Free Republic

Area residents who use the 183A toll road will likely see new tolls heading northbound to Liberty Hill and southbound into Austin in the coming years. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, operator of the 183A toll road, is looking to extend 183A for 6 miles to the north from the current end of the toll segment in Leander to just north of S.H. 29 in Liberty Hill. CTRMA also seeks to widen the existing U.S. 183 south of S.H. 45 near Lakeline Mall down to the Arboretum area in Northwest Austin, adding a pair of variable toll ‘express lanes’...

AUSTIN (KXAN) - KXAN Austin News has uncovered dozens of cases in which unpaid tolls have turned into bills as high as tens of thousands of dollars. Toll roads first came to Central Texas four years ago. There are now a total of five tollways, including Texas Toll 130 in East Travis and Williamson counties. The bottom line is the toll bills were not paid, and they ended up becoming criminal cases. Although drivers can pay with cash at most tolls, use their TxTag or Pay by Mail as the signs say, some drivers contend the last option poses a...

Local toll authority likely to carry more of the burden for designing, building second wave of Austin-area toll roads The Texas Department of Transportation after February will cease awarding contracts for new or expanded roads, a belt-tightening that probably will indefinitely delay a number of Central Texas highway projects. Work on some local projects, such as widening FM 1460 between Round Rock and Georgetown, RM 2338 in Williamson County, and Texas 195, which runs from Interstate 35 in Williamson County to Killeen, will be shelved for now. In addition, the edict will force Central Texas' local toll authority to carry...

The Texas Department of Transportation is installing traffic signals designed to increase congestion and drive toll road traffic. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is using traffic signals to create the level of frustration to a point where the public is forced to accept toll roads. Earlier this month in Austin, TxDOT added an extra traffic signal on State Highway 71 to coincide with the opening of the third segment of the State Highway 130 toll road. Residents interviewed by News 8 Austin complained that the change made already bad traffic much worse on nearby free roads. "At its worst...

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...