Today, the roads offer smooth sailing for gridlock-weary commuters willing to pay the price. But far fewer people are using the turnpikes than officials predicted, which means the highways generate far less revenue than expected to retire their debts.

Link to article here.

All three state leaders, Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and Speaker Joe Straus said transportation and funding infrastructure as a state priority this session. It's incumbent upon Texans that it's not just lip service. We need bold leadership, and not the debt, toll road, public private partnership Perry model that got into this mess.

83rd Legislature Faces a New Set of Priorities
By Texas Tribune Staff
Texas Tribune
January 6, 2013

The last time Texas lawmakers convened in Austin, they were absorbed with numbers and boundaries: how to make ends meet with a deflated state budget and draw new district maps the courts would approve.

But with improving fiscal conditions and redistricting mostly in the rearview mirror, they are approaching the 2013 legislative session with some pressing policy questions, from whether to introduce private school vouchers into the state’s public education system to whether they should put in effect — and accept financing for — major provisions of the federal health care overhaul.

Link to article here.

Governor lays out plan to eliminate gas tax, increase sales tax
By Doris Taylor
WTKR.com
January 8, 2013

During a press conference today, Governor Bob McDonnell laid out a new plan that would eliminate the gas tax but increase the sales tax.

He wants to raise the state sales tax from 5% to 5.8% percent and wants to put the money into transportation. 

He said he’d do away with the 17.5 cent gas tax. 

Virginia would become the first state without a gas tax.

Let Texans vote on highway user fees

Posted Tuesday, Jan. 01, 2013

By Steve Stagner

Special to the Star-Telegram

Texas has 80,000 miles of state highways and a rapidly growing population, but no long-term funding plan for repairing, replacing and upgrading our highway system.

It's hard to imagine there's a problem when the region is awash in construction equipment and orange barrels. But the current level of construction masks a sober reality. This program has been built on a mountain of debt -- a way of funding that is completely unsustainable. And, unfortunately, the state's credit card is maxed out.

Link to article here.

Toll Agency hits age 10 with stability, big plans
By Ben Wear
American-Statesman Staff
December 28, 2012

There was a time, early in the history of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, when it was by no means clear that the agency would see its 10th birthday this fall.

Neither was it clear that it would have two toll roads open by now, nearly a billion dollars in assets and enough credibility that local elected officials, with little or no constituent blow-back, could vote this year to loan the authority $130 million to add toll lanes to MoPac Boulevard. Under that arrangement, the authority has 25 years to pay back the money, plus $100 million in what amounts to interest.

Those express lanes on MoPac (Loop 1), to run from near Lady Bird Lake to Parmer Lane, should be under construction by summer 2013 and take about two years to open.

Posted Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012

By Dave Lieber

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 A respected Tarrant County justice of the peace is asking whether bill-collection procedures used by the North Texas Tollway Authority violate the state and federal constitutions.

The Watchdog is all ears.

As the NTTA ramps up its efforts to increase its criminal penalties for nonpayers, Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Russell Casey hopes to put up roadblocks to stop the plan.

Casey says his argument with the NTTA is not about protecting scofflaws but about making sure that Texas drivers are not denied their legal rights.

The Hurst-based JP's main argument: "You don't pay that $15 toll bill, and then it turns into $75? They can issue an arrest warrant. That tosses away a couple of centuries' worth of civil rights."

Posted Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012

By Dave Lieber

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

 The North Texas Tollway Authority wants to create an internal toll road court that would force "habitual violators" into a legal hearing with a presiding officer, opening and closing statements, witnesses, testimony and lawyers -- but no jury.

A driver who loses his case and refuses to pay up would be banned from an NTTA-operated toll road forever.

The NTTA is circulating a draft of its proposed bill for the 2013 Legislature. The Watchdog asked NTTA for a copy, but the authority declined. Instead, The Watchdog obtained a draft from another source.

In 1995, California granted a private company the right to construct express toll lanes along the State Route 91 freeway in Orange County, a region inhabited by millions, with some of the heaviest traffic flows in the nation. This was the first modern privatized highway in the United States. The California Private Transportation Company (CPTC), a partnership of three corporations—Level 3 Communications, Granite Construction, Inc., and the French toll operator Cofiroute SA—completed the project with $130 million in mostly privately sourced money. To recoup this expense, and to make a profit, CPTC was given a 35-year concession to operate the toll route. State leaders promised that the private company would provide greater efficiency and savings, and that the public would benefit from clear and safe roads, even during a time of government budget constraints.

Virginia enters into design-build public private partnership with Cintra to build a new stretch of Hwy 460 as a tollway

Bloomberg reported it here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 20, 2012

Governor McDonnell Announces That Commonwealth Signs Comprehensive Agreement and Reaches Financial Close to Build the New Route 460 in Southeast Virginia
Project to greatly improve transportation, create thousands of jobs and have a multi-billion dollar economic impact

RICHMOND - Governor Bob McDonnell announced today that the Commonwealth has reached a commercial and financial close with US 460 Mobility Partners (a partnership of Ferrovial Agroman, S.A. and American Infrastructure) and the Route 460 Funding Corporation of Virginia to finance, design and build a new 55-mile section of U.S. Route 460 in southeastern Virginia. Project development begins immediately for the new $1.4 billion roadway, which has been a top transportation priority locally, regionally and statewide for nearly a decade. The project was developed to address roadway deficiencies, improve safety, accommodate increasing freight shipments and reduce travel delays among many other needs.

Link to story here.

Oregon officials propose per-mile tax for gas sippers

By The Associated Press Published: Jan 2, 2013

See a map of the Trans Texas Corridor & all the NAFTA trade corridors here.

Trans Texas Corridor commences despite opposition
By Terri Hall
January 6, 2013
Examiner.com

When Jerry Corsi talks, people listen. Corsi’s recent column on the revival of the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) gave national attention to what Texans have been warning for a decade -- that despite Texas-sized opposition and claims of its demise by Texas Governor Rick Perry and his Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the Trans Texas Corridor is quietly being built piece by piece. The Texas Transportation Commission just awarded a public private partnership (P3), known in Texas as a Comprehensive Development Agreement (CDA), for a segment of Interstate 35E between Dallas and Denton County at its last meeting.

The award for I-35E followed on the heels of the Commission’s award of a CDA for I-35W to Spain-based Cintra as part of the Master Development Plan for the North Tarrant Express in October. Both projects relate to Perry’s original Trans Texas Corridor vision of building a 4,000-mile network of international trade corridors four football fields wide using P3s, to include toll roads, toll commuter and freight rail, utilities, telecommunication lines, and pipelines of all sorts, developed and operated by private, even foreign, corporations free of competition for a half century.

Link to review here.

Last great interstate a NAFTA highway fraught with controversy
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
December 18, 2012

With the end of 2012 marking the 20th anniversary of NAFTA, it’s instructive to take a fresh look at the book that chronicles that battle over the last interstate highway -- a NAFTA superhighway -- yet to be built - Interstate 69, The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway by Matt Dellinger.

Dellinger credits David Graham, grandson of a railroad magnate and son of an auto manufacturer in Southern Indiana whose family farm and businesses made them legendary in their small community for decades, with the idea of building an interstate highway connecting Evansville with Indianapolis. That little idea that started over breakfast with some of Graham’s influential friends grew into a NAFTA superhighway concept in short order. Absent federal funding, an interstate through southwest Indiana was a non-starter, but connect that idea to a larger intercontinental highway connecting the busiest trade crossings in Canada with those in Mexico, and now you’ve got six other states and a plethora of economic interests joining Indiana in the quest for not only funding, but also a whole new trade corridor that will transform North America.