Free Republic

HOUSTON - The teachers at Spring Forest Middle School asked KHOU 11's Verify team whether Beltway 8 has been paid off and if the tolls will ever go away in the foreseeable future. "Why do we still pay for toll roads?" wondered 7th grade teacher Rebecca Mustachio. "To be honest, I thought we would be done paying for toll roads." We are not even close to paying the bill for those roads, according to Roxana Sibrian of the Harris County Toll Road Authority. In a statement emailed to KHOU, the authority says it will be paying off construction debt until...

HALTOM CITY, Texas (AP) - Shon Newsome almost got tricked into paying a toll for a third time. But on a recent afternoon, just before she was about to drive onto a Loop 820 on-ramp that would have required her to pay a toll, the sales executive pulled off the highway in Haltom City and asked a bystander for directions. She was trying to figure out which lane on the two-lane ramp would take her to the toll-free lanes - but the answer wasn’t clear.

A North Texas man is fighting the North Texas Tollway Authority over $1,436 in tolls for a car he insists he no longer owns. David Barlett, of Kemp, said he sold his 2002 Nissan Maxima in October 2013 to a man who responded to a Craigslist ad. InvestigativeTarrant County Ordered to Stop Issuing Passports "I signed the title over to him and didn't really think much else about it – until I started getting bills from the tollway," Bartlett said. The buyer never turned in the title to the state and kept the same license plates. So on paper, Bartlett...

AUSTIN — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis’ legal work for a taxpayer-funded tollway agency is part of a larger FBI-led investigation into the tollway group, according to a published report Friday. The Dallas Morning News used a freedom of information request to learn of the investigation, and then confirmed it with Elizabeth Winn, an assistant Travis County attorney. The FBI hasn’t responded to the newspaper’s request for comment. The investigation stems from a conflict of interest complaint filed in 2012 by former state Rep. Mark Shelton, a Republican who ran against Davis for her Fort Worth state senate seat. In...

Savor the occasional cause for optimism that top leaders can value teamwork over turf in the contentious area of transportation financing. Take the years of squabbling over how Texas can scrape up billions of dollars to catch up with road-building needs. Suddenly, there's positive movement, first from Gov. Rick Perry last week. He told this newspaper's transportation writer, Michael Lindenberger, that he would not use his veto to obstruct a move by lawmakers to index the lagging motor-fuels tax to inflation. "If it is the will of the people, and of the Legislature, I suspect I would go along with...

Cruelty to animals? A waste of time and money? A project to get rid of some pesky birds beneath bridges is being met with serious questions. The motivating factor behind the project is avian excrement - otherwise known as poop. Tucked beneath 14 North Texas tollway bridges, you'll find cages baited with corn, waiting for pigeons to step inside. The tollway says trapping them is necessary to cut down on bird droppings hazardous to the highway and people's health. But Teri Latsko and Nicole Matocha say the threat is to the birds. And they have the pictures to prove it....

Members of the Collin County Commissioners Court are entering unknown waters in the area of transportation. They need to make sure they don't get in over their heads. At issue is their recent vote to explore formation of the county's own tollway agency, which could compete with the North Texas Tollway Authority for future road projects. Exploration, fine. Given the scarcity of road-building dollars, exploring alternative ways of paying for highways and seeking fair treatment for Collin County makes sense. As County Judge Keith Self puts it, "We need to educate ourselves." As Commissioner Joe Jaynes puts it, "We owe...

County commissioners reaffirmed their stance against the Trans-Texas Corridor, and they took another step toward keeping county government transparent when they met Tuesday. First up on the court's agenda, commissioners heard a presentation by Connie Fogle on behalf of the newly formed Pineywoods Sub-Regional Planning Commission. According to Fogle, the Texas Local Government Code, Chapter 391, requires state agencies to coordinate with local commissions to "ensure effective and orderly implementation of state programs at the regional level." "Critical in the code is the word 'coordinate,'" she said. "This does not mean the commission has to cooperate. The intent is to...

AUSTIN — Maybe Texas’ transportation problems are a lot simpler to understand than recent fights over toll roads make it seem, North Texas leaders told state senators Wednesday. “My first recommendation: You need to provide a lot more revenue for transportation,” Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told the Texas Senate transportation committee. That was hardly the only suggestion from Mr. Morris or the many others who spoke to the committee, which is seeking input as it readies an approach on toll roads, TxDOT and more for the next legislative session. But it might...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry promised to keep fighting for private toll roads and his other transportation priorities Tuesday during his first major speech on the subject since the death in December of transportation commission chairman Ric Williamson. "This is a place for big challenges, not big excuses," he told state Transportation Department employees and highway experts from around the country at the annual Transportation Forum. Next year's legislative session, he said, can't be anything like last year's. "The Legislature must understand that 'no' is not a solution," Mr. Perry said. "It is an abdication of responsibility." Before last year's...

A big protest is planned for Monday afternoon, ahead of the latest public hearing on the proposed statewide tollway. Lots of landowners are upset about the state’s plan to build a tollway from Mexico to northeast Texas. There have already been several town hall meetings about the Trans-Texas Corridor. Most of the people who have spoken out about the plan say it will put them out of business. But state officials argue the tollway is necessary to keep up with the growing population in Texas. Monday’s meeting is being held in Huntsville. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Walker...

Push for higher gas tax could follow chief's death The death of Ric Williamson, the fiery, whip-smart chairman of the state transportation commission, could upend the still-roiling debate over toll roads in Texas in the new year. Mr. Williamson died Saturday of a heart attack at age 55, sending shock waves through the nearly 15,000-employee department he led as well as the political and policy circles where his combative style and pro-toll-road agenda had engendered enormous change – and criticism. Always careful to credit Gov. Rick Perry, a close friend and former roommate, Mr. Williamson emerged as a lightning rod...

As chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission, Ric Williamson made major and often controversial decisions about the future of state roads. He died Sunday of a heart attack, at age 55, in his hometown of Weatherford, leaving a legacy as the hard-charging official that steered Gov. Rick Perry's divisive vision of toll roads across Texas into state policy. It was stressful work, and Mr. Williamson suffered two heart attacks while serving. He had known his health was fragile. "I'm trying to avoid the third one, which the doctors tell me will be fatal," he told Texas Monthly in a June...

North Texas toll roads ignore safe engineering standards to allow the state to set up speed traps. Toll road operators in North Texas are ignoring state law by imposing arbitrary speed limits that are set far below the safest level suggested by engineering surveys. A WFAA-TV investigation discovered that the North Texas Tollway Authority set speed limits on portions of the Dallas North Tollway and all of the Bush Turnpike without performing the scientific studies required by state and federal law. "Statistics show that 85 percent of the people drive at a prudent and reasonable speed," Kelly Selman, TxDOT director...

Texas needs the Trans-Texas Corridor because of its surging population, a representative for Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday while speaking in Cleburne. Plans are to build the multi-lane highway and rail system parallel to Interstate 35, north-south through the center of the state. Kris Heckmann, deputy director of Perry’s Legislative Division spoke at the Cleburne Civic Center at the invitation of the Johnson County Republican Women for their monthly meeting. Every decade since World War II, Texas’ population has increased by at least 20 percent, Heckmann said. In 1990, the state’s population was 16.5 million, and today the population is...

Ric Williamson and his fellow transportation commissioners will find themselves in a tight corner today as they meet in Austin to decide who will build the State Highway 121 toll road. On one level, the commission is simply fulfilling its duty as the Texas Department of Transportation's governing board by deciding whether to award a multibillion-dollar contract to Spanish construction firm Cintra or give it to the North Texas Tollway Authority. But a whole lot more is going on at another level. The Highway 121 decision also pits Mr. Williamson's desire to support Gov. Rick Perry's ambitious highway-building agenda against...

AUSTIN – State Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson is proud that he can still work a bulldozer, a skill he learned early on the ranch and in the gas fields. Others would say he still drives it at meetings, committee hearings and town hall gatherings. Mr. Williamson, 55, is one of the most influential men in Texas. He has the ear of the governor, with whom he speaks almost daily. He is the architect behind the state's road plan for the next 25 years. He is smart, studious, self-made. And critics, who seem as endless as a West Texas highway,...

It's not the least bit hard to describe the choice that Texas Transportation Commission members will face Thursday at their meeting in Austin: (1) Agree with the overwhelming preference of this region's elected officials and allow the North Texas Tollway Authority to build the Texas 121 toll road in Denton and Collin counties, or (2) award the lucrative project to the apparent favorite among state toll road devotees, the Spanish company Cintra.From here, it's an easy decision: Pick NTTA.But there is reason to worry that in the boiling pot of Austin politics, the commission may see things differently. Because of...

But compromise doesn't affect six projects slated for Harris County AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry on Monday signed legislation that slows down his ambitious plans for building toll roads but does not halt them completely. Perry and the Legislature got into a stare-down last month when lawmakers sent him a bill that put serious restrictions on building toll roads in Texas and constrained policy set by the Texas Transportation Commission, which is run by the governor's appointees. Perry said he would veto the bill and threatened to call a special legislative session if lawmakers did not send him compromise legislation....

AUSTIN – Lawmakers broke camp Monday, taking it on faith that Gov. Rick Perry won't slam the brakes on a compromise toll road bill. Monday's session finale came and went without Mr. Perry signing the bill, which imposes a partial two-year freeze on private toll road deals. Lawmakers did not try to override his veto on their initial bill to overhaul the state's toll policies. Many involved in the contentious toll road debate were expecting Mr. Perry to approve the bill by now because his office was closely involved in hammering out the compromise. Perry spokeswoman Krista Moody said the...