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toll roads

  • Abbott, state leadership fail to protect drivers from fees increases, more road debt

    By Terri Hall
    June 20, 2021

    Ouch! That’s likely the reaction of taxpayers now that the session is over and the damage to your pocketbook is emerging from the chaos. The 87th Legislature in Texas came to a clunky close a few weeks ago, and the results for taxpayers, particularly drivers, is a mixed bag. Both during his campaign in 2014 and again during his state of the state address in 2015, Governor Greg Abbott promised to fix our roads without more taxes, fees, tolls, or debt. It was the centerpiece of his Texas Clear Lanes Initiative— to pass Prop 7 that year in order to get more funding directed to the state’s most congested roads without adding to the tax burden and without more tolls.

    However, this session, he broke three of the four promises. The legislature put a vehicle registration fee hike, a bill to issue new debt from the Texas Mobility Fund (TMF), and another to allow private toll entities to increase toll fines and fees above the $48/year cap placed on the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) on his desk. Abbott allowed all to become law without his signature, but he allowed them to become law nonetheless. Shame on the legislature for passing them in the first place. 

    The $10 vehicle registration fee hike, HB 1698 (Raney), applies to a Regional Mobility Authority (RMA), which is primarily a toll authority, in Brazos County. That means every car owner will pay more in order to subsidize a toll project they may never drive. It also triple taxes the drivers who do take the toll road since they pay a toll, an extra vehicle registration fee in addition to paying gasoline taxes to use that stretch of road. The excuse they used was that it will come before the voters first. Naturally, big government can always find a way to put lipstick on a pig and sell it to the voters as ‘give us more money or else none of your roads will get fixed.’ Hardly an argument for limited government, lower taxes, or freedom of mobility. Instead, they're essentially saying give us more while we squander, misuse, or waste the money we already take from you. When RMA executive directors garner higher salaries to run these little toll fiefdoms compared to the Executive Director of TxDOT with 11,000 employees, there’s a problem with bloat and overspending. It's certainly not because taxpayers aren't paying enough.

  • Farewell: Pickett’s love for transportation and sticking up for taxpayers will be sorely missed
    By Terri Hall
    December 26, 2018

    Pickett Joe jpg 800x1000 Move Texas ForwardRetiring Texas State Representative Joseph Pickett (D - HD 79) is one in a million. Truly there is no one in the Texas House who undertook transportation as a matter of personal study with the aim of improving every step of the process for both the government agencies in charge of delivering projects and also for the forgotten taxpayer like Joe Pickett. He announced his retirement right before Christmas citing his battle with cancer and the need to fully recover without the rigors of a legislative session. It’s truly a devastating loss for the people of Texas. Here’s why.

    No one knows Texas transportation like Pickett, and there is no one currently in the Texas House who can come close to replacing his depth of knowledge and expertise anytime soon. He’s been in the Texas House since 1995, serving first on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation then on the Transportation Committee itself, eventually chairing the committee for two sessions.

    Pickett not only served on his local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in El Paso as a councilman, but also during most of his tenure in the Texas House. He also served as Chair of the El Paso MPO for several terms. Local MPOs are where the nitty gritty of transportation projects take place. These boards, comprised of local elected officials and transportation agency officials, decide which local projects get priority over others and where gas tax dollars and transportation funds get allocated. Ever since the Rick Perry ‘toll everything so we can generate new revenue and not call it a tax’ began, the MPOs often decide whether or not a road project is tolled. Those are fighting words for many Texans faced with high monthly toll bills that approach the level of a property tax bill for many families in urban areas. Pickett had the savvy and finesse to challenge TxDOT, toll agencies, and MPOs about various toll project decisions and discern whether or not it was truly warranted or just a potential cash cow for an unaccountable agency.

  • Sparks fly as senators discover numerous toll roads with no debt on them, prompts call to remove tolls
    By Terri Hall
    September 15, 2016

    It’s not often that the very sleepy subject of transportation offers a fiery discussion, but yesterday’s Senate Transportation Committee meeting did not disappoint. In a rare olive branch extended to grassroots anti-toll advocacy groups, Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom and Texans for Toll-free Highways, Chairman Senator Robert Nichols invited them to address the committee about one of its interim studies - a study on the elimination of toll roads.

    Just the title evokes strong emotions on both sides of the issue, and those emotions were in plain view Wednesday. Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Executive Director James Bass laid out the numbers of how much it would cost to retire tolls on roads built with state funds. Let me say that again, toll roads that were built with state money. That means gasoline taxes and other state funds were used to build the road, but Texas drivers are being charged again, through tolls, to use it — a double tax scheme.

  • Transportation Chair wants tolls to come down, insists tolls cause congestion
    By Terri Hall
    August 31, 2016

    As toll weary Texans anxiously await Governor Greg Abbott’s promise to fix our roads without tolls to come to fruition, House Transportation Committee Chair Joe Pickett is one of the few taking action to make it happen. At yesterday’s House Transportation Committee meeting, Pickett continued his war against toll ‘managed’ lanes on several fronts.

    First, he argued that tolls are actually causing congestion on some roads.

    “Toll projects actually exacerbate congestion. The one in my community does,” proclaimed a determined Pickett. Pickett’s referring to the Cesar Chavez Border Highway toll managed lane project where only 6% of traffic utilizes the lanes, leaving 94% of commuters stuck in congestion.

    Pickett told KVIA News in El Paso last year that, “Things have changed and if you want to lessen congestion, you open up the roads to everyone.”

  • Link to article here.

    It's no surprise that the federally-funded North Texas Regional Transportation Council will once again lobby for more toll roads, specifically public private partnerships that cost drivers' a premium in peak hours, but it's particularly offensive given the economic downturn and what are likely permanent changes to traffic patterns now that millions of Texans have shown they can work from home and stay productive. Toll road debt is more risky than ever as the toll industry asked congress for a $9.2 billion bailout earlier this year due to coronavirus lockdowns. Who knows what the future of road tax revenues will look like post-COVID.

    Regional Planning Council Prioritizes High-Speed Rail and Toll Lanes as Part of Legislative Agenda
    As the 87th legislative session commences in January, local officials plan to advocate for increased funding for transportation projects including high-speed rail and the ability to utilize toll roads and managed lanes.

    By Kim Roberts
    The Texan
    November 13, 2020

    As the 87th Texas Legislative Session approaches its commencement in January, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) Regional Transportation Council (RTC) has approved its legislative program.

    The council plans to promote and support legislation in four primary areas: (1) funding transportation and transit projects, (2) expanding transportation options in mega-metropolitan regions, (3) pursuing innovation, technology, and safety, and (4) improving air quality.

    The legislative priorities of the RTC will be transmitted to the members of the legislature.

  • Texans reject editorial stating, ‘Tolls are necessary, deal with it’
    By Terri Hall
    February 20, 2017

    It’s tough being a taxpayer. After 14 years of enduring former Texas Governor Rick Perry’s push for toll roads, including the controversial network of transnational tollways under the control of a foreign corporation called the Trans Texas Corridor, Texans are still facing the push for tolls by local governments. Though Texas Governor Greg Abbott did an about-face on tolls campaigning against them and promising to fix Texas roads without raising fees, taxes, tolls or debt, local toll agencies, with the aid of a willing press, are trying to cram toll roads down commuters’ throats despite their opposition. Case in point, the San Antonio Express-News just ran an editorial entitled, ‘Tolls are necessary, deal with it.’

  • Link to article here.

    Trump pulls the plug on private toll roads, centerpiece of infrastructure plan
    By Terri Hall
    Setpember 30, 2017

    It’s big news for taxpayers, but for the special interests who have been pushing public private partnerships (P3s) and toll roads as the way to fund $1 trillion in upgrades to America’s infrastructure not so much. This week, President Donald Trump officially pulled the plug on P3s as the centerpiece to his infrastructure plan.

    The president said simply, “They don’t work.”

    Trump mentioned it in a meeting with members of the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday as the president met with lawmakers to discuss tax reform. Citing the failure of the Interstate-69 P3 contract done under Vice President Mike Pence when he was governor of Indiana, the state recently had to sever the contract, take over the project, and issue its own debt to get it finished.

  • IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    April 30, 2020


    Grassroots Coalition praises Abbott’s I-35 Non-toll Expansion
    Special interests will try to toll everything else due to tight budget post-coronavirus & oil bust


    (April 30, 2020 – Austin, Texas) Today, Texas Conservative Grassroots Coalition leaders from Grassroots America - We the People PAC, Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF), and Texans for Toll-free Highways are praising Governor Greg Abbott and his Texas Transportation Commission’s vote to fund the first critical segment of the Interstate-35 expansion through downtown Austin without tolls. The Coalition noted the Commission has prioritized existing funding to get this major project underway without adding to the tax burden of working families.
     
    JoAnn Fleming, Executive Director of Grassroots America stated, “During his first gubernatorial campaign and throughout his administration, Governor Abbott consistently promised to fix state transportation woes without raising taxes, fees, debt, or tolls, and that’s precisely why 164 grassroots conservative political opinion leaders – influencers – representing 133 unique groups and districts across Texas– sent a letter of support in favor of Abbott’s non-toll I-35 Expansion, which includes 12 segments on the state’s 100 Most Congested Roads List for 2019. For Governor Abbott, it is simply a matter of ‘Promises Made – Promises Kept.’ With our state leaders facing a dreadfully painful 87th legislative session budget process with unfolding economic hits from the coronavirus shutdown and oil price collapse, we are stepping forward now to have Governor Abbott’s back.”

  • Lawmakers leave without giving drivers toll tax relief

    By Terri Hall
    May 28, 2019

    Sometimes a win isn’t gauged by what you pass, but by what you stopped. The results of the 86th legislative session are definitely the later. In short, the taxpayers got very little as far as toll tax relief. With 28 different toll systems and 55 toll projects in place today, without passing toll cessation Texas drivers will never see an end to paying toll taxes nor an end to toll agencies expanding their existing systems out further and further — forever. However, the grassroots opposition to five bad toll road bills that would have handed Texas’ public highways to private, foreign entities in 50-year sweetheart deals along with other giveaways to private toll companies, managed to kill all of them -- the worst being HB 1951 by Matt Krause, a member of the Freedom Caucus.

    The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) alone (not to mention the other 12 local toll agencies across the state) has put more than two million Texas drivers into collections for unpaid tolls. Just TxDOT has imposed over $1 billion in fines and fees in addition to the actual tolls owed. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (Austin area) testified before the Senate Transportation Committee last August that of the $100 million its collected in tolls, $85 million was fines and fees. Toll fines and fees are out of control and making Texas drivers virtually an unlimited ATM machine to feed relentless unelected toll bureaucracies — in short, tolling has become a license to steal.

  • Mixed bag legal opinion over co-mingling of funds for toll roads
    Attorney General can’t figure out what a toll road is
    By Terri Hall
    May 19, 2018

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a mixed legal opinion regarding whether or not Prop 1 and Prop 7 funds that are prohibited from being used on toll roads could be co-mingled with projects that have toll lanes in them. Rep. Joe Pickett requested the opinion in response to the public backlash when it was discovered the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority was attempting to use Prop 1 and Prop 7 funds on its US 183 toll project.

    To the average voter, when it states: “Revenue transferred to the state highway fund under this subsection may be used only for constructing, maintaining, and acquiring rights-of-way for public roadways other than toll roads,” it’s pretty clear that means any part of a road, including the right of way, cannot be a toll road. But apparently that’s not clear to the Attorney General whose legal opinion chose to punt rather than protect taxpayers from an accounting trick being used by toll bureaucrats to skirt the Texas Constitutional Amendments overwhelmingly approved by Texas voters in 2014 and 2015.

  • Link to article here.

    Trump take heed: Toll roads a factor in Florida, North Carolina, and Texas election
    By Terri Hall
    November 9, 2016
    Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research

    With the historic election of Donald Trump to the American Presidency, it signals a total repudiation of the political establishment by the working class. You could call it the election of the American worker. But analysts would be remiss if they failed to overlook how toll roads played a part in several races in key states.

    One of the most notable races is for governor in North Carolina — must-win state for Trump that went red. Yet, Republican Governor Pat McCrory is in a nail biter photo finish to retain his seat in a state that went Republican last night. The very real threat by Democrat Roy Cooper who claimed victory Wednesday morning, though most still believe the race too close to call, is in part due to McCrory losing support among his base thanks to his approval of the controversial public private partnership (P3) toll project on Interstate-77 in Charlotte.

  • Lawmakers turned to toll roads to boost the Texas economy and address population growth without raising taxes, but the consequences have adversely affected some drivers.

    The Dallas Morning News - By Yamil Berard
    May 13, 2024

    Link to full article...
    Dallas Morning News Interactives (For Subscribers)

    Every day, thousands of drivers jump on toll roads to ease their commutes to work and school.

    Toll roads overlook international bridges and crossings on the Texas-Mexico border, they connect drivers to airports all over the state and they circumnavigate urban cores by way of loops and tunnels.

    Toll TrapTexas has so many toll roads that it has earned the distinction of building more miles than nearly all other states combined. Picture this: If you stretched the state’s 852 miles of toll roads across the eastern U.S., they would pass through 13 states — from Maine to South Carolina, a yearlong Dallas Morning News investigation has found.

    ABOUT THIS SERIES

    Toll Trap is a three-day series exploring how the state's tollway system impacts drivers across the state. Our investigation found that Texas in the last 20 years has built more toll roads than almost all other states combined. The state also aggressively penalizes drivers with unpaid toll bills - even sending their cases to local courts every day. The state, unlike many others, also offers few discounts to drivers who feel entrapped by the toll roads that surround them. Investigative reporter Yamil Berard and data journalist Shuyao Xiao spent months examining Texas' tollway system. The journalists read thousands of pages of legislative reports, transportation studies, as well as financial statements and audits for toll roads operated by Texas' three largest toll agencies since 1998. They spoke with dozens of urban planning specialists, tollway advocacy groups, public policy researchers and mobility engineers and examined roadway and toll data from state and population density information. They filed and read reports from open records requests and attempted to speak to all 22 members of the House and Senate transportation committees along with Gov. Greg Abbott and other high-ranking current and previous elected state leaders.

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