The man who gets it
(Note: Sorry about the dearth of posts last week– I was sick most of the week.)
Late last week, state Senator John Carona (R-Dallas), who chairs the Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security committee, proposed a 10 cent increase in the state’s gas tax to bolster dwindling funding for roads. (Express-News story)
This, my friends, shows real courage and a real understanding of the transportation funding crisis that has lead to the plethora of toll road projects around the state.
New TransGuide website coming down the pike
New TransGuide website
System repairs and upgrades also coming
In addition to the website improvement, TxDOT also has awarded contracts for long-overdue maintenance of TransGuide’s field equipment. I can’t tell you how many lane control signals and dynamic message signs are out of order, so news of these contracts is welcome. Once the initial repair backlog is cleared, which is expected by the end of the year, the contractors will focus on preventive maintenance, upgrades to older and obsolete equipment, and maintaining a 95% uptime for all equipment. TxDOT has budgeted $1.5 million annually for maintenance, although that amount will vary depending on needs and funding availability.
Links:
Beating a dead horse (toll road genesis Part Deux)
In my last post, I discussed how toll roads came to be the funding option of choice in recent years for big road projects. The question I closed with was whether or not they’re the best solution, and if not, how to fund roadbuilding without them. As I alluded to, it’s really a chicken-and-egg scenario: do toll roads perpetuate the status quo, or does the status quo perpetuate toll roads?
My wife and I have had this conversation several times. She understands the problem, but is of the mind that tolls should be the option of absolute last resort—they need to fix the gas tax problems first. In essence, she thinks that the current toll paradigm is getting the cart before the horse.
The genesis of the toll road problem
One issue that many toll road opponents can’t seem to wrap their heads around is the underlying reason why toll roads are being pushed. It’s not some get-rich scheme by Rick Perry or TxDOT. The problem is the dearth of funding that has plagued transportation for more than a decade now. And it’s not just Texas—many other states, as well as the federal government, are having the same problem.
A Texas shibboleth
One of the first things that astute visitors and new arrivals to Texas notice is the ubiquity of frontage roads along our freeways. Indeed, Texas has more frontage roads than any other place on the face of the planet. The reason for this phenomenon is because, unlike most other states, Texas frequently upgrades existing roadways to freeways instead of building them on entirely new right-of-way, especially in urban areas. For instance, most of I-35 through Texas was built along what used to be US 81. Because adjacent property owners already had access to the existing highway, the state would either have had to purchase those access rights when the road was upgraded (freeways are controlled-access), which in many cases might actually have resulted in a full-blown taking of the property, or they would have had to devise a way to maintain access to those properties. Texas chose the latter.
Final thoughts from the MPO meeting
After a couple of days of rest and deliberation after the marathon MPO meeting Monday night, I wanted to put down a few closing impressions.
Results from the big toll road vote
After hour upon hour of citizens to be heard (well over 100 of them), and then several agonizing minutes of parliamentarian wrangling over whether the proposed changes had to have cost estimates to be legal, the MPO finally voted at around 11:20pm. The first vote, to remove tolls from 281, was 13-5 against with one abstention; the vote among elected officials was 6-5 against. The subsequent vote on removing tolls from 1604 went the same way. However, in the surprise of the night (besides Jack Finger ending his comments with time to spare), the board voted unanimously to remove the CDA (comprehensive development agreement) option for Bandera Rd., essentially killing the prospect of tolls on that roadway. That almost seemed like a consolation offering to Tommy, Terri, and the anti-toll crowd.  The final vote of the night– whether to build all eight ramps of the 281/1604 interchange instead of just the four already in the works– ended-up being dropped entirely after a board member pointed-out that the additional four ramps could not be built because they would have to be covered under a separate environmental study. This would cause it to lose its federal stimulus funds because the project would not be shovel-ready by next March’s deadline. In the end, I think everyone was too tired anyway to debate it.
Much more to follow in the coming days.
T4 Plan a “pipe dream”
Today’s the big day for the “T4 Plan” (Tommy and Terri’s Toll Termination Plan). The MPO board will vote tonight on whether to go foward with their proposal that removes the toll option from proposed expressway projects on US 281 and Loop 1604. I was prepared today to summarize why this is a bad idea, but lo and behold, the Express-News Editorial Board did a fantastic job in an editorial in yesterday’s editions.Â
20 lane toll road?? Not really…
Back at the US 281 Super Street meeting a few months ago, I got into a discussion with a TURF representative about the proposed tollway for 281. His was adamant that the toll plan would need more lanes than the original toll-free or “gas-tax” plan. When I pressed him on it, he could not explain why a tolled expressway would need more lanes than a free expressway, only that “it would have to.”Â
As it turns-out, one of TURF’s most misleading half-truths is the notion that the tollway proposal for US 281 would be 20 lanes wide, while the “original overpass plan” would only be 10 lanes. Good job TURF! You guys have mastered the art of misinformation.
Toll roads: Loop 1604 MPO Terri Hall Tommy Adkisson TURF US 281
by Brian
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Why the MPO vote to remove tolls doesn’t matter
Tommy Adkisson
The San Antonio-Bexar County MPO is scheduled to vote next Monday on whether or not to remove the toll option from the US 281 and Loop 1604 expansion projects. This plan was put forth by new MPO Chairman Tommy Adkisson, Bexar County’s Precinct 4 Commissioner and an ardent toll road opponent. Make no mistake—his plan is actually the brainchild of staunch toll road critic Terri Hall, the self-appointed director of Texans United for Freedom and Reform (TURF), and is based on the theory that she could just take plans and estimates from 2001, add the inflation factor since then, and have the magic estimate of what it would cost to build the original toll-free plan today. This elementary formula skips a number of important steps and omits several ancillary items that were not included in those original estimates, such as design work, right-of-way acquisition, and utility relocation.