Senator Jane Nelson intros bill to make toll contract transparent

While this is a step in the right direction, it stops short of preventing the privatizing of our public highways which a public-private partnership expert testified costs taxpayers 50% more. Just because this bill requires tolling entities to publish financial details and to hold public meetings doesn’t mean the public has a say in it or can vote to stop it. We applaud Senator Nelson’s efforts, but we still need further reforms like abolishing non-compete agreements.

Legislation Requires Full Disclosure of Toll Projects
Texas Insider
03-05-07

AUSTIN — State Senator Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, today filed truth-in-tolling legislation (SB 995) that would require full public disclosure of the terms of any transportation project involving toll roads.

“The public will not tolerate an unlimited amount of tolling on our state highways, especially if they feel they are being kept in the dark about the contents of toll road contracts,” Senator Nelson said. “Anything less than total transparency in this process is unacceptable, which is why I filed this bill.”

Specifically, SB 995 states that after a toll authority has picked the winner of a toll contract, and before the contract is entered, toll authorities must publish in local newspapers the following information:

* Financial details of the toll contract, including the total amount of debt that will be assumed for to build and maintain the project;
* A description of how the debt will be repaid, including a timeline for repayment;
* Whether the toll project will continue to be tolled after the debt has been repaid;
* A description of the method used to set the toll rates.

After publication of this information, and before entering into the toll contract, the toll authority must hold public hearings on those financial details.

Senator Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, represents District 12, encompassing parts of Tarrant and Denton counties.

Washington Post: $1.60 a mile on Virginia Interstates!

Sound familiar? Just like TxDOT promised 12-15 cents a mile on Austin toll roads, and got $1.50 a mile, for the first time some of our Interstate highways lanes will be up to $1.60 a mile! That’s why they’re being dubbed “Lexus lanes” since few will be able to afford drive them, and everyone else will hopelessly be stuck in gridlock on the non-toll lanes. It’s nothing short of highway robbery! Note the same few companies on on the public fleecing: Transurban and Fluor (who gave our Governor a hefty sum prior to inking a toll road deal here for Hwy 130, as reported in the Houston Chronicle, 8/30/02).

Link to article here.

Steep Prices Projected for HOT Lanes
Non-Carpool Drivers Could Pay Up to $1.60 a Mile on I-95/395
By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 3, 2007

Drivers in express toll lanes planned for Interstates 95 and 395 would pay as much as a dollar a mile in some spots along the 36-mile route during peak times, the highest rate for a commute in the country, officials from the companies building the new-style highway said as they filed a detailed proposal yesterday.

But regional transportation planners estimate that the cost for a rush-hour ride on the optional lanes probably will be far steeper: as much as $1.60 a mile in crowded segments. They estimate that a 21-mile, rush-hour trip from the Pentagon to Prince William Parkway would cost as much as $22.28. A round-trip during peak hours could cost $41.46.

HOT Lanes
Motorists could pay more than $1 a mile for a congestion-free ride along I-395 and I-95 under a proposal to create high-occupancy toll lanes.

Buses and carpools of three or more people would continue to ride free, as would drivers in the highways’ regular lanes.

The project, being built by Fluor Virginia Inc. and Transurban (USA) Development Inc., is one of several that could turn the Washington area into one of the most heavily tolled regions in the country. The companies have also agreed to build high-occupancy or toll (HOT) lanes on a stretch of the Capital Beltway between Springfield and Georgetown Pike, and Virginia officials are looking to add them elsewhere.

Maryland has begun construction on express toll lanes north of Baltimore and is pursuing plans to build them on its portion of the Beltway and Interstate 270. The planned intercounty connector between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties will be a toll road.

What makes HOT lanes so alluring to transportation planners is that, for a price, they virtually guarantee a congestion-free ride because tolls would be adjusted every few minutes to manage the number of users. Planners also see HOT lanes as a way to boost transit service by providing open roads for buses. Local officials have encouraged companies to build them because there is little public money available.

The $882 million project on I-95/395 would convert the two existing carpool lanes. The companies would add a third lane and provide new ramps and bridges and increased transit service, including a dedicated bus ramp to the Pentagon. The project would also extend the lanes nine miles south of their current terminus in Dumfries. Eventually, the companies plan to extend them south to Spotsylvania County.

Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer said HOT lanes are needed on I-95/395. “If we do nothing, the HOV lanes, slugs, carpools and bus service in the I-95 corridor will cease to function,” Homer said. “The HOV lanes today are congested two days a week and in short order, three, four or five days a week.”

Jennifer Aument, a spokeswoman for the project, added that “drivers will always have a choice. They can choose to use the HOT lanes or choose to use the regular lanes for free.”

Nonetheless, many public officials and commuters in the I-95 corridor oppose the lanes, in part because of what they see as excessive prices.

“HOT lanes are a sham,” said Corey A. Stewart (R), chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, which voted two weeks ago to oppose the project. “You have a very congested area combined with an affluent workforce. People will pay literally anything to get out of the main lanes into the special lanes. The result is that only the very affluent will be in those lanes, and there will be a lot of them.”

Aside from the new roads, fees are expected to rise on the region’s two existing toll roads: the Dulles Greenway and Dulles Toll Road. The private owners of the 14-mile Greenway, from Dulles International Airport to Leesburg, have asked Virginia regulators for permission to raise rush-hour tolls from $3.20 to $4.80 by 2012.

Management of the Dulles Toll Road was recently transferred from the state of Virginia to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which plans to raise tolls regularly to pay for an extension of Metro’s Orange Line to Tysons Corner and Dulles Airport.

Financial projections indicate that under the authority’s agreement with the Virginia Department of Transportation, the average toll would triple by 2030, the authority said. There is no cap on future tolls, though, and the authority can raise them on its own.

Motorists could pay more than $1 a mile for a congestion-free ride along I-395 and I-95 under a proposal to create high-occupancy toll lanes.

Those tolls are small change compared with what drivers could pay on HOT lanes planned for the Beltway and I-395 and I-95.

“HOT lanes are different things,” said Robert W. Poole Jr., director of transportation studies for the Reason Foundation and an early proponent of HOT lanes. “The main, important purpose of toll pricing is to manage the traffic flow so they can deliver what they are promising to customers: a congestion-free ride.”

Poole added that the toll rates on the I-95/395 project “would definitely be the highest anyone has ever seen.”

The highway with the highest toll rate per mile is currently California’s SR-91, which has a peak rate of $9.25 for a 10-mile ride.

Yesterday, VDOT filed the Fluor-Transurban proposal with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Transportation Planning Board. The plan calls for construction to begin next year and for the lanes to open for service in 2010. It includes $390 million in additional transit services and envisions six new park-and-ride facilities with a total of 3,000 spaces.

The proposal would have to be approved by the COG planning board, made up of state and local officials from Virginia, Maryland and the District.

Ronald F. Kirby, director of transportation planning for COG and the author of the analysis of projected toll rates, said tolls for the I-95 and I-395 HOT lanes would have to be set high because of all the bottlenecks on I-95. He added that high tolls aren’t all bad because they will encourage people to carpool.

But if Washington area drivers want to be sure of getting somewhere on time, Kirby said, they had “better figure on paying better than 30 bucks.”

London Telegraph & other press coverage of “Don’t Tag Texas”

Wow! We can now say our movement has garnered international press coverage! Click on these links to see these tv stories:
Austin KVUE: here.
Austin Fox 7: here.
Waco KWTX: here.
Dallas Morning News video/photo essay: here.

Link to London Telegraph article here. Palestine-Herald article & link below.



Texans fear US sovereignty will disappear down superhighway
James Langton
London Telegraph
03/04/2007

If it were built, the road would be one of the engineering wonders of the 21st century -a trade route a quarter of a mile wide, carving a path from Mexico through the heart of America to Canada.

In its most radical form, it would allow lorry drivers to travel hundreds of miles from the Mexican border deep into the US before reaching customs and immigration controls in Kansas.

Backers of the idea, labelled the “Nafta Superhighway”, after the North American trade pact, say it would revolutionise patterns of commerce across the continent and enhance the economic prospects of millions. But its critics say it could spell the end of US sovereignty. In arguments akin to those deployed by critics of the European Union, opponents say that opening borders will hit businesses, create a terrorist threat and allow illegal immigrants and drugs to flood in.

Opposition is strongest in Texas, where the state’s plans for a vast road project, known as the Trans-Texas Corridor, are well advanced. Once complete, the corridor could become the first leg of a Nafta Superhighway, crossing the Mexican border at the Rio Grande, near Laredo, and then pushing north to Kansas. It would include a toll road with 10 lorry and car lanes, a high-speed railway, and oil, gas and water pipelines.

With costs estimated at $183 billion (£94 billion), the 1,200 ft wide road would consume one million acres in Texas alone. Construction could take up to 50 years.

Many of those fighting the project are conservative farmers who would normally be supporters of President George W Bush but who are suspicious of his support for more free trade. At a meeting in the Texas town of Temple last week, more than 100 people gathered to hear news from Corridor Watch, a group fighting the road.

At a community hall built by Slovak immigrants nearly a century ago, many of the men wore cowboy hats, while their wives arrived with casseroles to sustain the gathering. Despite bowing heads for the Pledge of Allegiance, the meeting expressed anger at what the road would mean.

Hank Gilbert, a rancher, said: “At the Battle of the Alamo people came from all over the US to fight for our sovereignty. Now we are giving it away to the very people we fought.” Like many protesters, he believes the link will make it easier for cheap goods to flood into the US. “Farmers fear that this kind of globalisation will put them out of business,” he said.

In Texas, the superhighway would be so wide that critics say it would be too expensive to construct overpasses except in the cities, severing tight-knit rural communities.

The superhighway is being promoted by a pressure group, the North America’s Supercorridor Coalition, which includes business leaders, trade groups and government officials from Canada, Mexico and the US.

However, officials of the federal government in Washington deny that there is any transnational plan. A member of the Department of Transport told a congressional committee this month that all the government wanted to was improve existing roads.

Many conservatives disagree. They link the highway to agreements being negotiated behind closed doors between the Mexican, American and Canadian governments that they believe will transform the North American Free Trade Association into an EU-style superstate. They point to an agreement signed by Mr Bush, Vicente Fox, then president of Mexico, and Paul Martin, then Canada’s prime minister, in Waco, Texas, in March 2005.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership is intended to promote co-operation on security and boost economic opportunities. But it set alarm bells ringing on the Right because it formed working parties that fall outside the control of Congress.

Republican Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, says it is part of a drive for “an integrated North American Union” - complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy and borderless travel. “It would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty,” he said.

_____________________________________
Protestors rally over threats to farmland
By WAYNE STEWART
The Palestine Herald
March 3, 2007

— AUSTIN — With the shout, “Texas is not for sale,” thousands of people from across the state made their way up Congress Avenue to the Texas Capitol to tell lawmakers to stop the Trans Texas Corridor and the National Animal Identification System.

The rally was set up by the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, a grass roots organization dedicated to fighting the implementation of NAIS. For Texas Independence Day, the group joined forces with Texans fighting the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) which carries the possibility of losing thousands of farm and ranch acres to eminent domain for the construction of the 1,200-foot wide corridor.

Harris County Republican Precinct Chairman Stuart Mayper, who spoke at a Senate Transportation Committee meeting on Thursday, was at Friday’s rally to reinforce his opposition to the corridor. The corridor, Mayper said, will not only confiscate a large amount of property from private individuals, but he also believes it will end up costing Texas’ taxpayers millions, maybe billions, of dollars.

“What a lot of people don’t know is that there has already been a private road constructed in Texas,” Mayper said. “The Camino-Colombia Toll Road was a private road constructed for $75 million and was opened in 2000 in Laredo.”

Laredo, Maypers noted, is the largest inland port in the United States. Forty percent of the goods that enter the United States from Mexico come through Laredo.

Even with that high concentration of traffic, Mayper said the road was not a success.

“After three years the 22-mile road was sold at auction for $12.1 million at the Webb County Courthouse,” Maypers said. “The bond failed and then the bondholders foreclosed on the $75 million road.”

In the end, taxpayers were left having to pay for the road nobody traveled, which caused Maypers to ask, “If a private road fails in a high-density traffic area then how will a larger one work going through mostly rural areas?”

Along with the problems presented to rural land owners by the TTC, NAIS, which originally was scheduled to become mandatory in 2007 but because of public backlash has become a voluntary project, would have forced ranchers to register their property or premises; assign individual identification numbers to their livestock; and eventually report all animal movements. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the information would be held in private databases and only available to government entities in the event of a disease outbreak.

While the program is currently voluntary, Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance organizer Judith McGeary said the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) was given the power by the state legislature to make the program mandatory at the TAHC’s discretion.

Rallies, such as the one held at the capital on Friday, are what it takes to make legislators take action.

“Officials say (NAIS) protects us from terrorism,” McGeary said. “Does al-Qaeda really care about grandma’s chickens?”

When pressed for the real reason behind NAIS, McGeary said officials said it is needed for the country’s export markets. In the end, McGeary said it came back to money.

Currently, there are two pieces of legislation in the Texas House that would take away TAHC’s authority to make NAIS mandatory. The bills are HB 461 and 637. They are not perfect, McGeary said, but they will help.

“This is more than about food,” McGeary said. “It’s about our way of life.”

As Charlie Tomlin, an ag teacher and rancher from George West, sees it, both the proposed corridor and NAIS will have drastic effects on the state’s agriculture industry.

“None of this is set up (to help) agriculture,” Tomlin said. “With the corridor there’s only going to be stuff coming in and nothing going out.

“NAIS is also going to hurt a lot of people with livestock,” Tomlin continued. “Who’s going to regulate it, who’s going to do it (manage information databases), and what kind of security we as landowners are going to have?”

When looking at both measures, Tomlin said he can’t see anything good for Texas producers.

“Right now there is a lot of Mexican traffic going out (into the U.S.),” Tomlin explained. “Their trucks don’t have good brakes, no safety inspections, they don’t have to abide by our safety laws. That road with Mexico is a one-way street.

“They (politicians) are just trying to put a job on us. There’s a lot going on under the sheets here,” Tomlin added. State Rep. Garnett Coleman, D-Houston, said every Texas taxpayer is going to have to pay for the corridor when the bond paying for it has been defaulted.

“Then, Cintra (the company from Spain contracted to build the transportation corridor) will go back to Spain with all of our money,” Coleman said, who added the project has to be stopped. One state lawmaker said she recognized the significance of Friday, and said she is working through her position as a legislator to look to the future of the state and its people.

“(Trans Texas Corridor) is one of many things that threaten our freedom,” State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst said. “This is not a Republican or Democrat issue, this is a Texas issue…We’re going to take our roads, our state and our nation back.”

To help do that, Kolkhorst has introduced legislation that will stop the corridor. To go along with that, Coleman has filed HB 998 that will put a moratorium on any toll road in Texas that hasn’t been built.

The first corridor to be built would start in the Rio Grande valley, run parallel to Interstate 35 and Interstate 37 north to Denison. There also are three more priority corridors that, if all were built, would span approximately 4,000 miles across Texas and use about a half-million acres of land.
If built, the TTC, according to the Trans Texas Corridor Web site, would feature separate lanes for passenger vehicles and large trucks; freight railways; high-speed commuter railways; and infrastructure for utilities including broadband and telecommunications services.

For more on the Trans Texas Corridor visit www.keeptexasmoving.com or visit these other Web sites concerning the massive transportation plan at www.corridorwatch.com; www.satollparty.com; www.truthbetolled.com; or www.texastollparty.com.

Dewhurst: “I’m angry” at TxDOT, declares no telling how high toll rates will get

Link to article here.

Toll rates to increase so high, state leaders can’t even say
Texans can expect to pay more to drive on state-run toll roads — a lot more.
Houston Chronicle
February 27, 2007

But just how much more, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst can’t say because of confidentiality agreements that the Texas Department of Transportation has with private companies building the toll roads.

“I’m about as angry about what’s happening with the Texas Department of Transportation,” Dewhurst said moments after he skewered the Texas Youth Commission after reports of inmate abuse by top agency officials.
Although Dewhurst could not specifically say how much toll rates will be in the future, he described those rates as “astronomical.”

TxDOT is negotiating with private companies that allow them to build roads and charge tolls for large upfront fees.

“The Legislature has no idea what those agreements are,” Dewhurst said.

The toll road contracts run for 50 years.

Halfway into the contract, toll rates will skyrocket to unimaginable levels, warned Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Chair John Carona, R-Dallas.

And state leaders will be restricted because of “significant penalties for building other roads, competing roads,” Carona said.

At some point Texas will either have to pay billions of dollars to buy back the toll roads or “accept very high rates for very long periods of time.”

Carona proposes to link the state’s gasoline tax rate to the consumer price index for automatic adjustments to keep pace with inflation. The state’s gasoline tax, now at 20 cents per gallon, has not changed since 1991.

The state’s current gasoline tax is 3.6 cents under the national average.

Carona’s hearing SMASHING success- Citizens: call for IMMEDIATE investigation of TXDOT!

Today’s Senate hearing was a tremendous success. Senator Carona’s office told us that aside from the redistricting controversy several years back, today’s hearing had record attendance for a Senate Hearing with 800 witnesses! I’d like to thank Senator Carona for the honor of being the very first person called to testify at today’s hearing. Considering the many experts he could have called ahead of me, he chose to hear from the GRASSROOTS first and foremost!

There’s too much to tell, but we’ll do our best to do a quick summary. But let it be known…your LOUD OPPOSITION has been heard and the message got through!

NOT TOO LATE TO SUBMIT COMMENTS!
You can still submit your opposition to Senator Carona and get on the record here.

SENATOR NO SHOW

Ask Senator This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (210) 826-7800 what was more important than attending this hearing on the committee on which he sits. Is there any more controversial project in his district right now than tolls on 281 and 1604…and yet he doesn’t show up to hear from them?

WHAT HAPPENED

• BOMBSHELL OF THE DAY! State Auditor gave a summary of their audit report of the Trans Texas Corridor released last Friday, and said out of 32 invoices, 21 were allocated to the wrong project and some coded “engineering” but were actually spent on public relations!!! Remember the Governor unequivocally stated NO TAXPAYER money would go to fund this corridor and yet the Auditor revealed $90 million has already been spent with potentially billions more in the hopper!

They also found projects that were financially unsustainable with tolls that would require taxpayer subsidies to build. THIS IS THE SMOKING GUN THEY TRIED TO HIDE BY KEEPING THE CONTRACT SECRET FOR 18 MONTHS and released upon threat of a lawsuit by citizens 30 days prior to the election. Read more of the Auditor’s details on the appalling MISUSE of taxpayer money and gross abuse of power by TxDOT on the TTC here.

• Carona called an expert witness on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP, or to you and I, PPP stands for “Perfect Pick Pocket”), Dennis Enright with NW Financial, who has analyzed the recent PPPs for the toll road sales to Cintra-Macquarie in Chicago and Indiana…he UNEQUIVOCALLY STATED PPPs COST THE STATE 50% MORE than if the public/govt. operated the toll road. He also stated it was ALWAYS BEST to keep toll roads in the public’s hands.

He also said this gem: “Toll roads by their very nature are monopolies.”

Enright was asked about the deal just inked with Cintra-Zachry on 121 in Dallas and he said: “I haven’t analyzed it yet because you can’t get access to them in Texas.” TELLING! Our Dept of Transportation chooses to broker back room deals and keep its contracts SECRET from the taxpayers in order to HIDE the FAVORABLE terms they’re giving these private interests! Enright also stated there was ZERO risk to the private entity on the 121 deal and said it was a perfect investment for the developer (but horrible for the public).

The private entity also has no motive reduce congestion by maximizing cars that take the toll road since they can hike the tolls and reduce the number of cars that take it and reduce their maintenance cost. They have a economic incentive for high tolls and ghost town tollways…they only need enough travelers to cover their cost and desired profit, the rest of us can go take an access road!

If they used the same toll formula Cintra-Macquarie used for the Chicago deal, it would cost $185 to travel the 121 toll road in it’s most expensive year! Once again, all TxDOT could tout was how they’d charge whatever the market will bear. They said the market would bear 28 cents a mile on 121. Compare that to 1-3 cents a mile we pay in gas taxes and you can see this is a public fleecing!

• TxDOT grillin’ - the HOT SEAT, it’s about time! In a nutshell, TxDOT’s Chief Financial Officer, James Bass, couldn’t answer the senators’ most basic questions on what the maximum toll rates would be in the most expensive year of the 50 year contract on 121 which begs the question…if their Chief Financial Officer doesn’t have a clue about the most basic details of these contracts, then what is our Dept. of Transportation busy doing? It became abundantly clear that they’re nothing more than an extension of the corporate special interests that stand to make BILLIONS on the backs of the taxpayers!

Carona had two questions of Williamson. Why not expand I-35 and why build the Trans Texas Corridor? Then, when Williamson took the HOT SEAT, after much back and forth, Carona finally got him to agree with him that expanding EXISTING I-35 is the BEST scenario vs. erecting the Trans Texas Corridor. Carona also caught he and TxDOT in a number of misleading figures about I-35’s ORIGINAL plan calling for 16 lanes in the urban areas and the true costs. They tried to say it it would cost more today to expand I-35 by two lanes than the cost of the ORIGINAL plan that called for 16 lanes. Nobody buys it!

• Michael Stevens, who Chairs the Governor’s Business Council and who hired A&M to do the study that showed we don’t need tolls to meet future transportation needs, testified that they didn’t even study the TTC or count that as one of the State’s unmet “needs” because they determined it wasn’t a need! HE STATED THE TTC WOULD NOT RELIEVE ANY CONGESTION IN URBAN AREAS so it’s NOT NEEDED! That’s right…the TTC, though the Governor and TxDOT have repeated claimed the need for it is to relieve I-35 congestion, will do ZIP, ZILCH, NADA to relieve I-35 traffic!!!!! He finished by saying EVERY analysis of public versus private toll roads showed that public toll roads were cheaper, sometimes significantly cheaper than private ones.

CALL FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION OF TXDOT!
If our government builds the Trans Texas Corridor after that declaration, we need to call for a public flogging of our officials! Folks with testimony like we heard today, I rest my case. We’re right, this Governor and his Transportation Commission are WRONG, and we need to call for immediate investigations by our Attorney General into TxDOT cooking the books and INSIST this Legislature pass legislation to redirect TxDOT’s completely wrong-headed fiscal mismanagement of a public agency forcing the MOST EXPENSIVE options upon the taxpaying public with NO OVERSIGHT or ACCOUNTABILITY with no justification WHATSOEVER except corporate enrichment!

Find out who your representatives are here.The Attorney General needs to investigate TxDOT for cooking the books NOW, heads need to roll for this gross misuse of taxpayer money! How do we do it? Ask your representatives to ask the AG to open an investigation IMMEDIATELY!

Toll Party Written Testimony to State Senate Transportation Committee

Submitted By:
Terri Hall, Director of a grassroots group called the San Antonio Toll Party with more than 5,000 supporters, and Founder of TURF, a new non-profit group that’s uniting concerned citizens across the state.

The people of Texas have had it. We’re in the midst of a Texas-sized tax revolt because these toll contracts are the epitome of selling off Texas to the highest bidder and a total betrayal of the public’s trust. It’s abundantly clear to citizens that our Dept of Transportation is not nor will it EVER listen to Texans with regards to this new shift to tolling and the controversial financing for them called public-private partnerships. This agency has violated its fiduciary duty to the public, and has instead become a tool for private corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpaying public.

The enabling legislation’s purpose has been perverted into something even lawmakers no longer support or recognize. Considering that even one of the author’s, Senator Steve Ogden, has come out in recent days stating he was duped by the original legislation and will work to right “his past sins,” it’s evident that TxDOT’s corruption, lack of accountability, and, frankly, arrogance, must be stopped by the Legislature.

We already pay a road user-fee, it’s called the gas tax. This myth that the gas tax is somehow insufficient is a farce. In fact, it’s been so efficient in funding our highways that there is enough leftover for 6,000 earmarks at the federal level, like the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, and over $9 billion in diversions on the state level for unrelated things like tourism promotion and cemeteries, not to mention the 25% diverted to public education.

The Legislature has stolen our highway funds, and WE THE TAXPAYERS demand you give them back. If that money had not been stolen from us, we would not be discussing tolls across Texas! We don’t lack funds; our politicians lack fiscal accountability.

We have $7 billion in mobility and revenue bonds available. TxDOT’s budget has tripled just since 1990, and doubled since Rick Perry took office. WE DO NOT LACK FUNDS! Couple this with the fact that TxDOT is tolling highways that we’ve already built and paid for like 281 in San Antonio, and the deal just signed on 121 in Dallas, and it’s further proof this isn’t about lack of money, accelerating road projects, or congestion relief, it’s greed, plain and simple. One of the companies bidding on toll projects all over Texas just posted a 76% increase in profits. Profit is one thing, but obscene profits through monopolies is exploiting the public’s roadways and amounts to thievery!

This same company, Macquarie, said this in an article in the Australian as quoted in the Waxahachie Daily Light, February 28, 2007 which “described Texas as ‘the toll road El Dorado’ in a recent online article that also referenced ‘vast toll road riches up for grabs in Texas.’ A Spanish term, El Dorado means ‘the golden one’ and typically is used as the name of a fabled land of gold and riches. More recently, the term has been used metaphorically to reference any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired, according to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia.”

Then a recent report commissioned by the Governor’s own Business Council done by TTI at A&M shows we do not need toll roads to meet our future transportation needs. It also showed TxDOT over-inflated their projected needs by $30 billion. Governor Perry also stated in a Statesman article dated August 26, 2006, that TxDOT’s supposed “funding gap” is nothing more than a wish list if money were no object.

The economic impact of tolling existing corridors has not been properly studied. Businesses along toll corridors are nearly non-existent. This will hurt economic development in these corridors not bolster it as tollers claim. Tolling an existing corridor will also limit availability of gas, goods, and services for residents who now access these businesses. TxDOT’s assumption that projected growth in these corridors will stay the same both with and without tolls, is not only inaccurate, it’s implausible, and defies logic and economic principles. People change their behavior when you put a toll on a road. It creates avoidance rather than an attraction to that highway.

Toll roads that just opened here in Austin have toll rates of up to $1.50 a mile, and with the State Auditor’s report revealing the 12% guaranteed profit for these private companies, it explains the obscene toll rates we’re already experiencing much less the continued escalation WITHOUT limit that’s sure to come over 50 years! We’re talking about $2,000-4,000 per year, likely more than that, to use our PUBLIC highways. These insidious toll contracts take away our freedom of mobility to line the pockets of private corporations.

Truth is we don’t know what’s in these contracts that are being negotiated in SECRET, and even our elected officials cannot see the terms of these contracts UNTIL AFTER IT’S SIGNED and parts of them are still NOT DISCLOSED to the public to this day as these robber barons hide behind the term “proprietary information” that our own Attorney General thinks is bunk!

We wholeheartedly object to these non-compete agreements that will hold our free lanes hostage to private companies and replace them with inferior, less efficient access roads. The non-competes PROVE TxDOT’s version of tolls won’t solve congestion; they’ll manipulate it for profit.

Toll roads cannot work unless there is horrific gridlock on the surrounding free lanes. Over the next 50 years, these foreign companies stand to make billions on our PUBLIC infrastructure. Take the deal just inked for 121 in Dallas. The government gets $5 billion from Cintra and the taxpayers pay-up astronomical toll taxes expected to be $100 billion over the next 50 years for just that one highway. Cintra will make 20 times the money they invested! This is truly highway robbery!

And the Trans Texas Corridor…the real story is, they want this corridor to benefit foreign interests, mainly China, not Texas. Recent news articles tell us the Port Authority of San Antonio has been working actively with the Communist Chinese, to open and develop NAFTA shipping ports in Mexico that will enter the U.S. through the Trans Texas Corridor (or NAFTA superhighway) for the purpose of increasing its annual handling capacity from 100,000 containers to 700,000 containers initially, with possible expansion to two million containers by 2010. That’s the congestion problem they’re seeking to solve, the source is not Texas truckers and commuters but the massive new influx of Chinese goods into the U.S. via Mexican ports, trucks, and rail.

The State Auditor’s report affirms that TxDOT has overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs of the corridor and it shows that taxpayer money will in fact be used to build this monstrosity.

The taxpayers have a right to vote on matters of such grave public interest. We are the owners of government, not an unelected bureaucracy behaving as dictators of public policy.

This amounts to increasing our cost of transportation from pennies a day under gas tax to dollars per day under an unaccountable toll system in the hands of a foreign company for private gain WITHOUT THE PUBLIC’S CONSENT! I cannot find a SINGLE study to show that raising the cost of transportation is good for the economy.

The taxpayers not TxDOT have the final say on the public’s roads. This agency and this Governor are corrupt, they’ve overstepped their authority, they’re guilty of abusing their oath of office, they’re not listening to nor serving the public, and it’s up to you to return our public highways and our government to the PEOPLE!

We URGE you to pass Senator Carona’s bill outlawing non-compete agreements, pass Rep. Kolkhorst’s and Leibowitz’ bills to abolish the Trans Texas Corridor, to pass Rep. Pickett’s bill to abolish the Transportation Commission and replace it with an elected officer accountable to the PEOPLE, and pass a host of other much needed reforms to return the highway system to the taxpaying PUBLIC!

Toll company: Texas is full of “vast toll road riches up for grabs”

As reported in the Waxahachie Daily Light, February 28, 2007:

“The Australian, a newspaper based in Sydney, described Texas as ‘the toll road El Dorado’ in a recent online article that also referenced ‘vast toll road riches up for grabs in Texas.’ A Spanish term, El Dorado means “the golden one” and typically is used as the name of a fabled land of gold and riches. More recently, the term has been used metaphorically to reference any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired, according to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia.”


________________________________
Can’t you hear them laughing all the way to the bank? This is the sort of corporate greed and cavalier attitude that drives these toll companies. And this company is the same one who has purchased Texas and Oklahoma community newspapers in the path of the Trans Texas Corridor in order to control the media coverage of the opposition.Read the full article here.

______________________________
And here’s another galling statement by someone who is supposed to guard the public interest up in Dallas:

“‘People are so desperate for transportation in the 121 area, they’d be throwing money out the window in sacks’ for a toll road, Michael Morris of the Dallas-area Regional Transportation Council said at a legislative hearing last week.” — Austin American Statesman, February 28, 2007.

_______________________________
They think we poor serfs are desperate enough to impoverish ourselves and pay ANY amount of money to drive on our PUBLIC highways. If this offends you, prove them wrong and turn out to Senator’s Carona’s Public Hearing March 1 in Austin at the Capitol Annex Auditorium and the “Don’t Tag Texas” Rally March 2 on the south Capitol steps. Let’s show them the true independent Texas spirit and that we’re NOT going to tolerate this! Texans own Texas highways, not foreign profiteers salivating over our wallets and counting on our desperation!Read the full article here.

Firm Advises Cintra in First Privatization of Toll Road in Texas

DALLAS (March 1, 2007) Bracewell & Giuliani LLP advised Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A., a Spanish transportation company, in its successful bid to develop State Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties. The award to Cintra, approved by the Texas Transportation Commission, is the first privatization of a Texas toll road.

Bracewell is acting as project counsel to Cintra with respect to the 50-year concession from the Texas Department of Transportation. Cintra will pay a $2.1 billion upfront and annual lease payments totaling $700 million.

“Cintra was awarded this project because of its proven expertise and competitive proposal,” said Thomas O. Moore, partner with Bracewell & Giuliani. “This is the largest transportation deal of 2007. This is one of only five deals in the country.”

Three firms have competed for the Comprehensive Development Agreement for State Highway 121 since last summer. The proposals were reviewed and scored based on selection criteria set forth by the Regional Transportation Council, the metropolitan planning agency for the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

This CDA is a public-private partnership that allows the provider to handle all facets of developing the toll road, including completing construction and operating and maintaining the corridor.

Cintra, a subsidiary of Grupo Ferrovial specialized in toll roads and car parks, is one of the world’s leading private-sector developers of transport infrastructure.

Bracewell & Giuliani attorneys that advised on this matter include:

Partners: Thomas O. Moore, Roger D. Aksamit, Kevin A, Ewing, George Y. Gonzalez, Jason B. Hutt, Nancy Jo Nelson, Andrew M. Taylor and Jose Luis Vittor.

Associates: Todd G. Amdor, Eamonn K. Bakewell, Patrick A. Caballero, Erik E. Petersen, Lisa A. Smith and Trevor Wommack.

Sen. Ogden, new ally! Former toller desires to right “past sins” that unleased this monster!

Link to article here.

Finance chairman warns of political force against reform
By Laylan Copelin
Austin American Statesman
February 27, 2007

Fearing that state officials lack the collective will to act, the Senate Finance Committee chairman said this morning that three state agencies must be reined in despite the embarrassment it may cause.

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, cited the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Youth Commission and Texas Southern University as severe problems that he fear will be swept under the Capitol rug.

“Two of them are broken,” he said. “And one is out of control.”

In an interview with the American-Statesman, Ogden warned that political forces were trying to keep lawmakers from dealing with the issues to avoid embarrassing the Legislature and Gov. Rick Perry.

He said he was speaking out to put a spotlight on the problems of fiscal mismanagement at Texas Southern University in Houston, sexual abuse allegations at a Texas Youth Commission facility and the transportation department’s negotiations with private developers to build and toll a system of roads.

“There’s a huge political force out there saying, ‘We don’t care or this is too embarrassing,” Ogden said. “What keeps the Legislature from hiding from problems, you have to shine a spotlight on it.”

He urged reporters to pay greater attention to the three issues and pledged to use the appropriations process to make changes.

“If I was king, TYC and Texas Southern would be in conservatorship — that means fire everybody and start over,” Ogden said. He predicted there would be more resignations at TYC — the executive director quit last week — and said he believes there is evidence of a cover-up at the agency.

The allegations of sex abuse at a TYC facility in West Texas are “as bad as it gets,” the senator said. “Isn’t this what the lieutenant governor it talking about giving the death penalty for?”

The powerful senator said the transportation department has “too many tools in their arsenal” to construct highways and the Legislature should take some of them back.

Ogden said he is concerned about the department’s plans to allow private contractors, for a large upfront fee, to build roads and charge tolls — perhaps forever. He said the department has as many as 21 projects under consideration.

“Do we really want to be turning over state highways to private contractors?” Ogden said.

The irony is that Ogden was the Senate author of the bill that in 2003 expanded the commission’s powers to construct roads.

“I’m trying to correct the sins of the past,” Ogden said.

He is considering legislation that would force the tolls to go away once a highway is paid for. He said he is concerned with plans to use toll revenue, long after a highway is paid for, to build more roads.

He said the Legislature is hearing from constituents who want the agency’s powers curbed.

“Every (legislative) member is paying a political price for what they are doing,” Ogden said. “TxDOT needs to be more sensitive and accountable to the Legislature.”

The executive director of the Texas Youth Commission resigned last week after internal review found that agency officials had ignored, for more than a year, staff complaints that administrators at a West Texas State School had molested young inmates.

Texas Southern University is asking for $25 million in emergency appropriations because of fiscal mismanagement, including hundreds of thousands of dollars inappropriately spent on the president’s house while the basements of classroom buildings are flooded and the athletic department has overspent its budget by $2 million.

The transportation department has steered the state into controversy with plans to execute the governor’s plans for the Trans Texas Corridor by negotiating agreements with private developers to build the roads and charge tolls.

Cintra winning bidder on Hwy 121 in Dallas…to collect tolls on EXISTING highway with no LIMIT on tol

Note how the reporter buries the FACT that 121 was already built with gas tax dollars and has now been hawked by Perry’s little council to the highest bidder…no surprise that it’s Cintra. This is DOUBLE TAXATION and Senator Carona notes it does include a non-compete clause prohibiting the government from expanding or improving any surrounding roads (for 50 years) that would “compete” with Cintra’s precious toll revenue. These sweetheart deals negotiated in SECRET outside the pubic purview will cost the taxpayers $100 BILLION over the next 50 years. (See article below where it estimates that’s the figure Cintra will make off our PUBLIC assets).
 

Tax and spend Republicans under Rick Perry’s spell crow about the $5 billion deal that gives them more play money to build roads….how is this a good deal when the taxpayers will be fleeced for $100 billion in the long run for a road they’ve already built and paid for with gas taxes??? Is it any wonder the arrogance of the Governor-appointed Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson when his boss talks like this? “‘It seems to me it’s working as advertised,’ Perry said. ‘It seems to me the power has devolved away from Austin to the local officials you see behind me. If the folks in Austin want to take away the power of the RTC (Regional Transportation Council), I will let them have that fight with y’all.’”

Link to article here and here.

Private firm to operate Hwy. 121 toll road for 50 years
By GORDON DICKSON
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

ARLINGTON — The Spanish firm Cintra has been selected to build and manage the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties, in a $5 billion, 50-year deal that includes payment of $2.8 billion into North Texas coffers for other highway work.

Cintra is also the majority partner in Cintra Zachry, which is planning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor.

Cintra operates toll roads and parking areas worldwide, and often uses private investment funds to make large, up-front payments to public agencies in exchange for the right to collect tolls for many years.

Metroplex officials on Tuesday stood side-by-side with Gov. Rick Perry, who visited the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ Arlington office to announce the plan.

“I think we can boil it down to five words,” said Michael Morris, council of governments transportation director. “Austin: We have a solution.”

Under Perry’s administration, decisions about where to spend much of the state’s highway funding have been transferred to a group of 40 mostly elected leaders known as the Regional Transportation Council. Those regional leaders backed the concept of using private funds to build and manage roads, to make up for a lack of tax-supported highway funds.

“It seems to me it’s working as advertised,” Perry said. “It seems to me the power has devolved away from Austin to the local officials you see behind me. If the folks in Austin want to take away the power of the RTC, I will let them have that fight with y’all.”

If, as expected, the selection by the Texas Department of Transportation’s Dallas district office is approved by the Texas Transportation Commission on Wednesday, Cintra will collect tolls on Texas 121 from Lewisville to McKinney for 50 years. The deal is also contingent upon completion of an environmental study.

The total value of Cintra’s bid is just over $5 billion, TxDot Dallas engineer Bill Hale said.

It includes:

 

• $2.1 billion up-front for regional leaders to spend as they see fit.

 

• $716 million paid in annual installments over 49 year, also for regional needs.

 

• $560 million to extend Texas 121 main lanes in Collin County.

 

• $1.7 billion to maintain and rehabilitate the road over 50 years, including any future lane additions.

 

Tarrant County will likely receive several hundred million dollars in benefit, which will help ensure that Interstate 35W, Loop 820, Airport Freeway and the Grapevine Funnel are improved, North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino said. However, the bulk of the funding will go toward projects closer to Texas 121, including improvements to Interstate 35E.

 

No additional public dollars will be used on the Texas 121 project. However, public money was already used to build the Texas 121 frontage roads in Denton and Collin counties, and main lanes in Denton County.

 

Spanish company wins North Texas toll road contract
Houston Chronicle/Associated Press
Feb 27, 2007

 

MCKINNEY, Texas — A Spanish transportation company contracted to build Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor won a critical recommendation Tuesday to turn state Highway 121 into a toll road through Collin and Denton counties.

 

Officials from the Texas Department of Transportation plan to recommend Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte as the developer of the toll road during a Wednesday meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission.

If the commission approves the deal, Cintra will pay $2.8 billion to the Regional Transportation Council, a North Texas group responsible for transportation planning in the region. In exchange, Cintra will operate and collect tolls on the highway for the next 50 years.

Collin County officials hailed the deal as one solution to its traffic problems.

 

“At a time when budgets are stretched thin to meet every transportation need in North Texas, this project can be a valuable source of income to help us pay for other projects needed in this county,” Collin County Commissioner Joe Jaynes said.

 

But some state lawmakers are starting to get frustrated with the state’s pursuit of privately financed toll roads and wonder about the ultimate cost.

 

Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security, said the Cintra deal includes provisions that bar the state from building its own roads in the area during the 50-year contract. That puts the state in a financial bind if it wants to build roads to help a growing population.

 

“The advantage is roads will be built sooner,” Carona said. “What you won’t hear about is toll rates will be raised unlike anything we have seen today.”

 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, who pushed the 2003 bill that helped set up the toll road initiative, said he was “asleep or not smart enough” to recognize potential problems.

 

“We are giving away a public asset and don’t have much say about it for 50 years,” said Ogden, R-Bryan.

 

Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-American consortium, plans to build the Trans-Texas Corridor, a state-owned toll road. The consortium, made up of Spain-based Cintra and San Antonio-based Zachry Construction, would get to operate the road and collect tolls.

TX Observer: Road Kill…the build-up to Carona’s hearing

Link to article here.

Road Kill
by Eileen Welsome
Texas Observer
Feb. 27, 2007

Although the current Legislative session is only a few weeks old, Ric Williamson, the embattled chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, has already incurred the wrath of numerous state lawmakers intent on curbing the Department of Transportation’s plans to pave the state with toll roads and a network of superhighways known as the Trans-Texas Corridor.

If recent incidents are harbingers, the road warriors at TXDOT will be forced to jettison their own aggressive agenda this session and focus on protecting the new powers they were handed just four years ago to radically alter the way roads are financed and built.

The showdown began a few weeks ago when Williamson, a friend of Gov. Rick Perry and an ex-legislator himself, failed to appear at a budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. One senator, pointing out that it’s customary for department heads to be present when their budgets are being considered, asked Mike Behrens, TXDOT’s executive director, where Williamson was. Behrens explained that Williamson’s schedule was too full, a remark that touched off an angry round of muttering. “Make sure he’s here on March 1st,” snapped one senator.

On March 1, the Lege will hold its first public hearing ever on the Trans-Texas Corridor and the plethora of privately operated toll roads being planned for the state. TXDOT has spent millions of dollars on advertising and consultants trying to convince the public that the best solution for Texas’ massive traffic jams is allowing private investors to build toll roads. But its public relations campaign has backfired, managing to enrage not only large segments of the driving public, but also state legislators, congressmen, and scores of local officials who sit on city councils, county commissions, and transportation councils. The chickens, as Malcolm X once said, have come home to roost.

Nearly a dozen bills have been introduced to rein in TXDOT’s plans, and more are expected. Leading the effort is Republican John Carona, a Dallas businessman and chairman of the Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security Committee. Said Carona, “The Transportation Commission and the governor’s office are so focused on short-term cures that they have not studied the long-term ramifications of what they’re doing. And I think the long-term ramifications are disastrous for this state.”

Carona has filed several bills that would severely curtail the profits that toll-road operators can make on their pay-as-you-go highways.

Under one measure, tolls could only be raised to cover the cost of repairs and maintenance. A second would ban noncompete clauses that basically prohibit TXDOT from building free roads that might reduce traffic on the tolled highways. A third would forbid TXDOT from signing contracts for more than 30 years. (Currently the department has signed deals for 50 to 70 years and wants to enter into contracts that could stretch into the next century.)

A week after his no-show before the Senate committee, Williamson did appear in front of the much friendlier House Transportation Committee. (Under the direction of the current chairman, Round Rock Republican Mike Krusee, that committee hammered out the mammoth transportation legislation in 2003 that spawned the current toll-road binge.) While Williamson was testifying before Krusee’s committee, Carona walked up onto the dais and took the seat of a member who had just left the room.

Carona listened patiently for a while. Then Krusee asked the senator if he had a question. Carona glared down at Williamson and said, “I’ve been trying to get an appointment with this gentleman, and I understand his calendar is booked up through March. I’m just wondering if I could ask you, Chairman Williamson, if we can meet this week on important transportation issues?”

Williamson, who has a boxer’s thick neck and a military-style buzz cut, gazed at Carona in disbelief. His face reddened. “You are a clever guy,” he finally stuttered.

Carona pushed on: “I think you and I recognize we have a difference of opinion. But we might find we have more in common than we realize. I’d be grateful for the meeting. And I know my colleagues in the Senate would, too.”

Williamson told Carona that he’d call him, but emphasized that he couldn’t commit to a meeting. Then Carona exploded: “You say you have one boss that you work for, but you really don’t. You’ve got the people of the state and 181 members of the Legislature. This kind of lack of commitment and artful dodging has created the hostility and friction that exists right now. The fact that you would sit there and be so arrogant as to not meet with me is very troubling.”

Williamson sunk into a stony silence. Carona pressed him again for a meeting. Williamson finally said, “I’m speechless.”

“Thank you,” responded Carona, who then got up and left the room.

Another senator gunning for TXDOT is Steve Ogden, a tall, angular Republican from Bryan Station who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. With his thick accent and white hair, Ogden seems like a good ole boy who’s got nothing more on his mind than the Friday night football game. But the U.S. Naval Academy graduate spent nine years as an officer in the nuclear submarine force. He knows how to operate in tight quarters and keep his feelings tamped down.

But when the subject of TXDOT comes up, Ogden can hardly restrain himself, in part because it was Ogden who encouraged his Senate colleagues to pass the massive transportation bill that freed TXDOT from the old rules and soon had the department’s stodgy road builders lunching with Wall Street financiers.

Ogden now feels he was duped, and said as much at the Senate Finance Committee hearing. The 2003 transportation bill arrived in the Senate two weeks before the session ended, Ogden recalled, and was sold as a way to get roads built quickly without any public money. (In reality, the toll roads that will be operated by private companies will still be subsidized by taxpayers through tax breaks, low-interest loans, tax-exempt bonds, outright grants and in some cases, the actual pavement itself.)

In 2003, there also was no talk of privatizing the roads, he added. “The fact that it wasn’t brought up and we never got an opportunity to chew on it has created a huge political problem for us.”

Ogden glared at the cluster of TXDOT operatives. In another time, he might have ordered them to walk the plank or had them lashed to the sails. As it was, the only punishment he had available was a tongue lashing. “It’s not what TXDOT tells you. It’s what they don’t tell you,” he complained. He chided the department for its sneakiness and encouraged its bureaucrats to be more open about what they’re doing. “Running your own plays and hiding them from us is no way to run state business.”

TXDOT’s not saying anything publicly about the frontal assaults. (“I never comment on what legislators do,” Williamson said of Corona’s ambush.) But it’s safe to say that they’re not happy. Just a few months ago, the department rolled out its own legislative wish list. High on the list was getting a revenue stream for the Texas Rail Relocation Fund so the state and its private partners can build several new billion-dollar-plus railroad projects, which one industry insider collectively referred to as a “huge fat pig.”

But TXDOT will have its hands full fending off Carona, Ogden, and a raft of Democratic legislators aiming to take down the imperious department and its autocratic commissioners. Joe Pickett, a Democratic representative from El Paso who once was virtually the only legislator willing to speak out against the behemoth department, welcomes the backup. “The whole agency needs a complete work-over from top to bottom,” he said.

Pickett has introduced a measure that would replace Perry’s five-member Transportation Commission with an elected transportation czar. State Rep. David Leibowitz, a Democrat from San Antonio, has drawn up a bill that would do away with Perry’s coveted Trans-Texas Corridor, a network of superhighways that will stretch from the Mexican border toward Canada. The TTC is being sold to Texans as a way to reduce congestion, but in reality appears to be a system of trade routes designed to circumvent the glutted West Coast ports and get foreign goods into the United States by way of Mexico. A third Democratic state representative, Houston’s Garnet Coleman, is sponsoring legislation that would place a two-year moratorium on the further construction of toll roads. (Coleman is fuming over TXDOT’s plan to replace the high-occupancy vehicle lanes on some Houston freeways with toll lanes, which he calls “Lexus lanes.”)

Meanwhile, Carona, a bespectacled and mild-looking businessman, is quickly gaining rock-star status on the Internet, and recently was featured on YouTube. Carona, who has the ability to speak in paragraphs and can read spreadsheets with ease, has been projecting the numbers into the future and sees a day when the state’s free roads will be potted and pitted, the billions in up-front concession fees will be spent, and Texas motorists will still be forking out millions of dollars in tolls to foreign corporations and bankers. “This is the most reckless transportation policy this state has seen in its history,” he said.

He continued, “While the Transportation Commissions likes to tell you that all transportation issues have now been decentralized and now reside in local communities, in fact that’s not the case. TXDOT allows local decisions as long as those local decisions agree with the philosophy and direction of the Transportation Commission. If local decisions made through local transportation authorities differ from what the commissioners would like to see, they simply withhold funds. They leverage the outcome by controlling the purse strings in Austin. You see that in issues like toll equity where the Transportation Commission determines what portion of money it will make available to subsidize a road project in a region. Virtually every major roadway under consideration today in Texas is being advanced as a toll project.”

The toll-road developers, Carona said, have claimed that they will need a 12 percent return on their investment. Using that figure, Carona calculates the tolls on the private roads will be 66 percent higher upon opening than what tolls on state-constructed roads would cost. What’s more, he said, the private toll operators will be able to raise their rates to whatever the market will bear. By contrast, toll hikes on state-owned roads are limited to recovering the cost of maintenance and repairs. “The reality is, we’re building roads in the most expensive fashion of all—through tolls—instead of calling it taxes,” he said.

Carona favors raising the gasoline tax so that it keeps pace with inflation. (The tax has been unchanged for the last 15 years—20 cents for the state and 18.4 cents for the feds per gallon.) That way, the state would have enough money to build all the roads it’s going to need over the next 25 years. The average motorist would probably wind up paying an extra dollar per month for fuel, but Carona said in the long run it’ll be cheaper for drivers.

Even with an increase in gasoline taxes, it’s unlikely that toll roads, and perhaps even the loathed Trans-Texas Corridor, will vanish from the map. Carona is confident, however, that the Legislature will be able to enact some meaningful reforms in the coming weeks. “We’re at a crossroads in transportation policy,” he said. “We can either get it right or get it wrong.”

Macquarie salivates over $250 BILLION in Texas toll roads

It’s one thing to build and maintain roads, it’s another to engage in sweetheart deals that enrich private corporations while infinitely sticking it to the taxpayers who own the aforementioned assets. TxDOT is clearly no longer about building and maintaining roads and facilitating getting people from Point A to Point B as quickly and safely as possible. Now they’re about how to hawk our public assets for quick cash while selling us into toll tax slavery to foreign companies who couldn’t care less about Americans, the American economy, or American quality of life.
 

There are abundant examples of how these deals fail the taxpayers and end up with toll rates causing more than a little pain and tax revolts wherever they’re tried.

Link to article here.

MIG awaits green light to take its toll on Texan roads
By David Nason
New York correspondent
The Australian
February 27, 2007

 

THE Sydney-based Macquarie Infrastructure Group will know tonight if it has garnered an early slice of the vast toll road riches up for grabs in Texas.

 

The announcement by the Texas Department of Transportation of the winning bidder for State Highway 121 - a planned 42km toll road in northern Dallas, one of the fastest growing areas of the US - shapes up as the first big test of MIG’s decision to all but jettison its Australian routes for a shot at the far larger but less developed US markets.

 

Texas, which is forecast to double its population to 50 million by 2030, is regarded as the toll road El Dorado, with the SH121 project the first in an estimated $US250 billion ($315 billion) worth of roadwork and toll road administration to be privatised in the Lone Star state over the next decade.

 

The biggest prize is expected to be the new Trans-Texas Corrider, a toll road that would stretch from the Mexican border to Oklahoma and utilise some existing freeways and toll roads.

 

An MIG-led consortium is one of five shortlisted bidders for the rights to build and operate the toll road for 50 years. The deal is expected to net Texas an upfront payment of about $US2 billion and a share of toll revenues.

 

Like many states, Texas is reluctant to raise taxes to address its chronic shortfall in transportation infrastructure and has been forced to go to the private sector.

 

All up, more than 20 states are considering the sale or lease of major highways. They include Oregon, Indiana, California, Utah, Colorado, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

 

But opposition to public-private partnerships, also known as PPPs, can be strong, especially in the case of public assets that are debt-free.

 

In New Jersey overnight the state legislature’s transportation committee was due to debate proposed legislation that would require voters to approve the sale or lease of any state asset worth more than $US100 million.

 

The legislation would also ban foreign companies from any involvement.

 

MIG has expressed interest in the state’s busy New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway which could earn the state $US15 billion for a 75-year lease.

 

At last year’s Merrill Lynch’s Australian Investment Conference in New York, MIG chief executive Stephen Allen warned that US-based competitors would exploit xenophobia to keep foreign companies from lucrative US toll-road opportunities.

 

“It is a real issue and it’s one we need to deal with,” Mr Allen said at the time.

 

“The market here is going to get more competitive. All the major investment banks are all starting infrastructure funds. In the marketing, they’ll be promoting the US side of the business.”

 

Ironically, MIG’s main opposition for SH 121 is expected to come from two foreign consortiums - one led by Sweden’s Skanska BOT, the other by the Spanish Cintra group.

 

MIG’s consortium partners are Kiewit Texas Construction LP, a division of leading US transportation contractor Kiewit Corp, and Texas highway constructor JD Abrams.

 

MIG currently has an interest in four US toll roads. In 2005 Chicago leased its I-90 Skyway to an MIG-Cintra consortium for $US1.83 billion to pay off city debt and fund non-transportation projects. In 2006, Indiana leased the partners the Indiana Toll Road for $US3.85 billion.

 

Earlier this month the Macquarie Media Group paid $US80 million for American Consolidated Media which publishes 40 community newspapers and shopping publications serving nine communities in Texas and Oklahoma - many of them along the proposed route of the Trans-Texan Corridor.

 

The sale has drawn criticism the newspapers will become propaganda vehicles for MIG.

More deception: TxDOT lies to Austinites about their “free” lanes

It shouldn’t surprise anybody by now that TxDOT has lied to the public. Haven’t we all heard the oft repeated claim that when they convert existing roads into tollways we’ll have as many free lanes as exist today per state law? Well, next to one of the recently opened toll roads in Austin, motorists had one of their free lanes SWIPED by TxDOT causing greater congestion in an attempt to entice more motorists to cough up the cash to use the tollway.
Link to Letter to Editor in the Austin American Statesman here.

————————————————————————

We miss our lane

Before the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) toll road extension opened, residents of Wells Branch and the surrounding North Austin subdivisions had two free lanes that directly fed into southbound MoPac. Now these residents have the choice to pay 50 cents for about a half-mile on the toll road or enter the very congested one-lane free ramp onto MoPac.

The Texas Department of Transportation has robbed these residents of one of their access lanes to southbound MoPac — a lane that was paid for with our tax dollars.

DIANE GUCCIONE
Austin

State Auditor slams Trans Texas Corridor

TxDOT misled public about use of taxpayer money

My mother called it LYING when someone deliberately fails to tell to the truth, and, in fact, tells someone the opposite of what is true. That’s what TxDOT has done not only with the figures for the state’s transportation “needs,” but also regarding the use of taxpayer money for the Trans Texas Corridor. Rick Perry stated at a press conference last year, in front of KHOU cameras in Houston, that NO TAXPAYER MONEY would go into the Trans Texas Corridor. Now the State Auditor (not sure why he’s just now waking up to this when citizens have asked his office to investigate these toll contracts for nearly 4 years) reveals TxDOT will use taxpayer money for the TTC and that the amount may never be clearly determined without better financial accounting from this corrupt and broken agency.

Cintra’s Annual Report has told its shareholders to plan on a 12% rate of return on their investment. So once again, TxDOT isn’t telling the taxpayers the truth behind their special interest monopolistic deal (that was brokered behind closed doors) to enrich a private, foreign corporation.

 

Link to articles here and here.

Auditor scolds agency for corridor project
Texas Department of Transportation downplayed costs, withheld information, audit says
By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, February 24, 2007

The Texas Department of Transportation has downplayed the potential costs of the Trans-Texas Corridor and potentially inflated expected gains for the project, state auditors said in a report released Friday.

Auditors also said department officials have not been sufficiently open about information on the massive road project and should involve the state comptroller’s office in overseeing future corridor contracts.

The department, in a response included in the 73-page audit, agreed with most of the auditors’ observations and recommendations. But the department defended its decision to withhold for more than a year portions of its contract with corridor developer Cintra-Zachry. And it said the auditor was wrong to conclude that the contract commits the department to guarantee Cintra-Zachry a 12 percent rate of return on what it spends building a 300-mile toll road alternative to Interstate 35.

“The 12 percent was merely a modeling assumption,” the agency’s response says.

The state plans to delete language about a “12 percent guaranteed return on equity” now in the master development plan, the audit says.

The report also says the $3 billion in payments from the developer that the state expects to get could be reduced to nothing if interest rates and inflation are higher than expected. The agency in its response did not address that assertion.

Austin state Sen. Kirk Watson, a Democrat who serves on the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, in a statement said the audit should put the brakes on the corridor project pending further study.

“Texas cannot rush into a project that will help define our future when there are so many uncertainties about the present.” Watson said. “We must step back, demand answers, and (ensure) the public is protected before work proceeds on the Trans-Texas Corridor.”

The Trans-Texas Corridor was proposed in 2002 by Gov. Rick Perry as a 4,000-mile network of tollways, railroads and utility corridors roughly paralleling existing interstate highways in Texas. The department in late 2004 announced that it had selected Cintra-Zachry to create a master plan for developing the first and most-needed of those corridors, the twin to I-35.

The department and Cintra-Zachry in March 2005 reached a $3.5 million agreement for the partnership to create a plan, and the agency released much of the contract. But the agency said release of certain sections was not required until the actual plan was complete, an assertion that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office disputed. Perry’s gubernatorial opponents seized the opportunity to criticize.

The rest of the contract was released last fall when the master plan was completed.

The audit said “it is important that the Department makes all documents, plans, and contracts related to the project public in a timely manner.” The audit did not define “timely.” Even so, the agency remained defiant about its decision to keep the information confidential temporarily. (My emphasis..For 18 months, hardly timely)

“Providing information prior to approval (of the plan) could jeopardize competition during the procurement process,” the agency said in its audit response.

Subcategories

Eminent Domain

Climate Policy

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