Friday, December 22, 2006

Austin Chamber of Commerce 2006 report on CAMPO

SUMMERY:
CAMPO GOVERNANCE TASK FORCE
Recommendations for a successful
Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Beyond
2006

BACKGROUND
The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
(CAMPO) Transportation Policy Board (Board) is
responsible for developing the region’s long range
transportation plan and prioritizing projects for
federal matching funds. In July 2006, Chamber
Chairman Tim Crowley appointed the CAMPO Governance
Task Force. He charged its members to review the
status of the CAMPO 2001 Peer Review recommendations,
seek input from former and current CAMPO Board Members
and community representatives on additional areas to
review, and develop recommendations to improve the
overall function of CAMPO.

The Chamber wanted the recommendations to have the
support of regional leaders, some of whom will decide
whether to implement them. To achieve this goal, the
Task Force was comprised of former CAMPO Board Members
and community leaders. The Task Force also worked to
gather input from current CAMPO Board Members during
the process. Immediate Past Chamber Chairman Kirk
Watson agreed to chair the Task Force. Participating
community leaders included Daron Butler, Kent Butler,
Brandon Janes and Terry Mitchell. In addition to Kirk
Watson, former CAMPO members on the Task Force
included Bill Burnett, Margaret Gomez, Robert Stluka
and Danny Thomas.

The 2006 CAMPO Peer Review Update by Cambridge
Systematics and the Task Force found a lack of trust
among Board Members, Technical Advisory Staff and
CAMPO staff. Also, there are structural and
procedural issues affecting both the CAMPO Policy
Board and its Technical Advisory Committee from
effectively discussing and developing consensus on key
regional transportation issues including effective
community engagement.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The 2006 CAMPO Peer Review Update by Cambridge
Systematics and the Task Force both identified a lack
of trust among CAMPO Policy Board Members, Technical
Advisory Committee (TAC) members, and CAMPO staff.
Additionally, there are other structural and
procedural issues affecting both the CAMPO Policy
Board and its TAC that, individually or collectively,
are preventing the organization from effectively
discussing and developing consensus on key regional
transportation issues.

The Task Force recommendations fall into the three
categories:
· Create an effective regional transportation policy
Board
· Facilitate Board member engagement
· More effectively incorporate public input

The primary recommendation regarding the policy Board
is reducing the number of voting members from 23 to
18, including the elimination of seven state
legislators and increasing the number of elected
officials representing local governments.

The Task Force recommended a number of strategies to
facilitate increased Board member involvement from
changing the seating arrangement in meetings so that
Board Members can look at each other during
discussions to implementing a committee structure with
responsibility for detailed review of proposals.

A number of the recommendations related to more
effective incorporation of public input are already
being implemented at our suggestion for an upcoming
Board vote. A key component is holding public
meetings throughout the CAMPO jurisdiction with an
ombudsman to conduct the meeting and make the report
to the Board.

SUMMARY OF CAMPO GOVERNANCE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS

A. CREATE AN EFFECTIVE REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION POLICY
BOARD

The CAMPO Board should be reduced from 23 to 18 voting
members, maintaining an appropriate balance between
the three counties currently comprising CAMPO. The
Task Force also suggests amending the by-laws to
affirmatively state a goal of assuring as much racial
and ethnic minority representation as possible. The
following is the Task Force’s recommended Board
composition:
16 Elected Officials
Williamson County – 4 seats: 1 Legislator, 1
Commissioners Court representative, 1 Round Rock City
Council representative, and 1 Alliance of Cities
representative.
Travis County – 10 seats: 2 Legislators, 3
Commissioners Court representatives, 4 Austin City
Council representatives, and 1 Alliance of Cities
representative.
Hays County – 2 seats: 1 Commissioners Court
representative and 1 Alliance of Cities
Representative.
2 At Large voting members: TXDOT; Capital Metro
1 Ex Officio Member: CTRMA

A member of the Legislature could be substituted for
an Alliance of Cities member and vice versa. So, for
example, Williamson County might have 2 members of the
Legislature as part of its 4 members, but would
consequently not have an Alliance of Cities member. A
process involving the timing of selection from
different entities would assure the balance.

The CAMPO Board should engage in facilitated, periodic
work sessions to address issues of mistrust, overall
mission, and inter-jurisdictional relationships to lay
the groundwork for consensus building in the coming
year.

The Executive Committee should be engaged on a regular
basis to provide guidance to staff, ensure the Board
meets federal and state requirements, and make
governance recommendations (such as changes to bylaws,
reviews of Board Member requests, etc.) as necessary.



B. FACILITATE BOARD MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

Establish standing committees and require Board Member
participation to provide a mechanism to increase the
knowledge of all members and ensure engagement in the
process. Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) members
should serve on these committees with Board Members or
have a parallel TAC committee structure that provides
information to the appropriate Board Committee.
Appointment to the committees would be made by the
Chair with advice and consent of the Executive
Committee.

New members should be required to attend a CAMPO
Orientation session within three months of assuming
their new position to ensure a base level
understanding of duties and responsibilities.

Staff should schedule individual semi-annual meetings
with Board Members to preview the upcoming six months,
identify possible concerns about future issues, and
ensure the Members’ overall needs and expectations are
being met.

All CAMPO meetings should be held in a facility
designed to facilitate discussion and open dialogue
among Board Members. It should be large enough to
accommodate the Board sitting in a U shape, with
adequate seating for the audience.

Proxies should not have voting authority. On the
occasions that members are unable to attend a Board
Meeting, their appointing organizations should name an
alternate with similar functions or responsibilities.


The Board should establish an attendance policy. The
appointing body of a Board Member that misses half the
meetings in a calendar year should be approached to
appoint a new representative.


C. MORE EFFECTIVELY INCORPORATE PUBLIC INPUT

Change the public input process. A "Hearings
Subcommittee" should be created consisting of five
members of the TAC and an ombudsman who would conduct
the meetings on behalf of the six member subcommittee.
The subcommittee should hold at least one public
meeting in each county on significant public policy
items before the Board votes on them. The ombudsman
and the subcommittee should submit a report to the
CAMPO Board on the input that was accumulated through
this public process, and that report should be
available to the Board and to the public four weeks
prior to the vote.

Set criteria for adding additional counties to the
MPO. In the year following the adoption of a Long
Range Plan, the MPO should consider expanding its
boundaries to include counties that have reached a
population of 100,000, or are working to implement
both the expansion of a transportation facility of
regional significance and Federal requirements for
inclusion in an MPO.

Regional partners should be engaged on a regular
basis. Transportation is not an issue constrained or
solved within governmental boundaries. Policy and
project decisions should be considered in the context
of a regional system. CAMPO can and should facilitate
regional cooperation and collaboration with
surrounding counties and contiguous MPOs. One medium
to facilitate regional coordination is an annual
conference with CARTPO and contiguous MPOs to discuss
super-regional issues, best practices, and lessons
learned.

Watson letter

This Watson email sent to current and upcoming CAMPO board members. It confirms Kirk Watson is working behind the scenes for the CAMPO chair position.
---------

Dear CAMPO Policy Board Members (and some others who may be shortly*):

This week, I sent a letter to a large number of you introducing the recommendations of a Chamber of Commerce Task Force related to CAMPO. If you didn't receive this report and would like to, please contact me. Separately, I wanted to address a couple of other important issues.

I'm writing as a future member of the CAMPO Board. I've also talked to many of you about playing a role in the leadership of CAMPO, although it's premature to make assumptions in that regard.

Whatever my role on your board proves to be, I want to recommend that a vote on the Phase 2 Toll Plan be put off for at least six months. I believe the new Board deserves the chance to thoroughly evaluate the proposal. We also need to review recent information that has become public that some suggest could alleviate the need for the Phase 2 toll plan. We should take a fresh look at our significant and growing transportation challenges. And we can give the Legislature time to decide what tools we should have to address those challenges.

Quite simply, I think the new board members -- and the current members, for that matter -- need time and information before they can be asked to take a vote of this magnitude. I also believe strongly that the reforms laid out in the Chamber of Commerce Task Force report could improve transportation planning for generations, and it would be a critical mistake to consider those reforms in the maelstrom of the so-called debate over toll roads.

I am not, however, averse to a vote that allows essential transportation planning to continue without committing to financing mechanisms at this time. We all want to assure that we meet our federal obligations regarding the Transportation Improvement Plan. I am currently analyzing options in that regard and will report my findings to you.

We will, of course, have to take up the delicate issues of funding and financing. But before making a potentially irreversible decision, I recommend that the CAMPO Board take advantage of this proposed six-month interim and begin crafting a policy framework to evaluate all transportation projects, as well as the possible methods of financing them.

The size and shape of this policy, of course, is entirely up to the Board. I will forward a proposed outline of a conceptual framework for analyzing transportation financing before the January Board meeting. We will need to pool our knowledge to fully develop a framework that can lead Central Texas to a comprehensive transportation plan that both serves the public and wins its support.

To help us develop this policy, I also propose that the CAMPO Board form a Mobility Financing Task Force, made up primarily of members of the CAMPO Board, which will spend the six months gathering input, weighing ideas, and developing recommendations that, hopefully, will help guide the Board as it drafts a policy. The Task Force would report back to the full Board in early June. At that time, the Board would consider a long-term transportation financing policy that will meet federal requirements and our constituents' demands for improved transportation.

I've had discussions with appropriate representatives of relevant agencies, who've said they understand the rationale and are not necessarily opposed to delaying parts of the Phase 2 plan. They've told me there will still be some issues to work out, but I'm confident that the Board can do that and still gain the time we need to create a policy that is right for the region and that the region will support.

These adjustments are not part of the Chamber Task Force report I sent you. I simply and strongly feel they are necessary for us to do our jobs at this important point in time.

Finally, I have an interest in a business that owns a piece of property on 290 East in Elgin, Bastrop County. While this is outside the CAMPO area and beyond the area of 290 East considered for inclusion in the Phase 2 Toll Plan, I will recuse myself from decisions regarding 290 East to avoid any conflict, real or perceived, that might impact my ability to assist with the work of CAMPO.

Sorry for the long letter. I just wanted to start laying things out. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Again, let me say that I hope you all have a great holiday. I am really looking forward to working with you in 2007.

Sincerely yours,
Kirk Watson
__________________________________
*If you're receiving this e-mail, it may be because you are currently on the CAMPO Policy Board and I've assumed you will continue that service in January 2007. Or, it may be that you're newly elected to office and I've made an assumption about you filling a place on the CAMPO Board. It might also be that you're newly elected to a body that gets to appoint a new member of the CAMPO Board and, so, I thought you should see this letter. Finally, it might be that you are a part of some organization, such as the Alliance of Cities, that gets to appoint members to CAMPO and, while you may not serve on the CAMPO Board, your organization has an interest in CAMPO. I've tried to cast a pretty broad net of likely future members of CAMPO or those who will be deciding who will be on the next Board. Feel free to forward this letter to others. I'm sure I've missed some folks.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Big boxes, CAMPO, and toll roads by Roger Baker

At the big box hearing at the Austin City Council last night, it
became pretty clear to me that the Council is very reluctant to take
on a well-organized grassroots opposition from an area that votes
heavily enough to determine the outcome of elections (see latest
Chronicle).

Austin is gentrifying because the roads are getting clogged up, and
there isn't enough money to try to build our way out of congestion
very well anymore (hence the toll road syndrome). Is it any wonder
that big box retailers are learning how to play politics as the
metropolitan roads clog up and refocus retail trade back into the
core city?

As part of gentrification, a lot of professionals are now deciding to
live in Austin rather than enduring traffic jams commuting out into
the suburbs, as they might have ten years ago, and they are willing
to create strong, smart coalitions like the WalMart opposition;
RG4N. They believe in defending their property rights against the
really big money, big box developer strategist Richard Suttle, etc

If these folks in north central Austin can do it, than other less
organized areas of town will certainly be inspired to get their act
together, and I assume ANC will gladly help.

The reality is that more or less insoluble transportation problems
have become a major growth policy constraint in the Austin area, and
the politics follows.

A majority of Austin's streets and roads are now in poor, failing or
failed condition, and this is not expected to improve even with the
recent bond election (a large part of Austin's year 2000 Prop. bonds,
at least $67 million and in total much more, was diverted to buy toll
road right of way outside the city in Williamson County).

Now on to the traffic impact study. This was required of the
proposed WalMart at Northcross Mall.

The traffic situation was marginal; the road capacity on Anderson
Lane and Burnet Road and was very near breakdown even when using a
lot of favorable assumptions. Like plugging in standard AASHTO
numbers that do not correspond to the known big box reality.

One of the biggest flaws in the Northcross traffic impact study was
not even mentioned at the hearing. That is the fact that they are
only using CURRENT traffic numbers for background traffic, as opposed
to the numbers projected five or ten or twenty years from now. If the
road system is near breakdown even now, assuming the Walmart-friendly
assumptions being used by the city, how bad will the situation be
even five years from now, once the Walmart is located there? The
system breaks down during rush hours and diverts.

The traffic impact only looked at the very nearby roads surrounding
Northcross. But anyone who lives along Shoal Creek Blvd. knows that
it is increasingly used as an alternative to Burnet Road when getting
to Northcross from Allandate and points south.

The traffic impact will clearly tend to make Shoal Creek (supposedly
being planned to be bike friendly) try to become a major arterial as
Burnet Road becomes the more congested alternative approach to Walmart.

Who has the numbers to properly analyze these traffic problems? CAMPO
does, sort of, and you can see for yourself by going to the following
link:



Look at maps 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.

If CAMPO's travel demand models proposes to predict how congested the
roads will be 25 years from now in 2030.If so, they should be able to
tell you how congested they will be five or ten years from now, right?

One big problem is that CAMPO's modeling has recently been outsourced
so that the modeling assumptions and methods underlying these results
are no longer subject to public scrutiny. We can now only see the end
results. This amounts to heavy congestion throughout the city, even
assuming we do build the toll roads and can afford to expand the
secondary network throughout Austin (map 2.3).

TxDOT wants to get the toll roads surrounding Austin under contract
ASAP, and approved for construction this next spring, 2007. CAMPO
does have an improved growth concept in the works:



But CAMPO has said they will only start implementing this better
growth concept in 2010 at the earliest, AFTER the toll road contracts
TxDOT wants are let! So CAMPO's hypothetical future better
transportation and land use planning will have to wait for years,
until after the sprawl roads are approved and under construction. Its
like dangling a paper carrot in front of progressive planners to
distract attention from all the toll road construction.

But meanwhile the reality is that Austin cannot afford to "Improve"
its own roads to handle all the regional spill-over traffic generated
by poor land use planning that assumes that all the suburban
developers will build out as proposed for decades to come (in Texas,
private roads have become public subsidies for private development;
its a lot cheaper to buy a politician than to build a road).

The reality is that all the toll roads (ones that Councilmen Wynn and
McCracken approved a few years ago against strong public opposition)
will generate a lot of spillover traffic in the central city.

That is a major reason why so many of the Austin area roads in
CAMPO's long range plan are STILL projected to be severely congested,
assuming that Austin has the money to widen or maintain them. But
this is unlikely according to the Austin's current funding trends in
which a majority of Austin's roads are in poor condition.


In conclusion, roadway congestion is a primary cause of
gentrification. Then this gentrification refocuses the growth battles
from the suburbs back into the core city.

In the absence of good land use planning and high level public
transportation, this situation tends to create heavy congestion on
the major arterials like Anderson Lane, Burnet Road, Lamar, etc.
This generates lots of spill-over traffic filtering into the
neighborhoods. This also adds to the localized traffic generated by
the big boxes that are trying to capture travelers along there same
congested arterials, who may wish to chain their trips by shopping on
the way home.

One important factor never considered is that increasing fuel prices
are never taken into account by Texas transportation planners (even
through this key factor has caused traffic in Texas to decrease on
urban arterials by about 2% in the last year according to the federal
data!).

After all, Prez GWBush has recently been warning us that we are
addicted to oil and need to reduce its use (even though he doesn't
believe in global warming unlike most climate scientists).

A looming peak in world oil production is the main factor that I
strongly believe will doom ALMOST ALL of the future transportation
planning being done by CAMPO and TxDOT, along with causing the toll
road bonds to default. There are tons of supportive documents
concerning peak oil, energy and transportation problems, on "Energy
Bulletin" and "The Oil Drum" websites.

Anyhow, even conservative Re[publicans are starting to realize that
transportation planning in Texas is very largely a political scam
promoted by special interests.
Historically, these interests have been suburban developers and road
contractors.

Follow this link to a Texas Monthly blog in which Paul Burka
critiques the thinking that toll roads or higher gas taxes are really
necessary:



A lot of Texas' political influence peddling involves roads
(starting with Gov. Perry, who gets lots of money from the
contractors, and who then appoints the Tx Transportation Commission.
They then in turn determine TxDOT policy at the local level) This is
documented in the Dec. 15 Texas Observer in an article titled "The
Highwaymen":



--- Happy Holidays, Roger

Thursday, December 07, 2006

East Austin Group says Phase II Tolls will have a disparate negative impact on low-income and minority citizens

People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources

December 5, 2006

Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, Chair
CAMPO Board
P.O. Box 1088
Austin, TX 78767

Mr. Bob Tesch, Chair
CTRMA Board
301 Congress Ave., Suite 650
Austin, TX 78701

Dear Senator Barrientos and Mr. Tesch:

I am writing on behalf of PODER to provide comments on the Analysis of Effects of the Austin Regional Toll System on Environmental Justice Populations so that these comments may be considered as CAMPO and the CTRMA deliberate on the Phase II Toll Road Plan. We strongly feel that the Phase II Toll Road Plan, if implemented as currently proposed, will have a disparate negative impact on low-income and minority communities in Austin.

On August 14, 2006, PODER delivered a letter to the CAMPO board conveying our concerns about the disproportionate adverse impacts that the toll road system would have on low-income and minority populations. These comments were submitted before the above-referenced document, hereinafter referred to as The Toll System EJ Study, was made available to the public. The Toll System EJ Study suggests that the proposed plan would not have and adverse impact on low-income and minority populations. We strongly feel that this analysis is fundamentally flawed and would like to point out some of the specific shortcomings in the study. We urge CAMPO and CTRMA to requests that the authors of this report revise their analysis for the purpose of addressing the issues raised below. We further request that CAMPO and CTRMA take no action on the Phase II Toll Road Plan until these issues have been adequately addressed.

Lane Mile Distribution

The authors of the Toll System EJ Study claim that there exists no quantitative data that may be used to assess the effect of the regional toll system on environmental justice populations (pg. 6 and pg. 45). The authors of this report used this finding as a reason to fail to conduct a thorough analysis of the geographical impact of the toll system.

The study very clearly lays out the location of environmental justice populations, as well as the breakdown of the lane miles of the toll system located within EJ areas and outside EJ areas (see attached maps and figures). Because the authors analysis considered the distribution of the entire toll system and not Phase I and Phase II portions of the system separately, it failed to identify the disparate effect of the Phase II Toll Road Plan.

If you consider Phase I separately, the report indicates that 265 lane miles are located within EJ areas and 271 lane miles are located outside EJ areas.

Before tallying the lane miles inside and outside EJ areas for the Phase II Toll Road Plan, it is beneficial to consider what roads constitute Phase II. The roads typically associated with Phase II are:

SH 45 SW

SH 71 W

US 290 E

US 290 W

Loop 360

US 183 S

SH 71 E

Because it has been widely reported that no funding has been included in the Phase II Toll Road Plan for Loop 360, the lane miles for this road should not be included in the comparison of lane miles inside and outside EJ areas for the Phase II Toll Road Plan. Further, since it appears that there is insufficient right-of-way to provide a non-toll alternative to SH 45 SW, then the future of this road is also highly uncertain, and thus the lane miles for this road should not be included in a comparison of lanes miles inside and outside EJ areas for the Phase II Toll Road Plan.

If you compare the remaining toll roads that comprise Phase II, you discover that

143 miles are located within EJ areas and only 36 miles are located outside EJ areas.

In other words, of the roads that comprise the Phase II Toll Road Plan, 80% of the lane miles will be located within EJ areas.

Revenue Generation

The Draft Mobility Alternatives Finance Study (MAFS) provides some relevant revenue information for the Phase II Toll Road Plan. The MAFS assumes that the revenues produced by the proposed Phase II Toll Roads will be as follows:

SH 45 SW 12 %

SH 71 W 3 %

US 290 E 14 %

US 290 W 6 %

Loop 360 33 %

US 183 S 18 %

SH 71 E 15 %

However, if we make the same assumptions for Phase II regarding SH 45 SW and Loop 360 that we outlined in the previous section on Lane Mile Distribution, we find that:

83.9% of revenues for Phase II will come from the toll roads inside EJ areas and only 16.1% will come from toll roads outside EJ areas.

The Toll System EJ Study does not consider the issue of toll revenues from toll roads inside EJ areas being used to fund toll roads outside EJ areas. This is a significant oversight.

Time Travel Analysis

The travel time analysis also seems to have possibly overlooked some very important factors. The study found that the Toll Build Alternative (vs. the No Toll Build Alternative) did not cause greater than a 5-minute delay or greater than a 28% delay for persons residing in EJ areas. We find this difficult to believe if one considers the fact that a high proportion of the residents of the EJ areas are of low and moderate income. If these residents choose to use the non-toll alternative (e.g., choose to not pay the toll and use the access roads), it seem reasonable to assume that they will be delayed by more than 5 minutes. For this reason, it appears that there are some flaws with regard to the assumptions made in the travel time analysis with regard to persons living in EJ areas.

Public Involvement

The Toll System EJ Study found that there had been adequate opportunities for persons residing in EJ areas to provide meaningful input into the process. The Toll System Plan has gone through many different changes since the public dialogue on the proposal began. Thus, the input received regarding the overall toll road plan may differ significantly from the input that would be received if a concerted public involvement campaign were to be conducted regarding Phase II as currently proposed. Given the potential adverse impact of the Phase II Toll Road Plan on environmental justice populations that were outlined above, it appears that CAMPO and the CTRMA should seek further input from these stakeholders before proceeding.

There is a huge difference between East Austin tolls and other tolls that will be created across Austin. None of the other tolls in Phase I or II were 100% funded. Phase I doesnt take already funded public highways and shift them to toll ways. Shifting our East Austin expressways such as US 290 East, US 183 East and SH 71, to tolls roads will impact low-income and people of color communities while other, more affluent communities drive their expressways for free. Tolling and privatizing East Austin public highways is environmental injustice.

I hope that you will give serious consideration to these issues as you move forward with your deliberations on the Phase II Toll Road Plan. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Susana Almanza
Executive Director
P.O. Box 6237 Austin, Texas 78762-6237
Email: poder@austin.rr. com
website: www.poder-texas.org

NOT NECESSARY TO TOLL, A&M EXPERT SAYS:

From Texas Monthly BurkaBlog

NOT NECESSARY TO TOLL, A&M EXPERT SAYS

Few things are duller than a committee meeting in the interim between legislative sessions. Witnesses drone on about policy choices involving arcane issues. Some of the committees exist only for a short duration and will vanish once the legislative session begins in January. The media almost never shows up for these meetings, which explains why the November 28 meeting of the Study Commission on Transportation Financing received virtually no attention. But a few minutes into the hearing, David Ellis, a co-author of a report by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) at Texas A&M, dropped a bombshell on the commission. He said that Texas could finance its highway needs without toll roads. The headline for this post is based on Ellis's testimony. I have not come across any mainstream media reports of Ellis's remarks.

Ellis provided the committee with some background on transportation policy. The demand for new and expanded roads in the state's eight largest metro areas is increasing much faster than TxDot can build them. Over the next 25 years, the population of these areas is projected to increase by 2.8% per year, employment by by 2.3%, vehicles by 2.7%, and daily miles drive by 3%. Over the same period, the number of lane miles that can be built with currently available funding will increase by just .25% per year. Tx-Dot estimates that the state will need an additional $68 billion over the next 25 years to improve mobility. The TTI's estimate is slightly lower, $66.2 billion. Two-thirds of the needed new construction will be in the state road system, or some $44+ billion; the remainder represents improvements to local roads.

The money for highway construction comes from three sources: vehicle registration fees, the state gasoline (more properly, motor fuels) tax, and reimbursements from the federal gasoline tax, of which Texas sends more revenue to Washington than it gets back. Of these sources, the one that matters the most is the motor fuels tax. But the tax has been losing ground to inflation in recent years.

Now, here is the crucial part of Ellis's testimony: There are scenarios under which roads can be financed:

1. Raise the motor fuels tax, currently 20 cents per gallon, to 51 cents. Interestingly, a Tx-Dot engineer had previously told the committee that the motor fuels tax would have to be raised to $1.40 per gallon to pay for the needed new construction. Needless to say, the Legislature is not going to raise the tax by 31 cents, much less a buck twenty.

2. Raise the motor fuels tax by 8 cents and index it to inflation, using not the consumer price index, but a special highway construction index. The rate of inflation has been 1/2% to 1 1/2 percent per year.

3. Don't raise the gasoline tax at all. Instead, index it and put the incremental revenue in the mobility fund, where it can be used to pay off bonds. And here's the bombshell: "Under this scenario," Ellis said, " it wouldn't be necessary to toll as a means of financing, although that's certainly an option."

The cat is out of the bag now. Tolls aren't the only way to pay for new roads. Will the Legislature allow Tx-Dot to go forward with its mammoth toll road plan, or will lawmakers devise a solution that will allow revenue to be used to build free roads?

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

ACRE Eminent Domain Info

To: Anti-Corridor/Rail Expansion (ACRE) email list
From: susan_garry@hotmail.com
December 6, 2006

EMINENT DOMAIN INFO

On October 26, several hundred Texas landowners packed the Sts. Cyril
and Methodius Hall in Granger to organize against the Trans-Texas Corridor. The meeting was hosted by Dan and Margaret Byfield, founders of the Texas Landowners organization. The first action was a mass letter-writing campaign before the election, which I covered in a previous message I will report on the results of this campaign in a future email.

This message is to report the eminent domain information that was
presented at the meeting.

The reason that many of us along the Perry/Krusee Corridor route are thinking about condemnation or eminent domain proceedings is the release by Cintra, the Spanish corporation that has the contract to plan the Corridor, of their Master Plan, which shows the eastern part of Williamson County criss-crossed by vehicle, rail, and utility routes.

Dan Byfield opened the eminent domain presentation by letting the audience know that discussing condemnation is “not throwing in the towel. We are sending a message. The cost of land acquisition just went up.”

Chris Swanson, of the Austin firm of Barron, Adler and Anderson, discussed the condemnation process and how landowners can prepare for condemnation by getting expert legal representation before TxDOT comes knocking on the door.

The following comments are quotes and paraphrases from Mr. Swanson’s talk:
You the landowner will recover more if you are represented by an attorney.

If you have an attorney, you will set yourself up in the best position possible for the condemnation process. Regarding this process, first, TxDOT hires an appraiser to set a fair market value. They usually hire the same appraiser they work with all the time. They will select appraisers that are on the low end of valuing property. That becomes the basis of their “good faith” offer to you.

If an appraiser sent by TxDOT tries to talk to you, you are under no obligation to talk to the appraiser. You should be cautious about what you tell their appraiser. You can make a counter offer to TxDOT. An attorney can help you with this.

There is no negotiation with TxDOT. Their offer is a take it or leave it deal. If you do not agree with their offer, you can appeal to a special commission. The county judge appoints landowners to be these special commissioners. There is no requirement that they know anything about real estate.

They set an administrative hearing. You can go in and make a case for your value. There is an advantage to you if you have a specialized appraiser and attorney. The commission then issues an opinion. You are due fair market value of the property that will be taken plus damages to the remainder that will not be taken.

Once the commissioners decide that TxDOT is entitled to take your property, TxDOT deposits that amount as payment to you. Then, your property can be taken. Either side can appeal. You cannot appeal whether TxDOT is entitled to take your property. You can only appeal the amount that you will receive.

If you appeal, the case goes from the administrative phase to the judicial phase. A jury gets to decide the price. At this point, negotiations on price can occur. Ninety percent of cases settle between the commissioners’ decision and jury trial.

What can you do to get ready? You can do things to increase the fair market value of your property. Different types of property have different values in the marketplace. You can add value to your property by subdividing it, by bringing utilities to it, by planning a commercial use for it, since commercial property is more valuable than residential. Look into the best way that you could develop your property if you should choose to do so. This will help establish a higher market value for your property.

A condemnation attorney can help you select appraisal experts and land planners.

How is a condemnation attorney paid? By contingency fee. We don’t get paid unless we are successful in increasing the money you get—the increase from what you were first offered by TxDOT to the amount that you are awarded by the special commissioners or by the jury. Your attorney takes a percentage of that increase, typically a third.


If people along the Corridor route consult attorneys about their rights, this could influence whether the Corridor gets built. TxDOT’s and Cintra’s budgets will be affected by how many people get attorneys and fight.

Dan Byfield commented, “Bringing in a condemnation lawyer is part of the strategy. Our goal is to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor from being built.”

This message is not an endorsement of any particular attorney. In addition to Mr. Swanson’s firm, there are many condemnation attorneys in our area. An attorney who handles condemnations is a member of our email list:

Tony R. Bertolino of the Austin firm Bertolino Lorenzana. Buz Garry (my husband) of Coupland is a member of the Austin firm Wright & Greenhill. He notes that some general law firms have attorneys who do condemnation work.

FEDERAL CONDEMNATION LEGISLATION

In a related matter, the attorneys of the Castle Coalition of the Institute for Justice represented Suzanne Kelo, in the recent case before the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that her municipality could take her house and turn it over to a private developer—a decision that outraged people of all political stripes across the country.

Christina Walsh of the Castle Coalition has sent around an email asking citizens to contact their Senators about Federal eminent domain protection legislation.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Green alternative for Oak Hill tollway project

Coalition report calls for widening road but protecting creek, trees.


AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Politicians, neighborhood groups and urban planners all have had their say on the debate over Texas toll roads.

Now environmentalists are weighing in.

The Texas Department of Transportation expects nearly 160,000 vehicle trips per day by 2030 at the U.S. 290 and Texas 71 intersection, shown looking east with Texas 71 rising from the lower left corner. The agency has proposed expanding to 12 lanes, six with tolls. The Fix290 Coalition says eight lanes could handle the traffic.

The Fix290 Coalition report, released last month, argues that a proposed highway interchange in Oak Hill at the intersection of U.S. 290 and Texas 71 would destroy too many trees and turn a stretch of Williamson Creek into a drainage ditch.

Parts of the interchange would sit above Williamson Creek, which feeds the Barton Springs portion of the Edwards Aquifer.

"Tolling is not the issue here," said the report, written by civil engineer Bruce Melton and backed by some neighborhood groups and nearly 2,000 people who have signed petitions supporting Fix290's alternative plan. "Responsible use of resources is the message that the Fix290 Coalition wants to convey."

U.S. 290 and Texas 71 would be tolled in the area as part of a state plan, and the Fix290 report appears to be gaining traction: In October, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, which decides which roads may be tolled, voted to study the plan.

The state transportation agency's current plan — expansions of the intersection have been batted around since the 1980s — would expand the four lanes of U.S. 290 and Texas 71 to 12 lanes (six toll and six frontage), some of them elevated, on a right of way as much as 400 feet wide. In the process, the state would remove dozens of live oak trees, according to the report.

Don Nyland, an engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation, said the agency would have to remove trees but would try to relocate them.

The department's project is based on estimates that vehicle traffic will grow from 59,000 trips per day in 2004 to nearly 160,000 by 2030. The agency says elevating the lanes is a way to keep local traffic separate from through traffic.

The project "is designed to move traffic efficiently from the Oak Hill area out 71 and into the Hays County area heading south," said Marcus Cooper, a Transportation Department spokesman.

The Fix290 coalition calls the traffic projections the department uses very aggressive and claims that the nearly milelong portion of elevated highway the state plans to build would create an aesthetic barrier that would block views of the bluffs of Oak Hill. Its report also cites a 2001 article in the Journal of Planning that found that elevated highways increase noise levels at least 77 percent.

Fix290 has proposed what it says is a less expensive alternative project that would be less than 150 feet wide with six ground-level freeway lanes and two more for bicycles that eventually could become freeway lanes. Melton said the eight lanes could accommodate the traffic projections of nearly 160,000 trips per day.

The group says its plan would preserve the creek in its natural state, save at least 90 percent of the remaining Oak Hill oaks and decrease light and noise pollution. The Fix290 report comes as the interchange project is under new scrutiny for environmental reasons. Cooper said the Transportation Department last filed updates with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and is working on another update.

Because the state plan would increase impervious cover — asphalt that doesn't let rainwater seep into the ground — it requires that more than a mile of Williamson Creek be transformed to accommodate runoff and fend off flooding.

The 20-foot-wide creek would become a grass-lined channel as wide as 80 feet, said Melton, a resident of Oak Hill. About 1,500 feet of the creek will be directly under the project's elevated lanes, the Transportation Department says.

That part of the project sparked a concerned e-mail from the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for reviewing the project's potential effects on waterways. The project might need an additional permit to go forward "based on the more than minimal adverse impacts to the aquatic environment," Jennifer Knowles, a member of the Army Corps' Forth Worth office, wrote in September to Dennis Nielsen, a water quality specialist with the state Transportation Department. (The e-mail was provided to the American-Statesman by the Save Our Springs Alliance, a group that works to protect Barton Springs.)

Nyland said that despite the asphalt that would be added, the department's plans include techniques to protect the creek's water quality, such as detention ponds that keep downstream water from being polluted. He also said the agency is considering "benching" the Williamson Creek channel, or creating a stepped slope on which it can replant trees.

"Technically, we're improving water quality in the 290 corridor," Nyland said.

Ed Peacock, an engineer with the City of Austin's watershed protection department, said the city is concerned about water quality in the creek and is trying to work with the Transportation Department to improve the plan for the interchange.

"It's in a state of flux," he said.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Texas Monthly, Paul Burka: "We are headed for the worst public fiasco in my lifetime"

His Way or the Highway

Now that Rick Perry has won another term, his transportation plan moves on down the road. What kind of a toll will it take on Texas?

December 2006
by Paul Burka, Senior Executive Editor
Texas Monthly Magazine

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 the year for such a trip. It took me forty minutes to negotiate the eighteen miles from downtown to the suburb of Round Rock, and much of that time was spent idling in a canyon of eighteen-wheelers.

The announcement several years ago that the Texas Department of Transportation - TxDOT, as it’s widely known – would build a toll bypass known as Texas 130 east of Austin was cause for celebration. Texas 130 was particularly welcomed by community leaders in the fast-growing town of Pflugerville, which abuts Austin to the northeast. The annexation, years earlier, by Austin of a strip of land along I-35 had kept Pflugerville from reaping the taxes generated by the high-dollar commercial property along the freeway frontage. Now, with the completion of another brand-new toll road, Texas 45, which will tie into the bypass, Pflugerville could lookforward to development along the flanks of the new highway, which would relieve homeowners from bearing the principal responsibility of paying for city services. But when TxDOT announced the design of Texas 45, it has no Pflugerville exit and no frontage road, and that made the adjacent property unattractive for development. What was the reason for this oversight? It was no oversight, according to state senator-elect Kirk Watson, who, as mayor of Austin, had served on the board of the federally mandated regional mobility planning organization for the Austin area. “TxDOT,” he says, “wanted to maximize its toll revenue.”

A single nonexistent exit on a single yet-to-be-completed highway is of little consequence in the big picture of transportation policy in Texas. And yet the missing Pflugerville exit is emblematic of why so many Texans are upset about that policy and why it became an issue in the governor’s race: The importance of roads is not merely to make sure that you and I can get from point A to point B rapidly and safely. Roads create wealth. They multiply property values. They bring economic development. They improve the quality of life. Bust as Texas turns more and more to toll roads, critics of TxDOT fear that the tail is wagging the dog, that the funding mechanism has become an end in itself, and that a mammoth stage agency has lost sight of its duty to serve the public and instead serves its own ends.

This is not going to be a screed against toll roads or against Rick Perry’s multi-highway Trans-Texas Corridor plan, through the opponents have made some legitimate points. Existing highways built with tax dollars ought not to be converted to toll roads; this is double taxation. Commuters should not be forced to tithe for the privilege of using a freeway overpass, as TxDOT wanted to do on another Austin expressway – conjuring up the memory of Ludwig of Bavaria, who built his medieval castle on an island in the Rhine, the better to extract tolls from passing boatmen. Yet toll roads are an essential part of our transportation future. The current revenue stream, which depends on a twenty-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline, one fourth of which goes to education, is not enough to meet the state’s needs. Without toll roads, gridlock will continue to strangle Texas cities.

All of the rhetoric over whether to toll or not to toll has obscured a much bigger issue, which is privatization of transportation. TxDOT’s plan for toll roads is to surrender public control of these roads by entering into “comprehensive development agreements” (known as CDAs) with private companies, such as the partnership between Cintra, a Spanish company, and Zachry construction in San Antonio, which is building the first link in the Trans-Texas Corridor, an alternative to Interstate 35 known as TTC-35. Cintra-Zachry paid $1 billion to TxDOT for the right to collect tolls for the next fifty years. I’m not going to make a xenophobic argument, as Carole Keeton Strayhorn did in her gubernatorial campaign, that this is a land grab by foreign companies. It doesn’t really matter whether the company operating the toll road is American or European or Qatari. What matters is whether the arrangement protects the public interest. Here is what John Carona, a Republican state senator from Dallas who is the new chairman of the Senate committee that deals with transportation, has to say on the subject: “Within thirty years’ time, under existing comprehensive development agreements, we’ ll bring free roads in this state to a condition of ruin.”

It may seem as if the system of granting a concession to private companies in return for money, like restaurants at an airport, is a great idea – “free money” that TxDOT can use to build other toll roads, enter into still more concession agreements, and build still more toll roads, as if the agency had succeeded in creating a perpetual- motion machine to finance roads in perpetuity. But alas, there is no free money, and there is no perpetual-motion machine. The private companies that will build and operate the toll roads are in business to make a profit. In order to ensure that profit, they must have people who want to drive on their roads. And – here’s the rub – in order to be sure that people will want to drive on their roads, the CDAs with TxDOT will contain non-compete clauses that prohibit to TxDOT from building new roads or upgrading existing highways. Any improvement to an existing highway that is not already planned at the time TxDOT enters into the contract is prohibited. That billion-dollar concession limits TxDOT’s ability to improve nearby secondary roads. How about adding extra lanes? Sorry, prohibited by the CDA. An HOV express lane? Not a chance. This is why Carona says that free roads will be reduced to ruin. TxDOT will no longer be able to respond to the transportation needs of the state, other than to say: If you don’t like the traffic, use the toll road.

Oh, I almost forgot. About that free money. It may be free for TxDOT, but it isn’t free for you and me. The billion dollars represents the present value of future toll revenue. TxDOT finds it attractive for the same reason that buyers of lottery tickets ask for the “cash option.” They want their money up front – so they can use it now, so that it won’t be eaten up by inflation – rather than have it dribble in over twenty years (or fifty). Meanwhile, the private toll road operator wants to get that billion dollars back. And the way the company will get it is by raising its tolls over fifty years, largely unrestrained by the public sector. Tolls will be market based – that is whatever the traffic will bear. In effect, TxDOT’s free money amounts to a tax on our children and grandchildren.

Concession agreements are not the only way to build toll roads, just the most expensive one. (Carona likens it to “renting to own.”) In fact, toll road authorities have functioned in Houston and Dallas for years by using the conventional method of building the roads: issuing revenue bonds that will be paid off with toll revenues over a period of twenty to thirty years. When major league baseball first came to Arlington in the seventies, I drove to games from Dallas on the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. In twenty years (1957-1977) the bonds were paid off and the turnpike became a free road, Interstate 30. It remains free today. The Dallas North Tollway followed a similar pattern, except that when the original section, from downtown to Interstate 635, was paid off, tolls continued to be collected so that the tollway could be extended farther north. The Harris County Toll Road Authority has built 101 miles of toll roads, including a section of the Sam Houston for which I gladly pay $1.25 four times in order to drive to my hometown of Galveston without having to contend with Houston traffic. This method of financing is, in the long run, far cheaper for the public than concessions and higher tolls. In the past, TxDOT cooperated with these local authorities – for instance, by making right-of-way available – but since Rick Perry has been governor, a much more aggressive department seems to regard the local toll agencies as competitors. The North Texas Tollway Authority wanted to build Texas 121, for example, but TxDOT stepped in and forced the NTTA to cede control of the project, thereby allowing TxDOT to do another concession agreement. The NTTA will be allowed to collect the tolls, but that is all.

How did we get to this point, and what can we do about it? For years, state budget writers have been dipping into the pot of money that is earmarked for highways to fund the Department of Public Safety, on the theory that state troopers are responsible for highway safety. This poly diverted $700 million from road building in the current biennial budget. At the same time, lawmakers have refused to raise the gasoline tax since 1991. In a Republican era, any kind of tax increase isunthinkable, even if its purpose is to further the case of free roads. TxDOT played politics too, putting more projects on its approved list for future construction than it could afford; now it uses the length of the wish list to win the support of local transportation planning organizations for toll roads, warning communities like Austin and El Paso that their only other option is to wait 25 years for free projects.

The final step was that the 2003 legislative session, when Republicans controlled all the levers of power – House, Senate, governor – for the first time. Major bills were rushed through the Legislature with little debate or discussion. One of these was the omnibus transportation bill that authorized concessions and other mammoth changes in the way we build highways. Few lawmakers knew what was in the bill. The Senate gave it only cursory inspection. The result was a scheme in which TxDOT will be taking in billions of dollars from the private sector with no oversight by the Legislature, no responsibility to say how that money will be used, and no assurance for the public that free roads, as well as toll roads, will benefit from that money. Governor Perry has strongly supported transparency, accountability, and oversight in public education. He could do the state and the public a great service by insisting on the same standards for highways. Otherwise, we are headed for the worst public fiasco in my lifetime.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Planning Team Resolution Opposing Toll Fees on US 183 and HWY 71

RESOLUTION OPPOSING TOLL FEES ON US 183 AND E. HWY 71

WHEREAS, the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Planning Team has adopted a Neighborhood Plan to address historical neglect and economic disparity in sharing public resources and delivering services by governmental entities at all levels and by the public sector at the local level; and

WHEREAS, the proposed Central Texas Toll Road Plan has scheduled for East Austin a dis-proportional share of road miles than any other sector in Austin; and

WHEREAS, the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood is home to many very low-income families and the medium family income was just $18,724 at the time we adopted our Neighborhood Plan in 1999 and knowing that for poor families transportation is the second highest household expense after housing; and

WHEREAS, the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Planning Team is concerned about any fees that impact family income or our neighborhood businesses and we discussed and reviewed the plan to begin charging toll fees to travel on the southeastern portion of US 183 and E. HWY 71 at our August and September 2006 meetings; and

WHEREAS, the Team has a responsibility to represent the interests of our residents and small businesses and to speak out whenever an issue presents itself affecting affordability, access to jobs and the airport, and trading goods and services with our area businesses; NOW THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE EAST CESAR CHAVEZ NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING TEAM:

That the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Planning Team does not necessarily oppose the concept of “users pay for new roads,” but we request the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority rescind its’ prior decisions to charge tolls on the existing southeastern portion of US 183 and East HWY 71 which have already been built, improved, and paid for by taxing our residents and businesses.

ADOPTED: October 18, 2006 BY: The East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Planning Team

ATTEST: __________________________________________ Joseph A. Martinez, Chairperson

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

My comment speech at the Mobility Alternative Finance Study Steering Committee today.

To illustrate how much the committee wanted to hear from the public, there were NO mics for any of the public speakers. Many great speeches were made today, including representatives from Central Texas groups such as PODER, Fix290, Texans against Tolls and more. Here is mine. I was able to cover about 75% of it with my 3 minutes.

This 'Independent Study' study (Mobility Alternative Finance Study Steering Committee) was unanimously approved by the Austin City Council in early 2005. A March 3, 2005 city resolution promised "the study is not to be delayed". That was 20 months ago.

People for Efficient Transportation pushed for and publicly supported the idea of Brewster McCracken’s independent study, until it was hijacked last year.

The public was promised that:
• ALL the meetings would be televised
• A citizens committee would steer the study
• The community could have full opportunity to speak at every meeting.

None of these promises came to be.

• This process was NOT open, secret meetings have taken place between TxDOT, CRA and CTRMA.
• No meetings were televised
• Those who voted to toll roads we’ve already paid for were placed on what was supposed to be the citizens steering committee.

The tollers who hijacked the study allowed the tolling authority, the CTRMA - the one who proposed the Phase II toll plan, to hire URS, a contractor with a long history of inflated projections.

More on the inflated projections in a moment.

The Phase II toll plan is so unsound and experimental that it depends on the theft of our public highways. Did your study cover that simple principle?

Traditional toll roads have been brand new roads utilized as a means of raising money to pay for the whole new road. In Austin, the absurd plan calls for tolling existing highways. This includes expressways we’ve already paid for. Phase II expresslanes for 183 & 71 are 100% funded and can be easily be opened as free roads. Oak Hill at the “Y” has $76 million of our tax dollars allocated to it.

TxDot will have have an financial incentive to NOT fix the congestion of the frontage roads, as drivers will be forced onto the freeway toll road.

The freeway toll revenue can easily equal thousands of dollars a year that the average family in Austin just can’t afford to pay. There is no economic impact study, just a bunch of self serving special interests looking to steal our freeways.

These freeway tolls also create more unaccountable taxation. The bureaucratic freeway tolling authority, CTRMA has been found to give out no bid contracts to themselves and their friends.

And we are now finding out that our transportation bond dollars that were promised to be used on our roads and freeways are being diverted to toll projects.

Back to the inflated URS projections.

URS, was hired to do the numbers for this study and has one of the most disturbing records of inflating traffic forecasts, in the industry.

URS has produced inaccurate forecasts for nearly a half-dozen toll road projects in Florida. In some cases, the roads drew only half the cars. URS predicted that the Suncoast Parkway would take in $70 million in tolls in its first year of operation, and it produced only $7 million - a tenth of the projection.

Forbes, in 9/3/01, said this about URS:

"It has become painfully clear to bondholders and politicians that many of the public toll-supported projects built in the past decade, the majority blessed by URS and its ilk, have become financial albatrosses."

Standard and Poor's bond analysts, after reviewing forecasting case studies for years, have concluded

"Optimism bias remains a consistent feature of toll road traffic forecasting."

Can we agree that one of the worst boondoggles in Texas history was the Camino Colombia toll road? It was promised to be a 'generator of regional economic activity'.

URS forecasted the traffic revenue for Camino Colombia at $9 million for the first year - it produced $500k. That is about 6% of the URS forecast!

Let me simplify it. Garbage in, garbage out.

You can do all the Indepenendt Studies you want, but the simple fact is tolling roads we’ve already paid for is highway robbery. it’s wrong, and we won’t stand for it.

Read more HERE.

Monday, November 27, 2006

From Rick Skiers

The new Toll Road HWY 121 Project that is up around the Dallas area is up and running. Our Gov. Perry had delayed the tolls till after the election. Come this Friday , the toll is beginning. One small problem, there are no toll booths only cameras . As you drive through TxDot takes your picture of your license plate and sends you a bill each month. One problem is that if you have out of state license ,Texas does not have a agreement with any other state to find out who you are so they can send you a bill. TxDot has said out of state drivers cannot legally drive on the toll road. Cities along the toll road can have there police pull over out of state drivers and ticket them. Some cities will not do this and have told TxDot.
Typical TXDOT.clueless..................
THis was on KRLD 1080 this morning
Rick

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A familiar newcomer for CAMPO

A familiar newcomer for CAMPO

By Ben Wear
Austin American-Statesman
Monday, January 16, 2006

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE

Monday, January 16, 2006

In case you missed it, former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson was elected to the Texas Senate a couple of weeks ago.

Well, not exactly. That's actually when the filing period for the 2006 election ended. Watson drew no Democratic primary challenger, and no Republicans are running. He will have an opponent in November, Libertarian Rock Howard. But a Libertarian last won a Texas legislative spot in . . . well, never, actually.

So, it's Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, come next January. The transportation connection to this is that Watson will succeed Gonzalo Barrientos, also a Democrat, who has been chairman of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board for two decades.

I used to describe this board as "little-known" or "obscure." Then, in July 2004, the group of 23 legislators, city council members and county commissioners authorized charging tolls on everything but the drive-through at Wendy's and was obscure no more. So it matters who runs it. And who serves on it.

Which brings up a longstanding question: Should legislators even serve on the CAMPO board? Around the state, on the boards of the seven other such planning organizations in metro areas, they generally don't. Five (including Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth) have no legislators, San Antonio has one legislator among its 19 members, and El Paso has six lawmakers on its 25-member board.

CAMPO, on the other hand, has 10 legislators, or 43 percent. Anti-toll folks began to grumble about the surfeit of legislators last year mostly because one of them, state Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Williamson County, wrote the 2003 state law that made the toll plan possible. Krusee then orchestrated the 16-7 vote in favor of tolls.

The logic breaks down a little, however, when you look at that vote. Five of the seven no votes were legislators. Take away all 10 of them, and the vote was still 11-2 in favor of the toll plan.

This argument predates tolls. In a consultant's study of CAMPO five years ago, the authors noted that in their interviews with sitting board members and civic leaders, some said having all these legislators was "undesirable. However, it was not easy for us to get to the root cause of these impressions."

Basically, the argument is that council members and commissioners hear from the public all the time and thus should decide which roads to build. Maybe so. But the legislators are the ones governing the state budget, and that's where the big money is for transportation. Whatever. At this point, there's no momentum for kicking them off.

Which brings us back to the senator-to-be. Watson, who served on CAMPO for four years as mayor, didn't want to participate in speculation about taking possession of Barrientos' CAMPO gavel, calling "that kind of determination premature." But as mayor, Watson was aggressive in rounding up local money to persuade the state to build more roads here, so count on his being more than a dabbler in transportation.

"As state senator," Watson said, "I look forward to being in the big middle of it."

Monday, November 20, 2006

Kirk Watson's Transportation speech

Kirk Watson's Transportation speech to Opportunity Austin group
October 20, 2006

I'm looking forward to being back in public office, although we have many challenges to overcome, big issues to tackle, problems to fix. It's kind of hard to admit it, but that's probably one of the reasons I'm looking forward to this. I'm just goofy enough to want to be in the middle of the scramble as we, as a region, try to cover the distance that separates us from where we want to go.

Today, I've been asked to focus on one of the dangerous, ugly, hair-pin turns on our course – transportation. How goofy do you have to be to want to have anything to do with transportation, other than to get in a fast car and speed away from it? The problem is that no matter how fast the car is supposed to be, you're probably going to get stuck and not move.

The problems – of mobility and traffic congestion, inadequate policy, and ugly politics – also never seem to move. You all know the pain and frustration you feel when you're stuck sitting there, gridlocked in that dysfunction. Things start to move, and you feel that rush of hope for a solution, only to have to stop again.

Without question, traffic and mobility problems are going to hurt our economy and choke off the jobs we're trying so hard to create.

But more than that, mobility problems hurt our freedom. People are telling us what they want. It may not be through a vote at a ballot box, but it's a vote with their car. People want the freedom to drive, including driving alone.

They want the freedom to spend time with their families, whether it's getting home to enjoy supper together and then get down to a homework assignment, or to get to their kid's flag football game.

Our neighbors and co-workers want the freedom to get out and run a few errands at lunch time, to be able to go to an event at school in the middle of the day, or to not leave an anxious child waiting at day care because they can't get there on time.

Our partners in this excellent economy want the freedom to live in a part of this region they love – be it rural, semi-rural, small town or suburban – and still get to their jobs.

Such freedoms are lost when there aren't adequate transportation options. Our lives and quality of life are diminished.

People like to think Austin is weird, in roadways and other ways. But our problem is far from unique, even for Texas. Basically, it's a supply-and-demand issue gummed up, in part, by a bizarre coalition of some who seem to hate cars, roads, and suburbs with equal passion, and others who are so anti-tax that they freeze transportation money at 1991 levels while siphoning it off to pay for the state's other bills, all the while congratulating themselves even as the infrastructure deteriorates around them.

And far too few seem to do the hardest work — planning for the development that roads create — even though it could save precious money, not to mention time, and opportunity, and pleasure, and choice, and freedom.

Most of us are just tired and want a solution. There's only one I can see that will serve us and the people who will follow us.

Central Texas needs a comprehensive regional transportation plan that includes new roads, toll roads, rapid bus service, other effective modes of public transportation, and passenger rail.

Austin, Travis County, and all of Central Texas need a full and complete box of tools. And, we need to use every tool in that box.

But each and all of these tools must simultaneously protect and enhance our region's prosperity, treat commuters as valued constituents, and avoid lose-lose battles, reminiscent of Austin City Hall in the early and mid-1990s, where everybody – or nearly everybody – feels like they lost something.

While I think the right path is a comprehensive regional transportation plan, and would prefer to be talking about that today, we've been diverted for the past couple of years by the so-called debate about toll roads. So, if it will get us moving again, let's talk about toll roads.

To start, any toll road system must begin not with answers, but with hard questions.

What options do we have for funding the roads we want, and how fair are those alternatives to all of our citizens? How do the alternatives truly and honestly compare one tool with another? How do we ensure that our transportation system will serve its users and not simply treat them as a resource to be exploited – toll payers to be harvested? How do we create enough transparency that drivers will know their money, wherever it comes from, isn't simply filling a slush fund for road builders? How do we hold our transportation planners accountable?

I believe that answers to these questions, along with a number of traffic and financial details that remain in doubt, should be answered in a very public way. We cannot move forward without this fundamental transparency and accountability. Better late than never.

I believe such basic values could create a tool that the public could embrace. Sadly, our community has gone backward in the past couple of years. Central Texas became caught in the crossfire between some who act as though toll roads are the only possible answer to everything, and others who consider them diabolical.

We can't afford what's happening, which is a contrived war between the "toll army" and the "no-toll army". These two fight each other without even clear objectives anymore, refusing to hear each other, hunkering down into bunkers they built with inadequate figures and empty slogans, and engaging in winner-take-all politics, even though no one can really win anything and the biggest losers will be the hundreds of thousands of drivers who deserve real policy and real solutions.

Now I need to emphasize here that, for all of our troubles over the last couple of years, I don't want to lose the progress that has been made toward long-term transportation solutions in Central Texas. And for all the trouble it's caused, I'm not looking to blow up the current toll plan, necessarily. I respect the plan's authors, and I truly believe they want what's best for Central Texas.

But I also believe those who support a mechanism such as toll roads have an obligation to assure it will work.

In my view, and the view of a large segment of our constituents, toll road supporters have yet to demonstrate that their plan does more to help the region than to tax it. The very people who advocate for toll roads would not stand for it if local officials announced they were going to issue bonds and dramatically raise taxes, but would not say how much money they expected to raise, or what projects would be funded, or where those projects would be located, or when the money would be spent, or even what the tax rate would be. And yet, still, these same advocates don't understand the outrage people feel over this new tax and the lack of clear accountability for the money it raises.

Even now, amazingly, I hear some people talk about the current toll plan's "P.R. problem," as if the public would or should stop demanding a strategy, guiding principles, or basic accountability in exchange for better commercials with cute talking cars.

Yes, as people keep correctly saying, the toll plan was launched badly. But leaders frequently make their own luck, and I've come to believe that the launch was nothing more than a symptom of the failure to thoroughly evaluate, understand and debate the policy to begin with.

What we need now is not a new sales pitch. What we need, fundamentally, is a new beginning. We must seize this opportunity, even if it means walking away from any short-term gains, be they political or financial. If we can create something that will bring this region together and not rip it apart, it could create real prosperity and a better quality of life for generations of Central Texans.

How do we get back to where we need to be? And, where is that?

We need to get beyond politics and focus on policy. And – it bears repeating – that policy must be a comprehensive regional transportation plan that includes new roads, toll roads, public transportation such as rapid bus service, and passenger rail.

The policy also must assure transparency and accountability. Everyone should agree on that.

I will not support a toll plan unless there is complete financial transparency.

But that's just the start of the policy discussion that's long overdue in Central Texas. Here are a few steps we could take – or, in some cases, must take – to assure a transparent, accountable system of toll roads that will serve Central Texas drivers.

* Local officials should decide whether to keep tolling drivers once a road is paid off. If the community decides it needs that revenue to pay for new or different traffic and transportation solutions, whatever they may be, officials must be accountable when they vote on it and transparent in how they raise and spend the money. If the toll charged on one road would benefit the community by helping with another project, then that project should be specifically identified and the amount diverted to it clearly stated. And, since we need a comprehensive transportation plan, toll fees collected above and beyond the cost of building the toll road should be available to pay for other transportation tools as well as roads.

* Roads should be designed around the public's needs. Road planners should work with local officials to ensure that rights of way, entrance and exit ramps, and other design details will help the roads to serve Central Texas, and to guarantee that commuters, neighborhoods, and the entire region will achieve the fullest benefit possible. The toll roads should create truly lasting assets for the communities they run through. If a community wants to do things differently, even if it reduces profits, it deserves to be heard. No one has a monopoly on good policy.

* There should be an oversight group, made up of elected officials and accountable to the people, that reviews the revenues generated by toll roads. The information must be available to the public so people may easily determine how much money the tolls would raise, how much the roads would cost, how much the bond holders would be owed, and what other projects would benefit as new highways pay for themselves.

* Barring extraordinary circumstances, toll roads should not be sold to private or foreign corporations, but rather should be managed and owned by the taxpayers. Even under extraordinary circumstances, local officials should have to vote on whether to sell the assets, and the contract with any such corporation should be publicly disclosed.

* The agency that builds the roads and collects the tolls should have at least one elected official who can help ensure accountability and work with other transportation boards and groups. Right now, a group of political appointees decides when to build roads and how to collect tolls. These are good people. But, there's no good reason to not inject a little more democracy into the process. Accountability and elections have never scared Wall Street from financing schools and parks and libraries – even roads. You can and should trust elected leaders to build a toll road.

* Toll revenues should be used to pay back a city, a county, and the state for any gas taxes or other non-toll public money that went into a toll road. For example, if a city's taxpayers put up bond money to expand a road, and the state later decides to slap toll booths there, then the city should get it's money back and pay for other pressing needs or pay off debt.

* There must be an untolled option so that drivers who don't want to pay a toll have a choice and can use frontage roads or non-toll lanes. This way, new roads are financed only by the drivers who actually use them, not all taxpayers in the region. When done right, a toll is a more progressive "tax" that's entirely avoidable by people who can't afford it or simply don't want to pay and will plan around it. By contrast, a steep gas tax increase – one high enough to buy Central Texas out of its congestion – would have the greatest impact on working and middle-class families.

These policy objectives are a starting point. There surely are others. I think it would be a mistake to throw toll roads out of the toolbox purely because of frustration or suspicion, although I appreciate – and share – the frustration and suspicion that many people feel.

As I've said, we should view toll roads as, at best, just part of the real solution: a comprehensive, absolutely transparent transportation plan. These sorts of values will ensure Central Texans that this tool exists for their benefit.

My hope is that we will shift gears and focus on the policies and values that should be woven into any toll road system, even if it means re-drawing a map or two.

Then, and only then, can we start addressing the real problem. That’s not toll roads, folks. It’s traffic.

I didn't need to tell you that it's tough to get anywhere in this region. But, I do have to tell you it's going to get worse.

According to every reasonable demographic projection, there will be at least twice as many people in Central Texas in about 30 years as there are right now. It's extremely reasonable to expect, barring a dramatic shift that will get a whole lot of drivers out of their cars, there will be many thousands more cars and trucks on the road soon.

Where are those cars and trucks going to go?

Our existing highways are jammed, and we're running out of money to build new ones. The current pay-as-you-go system, which still clings to gas tax revenues, can't keep up with the demand for new road construction.

At the same time, road-building costs have skyrocketed – up 24 percent in 2005 alone.

And gas use will only decline as ever more people step into ever more hybrids and electric cars. We are falling further behind.

Forget 30 years from now. Heck, no need to be visionary here. Think 15 years from now. According to our state demographer, there will probably be – conservatively – another 498,000 people here. Ten years from now? 324,000 people. Five? 159,000 more people.

Folks, that's really only tomorrow. Even those of us who can't picture our grandkids can realize what we're facing if we bury our heads.

One way to process it is to consider that, in only five years, we're going to add the combined 2000 census populations of Round Rock ... Georgetown ... San Marcos ... Buda ... Bastrop ... Pflugerville ... and West Lake Hills. Another way to visualize our gridlock is to comprehend that, in a mere five years, we will have the equivalent of twice the number of people currently living in Round Rock – twice the number, two more Round Rocks – all jockeying with you, me, and the hundreds of thousands of other drivers who have stretched rush-hour into a nightmare that torments us for half the day.

Here's how I put it in a context that I can understand. When my sixth grader, Cooper, is a junior in high school, we'll have two more Round Rocks on our roads. By the time he's a junior in college, we'll have added another Williamson County!

As a region, we have to meet this challenge. We need to work to stabilize our situation and avoid further decline. And we have to do it the right way.

The fact is that there are currently more than 76 miles of toll roads under construction in Texas. Without tolling, these roads would have taken decades – literally decades – to complete. But with tolling, they will be completed in six years.

Take State Highway 130. This vital highway will cost 1 billion dollars to build. The Department of Transportation gets about 30 million dollars a year in gas taxes to build highways in Central Texas.

If they devoted every penny of that to 130 – ignoring every other transportation need in the region – it might, at the earliest, be finished sometime after Cooper turns 40, about the time DPS would be taking my driver's license away because I wouldn't be able to see.

More likely, the road simply wouldn't get built – which anybody familiar with the decades of talk about the MoKan Highway will tell you. The state would spend the money on something smaller, much less critical, but much more doable.

Instead, SH 130 will be a toll road. They broke ground in late 2003, when Cooper was in third grade. They'll finish it, all 49 miles of it, next year, when he's in seventh.

This is not a small benefit. This is the difference between prospering from our growth and choking on it. It's the difference between reduced freedom and greater enjoyment of our days and lives.

There's no such thing as a free road. There ain't no free lunch and there really ain't no freeway. We can't have an honest discussion about our future as long as people pretend that there is. Building roads costs money. Do we raise gas taxes? Do we raise property taxes? Do we raise some other piece of the sales tax?

And, let's be clear: those sources of tax dollars will have to be really raised – by a lot – to meet our needs. But, it shouldn't just be a contest, or an all-or-nothing decision, between gas taxes and tolls, property taxes and tolls, or sales taxes and tolls. Our rush to toss out tools based on our fears and prejudices is half the reason we’re in this mess to begin with.

So, we must at least consider having roads pay for their own construction costs, as we scrounge for potential tools to put into our toolbox.

It's not an option to simply hope things get miserable enough that people will get out of their cars. It seems responsible to look at a funding source that will get us some relief shortly after Cooper gets his driver's license, as opposed to waiting until he's well into his 40s.

But, first, let's all agree we have a problem. Let's seek out as many tools as we can for our comprehensive transportation plan. Let's look at everything. Let's tell warriors on all sides to put away their long memories and hard suspicions and take a fresh look at rail, rapid buses, bicycles, sidewalks, roads, and – yes – toll roads.

Numerous factors created this crisis, and solitary solutions won't solve it. As much as some of us might hate certain transportation options, we must look in good faith at the role they might play.

And, let's conduct the discussion looking for solutions. No one gets to simply be against something. If you oppose one of the tools, including a financing mechanism, be prepared to offer a solution. We can't afford, and don't have the time, to just be against things. We have to be for greater mobility and greater freedom. That requires more than criticism; it requires thought, consensus and work.

My hope is that no one will get into this intent on destroying a comprehensive plan because it has a component they just don't like. But, likewise, no one should devote themselves to saving any single part of it until that part works for the region, even if it means we miss out on the reward of the moment.

The issues at stake are far bigger even than the toll roads. I promise you, unfortunately, that sorting through them will be a tedious, contentious, and slow process.

But if we succeed – if Central Texas comes together around a shared and open vision of how future generations will live and travel – then we will have given an enormous gift to all of those who are here, and all of those who are coming.

Thank you all for all of your work and critical interest.

Beware of the True Cost of Toll Abuse

Beware of the True Cost of Toll Abuse

Sally Baptiste, November 17, 2006

Don’t be fooled by the political rhetoric that preaches the tolls are a “USER FEE”. This is the way the politicians will try to brainwash voters into supporting a state funded scam against the taxpayers.

Tell the money grubbing politician to be honest……a TOLL is a TAX! “Toll” is just another word for Tax. A tax is any money paid to a governmental agency for providing a service to the public. The public service SHOULD protect and promote the general welfare of the people.

Orlando, Florida - the toll road capitol of the world. It is nothing more than highway robbery. Here are some of the facts and true cost of TOLL ABUSE:

· Toll taxes increase the cost of living for EVERYONE. Anything that increases the cost of transportation increases the cost of living. It does not matter if you drive or you don’t drive. Your cost of living will increase. The notion of a “User Fee” is totally totally totally BOGUS!!!

· Toll taxes hurt small businesses. In Florida, it is not uncommon for a local landscaping company to pay $1,000 - $2,000 dollars per month in toll taxes.

· Toll taxes limit access to the expressway system to lower income motorists. Toll taxes are very regressive. Toll roads tend to be an elitists system that only the wealthy can afford to use.

· Toll taxes limit access to the most efficient highway system. This forces motorists onto the secondary roads and this creates unnecessary “stop & go” gridlock. The result is negative in several ways. 1) Increases air pollution, 2) Wastes fuel, 3) Increases travel time and 4) Increases road runoff that pollutes our water supply. Everyone in the community and our environment loses with Toll Abuse!

· Toll taxes divert money from the local economy. In Florida, it is not uncommon for a household to spend $100+ per month in toll taxes. This is $1200+ per year in additional taxes. In most cases, this money would have been spent in the local economy via dining out, movies, entertainment, and shopping. Thus, reducing sales taxes.

· Toll taxes are the most expensive way to raise transportation revenues. The collection cost of gas taxes is less than 1%. The collection cost of toll taxes can be between 10-40%. Electronic toll tax collection systems are very expensive. Check out the financial statements of the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority if you have any doubt about the true cost of toll tax collections.

· Last but not least. Toll taxes allow elected officials to divert tax dollars to special interest groups that do not promote the general welfare of the taxpayers. This is just plain wrong. Public money should be used for public services. Politicians should not be allowed to give away our tax dollars to major campaign contributors.

· To see first hand the corruption and abuse of toll road authorities, just “Google” the “Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority”. They are the perfect example of Broken Government and how elected and unelected public servants abuse their authority and do not work in the best interest of the people.

Sincerely,
Sally Baptiste
Orange County, FL Citizen, Activist, Voter and Taxpayer