Posted on 09/26/2007 3:33:20 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Just when you think, you have heard it all something else pops up. I have stated my opinion on the state's effort to utilize tolls as the future funding for highways in Texas. Just in case you missed it, I oppose the idea of tolls being the primary source of funding for state highways.
I need to clarify my opposition by stating I am not so much opposed to new toll roads, but rather the idea of tolling existing roads. A large portion of the price for a gallon of gas goes to the state and federal folks for highway maintenance. The roads are paid for and to toll any portion of them now would be further taxing of the citizens of Texas.
I was upset when it came to my attention that the state is currently working on a plan to place tolls on Interstate highways. That is right, I-35, I-10 and others could all become pay to drive roads in the future if the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) has its way. To top it off it has been pretty much a secret.
A report, entitled Forward Momentum, a Report to the 110th Congress, makes several recommendations to Congress on how best to upgrade the nation's highway system. One section of the report is particularly disturbing.
The section titled Tolling Authority EXPANSION discusses ways that Congress could allow Texas to charge tolls on existing Interstate highways. Included in the report are Interstates 10, 35 and 27.
Federal law generally prohibits imposing tolls on interstate highways for which federal funds have been used. Too bad, we do not have state laws like that in Texas. The report goes on to state that in some instances Congress has enacted specific legislation to allow states to “buy back,” or reimburse the federal government. This reimbursement relieves that section of highway from the prohibition of tolls.
So now TXDOT, or whoever wants to spend state tax dollars to buy back federal highways that your federal tax money already paid for. Then the state wants you to pay tolls on roads that you will have literally already paid for twice. Just does not make sense to me.
We are supposed to have conservative representation in Austin. Someone will have to explain to me how asking the people of Texas to pay for roads twice can be called conservative. To add insult to injury they then want to make Texans pay tolls to drive on the same roads that we will already have paid for twice.
While this may sound farfetched, like science fiction or a bad dream TXDOT representatives have confirmed the language of the report. Depending on what Congress does, this scenario could become reality
The real punch line to this whole situation is that TXDOT representatives have stressed that any tolling would not be done without the consent of local officials and the public. Who do they think they are kidding? We see how well they have handled public input on the Trans Texas Corridor.
I also wonder where TXDOT is coming from when they brag on the Government Accountability Office citing Texas as a leader in using toll roads to “reduce congestion.” The whole toll road pitch has been that tolls would go to pay for the construction of badly needed highways and repair of existing roads.
It all started out with the idea that tolls be levied only on new roads, never on existing roads. Now we have gone to well maybe existing roads with your consent. Bottom line is that the move by TXDOT and the Governor to further tax the citizens of this state is moving forward.
Take the time to call your Washington DC representatives and let them know that we have paid for these roads once. We do not need to buy them again. Maybe they will listen better in Washington DC to public input then they do in Austin.
Blackland Coalition invites all persons concerned and opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor(s) (I35, I69, etc.) to a meeting on Saturday at Seaton Star Hall (SPJST Lodge 40). Seaton Star Hall is located 5 miles east of Temple on State Highway 53.
The meeting will start at 7 p.m. Food and beverages will be available beginning at 6 p.m.
Chris Hammel, president of Blackland Coalition will update the public on the many things that have taken place in the past months and what the future holds. He notes that because of the Blackland Coalition, more and more statewide grassroots organizations have been formed in organized opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor and in making consistent calls for fair hearings and legislative action. The group's opposition has sounded all the way to Oklahoma and beyond, where they have and continue to form active opposition to the TTC and the NAFTA highway system.
Four small cities in Central Texas have formed the “Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission.” Mae Smith, president of this newly formed commission will be a featured speaker at the Blackland Coalition meeting. She will discuss the how and why small cities should form these groups to protect their communities.
The last legislative session did result in some favorable actions to those opposed to the TTC(s). David and Linda Stall of Corridor Watch will outline what good did come out of the session. They will also give an update on the latest information regarding the East Texas TTC 69 project. Those hearings are tentatively scheduled for November and December. Blackland Coalition appreciates the efforts and support that East Texas opposition presented at the TTC 35 DEIS hearings last summer and everyone is asked to consider supporting them at the upcoming hearings in their area.
Indy Texans founder and Blackland Coalition member, Linda Curtis will present a brief update on what that group has been doing to protect Texans and their rights. There is has been a lot of activity within that group and we can be of assistance. It is not required to be an Indy Texan member to do so.
Trans-Texas Corridor PING!
If gas taxes are collected, the states should be blocked from double taxing citizens. I’d like to see this taken up at the federal level, with states demanding toll roads to forfeit any federal dollars for their existing and new roadways.
I am sick of the shell game concerning rights to pass, and double exposure to taxation, for things already paid for.
As gas tax paying citizens, we have paid for the right to have access to our highways.
Don’t even think of charging me to pay again.
Drive IH 35 North from Texas to Minnesota. I believe the entire state of Kansas. Already been done, Feds allow it ... so Texas cashes in.
Wait until these heavy trucks start rolling across this roadway in mass. I predict one decade down the line, the concrete will need to be replaced. I’ve seen what has happened to our roads where even light truck traffic was introduced. Imagine literally thousands of them running that route constantly.
This was true as far as the old Interstate & Defense Highway Act of 1956 was concerned. But the last 3 highway appropriation bills have made it legal for states to charge tolls on existing interstates. No one wanted to be first for fear of creating a political firestorm.
But Pennsylvania will be the first when it places I-80 under the Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority and erects 10 toll booths across the state. Others will soon follow.
US 95 N becomes a toll road around Portsmouth, NH. It’s been like that as long as I can remember.
The New Hampshire Turnpike (now the Blue Star Turnpike) is a first generation toll highway that predates the 1956 interstate highway law. There are a whole bunch of those.
Hats off the Gov Perry. He sure is making us proud. [sarc}
Don’t bet on it. They love taxes here in blue PA. You fellows down there have to fight this tooth and nail. There is nothing good about tolls. The money is never used for its purported purpose. Penndot here is one big boondoggle. They’ve been working on one stretch of road (rt 30) for TEN years and it is still not done. Route 30 is less than one hundred miles long!
Once tolls are in place, the government will refuse to take them all down at a later date. Tolls are too much of a money-maker for the government, and the government will just cling to their existence like barnacles to the flesh of whales. One just has to look at the total toll situations in both New Jersey and Massachusetts to see all of the continuous problems that tolls create.
Toll Roads are a very hot issue in Texas. Part of the danger is that there were plans to add toll lanes to or convert every major highway in the Austin Area into a tollway- not just one or two, every one!
Fortunately Governor Perry signed into law a moratorium on this planning for two years in June:
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=6643863
Some of the projects that were formerly labeled as “tollways” are now listed as “controlled access highways” (a politically correct term for tollway) because of the moratorium. See the list of projects here:
http://www.ctrma.org/future_projects.php
Part of the issue is that establishing tollways on every major highway in the Austin area would be a first in the nation and could set a dangerous precedent.
Another part of this issue is the CAMPO board has been under scrutiny for violating state mandated term limits for planning boards (their charter specified terms twice as long as allowed by law) and there has been some dirty deals behind closed doors- e.g. some of the CAMPO members are in conflict of interest anbd in bed with contractors etc.
Kirk Watson, a notoriously dirty dealing Dummocrat that used to be the Mayor of Austin (gee, dirty democrats in Austin, say it ain’t so!) somehow became a Texas Senator for district 14 and got his mitts into the CAMPO board and spearheaded this fiasco.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Watson
I wish I was brave enough to post my opinion of Kirk Watson, but it would be the filthiest tirade you have ever read, would get this post deleted and me banned from FR.
I-35 follows the Kansas Turnpike for part of its route throught Kansas. As far as I know, the rest of it is free.
IIRC, the PTA has already made its first payment to PennDOT, so I-80 should already be under the PTA’s authority.
I hear ya.
I’m in California, but they are talking about introducing tolls here also. No way!
I agree with your comment about what the money will be spent on. Isn’t that always the case.
Texas is going to go Democratic soon if the Republican officials there don’t get their sh!t together.
There have been toll roads in Orange County for years.
The toll booths will be taken down once the roads are falling apart.
The state will then be encouraged to pass a bond measure to finance rebuilding the roads and the whole process will repeat itself forever.
I am not a proponent of increasing taxes, or double paying for anything. But we need additionqal highway capacity really bad, and as of yesterday. Frankly, I don’t see another solution other than increasing the use of toll roads to finance new construction. I-35 has become a virtual parking lot, congested 24 hr’s per day. I have read every comment on this string and I have not seen a valid counter proposal to tolls. All I have seen is “no way”. So, I ask you “no way’ers”, what’s your alternative solution?
The entire U.S. may go Democratic very soon!
Actually use state gas taxes, the state’s share of federal road and gas taxes to actually BUILD roads. Paying toll takers $22 an hour and financing trips for bureaucrats along with a fleet of state cars and planes is not the answer.
We have toll roads here in Pennsyltuckia. They are constantly in a state of disrepair and still congested. If you don’t believe me then look at Overdrive magazine. Tolls are not the answer. Fiscal responsibility is.
Replace the state gasoline and titling taxes with a consumption tax on all goods and services of no more than 2 percent.
If the consumption tax fails to provide adequately for state roads, make up the difference with tolls, pass-through financing, bonds, and/or privatization/PPPs.
The one major drawback to this that I can see, besides the susceptibility to misspending, is that the tax will be in addition to Texas's high sales tax (about 8 percent if I remember correctly). So you'd wind up with a low tax on services and a high total tax on goods.
Your gas taxes, vehicle registration and driver’s license fees are supposed to go toward maintaining the transportation infrasture for vehicles in your state. States have found all sorts of good uses for those funds, other than what they are supposed to be used for.
On of the favorites these days is to waste billions on mass transit and the augmentation of bus lines. Those are not the bonified things these funds are dedicated to.
Mayors, municipal transportation commissions, city councils, county agencies, your state legislature and the governor are the culprits that combine to misdirect these funds.
Some states take the funds and use them on totally unrelated liberal give-away programs.
There are funds. If we give in to the toll funds, they’ll use those for other purposes as well. It’s time to put our foot down and demand some fiscal responibility.
Yes, there has been one roadway that I am aware of. There may be another I wasn’t aware of.
Did you know the Golden Gate bridge was paid off something like forty years ago? I don’t remember exactly when, but that’s the way it goes.
We start paying and it never ends. They they come back and want even more money. It’s all a big con job.
BUT, the gas tax money collected has already been spent.....on AFDC payments to illegal aliens.
If you check the legislation that created the authority that owns and operates the Golden Gate Bridge, you'll find that it is authorized to exist in perpetuity with no obligation to go out of business when that bridge, or any other bridge it has built, is "paid off".
If you check the legislation that created the authority that owns and operates the Golden Gate Bridge, you'll find that it is authorized to exist in perpetuity with no obligation to go out of business when that bridge, or any other bridge it has built, is "paid off".
There should be a boycott where everyone in Houston drives the Tollway
without paying the toll. Express toll lane to be specific.
It's a TAXWAY, not a TOLLWAY!
Does that make it right? “Legal” isn’t the proof of that.
For example, here in Washington state, the 18th Amendment to the state constitution requires that gas tax money be used for highways or car ferries. Not a penny of it is used for rail, bike paths, the ports or anything else.
I share your sentiment...
If you want to know where this is going, note that Oregon and Massachusetts are looking at following Singapore and London by installing transponders in cars so that you will be charged for the use of any and all highways the minute you leave your driveway. In return, they will repeal the gas tax for residents who have the transponders.
For a humorous look at this, check out TANSTAAFL: A (Semi-)Satirical Look at a World Without Transportation Subsidies.
Tell me what the transponder will be that the gas tax isn’t. Seems like a shell game to me.
Read the essay. It’s all there, and in a humorous vein.
Thank you. I will. I appreciate the link too.
Here in Michigan, when you head out of the state, you pay the heavy toll for all of the history you are leaving. When you head into the state, you get paid progressively, the further into the state you get. When you get to Midland, you get the grand prize.
BTTT
Sounds good but, many cities in Texas already charge 13 to 19% tax on hotels and car rentals.(not to mention cigarette taxes) Eventually this is going to hurt tourism and will domino from there.
You could charge an out-of-state fee similar to education costs for all visitors and newcomers. Texas need to put a quota on the amount of people we allow to move here, it’s getting ridiculous.
That is what really bothered me about Texas and CAMPO getting involved with the silly idea of "buying" existing roads and converting them to tool roads. They were trying to find a way to get deeper into our pockets.
Kirk Watson, a notoriously dirty dealing Dummocrat that used to be the Mayor of Austin (gee, dirty democrats in Austin, say it ain’t so!)
I really dislike the politics here in the Austin/Travis county area. Toby Futrell is one of the worst politicians in this area. She got a raise for doing such a good job, she decided to retire. I'd bet she comes back as and "adviser" to the next city manager.
Every one of the local politicians are so crooked, they can hide behind a corkscrew. They won't be buried when they die, they will be screwed into the ground.
Just like the current Capital Metro fiasco. Raise the fares so they can spend more and more. Heck, most of their funds come from the taxes collected in the Metro tax base.
I wish I was brave enough to post my opinion of Kirk Watson, but it would be the filthiest tirade you have ever read, would get this post deleted and me banned from FR.
Dittos from me on that reply.
You do realize that there's plenty of $$$ for road construction/maintenance, that its just not spent for such???
Political fiscal responsibility, a new concept that needs investigating...
You’re welcome.
That's totally ridiculous. This outrage should either be cut or eliminated.
My opinion still stands, however. Better 2 percent over everything rather than god only knows what, in the future, over gasoline and automobiles.
???
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