s a challenge,” prompting laughter.

It was TxDOT, however, that drew much of the attention, a spot to which the agency is accustomed. Last week, it faced criticism from the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, which looks at whether agencies are in need of major changes or should be continued. Sunset staff has recommended major changes.

Its Keep Texas Moving campaign on toll roads and the Trans-Texas Corridor transportation network struck a particular nerve with lawmakers, who’ve heard an outcry over the corridor’s possible route from landowners and have sought to rein in state partnerships with private companies on toll roads. Both ideas have been pushed by Gov. Rick Perry as an answer to traffic congestion and tax revenues that are short of meeting road needs.

Chase said that before launching the Keep Texas Moving campaign, “We were rightly subject to criticism — maybe we overreacted and overdid it ..... that nobody understood any dynamic of the toll road program.” He said that gap in information ranged from how land was acquired to the mechanics of entrances and exits: “We decided to answer all of those on the Keep Texas moving Web site and then also drive people to the public involvement process.”

But critics such as Terri Hall of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom said the agency crossed the line. TURF filed a lawsuit, recently dismissed in state court, contending the campaign violated a prohibition on state officers or employees using their authority for political purposes. TURF plans to appeal the dismissal.

State Dept gives U.S. oil to Russia

Link to article here. Record high gas prices hurting your family? Don't worry, the U.S. government isn't concerned. In fact, it's giving away U.S. oil in order squeeze U.S. consumers even more. What are we paying these people for? To protect the public interest and solve our energy crisis? No, to reduce the standard of living in this country to Third World status courtesy of the sell-outs in the U.S. government. Just like the Chinese are drilling for oil off the Florida coast, now the Russians will have access to our oil, too. But God forbid Americans get access to it. President "Executive Order" Bush, just continues to push controversial policies that he couldn't get through Congress through the Un-Constitutional use of Executive Orders.

Oil? Ah, let Russia have it
State Department gives away 125,000 square miles of Alaskan ocean floor
July 29, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily


Even if Congress follows President Bush's lead in opening off-shore oil exploration, there exist over 125,000 square miles of sea bottom that won't be explored, because the State Department – amid controversy and against the will of Alaskans – has surrendered the land to Russia.

Eight islands and their surrounding sea floors were ceded to the former Soviet Union as part of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Maritime Boundary Treaty in 1991, a treaty signed by the U.S. Senate and President George Bush but never ratified by the Soviets. Nonetheless, an executive agreement enforcing the terms of the treaty until ratification has been in place through three presidencies, meaning the State Department officially recognizes the islands as Russian territory.

Alaskan legislators, who were given no input or authority on the island giveaway, have long protested the treaty, declaring it null and void without Russian ratification.

And since last week's U.S. Geological Survey estimating that 90 billion barrels of oil lie undiscovered and technically recoverable above the Arctic Circle, those 125,000 square miles of seabed have taken on newly appreciated value. Five of the islands lie north of the Arctic Circle, and the other three sit at the western end of Alaska's Aleutian island chain.

Carl Olson, a retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and chairman of State Department Watch, a nonpartisan foreign policy watchdog group, explained to WND the significance of the State Department's stance: "The area off the coast of an island that a nation may use is called the exclusive economic zone. The group in charge of defining that is the State Department. So (the president and Congress) can say the off-shore areas are opened up, but still not recognize these quarter of a million square miles available for American oil exploration."

Alaska state Rep. John B. Coghill told WND earlier, "The issues involve not only state sovereignty over vital territories but also significant national defense concerns and substantial economic losses over fisheries and petroleum."

The Alaskan legislature and a sympathetic California legislature have both passed resolutions asking Congress to allow Alaska at the bargaining table with Russia to resolve the islands' ownership. After almost 20 years of official protests, the U.S. State Department has yet to acknowledge Alaska's arguments.

"It's totally anti-public, anti-Congress, anti-state actions – but unfortunately the State Department thinks it has the power to adopt this boundary line with the Russians without anybody's consent outside themselves, " Olson told WND. "The State Department is basically chopping off a piece of Alaska and giving it to a foreign government without Alaska having any say in it."

The lands in dispute include the islands of Herald, Bennett, Henrietta, Jeanette, Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock, Sea Otter Rock, and Wrangel, which is the largest of the eight, roughly the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, including the Aleutian Islands, which presumably would include Copper Island, Sea Otter Rock and Sea Lion Rock. In 1881, U.S. Captain Calvin L. Hooper landed on Wrangel Island and claimed it for the U.S. Also in 1881, the U.S. Navy claimed the islands of Bennett, Jeannette, and Henrietta. The British held Herald Island, but they gave up that claim, permitting the U.S. to take it.

American citizens had occupied Wrangel Island from approximately 1881 to 1924, when Russian soldiers landed and forcibly removed the American occupants from its shores. The Russians then reportedly used the island as a concentration camp.



Many Alaskan legislators believe the islands were part of their state, even after the Wrangel invasion, though the U.S. State Department officially disagrees. Without a ratified treaty designating them as Russian, those same legislators and Carl Olson believe the islands still are American territory and can be reverted to the U.S. easily.

The only thing binding the islands to Russia is "in the form of an executive agreement," Olson told WND, "which means it can be changed with the stroke of a pen by the president, because it has no force of law."

"We have been steadily maintaining the pressure," said Olson. "It's just a matter of finding sympathetic people in Washington and the other states to go for it. There's plenty of organizations who have endorsed our efforts, so we keep up the drumbeat."

Coghill has also sought the support of other states, claiming that the federal State Department has overstepped its authority in giving away a state's land. "If they can do this to Alaska," he warns, "they can do this to any state."

U.S. State Department officials did not return WND telephone calls to discuss the matter, but a State Department webpage devoted to the island controversy denies that islands were ever claimed by the United States and explains that though the treaty between the U.S. and Russian Federation was never fully ratified, "In a separate exchange of diplomatic notes, the two countries agreed to apply the agreement provisionally."

The webpage concludes, "The U.S. has no intention of reopening discussion of the 1990 Maritime Boundary Treaty."

Bush calls for tolling existing FREEways, privatizing infrastructure

Link to article here. At least now it's abundantly clear to the average citizen that the Bush Administration is behind this privatization of our public infrastructure and toll road proliferation. He even called for tolls on existing freeways in a DOUBLE TAX nightmare for motorists. So much for lower taxes from so-called conservatives! They even advocate DOUBLE TAXING us for freeways already built and paid for!

Bush Calls for New Highway Tolls, More Private Funding of Roads
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
Wall Street Journal
July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration unveiled a plan to impose new tolls on freeways and encourage more private investment to finance road and mass-transit projects, a move aimed at stirring debate as lawmakers prepare for a major overhaul of transportation policy.

The White House says more tolls and public-private partnerships can solve perhaps the biggest problem confronting the nation's aging infrastructure: There are limited funds available to upgrade transportation networks and too many federal funds are doled out inefficiently through earmarks and pet projects that do little to improve mobility or reduce congestion.

The search for alternative funding sources is ramping up because Americans are driving less and shifting to more fuel-efficient vehicles. That means they will be paying less in gasoline and diesel-fuel taxes, which traditionally have been the biggest source of federal funding for highway and mass-transit construction.

Many states are moving to increase existing tolls. Pennsylvania, for example, is hoping to win federal permission for new tolls on a standing interstate. Meanwhile, several states are turning to business consortiums to finance, build and operate new highways, bridges and tunnels, although a political backlash has slowed the push in recent years.

The administration's proposal comes as Congress gears up to start work later this year on a six-year transportation spending bill that could cost well more than $400 billion. The last multiyear bill, which expires in September 2009, carried a $286 billion tab.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan commission concluded the nation is spending only about 40% of what is needed to reduce congestion, improve safety and spur economic growth. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters served on the commission but dissented from the majority view that gas taxes should more than double in coming years to support a big increase in transportation spending.

Ms. Peters says gas-tax rates should hold steady -- at 18.4 cents a gallon for regular gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel, where they have stood for more than a decade -- and private money and toll revenue can address any needed increases in funding. She declined Tuesday to say how much more the U.S. needs to increase its overall spending on transportation infrastructure. Instead, she suggested ways to make transportation spending less wasteful.

"Our federal approach to transportation is broken," she said. "And no amount of tweaking, adjusting or adding new layers on top will make things better."

Many Democrats objected to the administration's plan, saying it could have gone further in identifying ways to raise investment and spur projects that could unclog major choke points. Perhaps the most common complaint centered on the shift in reliance from gas taxes to private-sector dollars.

"It's basically an opportunity for people who have wanted to systematically reduce the federal participation in infrastructure," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D., Ore.), who is spearheading a transportation debate in the House. "It's going to fall with a thud."

The two major presidential candidates haven't released detailed plans on transportation funding, even as the issue is sure to be one of next year's biggest legislative battles. Republican Sen. John McCain has stressed the need to eliminate earmarks and pet projects. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama supports the creation of a $60 billion national infrastructure bank that would fund projects of regional and national significance. The two have also sparred over Mr. McCain's proposal to give consumers a gas-tax holiday this summer.

How local government is fighting the TTC

Together with Stewards of the Range and the American Land Foundation, TURF has been working to take back our out of control government through forming a special kind of planning commission found in a state statute under Local Government Code section 391. These commissions are one of the few, if not the only, avenues for citizens to actually stop the Trans Texas Corridor and other unwanted projects through their communities. One of the first commissions was formed in 2007 in Central Texas in Bell County. This excellent article featured in the Ft. Worth Weekly tells their story and shows how the other 8 commissions already formed can do the same. For more information on how to form a commission, contact Stewards of the Range at www.stewards.us.

Link to article here.

   Rocks for the Goliath Road

    Small-town leaders in Central Texas think they’ve found cracks in the Trans-Texas Corridor’s armor.

   By PETER GORMAN

  July 9, 2008
BARTLETT — Sitting in Lois and Jerry’s Restaurant, surrounded by a blue-jean and overalls lunch crowd, Mae Smith and Ralph Snyder don’t look like giant-killers. In fact, the small-town mayor (5’ 2”) and the salvage shop owner (6’ 6”) look more like a Mutt and Jeff comedy team.

   But along with mayors, business leaders, and farmers in Bell County, north of Austin, and their counterparts in several other parts of the state, Smith and Snyder are taking on a Texas Goliath — the Trans-Texas Corridor, the monster transportation project being pushed by Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation.

Two years ago, the I-35 section of the project, planned to parallel the existing interstate, was seen as a done deal, and TxDOT was busy signing contracts with the Spanish-U.S. consortium called Cintra-Zachry to build a section of the corridor and operate it as a private toll road. Now, however, much of the political support for it has drained away in the face of widespread grass-roots opposition. Even the project’s backers say the small-towners’ group may have a chance of causing major holdups — and perhaps even fatal delays.
   Smith, Snyder, and a growing group of leaders in other small towns and rural areas in the TTC’s path have found what they believe to be a chink in the giant’s armor, and they are exploiting it for all they’re worth — backed by national property-rights groups that have fought government land seizures in other states with some success.

   In the last two years, Smith, the 64-year-old firebrand mayor of Holland, and the leaders of three other Bell County towns, with a combined population of less than 6,000, had grown increasingly worried about the threat that the TTC project posed for their communities. Frustrated by their inability to get state transportation officials to pay attention to their fears, the mayors found a provision in state law that allows for the creation of local planning commissions — and then requires TxDOT and other state agencies to coordinate projects with those commissions.

   So they created a planning commission and began asking for consultations and records on TTC. And what they found in the process astounded them.

   Smith said that TxDOT claims in official documents that it has studied the Corridor’s expected effects on communities it will run through — but that it has done no such studies. In the draft version of its environmental impact study, she said, the agency wrote a summary — the only part many busy lawmakers are likely to read — that varied wildly from the information in the body of the report.

    The local officials charge that the transportation agency report broadly misstated its own consultant’s findings regarding jobs that the TTC would create and failed to mention heavy losses in personal income and in the tax base the project would cause. They say TxDOT has also ignored requirements in state and federal law that it consider effects on air quality and the environment, look into other alternatives — or even to state why the TTC, with its grand vision of toll roads, train and pipeline rights of way, and commercial areas controlled by private corporations, is needed at all. And, perhaps most importantly for one of the state’s richest farming areas, they charge that TxDOT has failed to consider the major impact the project would have on their federally protected farmland.

    As a result, the planning commission is pressing for TxDOT to redraw its environmental impact statement and to stop any further work on the TTC until proper studies have been done and requirements met — or expect to be sued.

    TxDOT officials have said only that they have contacted the Federal Highway Administration to find out if the Central Texas group, which now includes a fifth town, in Milam County, has the power to compel it to respond. TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippencott wrote in an e-mail that, “We are awaiting further guidance from [the federal agency] on whether and how to revisit the already-completed portion of this process.” Gov. Rick Perry, who has been the power behind the push for the TTC, declined to comment.

    Perhaps worse news, from TxDOT’s point of view, is that, since the Central Texas group formed, four more local planning commissions have been formed in East Texas, two more are being organized on the other side of the state, and the Sierra Club is getting into the action, pointing out problems with the environmental assessment on another major portion of the TTC and asking that that work be delayed as well, until a new impact study is done.

    The small-town group’s formal request to the state agency cites so many sins in the Corridor planning process, Smith said, that the detailed document “can almost indict people for the way TxDOT has purposely ignored state and federal law.”

    Chapter 391 of the Texas Local Government Code is the not-so-secret weapon of the Central Texas officials who are fighting the Corridor. The code “says that TxDOT and other state agencies have to coordinate project planning with local planning commissions,” Smith explained, “so we formed one” – specifically, the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission, of which she is president.

    The commission was created in August 2007, by which time TxDOT had already released its draft environmental impact statement on the part of the Corridor project that affects Bell and Milam counties, known as TTC-35. In the draft statement, Smith said, the agency “claimed to have studied the highway’s environmental impact and the impact it would have on the communities it ran through, but that wasn’t true.” So the group asked for a meeting with TxDOT to talk about it.

    At that first meeting, in October, Smith said, TxDOT officials admitted they hadn’t studied the environmental impact the planned 1,200-foot wide corridor would have on the area covered by the four towns — Holland, Bartlett, Rogers, and Little River-Academy (Buckholts has joined since then). That area is part of the Blackland Prairie, covered by the federal Farmland Protection Act.

    A second meeting revealed that the environment wasn’t the only thing TxDOT hadn’t studied. The local commission concluded that in fact, TxDOT hadn’t studied much of anything with regard to Bell County “They had no idea how to answer questions about [the TTC] dividing our cities in half and the effect that might have on school districts, on the agriculture business this area depends on, or the effect that highway would have on our emergency services,” Smith said.

  TxDOT officials, she said, promised they would do that work when they began the second phase of the project — that is, after they decided exactly where to put the superhighway. In the meantime, however, the agency was already buying land and making deals with contractors. “That’s not OK with us,” she said. “That’s not the law. You can’t begin to study the impact you’ll have after you’ve made your plans; you have to make your plans around the impact you are going to have.”

   The planning commissioners also found that the state highway agency’s draft environmental study didn’t even agree with itself — the summary wasn’t supported by the text of the report.

   And so Smith’s group sent out a formal request on May 20 to Edward Pensock Jr., the engineer who is director of corridor systems of the TxDOT’s turnpike division, asking the agency for a supplemental report on the project’s environmental impact.

   The Central Texas commission backed up its request with a 28-page list of “deficiencies” in the current environmental assessment. Perhaps as important as the request itself is the commission’s insistence on when it should be done.

  “We want the supplemental environmental impact study done by TxDOT prior to any further work or planning on the highway,” Smith said.

    TxDOT wasn’t happy with the request and sent it on to the Federal Highway Administration, asking whether it indeed has to do a supplemental report. The federal agency’s answer is expected by the end of the month. And if the ruling favors the local commission, the entire TTC could be held up until that new report is complete.

  A TxDOT official who asked not to be named said the state agency has satisfied its obligations by holding hearings and meeting with the commission — and that it isn’t required to actually address the commission’s request for a new study.

    Not so says Snyder, the only non-elected member of the commission. “We’re a political entity, and as far as this request is concerned, there are things that TxDOT ignored under federal law,” he said. “And they’ve got no choice but to abide by those federal laws.”

   Snyder predicted that the feds will pressure TxDOT to do the additional study before further work is done on the TTC plans. But if that doesn’t happen, he said, he’s confident that the commission can force the state agency’s hand through the court system. “We’ve got the law on our side,” he said. “TxDOT has to do this thing right, or there will be no TTC.”

    The Central Texas group has environmental, economic, and legal issues to pick with TxDOT. One of their key points, for instance, is TxDOT’s claim that when the new superhighway is complete it will add 434,000 permanent new jobs and $135 billion in additional personal income in the state.

   But in fact, the report done for the state agency on the TTC’s economic impact doesn’t make that prediction on new job creation, and suggests that the project would decrease personal income across the state by $90 million a year because of land to be taken by the project. On the TTC-35 section alone, the Perryman Group consultants predicted governments will lose $94 million in taxable property.

  More than 4,000 acres would be lost just in Smith’s planning region, which includes an area roughly 30 miles by 30 miles. Additionally, the Perryman Group’s report, which was all but ignored by TxDOT in its draft environmental statement, predicted hundreds of millions of dollars would be lost from the agricultural sector.

  In its request for a new impact report, the small-town group wrote that TxDOT’s draft environmental statement “should have revealed the [Perryman] study … and then analyzed those facts to determine the economic impact” on the region.

  “In plain language, they had a study done, and then when the figures didn’t match what they wanted, they just made up some figures and put them in the summary they passed out,” Smith charged. “Just made them up.”

  In addition to the financial losses to individuals and governments in the area, the TTC would force area governments to build their own overpasses and underpasses for all except state highway crossings — and some crossings could carry tolls. “None of those issues were even considered” in TxDOT’s draft environmental statement, said Smith.

  Beyond that, the planning commission charges, are all the federal laws and even state needs that are being ignored by the TTC planning process, including the Environmental Protection Act.

  But there is one overriding concern that the Central Texas commission members share, and it is more basic than tax losses or expensive overpasses. It is the land itself, the rich black clay that defines their region’s culture and economy. And in saving the land, they believe they’ve got the federal government — and, oddly enough, some of the federal government’s most implacable opponents — on their side.

  Just a few miles east of I-35, near Salado, lies the heart of the Blackland Prairie. The gently rolling hills reach to the horizon, the fields alternating with stands of Osage orange, hackberry, cedar elm, oak, and pecan orchards. Corn ready for harvest stands next to the dark brown of the milo tops and the rich green of cotton. Recently harvested wheat fields expose the rich black clay from which the prairie gets its name.

  Holland’s downtown, a block of old brick buildings dating back more than 100 years, is a throwback in time. The only lunch spot in town is closed for vacation. At noon a siren shrieks, calling the hour.

  So when Mae Smith drives up in her dusty dark green Dakota pickup, we head over to Bartlett, to meet reinforcements and find lunch. She wears jeans and a red blouse, and her blonde hair is cropped short.

    “Most of the people living here have been living here for generations,” she explains as she drives. “And they like this life. They may work in Temple or Austin, but they still live here. Just like their daddies and their daddies.”

   Stepping out of the truck 20 minutes later on Bartlett’s main drag, we’re met by the huge figure of Snyder. He has the same searing blue eyes as Smith.

   “Let me tell you something about the Blackland Prairie,” Snyder says. “In 1850 this was the most heavily populated area in the United States west of the Mississippi. That’s because of the soil here. Now the blackland, a fine clay, runs from Mexico up to Canada.” In some parts of the country, the swath of soil is 250 miles wide, but here it’s just 30 miles across. “And if you take any of it away, well, it’s gone forever, and these towns depend on the ag business.”

   At one point in the lunch, he makes a dash to his truck and comes back with an ear of corn. “Take a look at that,” he says, peeling back the husk to show off a large ear with golden kernels. “The black clay here expands with the winter rains and then gives off the water during the summer months. We’re in the middle of a drought, and this was grown without irrigation. Farmers will be averaging 130 bushels of corn around here per acre without irrigation. This soil is a national treasure. To pave it over is a crime.”

   Farmland is lost every day in this country to urban sprawl and road development, but this fertile region has federal law on its side — the Farmland Protection Act — as well as state protections. Although most of the Blackland Prairie in Texas is being farmed, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has identified the remaining 5,000 acres of the formation as deserving “high priority protection” — and has already recommended that TxDOT not put another huge highway through the area, but stick to the I-35 corridor to build any additional freeway capacity.

   The Farmland Protection Act has already been used in freeway fights. According to the lawyer for a national property rights group, the Federal Highway Administration cited that law in rejecting plans for a new highway in Indiana, in favor of an alternative that had less impact on farmland.

   The property rights group in question is called Stewards of the Range. And one of its founders is neck-deep in the TTC controversy.

   Snyder was the linchpin in getting the Bell County planning commission off the ground. In the spring of 2007 he attended a meeting called by Margaret and Dan Byfield in the town of Jonah, about the TTC. “There had been a lot of misinformation put out by TxDOT on the Corridor, and the Byfields were meeting with the folks ... to give them the real story,” he said.

   The Byfields, who joined us for lunch, are controversial figures. Margaret, 41, helped found the nonprofit Stewards of the Range in 1992, when the federal government moved to take away her family’s right to run their herds on 1,100 square miles of federal land next to their Nevada ranch. Dan Byfield, 54, is the president and founder of another land rights group, the American Land Foundation. When they met, the two were already involved with their respective organizations in the long-running private property rights called the Sagebrush Rebellion, which has pitted Western U.S. farmers and ranchers against environmental groups fighting for causes like the protection of wetlands and endangered species habitat.

    The couple moved to Central Texas about five years ago — only to find that the behemoth TTC was being aimed within a mile of their property. It was the attorney for Stewards of the Range who drew up the Bell County group’s demand letter to TxDOT, asking for a new environmental impact study.

   “We’ve often fought with environmental groups,” Dan said, “but in this case we seem to have come full circle and are fighting [alongside] them.”

   It was from Dan Byfield that Snyder heard about the local government code provision that allows for creation of the sub-regional planning commissions. Similar federal provisions had been used by the Stewards of the Range to force the federal government to deal with counties in the West.

   “I told him we ought to try it up in Bell County,” Snyder recalled, “because those people were already looking for a way to stop the TTC from destroying the Blackland Prairie.”

   His first step was to approach each of the four mayors with his idea. “And then I got on the agenda for the city councils for each of the four cities and explained to them how a commission worked and that we wanted to form one. And as there was zero opposition to it, we did.” The school boards of the four cities joined as well.

   “It wasn’t hard, because I knew everyone. Heck, I probably know everyone in Bell County,” said Snyder, 64, who owns three farms besides his salvage business.

    From the viewpoint of Snyder, Smith, and the Byfields, the whole TTC is a land grab disguised as a transportation issue. Snyder pointed to a study done in the 1990s by the Federal Highway Administration and TxDOT. “That study says that you can expand I-35 in the existing right of way to build enough road to take care of our transportation needs until 2025,” he said. “But that study has been thrown away for the TTC. So it’s not about transportation.

   “But the TTC is planned at 1,200 feet wide so that there will be room to lease land to McDonalds and gas stations and motels along the highway, and they’re going to lease the rights to use the pipelines and rail lines they’re planning. That’s when you get to see it for what it is: the use of eminent domain to grab hundreds of thousands of acres in rural Texas to make money.”

    While none of Snyder’s property would be affected directly by any of the proposed routes of the TTC, he’s passionate on the issue. “A lot of people here have been here for as many as six generations. They’re not all very sophisticated, and they’re the ones who are going to be taken advantage of,” he said. “They’ve got no idea what their land is worth, they don’t trust lawyers, and they’re ripe. … You cut these towns up and you’ll kill them; they’ll never be the same again.”>

   A fellow in overalls at the next table leaned over to say, “I agree with you. I hope you stop it.”

   Then Sammy Cortez, a huge young man whose arms are covered in tattoos, stopped by. “I can’t see it,” he said of the TTC. “People have been living on and working this land forever. They’re not going to give it up. I don’t even know why we need a new road.”

   “That’s what most people are beginning to ask,” Dan Byfield said.

   Another few miles away, through more lush farmlands, is the town of Little River-Academy. The drive comes with Smith’s travelogue of memory — here’s where the old road was, that pecan orchard is new, her uncle used to live over there.

   At Gunsmoke Motors, wrecker service owner Ronnie White was inflating a stack of tractor-tire inner tubes. His family and friends were planning to celebrate the Fourth with a five-mile float down the Little River. A Navy veteran who took part in the Cuban missile crisis action and served in Vietnam, White has been mayor of this town, population 1,645, for 27 years. Now he’s also a member of the planning commission.

   Light-hearted in talking about his holiday plans, he grew serious when the topic turned to the TTC. “The politicians and the people behind the corridor plan, they talk about how it will help the economy. I know I’ve had a few run-ins with the mayor of Temple — that’s the largest city in Bell County, with a population of close to 60,000. He’s all for it. He thinks the TTC is going to bring more money, help his city’s economy. But down here, out here in rural Texas, we don’t think that way.

   “Our lifestyle is our wealth. Our land is our wealth,” he said. “People have been here for generations, and we’re happy with the way things are. If you start telling us you’re going to take our land and put up new shops and we’re going to start making a few more dollars and all we have to do is give up the way we live, well, that’s not something people around here are going to go for. >

   “When they were taking land for I-35, they took a much wider piece than they needed,” White said. “And we asked why they needed to take that much. The answer was that they’d need it in the future. Now they’re saying the same thing when they’re talking about taking 1,200 feet of land. Well, I say, ‘You already took all that land for I-35, so now use it.’ ”

 Pensock, the TxDOT official, sounded supportive when he talked about the Central Texas group. “These folks that form regional subcommittees are very concerned folks,” he said, “and we definitely want to hear what they want to say and know what their thoughts are. We’ve already met with Mayor Smith and some of the other folks from the Holland area several times and spent a lot of time trying to give them information and answer their questions.”

   He’s not quite so definite about what his agency needs to do in response. Does TxDOT have to meet the commission’s demand for a new study? “Well, they have a voice and a right to be heard,” he answered. “But Texas is a big state, and there are a lot of voices to be heard.”

   Pensock doesn’t think that simply widening I-35 without taking more land is a real option. “People look at those broad medians and those gently sloping embankments and picture that we can just lay down another 12-foot lane. That’s not really the case. For one, our highway engineering specifications are quite rigorous. And then there’s the matter of why we put those medians there in the first place. They’re there to help prevent head-on collisions. Our first guiding principle is how to best keep traffic flowing while minimizing accidents.

    “So say you take away those medians and turn them into lanes. Well, we think that will increase the risk of horrible accidents. And those gentle embankments? If you cut them at a steeper angle to add lanes, or get rid of them altogether and put up a retaining wall, you’ll get your lanes but at what price? How many more accidents will you have and how much more severe will they be?”

   For now, TXDOT is waiting on word from the Federal Highway Administration before moving on the commission’s request for a supplemental study.

   Fred Kelly Grant, president of Stewards of the Range, who wrote the commission’s request to TxDOT, said he’s thought from the first that the TTC issue would end up in court.

   And Margaret Byfield said that, if that happens, the 5,000-plus-member Stewards group is ready to fund the fight. “Our membership opposes the corridor. And we’re nationwide, so we have the financial backing, and we’ve already got the attorneys. So we are ready to go to court.”

   Smith said the commission has talked to officials of the Environmental Protection Agency and has a meeting scheduled with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture charged with protecting farmland.

   “We’re tired of fooling around,” she said. “We want the supplemental studies done. And we’re coming at them from state law, from the EPA, the NRCS … from all sorts of directions.”

   While the Central Texas group is lining up its arguments and allies, it also appears to have exported its revolutionary sentiment to other parts of the state. The several newly formed planning commissions in East Texas and around El Paso are considering asking for TxDOT to re-do the environmental studies on TTC’s impact in their areas as well.

   The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club has also asked TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration to withdraw and redo the impact study on I-69, the leg of TTC planned between Laredo and Texarkana. The environmental group backed up its request with an 84-page document pointing out errors or omissions in TxDOT’s original report on that road.

   Smith said she expects to see an attempt in the Texas Legislature next year to eliminate the part of the local government code that allows for the formation of local planning groups like hers. Grant, the Stewards of the Range attorney, said that even if that happens, legislators won’t be able to strip already-existing commissions of their powers.

   “The public hearings that TxDOT holds are just that,” said Smith. “The people come in and speak what’s on their mind, but then TxDOT goes on its merry way. But with the commission we’ve formed, with four mayors and four school board officials, well, we’re all elected officials — TxDOT is compelled by Texas law to speak with us.

  “We may not be able to stop a toll road,” she said. “But we set ourselves a goal when we formed: to get I-35 finished and expanded before anyone jumps into a toll road. And we believe that if that’s done, then people will see that a toll road isn’t needed at all.”

Permitting single occupant vehicles to pay toll for HOV lanes actually discourages carpooling

Link to article here. Houston's I-10/Katy Freeway expansion (paid for with gas taxes) will allow single occupant vehicles to use the new HOV lanes if they pay a toll (now called HOT lanes). So much for encouraging carpooling...they're also increasing the number of occupants needed to qualify for the HOV lane! Wouldn't want to dip into those toll revenues...

HOT Lanes Discourage Carpooling
High Occupancy Toll lanes in some, but not all, states actively discourage carpooling.
The Newspaper.com
July 14, 2008

95 Express Lanes application"High occupancy" use of so-called High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes is actively discouraged in some states to ensure the greatest number of drivers pay for the use of roads. As the US Department of Transportation continues to pressure states to turn existing High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes into toll lanes, HOT advocates assure carpoolers that tolling will not affect them. Practices adopted by the most recently opened HOT projects suggest this claim may be misleading.

In the 1990s, congressional mandates forced states to adopt HOV lanes as an environmental improvement measure. These lanes promised to encourage ride sharing, thereby reducing the number of vehicles on the road. Supporters argued that this reduction would both lessen congestion in free travel lanes and improve overall air quality. For example, if a group of friends wanted to take the freeway to attend a distant event during rush hour, they could choose to take one vehicle instead of three in return for the benefit of a speedier journey in the special carpool lane.

 
Such impromptu carpooling efforts are denied free access to the high occupancy lanes in the country's newest federally funded project. The South Florida 95 Express HOT lanes require anyone wishing to take advantage of high occupancy status to pre-register, obtain a set of decals and pay for a SunPass toll transponder. Once approved and the driver's transponder is activated, those carpool journeys deemed acceptable to the Florida Department of Transportation will be free. Those wishing to register must provide extensive personal details to the state-operated toll road and meet a detailed set of criteria (view application form, 150k PDF).
Participants must live within a three-mile radius
Participants must work within a one-mile radius
Participants must have a start and end their work day within 30 minutes of one another
"If any member of the carpool does not meet the criteria, the carpool registration request will be rejected unless additional information is provided that would constitute a 3+ commuter carpool," South Florida Commuter Services explains on its website.

The only exception to the detailed distance criteria is that accepted participants are allowed to meet at an approved Park-and-Ride lot. The system offers very little flexibility. If one member of the carpool drops out, a new co-worker cannot join without first submitting his personal details and having his application processed. Decals also expire every six months, requiring constant renewal.

Although Florida imposes these restrictions, Colorado does not. Colorado's state-owned Interstate 25 Express Lane project is designed to allow impromptu carpoolers and motorcyclists to continue with the same free and easy use of HOV lanes. To avoid a registration bureaucracy, the state created two separate lanes for entering the HOT facility -- one for toll payers and one for carpoolers. Strategically placed police enforcement zones on the side of the lanes maximize opportunities for the ticketing of solo drivers who might venture into the untolled carpool lane. Once motorists pass the toll collection zones, they are allowed to use any lane.

Upcoming projects have not been forthcoming about whether a Florida or Colorado model of operation will be put in place. For example, Virginia's Interstate 495 Capital Beltway HOT lane project, which is run by the Australian company Transurban, has kept carpool requirements quiet while the project is still under construction.

"Detailed plans and processes for obtaining any required transponder will be communicated to all users of the HOT lanes prior to the lanes opening," the project website explains. "Fluor-Transurban and VDOT will conduct extensive community education efforts to ensure motorists understand how to use HOT lanes."

According to Virginia's contract with Transurban, taxpayers would have to make payments to Transurban if the HOT lanes actually ended up encouraging carpooling (details).

The story is similar for hybrid vehicles. Although the owners of these politically favored automobiles do not need to go through as much hassle to obtain free use of certain HOT lanes, their free ride could be short-lived. In Colorado and Florida, hybrid owners must buy a toll transponder and send in an application containing the hybrid's license plate and, in Colorado, the vehicle identification number. Owners will then receive a decal to place on their car and driving will be toll free from that point forward on participating roads.

There are strict caps on the favoritism. Colorado, for example, will only allow 2000 hybrids to take advantage of HOT lanes and will only consider allowing more if it does not impact toll revenues significantly.

"The EXpressToll transponder account may be utilized to implement tolling upon hybrid vehicles in the event degradation of travel speed occurs in HOV and express lanes," Colorado's Department of Transportation explains on its website. "Your EXpressToll transponder account will not be charged without advance notice and you will first be given the opportunity to cancel your account and return your transponder."

Hybrids will not have free use of the Virginia HOT lanes.

Driving continues 7 month slide, worst since 1980


Link to article here. It's obvious Americans have reached the ceiling for the price of gasoline. Apparently, $4 a gallon is the impetus to cutting back on driving for the first time since the oil embargo. Tollers still contend you'll pay tolls no matter the cost to the family budget since people still have to make the daily commute. But what they're foolishly counting on is that demographics will stay constant and that people will merely cut back on leisure travel and still pony-up a toll to get to work.

Trends are already showing families are making dramatic lifestyle changes to adjust to the rising fuel prices, like moving closer to work or moving to avoid the costly expense of paying tolls. Tollers are placing high stakes bets on status quo and mortgaging our children's future to tune of hundreds of billions in leveraged debt, exploiting risky financial schemes that brought us the mortgage and banking collapse we're in now. We cannot tolerate more fiscal malfeasance. Demand an end to toll proliferation and risky leveraged debt schemes that will leave taxpayers holding the bag while private profiteers laugh all the way to the bank.

U.S. Motorists May Drive Less for 1st Time Since 1980 (Update2)
By Angela Greiling Keane

July 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. motorists, paying record prices for gasoline, drove less for a seventh consecutive month in May, pointing toward the first annual drop in road travel since 1980.

``$4 per gallon may have been the trigger point we've been looking for,'' said Kenneth McGill, managing director for travel and tourism at consulting firm Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``It's interesting to see Americans finally reacting to the price of gasoline by rationing consumption.''

Vehicle-miles traveled on all U.S. roads fell 3.7 percent in May from a year earlier, the Federal Highway Administration said in a report today. The seven-month slide is the longest streak since 1979, agency spokesman Doug Hecox said.

Americans cut back as the average U.S. retail gasoline price reached a then-record of $3.98 a gallon on May 31. Rising fuel prices and a weak economy also marked the drop in driving in 1980, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and U.S. Embassy personnel in Iran were taken hostage.

May's travel decline pushed this year's total down 2.4 percent, according to the Washington-based highway agency, which has been reporting the data since 1942.

Driving decreased in all five regions for which the agency tallies results, led by a 4.5 percent drop in the north-central U.S., which includes Chicago. May's 254.7 billion miles driven were the lowest for the month since 2003.

Slowing Economy

The report adds to evidence of a slowing U.S. economy already beset by the worst housing market since the Great Depression. Gasoline at U.S. pumps averaged as high as $4.11 this month before slipping to $3.96 yesterday, according to motoring group AAA. Spending more on fuel leaves consumers with less for other goods and services.

``It's not only not a good summer, but probably not a good fall and there's a big question mark in 2009 also about the state of domestic travel and domestic spending,'' said Dennis Forst, a hotel and casino analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets in El Segundo, California.

That drain on household budgets is helping damp U.S. auto demand, which Deutsche Bank AG said July 23 may shrink to 14 million vehicles this year, the fewest since 1993. First-half sales fell 10 percent, with light trucks down 18 percent.

Highway Freight

Highway freight traffic is down, too, because of the drop in auto sales and homebuilding and consumer spending that grew only a third as fast in the first quarter as a year earlier. YRC Worldwide Inc., the biggest U.S. trucking company, said second- quarter tonnage on its regional unit plunged 16 percent.

The traffic counts are compiled using cables across roadways to estimate the number of miles driven. The highway agency tracks all motorized vehicles and doesn't differentiate between commercial and passenger traffic.

``We're seeing a sustained dropoff over a prolonged period, and a significant dropoff that we expect will continue,'' Transportation Secretary Mary Peters told reporters today on a conference call.

She will outline the George W. Bush administration's proposed changes in highway funding, including greater use of private capital, in a speech tomorrow at Georgia Institute of Technology in Smyrna, Georgia. Peters has said federal gasoline taxes become less useful in paying for transportation projects as Americans drive less. Bush's term ends in January.

May's traffic decline confirms predictions from groups including AAA that Americans would drive less during the U.S. Memorial Day holiday, the traditional start of the summer vacation season.

``People were not traveling far from home,'' said Adam Weissenberg, tourism, hospitality and leisure leader at New York-based consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. ``More people were going to local beaches, local state parks, etc.''

David Ellis, a researcher at Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute in College Station, said high fuel prices are more likely to curb travel when vacationers are on the road than at times of the year with fewer leisure trips.

``We're tending to cut out the leisure driving first,'' Ellis said.

Toll lanes create, not solve, congestion

Link to article here.

New Virginia Toll Lanes Designed to Create Congestion
Illegal political donations helped give Australian company full control over Virginia transportation until the year 2087.
The Newspaper.com
July 8, 2008

BeltwayIllegal political contributions helped an Australian firm land a lucrative toll road deal that grants the company unprecedented power over Northern Virginia's transportation future. Last week, Transurban wrote and asked state lawmakers to return checks that the Melbourne-based toll road operator had written in violation of federal campaign laws (details). But the deal these contributions helped bring about has already been finalized.

In June, the US Department of Transportation created a first-of-its-kind $1.6 billion financing package that consisted of tax-free bonds, loans and state taxpayer grants to support the project that will add a pair of High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes to the Interstate 495 Capital Beltway just outside of Washington, DC. To this amount, Transurban only added $349 million of its own capital -- less than the cost of interest -- toward the construction of the toll lanes (details).


In return for that small investment, Transurban received from Virginia officials the right to demand payment from state taxpayers any time that improvements are made to a number of free roads near the Beltway. In effect, the contract between the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and Transurban is designed to ensure the area remains sufficiently congested so that motorists will have an incentive to pay to use the toll lanes.

For example, VDOT can make no changes, expansion or improvements to the free lanes on the Beltway until the year 2087 unless the agency first consults Transurban. VDOT agreed that if any such changes were made to the general purpose lanes without Transurban's explicit approval, they would at least be made in such a way as to guarantee the company maintained a high level of profit.

"If the department [VDOT] determines that additional traffic lanes on the Capital Beltway Corridor are in the state's best interests, the department shall consult with the concessionaire [Transurban] as to an appropriate strategy to implement such additional traffic lanes," the contract states. "At the department's sole discretion, [it shall] permit the construction of additional lanes as part of the project with a view to minimizing any detrimental impact on the project or its ability to generate revenues..."

In the past, most toll road deals included "non-compete" clauses that strictly prohibited transportation departments from making improvements to nearby, competing roads. They did so because free-flowing traffic on alternative routes would hit the toll road's bottom line. Simply put: why take a toll road, when there's a free alternative?

Explicit non-compete provisions have become politically controversial, and as a result companies have recently embraced a more subtle approach that accomplishes the same goal. For example, the contract for the State Highway 130 toll road in Austin, Texas included a provision giving the Texas Department of Transportation a financial incentive to lower the speed limit on the nearby Interstate 35 freeway. As first reported by TheNewspaper last year that, this provision was designed to create congestion and inconvenience for the motorists who choose the free alternative route (details).

For the Beltway project, improvements such as adding additional free lanes to the highway are absolutely permitted -- for a price. The contract considers any improvement to the Beltway to be a "Department Project Enhancement" which means that Virginia taxpayers must pay Transurban for the right to improve the free portion of the highway. Given VDOT's stated lack of funding, adding an extra monetary premium to the cost of any improvements effectively gives the foreign company the ability to prevent such projects from happening.

The effect is not limited to the Beltway. The contract specifies that payments called "compensation events" must be made in the event that the state decides to improve the connections between the Beltway's general purpose lanes and the Dulles Toll Road or any "improvements to I-66 outside the Capital Beltway Corridor" made over the course of the next eighty years.

An "independent engineer" determines how much compensation Transurban will receive by calculating an expected traffic impact. This means that the more the public is likely to use a free alternative, the more Transurban is paid. In Sydney, Australia, for example, the Lane Cove Tunnel toll project contained a provision requiring the state government to narrow the lanes of a nearby free road to generate congestion that would drive motorists into the tunnel. After the state decided to postpone the narrowing until after an election, the toll road concession was paid A$25 million (US $24 million) for that compensation event.

Transurban's control goes beyond lane improvements. Although the stated purpose of the "high occupancy" part of the toll lane project is to encourage motorists to carpool, the contract contains a provision directly designed to discourage any increase in the number of motorists sharing rides.

"The department agrees to pay the concessionaire, subject to Section 20.18, amounts equal to 70% of the average toll applicable to vehicles paying tolls for the number of High Occupancy Vehicles exceeding a threshold of 24% of the total flow of all permitted vehicles that are then using such toll section going in the same direction for the first 30 consecutive minutes during any day, and any additional 15 consecutive minute periods in such day, during which average traffic for a toll section going in the same direction exceeds a rate of 3,200 vehicles per hour based on two lanes," the contract states.

This means if carpooling becomes popular on the Beltway, taxpayers could end up making multi-million dollar annual payments to Transurban.

Finally, the contract insists that if any homes happen to lie in the way of the the construction of the new lanes, Transurban will pay no more than the current market value to purchase the land in question. If the owner refuses to move, VDOT will condemn the property and confiscate it for the use of the private, for-profit company through eminent domain. The Beltway project, however, was designed to be built within existing VDOT right-of-way to ensure the exercise of this power would not be needed.

Transurban shares on the Australian Stock Exchange jumped 15 cents to A$4.60 today after the company announced quarterly earnings results. On Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, the company reported a 7.8 percent increase in revenue over the same quarter last year, despite a 6.9 percent drop in the number of motorists using the toll road. It credited the positive performance to an 11 percent toll hike in January and the cancellation of the discount previously given to transponder users.

Relevant excerpts from the Transurban contract are available in a 260k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: PDF File Comprehensive Agreement Relating to Route 495 HOT Lanes - Excerpts (Virginia Department of Transportation and Capital Beltway Express, 12/19/2007)

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