Free Republic

Self-proclaimed professional Bigfoot hunter, Rick Dyer, has finally released the photos of the hairy monster he allegedly shot and killed last year. "Bigfoot is 100 percent real – there's no question about that," Dyer told KSAT.com. Dyer says he shot and killed the mythical monster in a wooded area of California near Loop 1604 and Highway 151 in September 2012.

Ever wish you weren't right? In 1997, the notion of selling off publicly owned infrastructure to private sector operators was coming into its own. After the city hired a consultant to determine the value of the publicly owned CPS Energy, it raised red flags. CPS consistently charges some of Texas' lowest utility rates while providing a significant chunk of the city's revenue, I argued. Profit motives can produce wondrous results. But uncontrolled, they can also produce costly disasters. Some things — especially those that efficiently deliver services that are essential — are best kept in the public sector to assure...

Coin trays in Texas cars may actually get to see the faces of dead presidents. The much-discussed and controversial Trans-Texas Corridor, or TTC, has breathed life into the debate of toll roads in Texas. Plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor include TTC-Instate 35, which starts in Laredo and extends north to Gainesville, running along the eastern part of Texas; and Interstate 69/TCC, which has three openings in Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville and follows the coast to Texarkana. Much of the TTC will be privately operated toll roads, run by the Spanish firm Cintra. The TTC will not run through San Antonio,...

Three private groups are now in the hunt to build U.S. 281 toll lanes, but two big foreign companies competing just a short while ago to build and lease a larger toll network here have dropped out. The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority board voted Wednesday to let all three teams submit plans to rebuild U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604 into a tollway with free access roads by 2012. It's the fledging agency's first project. "Goodness knows we have been two and a half years getting here," board member Bob Thompson said. "Maybe it's even more important to see the...

Transportation was a hot subject during the recent legislative session - and it continues to be so in the interim. This week, several Texas lawmakers, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson and state Reps. Joe Farias, David Leibowitz, Nathan Macias and others held a press conference in San Antonio in protest against current transportation policy and the Texas Department of Transportation. Key among their concerns are recent reports the state agency has launched a public relations plan to promote the Trans-Texas Corridor and to lobby for toll roads. Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom founder Terri Hall is among those criticizing...

Now that legislators have gone home and trumpeted how they passed a bill to freeze private financing of toll roads, the governor's office has some bubble-busting news. There isn't much of a moratorium in Senate Bill 792. "Of any kind, that we can tell," said Robert Black, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. "Unless there was something screwy that happened." Actually, there were plenty of screwy machinations in the Legislature as lawmakers hammered out bills to rein in tolling powers of the Texas Department of Transportation. Slapping a two-year moratorium on privatization contracts started out simple. But skittish lawmakers carved out...

If anything has approximated unanimity in the 80th Texas Legislature, it is the desire to slow down on toll roads. This has left the state’s biggest proponent of toll roads, Gov. Rick Perry, the odd man out. But he’s still the man with the veto pen. The House and Senate last week overwhelmingly approved a two-year moratorium on most toll roads, including the Trans-Texas Corridor. Lawmakers earlier sent a bill to Perry with toll-road restrictions. He vetoed it, and threatened a special session if he didn’t get a bill he could sign. The bill that emerged reportedly meets his terms....

Those persuasion skills were key to Ms. Kolkhorst marshaling support for a partial two-year moratorium on private toll roads. The bill could get lawmakers' final blessing today. The Brenham Republican has emerged as a central figure in the Legislature's efforts to slow down the privatization of Texas roads. She has persuaded nearly all of her 149 House colleagues to back the moratorium, which excludes most North Texas toll projects. Ms. Kolkhorst, 42, has parlayed a blend of persistence, fearlessness, smarts and country charm into a more visible role in Austin. In addition to leading the toll road freeze, she has...

In many ways, Terri Hall was on a collision course with Texas toll road policies long before she and her family loaded up their van and drove from California to the Hill Country three years ago. A lifetime of volunteering, a hunger for staying on top of politics, and strong religious and moral convictions helped hone Hall's activist instincts. Her brains, drive, superb speaking skills, engaging personality and wholesome good looks — noted by friends and enemies alike — make Hall especially effective. They help explain why this 37-year-old mother of six is a leading force in a populist assault...

Wonder why there is all the fuss over toll roads? Well, we're not talking about traditional toll projects. Gov. Rick Perry and his Transportation Commission are pushing private toll road deals that limit free routes and allow the private operator to charge high tolls. As ex-Transportation Commissioner Sen. Robert Nichols, a stickler for details and the author of a bill to halt comprehensive development agreements, or CDAs, has noted, the devil is in the details. These private toll contracts include noncompete agreements like Cintra's. There will be no improvements made to existing roads or new free routes built within a...

Depending on whom you talk to, the Trans Texas Corridor is a daring futuristic plan, the state's most ambitious ever, or it's a money machine and a destructive land grab. But for now, most of all, it's an enigma. There are no construction contracts for any of the 4,000 miles of car and truck lanes, freight and passenger rail lines and utility lines that are supposed to crisscross Texas by midcentury, just a $3.5 million deal with a private consortium to develop plans for the leg paralleling Interstate 35. And nobody knows just where the routes would go, though any...

About 40 commuters, retirees, and disgruntled citizens who could be affected by the proposed widening of Highway 281 from Evans Road to F.M. 306, bombarded members of the Metropolitan Planning Organization with threats and colorful language last Monday. Yet their tactics didn't affect the MPO's vote to move forward with preliminary studies of toll lanes on existing highways on the far North Side. State plans include the possibility of installing toll lanes along Loop 1604 from Highway 151 eastward to I-10 East and along Highway 281 from Evans Road north to the Canyon Lake area. If a "comprehensive development agreement"...

The tradeoff of sacrificing open government to attract private investment in toll roads is beginning to sink in for some local elected leaders. And it's not a comfortable feeling, said City Council members who met Thursday. State officials have promised to let local leaders have input on a recent proposal by Spain-based Cintra and locally owned Zachry American Infrastructure to take over planned toll roads in San Antonio. But to protect trade secrets, state law prohibits public discussion of details. "It's absolutely out of the question," said Councilman Chip Haass, who says private sector dollars to solve traffic problems is...

With the nation's freeways clogged past the bursting point, and government funds barely able to maintain what exists, the need for a new transportation solution is increasingly dire. Better planning & usable transit are part of the equation but for the car-driving majority the increasingly likely solution is privatised toll roads.Before cringing at the thought of shelling out even more of your hard earned cash for commuting, ponder a few of the benefits: 1) It's a free market solution - you don't pay if you don't want to, and no taxes are needed - putting the cost of the roadway...