Posted on 03/07/2007 4:19:33 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
FORT WORTH -- Interstate 35W, Loop 820 and Airport Freeway would not be expanded until 2015 at the earliest if a two-year ban on toll roads is approved by the state Legislature, area leaders say.
A bill calling for a two-year ban was filed Tuesday and has strong support in the Senate.
North Richland Hills Mayor Oscar Trevino says it’s time to hold the Metroplex’s lawmakers accountable for jumping on the anti-toll road bandwagon and endangering Metroplex road projects.
The bill was filed by state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and cosigned by 25 of 31 Senate members, including Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, John Carona, R-Dallas and Royce West, D-Dallas.
“Any senator or state representative who gets on the bandwagon should be told we don’t appreciate it. It goes against the region’s mobility plan. We’re gridlocked,” Trevino, chairman of the Tarrant Regional Transportation Coalition, said Wednesday morning.
Noting that Shapiro walked out of a Senate committee meeting last week while Metroplex leaders were making a presentation in Austin, Trevino added: “If they don’t want to hear from the region, what are they doing down there?”
While anti-toll road sentiment has swirled statewide, particularly on the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, Metroplex leaders have sought toll financing for projects that aren’t scheduled to receive sufficient gas-tax funding.
Texas Department of Transportation officials have already mapped out how to spend their gas-tax money through 2015 and the Tarrant County projects aren’t fully funded.
But the agency is currently seeking private bidders to come forward with investment money, and in exchange collect tolls on express lanes on I-35W, Loop 820 and Airport Freeway for up to 50 years.
Privately run toll lanes also have been proposed for the Texas 114/121 DFW Connector project in Grapevine, scheduled to be under construction early next year.
But Nichols’ bill could halt much, if not all, of that work.
“We must closely evaluate private toll contracts before we sign away half a century of control of our transportation system. Many provisions in recent toll contracts are alarming,” Nichols said in a statement. “These roads were built with public money for public use. Converting existing roads to toll roads would break a promise to taxpayers. No one should have to worry that the roads they drive on today will be tolled tomorrow. Tolling provides a valuable tool for expansion but should be reserved to add new capacity.”
Ironically, Nichols was a champion of toll roads and privatization during his term as a member of the Texas Transportation Commission from 1997-2006, when he resigned to run for the state Senate.
Hillwood executive Russell Laughlin said Metroplex leaders should ask senators to at least exempt the region’s plans from a two-year ban.
You are using national defense as an excuse . . . unless you are willing to demonstrate how the private operation of a road negatively impacts our national security.
The 65-mile system he's referring to, IIRC, is the portion that I mistakenly identified as public funding only. There is some private funding involved. The PPP I was referring to, on the other hand, was the separate southern section of SH 130, which will be financed and built by Cintra and Zachry.
You have the key phrases, PPP & CDA, why don't you google them?
See post #28 and #32
If we were going to be precise, we would identify a project as a PPP, then a CDA, and then which particular CDA, and since there are still going to be differences, we would have to turn to the book-length contract. Of course that is not practical.
Instead, we look at a particular project to determine whether it rises above a degree of objection or level of controversy. If so we use the jargon PPP to describe it.
While all of 130 is a CDA, only 2 segments are concessions. At the same time, TTC 35 is a CDA but not a concession. But they both rise above the level, so we call them by the PPP jargon.
Thus, TSR, I, and others can use the term and know what we are talking about, with out going thru a 60 word of 600 page description.
This doesn't mean that you have to do it. You are entitled to your semantical argument to muddy the water.
"You are entitled to your semantical argument to muddy the water."
Thanks Ben! All I did was clearup a few facts for people that don't live in my area. Call it what you want.
Heard a little new info on the TTC. (were rumors) Seems the contract has non-compete clauses and if We should decide to buy it back before the terms of the lease are up, Cintra would expect current free market value.
Should the state build and operate the TTC toll road, there would be a non-compete clause.
Parts of 130 may end up being sections of the TTC, so that much is sure. Do you believe the non-compete clause is a good thing?
Would you borrow the money to build a road across your property with the intention of charging to use it, then build a free one next to it?
Of course you won't. Cintra won't. The State won't.
Cintra can blow me! If they think they can charge the tolls necessary to pay for this road and actually get anyone to drive on it, I'll be surprised. Perry has already wasted millions of $$$ in taxpayer money to lure Cintra and others to the table after saying NO TAXPAYER MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT. He's got former staffers and other cronies involved in every facet of state financing, insurance, and foreign investment. IMO, he's out of political clout.
The way things work, I imagine it will be you blowing Cintra. And if not Cintra, a state agency.
I just finished reading the new P.J. O'Rourke book, On The Wealth Of Nations. Talking about pork barrel politics, on page 137, "Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them".
That Adam Smith knew what he was talking about!
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