Free Republic

House, Senate passage seem likely The careening vehicle that has been this legislative session's toll road overhaul appeared to pull into the garage about 4:35 p.m. Thursday. At that moment, Republican state Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, after spending several moments huddling on the floor with Sen. Tommy Williams, sponsor of Senate Bill 792, affixed his signature to a compromise version of the bill, and the two shook hands. "We've got a deal now," Williams, R-The Woodlands, said about an hour later. "This is really going to move transportation issues forward, particularly in large metropolitan areas." The deal was among...

Our colleagues at The Dallas Morning News offered this advice to lawmakers fighting to keep intact complex regional plans to deal with transportation issues in Dallas, Fort Worth and the surrounding counties: "Keep Up the Fight." Good advice. Both the Dallas paper and the Star-Telegram have felt some ownership of this issue since we combined on a joint editorial project in 2003, calling for a regionwide effort to link area cities by rail. But rail is only part of the solution to the serious problem of traffic congestion that is approaching gridlock during parts of the day. Officials in North...

AUSTIN — A two-year moratorium on private toll roads that won preliminary approval in the House on Tuesday would put the brakes on the Trans-Texas Corridor, a superhighway that a private firm received a contract for earlier this year. The moratorium also would halt seven near-term projects in the state, said Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, the Brenham Republican who added the proposal to a House bill. "This is us tapping the brakes, looking before we leap ... into contracts that last 50-plus years," Kolkhorst said. Her proposal would require the state to create a commission to study the effects of private...

In the political world, rapid change only occurs when the public focuses attention on a specific issue. We have that situation right now in Austin. Public and legislative attention is focused on the Texas Department of Transportation and a proposed moratorium on the Comprehensive Development Agreement process, including the recently announced CDA to construct State Highway 121 in Collin County. This public and legislative attention may offer an opportunity for Texas to reaffirm our commitment to focus government spending on core functions – in this case, transportation. There are many subplots swirling in this complex CDA moratorium issue – reining...

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,...

Texas' push toward private toll roads encountered more opposition Wednesday among state lawmakers. A bill to halt more private toll road deals for two years gained steam in the Texas House a day after a majority of senators expressed their support for the measure. In addition, a key state senator has asked for more information concerning the $2.8 billion State Highway 121 deal recently announced by state officials. Dozens of state representatives have signed on to the bill that would place a moratorium on any public-private contracts such as the one for Highway 121. The winning bidder, Cintra Concesiones de...

Every day I can look out the window of my office in downtown Austin and watch traffic creep along Interstate 35, half a mile away. The time of day doesn’t seem to matter, nor does the weather: morning or evening, wet or dry, the snarl persists. Part of this is due to the unwieldy design of the downtown exit and entrance ramps, but the main reason is the volume of traffic, much of it commercial. I dread the drive to Dallas, which I last made on the Friday afternoon before the Texas-Oklahoma football game – surely the worst day of...

Regional planners are considering three Collin County routes as options for the state's proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which would link Mexico to the Oklahoma border. The President George Bush Turnpike, Dallas North Tollway and the proposed Collin County Outer Loop are included on a Trans-Texas Corridor study conducted by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The agency manages the Regional Transportation Council, which allocates federal transportation funds. The agency developed maps for potential auto, freight and rail traffic. The state will narrow study options for the corridor's future in the next few weeks. No decisions on narrowing potential paths for...

Traffic lights in Sydney, Australia were modified to create gridlock forcing frustrated motorists into a controversial toll tunnel. Testimony yesterday in a New South Wales, Australia parliamentary inquiry into the Cross City Tunnel uncovered evidence of significant engineering alterations made in an attempt to force motorists onto the toll road. Opposition leader Peter Debnam charged the Labor government with adjusting signals at 400 intersections along Williams Street and other nearby roads in such a way as to create additional gridlock. In January, Debnam's formal Freedom of Information request for full data on traffic light timing changes was rejected on the...