Free Republic

A two-year ban on long-term toll road leases with private companies, pockmarked with exceptions and thus largely symbolic, cleared a Texas Senate committee Wednesday on a unanimous vote. However, the more meaningful action on toll roads should begin in the next two weeks, when a large bill addressing a wide range of concerns over tollways will be introduced in the Senate. The much-publicized moratorium bill by Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, Senate Bill 1267, has an excellent chance of passing the Senate, given that 29 of 31 senators have either signed on as co-sponsors or voted for it in committee. But despite...

Mike Krusee looked tired. The Republican state representative from Williamson County, interviewed at his Capitol office last week, for 10 days or so had been fighting what some people call the creeping crud, a debilitating mixture of cold, flu and allergy symptoms hitting many Central Texans this spring. But Krusee, for much longer than 10 days, has also been fighting the creeping realization among legislators that over the past two sessions, they might have granted Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation too much power to create toll roads. For the first time in his three sessions as...

AUSTIN – Four years of simmering frustration boiled over at a recent Texas Senate committee hearing with just one thing on the agenda: toll roads. An overflow crowd bashed and booed the Texas Transportation Commission in front of mostly like-minded senators. For eight hours, lawmakers and audience members alike questioned the state's increasing reliance on tolls. "We can't simply build roads at any cost," Sen. John Carona said to cheers. "We've got to build them smarter." Some argue that toll roads are the only smart play in a state where the Legislature has refused to raise the tax on gasoline,...

The Trans-Texas Corridor, the Goliath of Texas road projects, is taking a real bruising from the slingshot crowd these days, with so many Davids piling up stones that critics and supporters alike are beginning to believe it may be stoppable. In the last few weeks, more than a dozen bills have been introduced in the both the Texas State and House to either stop the project cold or put enough restrictions on it to chill the interest of private investors. In late February, a state audit report revealed that millions of public dollars have secretly been spent on the project...

Hundreds of people angry with the state's toll road contracts sounded off before state senators Thursday. Public hearings on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor began early Thursday morning. Senators invited public input because state lawmakers will make some important decisions this session about how to pay for highways. So many people showed up that crowds were forced into overflow rooms. The Texas Department of Transportation and toll roads have found many critics, largely because of the private companies hired to build and run them. There are also questions about how much taxpayers pay for the roads. Speakers sounded...

A new study throws cold water on a long-cherished claim of toll road advocates, surprising some of them, and could redefine a debate over if and how Texas should toll its highways. For more than a year now, state officials have scared the dickens out of motorists by saying the gas tax would have to go up $1.20 a gallon to build all the roads needed statewide over the next quarter-century. That would almost triple the 38.4 cents drivers now pay in federal and state fuel taxes. Since that's politically impossible to do, the argument goes, toll roads should be...

The continuing political parlor game of "What price tolls?" took an interesting turn Nov. 7. The Big Toller himself — Gov. Rick Perry — seemed to suffer little damage from what was a sustained battering on the issue, losing only three of the dozens of counties in the paths of the two proposed Trans-Texas Corridor routes. But voters in Texas House District 52 alongside the new Texas 45 North tollway put something of a scare into state Rep. Mike Krusee. The Williamson County Republican is the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, stage-managed the birth of the controversial Phase 2...

Dear Milam County Citizens, Do you recall a few months ago reading an article in which State Representative, Mike Krusee, Chairman of the House Transportation Committee (and according to the Star Telegram, one of six Texas representatives issued a subpoena investigating accusations of illegal fundraising), made statements telling Milam county not to worry because the Trans Texas Corridor was not going to run through Milam County? I read it in a local newspaper, and I wondered at the time how he knew this when the proposed route had not been decided on or approved by Washington yet. But, have you...

After working its way through an obstacle course, Trans-Texas Corridor-69 — using the proposed Interstate 69 corridor — just might become a reality after all. Hit by a lack of federal funds because of 9/11, the war in Iraq and then hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the move toward funding construction for the corridor is moving again, said Lufkin Mayor Louis Bronaugh. "The war and the hurricanes took the federal funds," Bronaugh said. This time officials will be looking for a private partnership to fund the corridor, he said. A study conducted in February by the Government and Business Enterprises Division,...

Public hearings could begin as early as May around the state on plans for the controversial Trans Texas Corridor project.Work is underway on a 4,000-page draft environmental impact statement that will identify a 10-mile-wide route for the superhighway.Once the draft is completed, hearings will be scheduled.“We want to do this right. It takes time to conduct a thorough analysis,” said Michael Behrens, executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation.“It’s hard to predict the timing of things but we hope to have the draft statement available for public review within the next 3 to 6 weeks.”The principal study area is...

State Rep. Mike Krusee sought me out last week to say he didn't particularly care for my Jan. 23 column. Krusee, a Williamson County Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, hated the headline: "Hey, buddy, wanna buy a toll road?" He said, with some justification, that it implied something crooked was going on. But Krusee especially didn't like the last sentence. In a quick discussion of who might get to set toll rates on a privately run toll road, I pointed out that Texans don't vote on who serves on the board of directors for Cintra. Cintra is the...

Freight rail lines running in the middle of major roads will be a thing of the past, if voters approve Proposition 1. Proposition 1 would amend the Texas Constitution to create a Rail Relocation Fund to be used by the Texas Department of Transportation and regional mobility authorities. Early voting began Monday for the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election. Essentially, Proposition 1 is asking voters if they want to spend taxpayer money and taxpayer credit to move rail lines like the one in the middle of MoPac. Round Rock Rep. Mike Krusee supports the idea. "For a long time, a goal...

The state Legislature's passage of a property rights bill last week could result in specific protections for landowners who find themselves in the path of the Trans-Texas Corridor and other state tollway projects, observers said. The Legislature gave final approval on Tuesday to the bill, which restricts governments from using the power of eminent domain to acquire property for the benefit a private party or to create economic development. The bill also includes an amendment that prohibits the Texas Department of Transportation from using eminent domain to acquire land for “ancillary facilities,” such as gas stations and convenience stores, on...

The Texas Department of Transportation is in the process of identifying preliminary routes for its proposed Interstate 69/Trans-Texas Corridor, some of which could be located in Montgomery County. According to Gaby Garcia, spokeswoman for TxDOT's Turnpike Authority Division, TxDOT will conduct approximately 38 public meetings this summer, at which time the proposed routes would be unveiled. A public meeting is tentatively scheduled in Montgomery County in August, she said, although the date and time have not yet been determined. The initial study areas of the I-69/TTC corridor, which is to extend from Mexico to northeast Texas, range from 20 to...

AUSTIN — Rural landowners carrying protest signs and shouting angry slogans gathered at the Capitol to speak their minds. Their goal: Stopping Gov. Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. Farmers and ranchers say the huge highway project will gobble thousands of acres of their property only to make money for private toll road companies. “The government is out of control. They’re trying to take our property rights away from us,” said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, one of the legislators who spoke at the May 3 rally. Republican Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn —one of Perry’s potential GOP primary opponents in 2006 — joined...

WASHINGTON — A political spat erupted Tuesday between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison when the senator filed an amendment to the $284 billion transportation bill that would ban tolls on existing federal highways. The amendment would repeal existing language in the highway bill that would allow states to erect toll booths on federal highways to pay for transportation projects. "Tolling existing roads to pay for new ones is double taxation," said Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Commerce and Transportation Committee. But the amendment was seen as a shot at Perry's proposed $175 billion Trans...

Activists taking shots at the planned Trans Texas Corridor have found some legislators willing to take a stab at trimming the colossal super-highway and ensuring that state authorities control the toll rates. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, who sits on the appropriations committee and is vice chairman of the House Rural Caucus, said she filed House Bill 1273 in an attempt to balance the huge scope of the corridor with grass-root concerns. "My goal is to better the concept," she said. "I will be very saddened for Texas if we don't have some assurances in place." Kolkhorst was joined by co-authors...