Free Republic

All you toll road haters, limber up your fingers for the flaming responses to this column.Because the toll road story here in Central Texas that I’m about to tell you, based on usage and revenue, is a good news story. The simple fact is that the nine toll roads here, other than the privately run section of Texas 130 south of Mustang Ridge, are being heavily used and are financially healthy.This is certainly not the uniform case around the country, where a number of toll roads in the past decade have gone bankrupt. In Central Texas, well over 1 million TxTags...

Just after the end of World War I, a young Army officer who was born in Denison, Texas, was assigned to accompany an expedition of military vehicles driving across America. The mission was to determine the difficulties the nation might face moving an entire army across the continent. Lucky thing the country was no longer at war. The convoy constantly ground to a halt on unpaved roads, sinking into mud, slipping into ditches and sliding into quicksand. The cross-country journey took 62 days, averaging about six miles an hour, something close to the speed of a leisurely walk. The lessons...

The rapidly escalating tollway fines that have left some Texans owing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars could be a thing of the past, based on an amendment that surprisingly found its way into a Texas Department of Transportation bill this week. But the impact to your pocketbook would depend on which tollway you’re driving. Under the amendment, a car owner who has driven on a tollway without paying — even hundreds of times — would owe at most $73 in fines every six months, plus the unpaid tolls. But that change, proposed by Rep. Ina Minjarez, D-San...

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...

The ruling of one liberal federal judge proves that America is no longer a republic and doubtful if it is even a democracy. WhatÂ’s the difference? A republic is what our Founding Fathers sacrificed so much to establish. ItÂ’s a government where the people elect leaders to do the will of the majority of the people.A democracy is best described as a government where the people elect leaders to rule over them, regardless of the will of the people. So many people erroneously think America was a democracy but it was NEVER intended to be that way. Also notice that...

More than a year after Texas voters approved routing billions in state sales taxes to roads and bridges, some lawmakers are questioning whether the first payment of $5 billion should move forward as planned. Texans voted in 2015 to boost funding for state’s public roadways and bridges, which have strained under the state’s growing population. Proposition 7 — loudly cheered by top Texas leaders and supported by 83 percent of voters — changed the state constitution to route some taxes collected on car sales to the State Highway Fund. But in an unusually tightfisted legislative session, some Texas lawmakers are...

Yesterday, conservative lawmakers pushed to attach key toll road reforms to two transportation bills in the Texas House, but they were thwarted by Speaker Joe Straus and his parliamentarian Chris Griesel who would not allow them to present their amendments. Griesel told them the amendments weren’t ‘germane’ (or salient) to the bills, HB 13 and HB 20, and blocked Rep. Jeff Leach and Rep. Jonathan Stickland from even laying out their amendments. Straus and Griesel utilized the same technique as they did on a Stickland amendment to the open carry bill the week before. The two decided to reject the...

The Texas State Senate passed a bill on Thursday that would move pubic integrity cases out of Travis County. The bill passed 20-11 on partisan lines.Senate Bill 10, authored by Republican Senator Joan Huffman (R-Houston), places the state’s Public Integrity Unit investigation with the Texas Rangers. If the Rangers find wrongdoing, they would forward the case to the district attorney’s office in the county where the official is from. The Senate Bill was passed as amended.The Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office has been the source of criticism by Republicans who say the unit has been...

Affidavit shows state rep's BAC more than twice the legal limit Newsroom 3/14/2013 State Representative Naomi Gonzalez had a blood alcohol content of 0.164, more than twice the legal limit, according to the arrest affidavit. It also mentioned that Gonzalez slurred in her speech, failed several sobriety tests and cried to officers saying "how hard she worked to get where she was." The Democratic State Representative from El Paso sits on several committees including investigating and ethics, and ways and means. She was named freshman of the year by the Mexican-American Legislative caucus last session. But around 2 a.m. Thursday...