Of course, the response out of southern Comal County was nearly instantaneous.  Terri Hall wrote a verbose response on her blog lambasting Davidson and the E-N, essentially calling them shills for ARMA.  While she spends less than a sentence acknowledging Bruce’s main point about the Legislature, she spends probably 95% of the 1,516 words in her article assailing Bruce, the E-N, and ARMA.  As usual, there was much hyperbole and many inaccuracies in her comments (I’ll get to those in a minute), but the main thing that struck me was that she spent just about the entire piece focusing on Bruce’s defense of ARMA instead of balancing her tirade with a healthy amount of support for his focal point about the gas tax, a point which she actually agrees with (as do I for that matter.)  A more evenhanded response would have demonstrated that she’s not just trying to be antagonistic, an impression she has left on many folks.

It’s always fun to pick-apart Terri’s diatribes, so let’s take a look at some of her more “interesting” remarks:

Whenever we’ve attempted to go to the Editorial Board to dialogue about the toll issue, they flatly ignore us and our concerns (as well as elected officials, attorneys, certified planners, and other experts who have joined us) and print a negative editorial in response to our “visit.”

Maybe that’s because they see through the malarkey you wanted them to believe.

After all, the paper has the establishment to please, never mind the Express-News is bleeding readers. Why? Because of columns, editorials, and stories like this one. Or perhaps it’s because the RMA has paid the Express-News nearly $25,000 in government advertising.

That advertising is required as part of the federal laws regarding public involvement in the planning process, so they would have to spend that with the E-N regardless of whether or not the E-N supported their position.

It is interesting that she asserts that people who don’t like these types of articles would stop reading the paper.  There’s a word for that: close-minded.

This notion that the RMA “doesn’t care where the money comes from, they just want to fix the road” is a farce. They’re a tolling authority! They exist to toll roads!

And yet they’re building the 281/1604 interchange toll-free.

Most importantly, the needed fix to 281 was already paid for with gas taxes until TxDOT made the money disappear sometime in mid-2008. … They had the funds…it’s about tapping a new revenue stream and levying a discriminatory, targeted tax on 281 users in order to fund 1604 (which they don’t have the money for).

Ugh, how many times do we have to go through this?  Yes, funding was promised to the 281 project in the MPO TIP ca. 2000, but when the Transportation Commission (at the behest of the Governor) edicted that all new expressway projects be considered for tolling, the 281 project was required to become a toll project.  Consequently, the funding that was budgeted for it was re-allocated to other toll-free projects.  The money didn’t just “disappear”– it was spent on other roads that we all drive on.

Then, the stimulus money the RMA is using to build HALF of a non-toll interchange (for the price of a WHOLE interchange) is a one time deal. We’ve long objected to the RMA even doing a non-toll project, especially with the pricetag they can’t justify ($143 million for just the four southern ramps of the interchange when the RMA’s published price to build the northern ramps in 2018 dollars is $59 million. If they can build half of the interchange for $59 million, they can surely build the whole thing NOW for $120 million! For comparison, the 410/281 interchange just built cost $155 million.

As I explained in great detail in a previous post, her logic on this allegation is severely flawed.  You can read my previous post for the details, but the upshot is that much more than “half” an interchange is being built: about 75% of the ultimate bridgework for the full interchange would be built in this initial project, along with the bulk of the final ancillary infrastructure (e.g. drainage and such).  This project also includes lots of improvements to the 281 and 1604 approaches.  You can’t compare the 410/281 interchange for a number of reasons, including the fact that a good portion of the prep work for it was built in separate, preceding projects.

(The RMA) hides behind a state law that allows these agencies to keep toll viability studies, the market valuation, and other key financial details SECRET from the public AND even YOUR elected officials.

By her own admission, they’re not doing anything illegal.  If she doesn’t like that, she needs to lobby to get the law changed.  She may not like what they’re doing, but they are allowed to do it.  As they say, hate the game, not the player.

As long as the 281 & 1604 projects are marked “toll” in the MPO’s plans, the RMA has control of the project and a vested interest in ensuring it remains tolled even when new sources of revenue become available.

Not true.  The 281/1604 interchange was listed in the MPO’s plans as a toll project before the stimulus funds became available.

The RMA is conducting its own environmental studies on both the 281 and 1604 toll projects (the fox guarding the hen house)…

She forgot to mention that they’re doing this at the direction of (and with the oversight of) the Federal Highway Administration.

RMA Chair Bill Thornton promised on WOAI radio January 14, 2009 that they’d fix 281 non-toll if they got a new source of funds. When stimulus funds became available, the RMA STILL submitted the project as a toll project (they planned to build it with stimulus money and still charge users a toll to drive on it, a DOUBLE TAX), which is proof-positive that even when they get a new pot of money to do something non-toll, the RMA still pushes its toll agenda…regardless of the opposition to it.

Again, the interchange project is the proof that that’s not true.  And in the case of 281 itself, it’s all moot because no project could/can be built on 281 until the environmental study is done.  Since projects had to be “shovel-ready” to get stimulus funds, 281 was not eligible for those funds!

Also, the FHWA also informed MPO Chairman Commissioner Tommy Adkisson that as long as a project is marked toll in the MPO plans, it will be done as a toll project.

Once again, the interchange project invalidates this claim.

Goes to show, one must do his/her due diligence before believing what you read in the Express-News.

This is even more true when reading Terri Hall’s blog.

That said, she did have some valid points, mainly these:

Second, where is Davidson’s call to end the diversions to the gas tax we ALREADY PAY? Why would any thinking person ask government to raise taxes when they’re misappropriating the taxes we already send them? Third, why isn’t Davidson insisting San Antonio get back the money we already send to Austin and Washington that we’re shorted before he advocates for higher taxes (tolls)? Lastly, ending the vehicle sales tax diversion (that’s being dumped into general revenue instead of going to roads) would nearly triple our region’s road money WITHOUT RAISING TAXES!

And this one in particular about my fellow OnTheMoveBlog contributor:

…since they laid off the excellent, unbiased, and very fair transportation reporter Pat Driscoll

A good summary of my position (and Bruce’s) is this comment I posted on Terri’s blog (which had not yet been approved as of the writing of this blog):

Our state lawmakers are entirely to blame. There would be no ARMA nor need for them if the Legislature had just done their jobs. ARMA and toll roads are just a *symptom* of the root problem, and ARMA (and TxDOT for that matter) just play the hand they are dealt by the Leg and Governor.

The candidates’ (major candidates only) policy statements are evaluated in order of their current polling numbers, Republicans first.

Republicans

Rick Perry
Perry is pretty much running on his record, and his transpo policy proposal is essentially “more of the same”, sans the Trans-Texas Corridor, which he has said many times is “dead”.  Yes, the language for it still exists in the Transportation Code, but that’s not something he can control– only the Legislature can change the law.  In any case, as I pointed-out with my review of KBH’s policy, there is still language in the Transportation Code that authorizes the state to install roadside emergency call boxes.  But after a pilot project back in the ’90s, that concept was dropped, so there’s no reason to believe the Trans-Texas Corridor is any different.

My main beef with Perry is his steadfast opposition to raising the gas tax.  I know that’s a conservative cornerstone, but in terms of real value, raising the gas tax in proportion to the amount of value it has lost due to inflation and improved fuel economy isn’t “raising taxes” in the traditional sense.  Furthermore, it’s the responsible thing to do to maintain and improve our roads, something that is a cornerstone of state government.  Kicking the can down the road (pun intended) is not a solution.

Debra Medina
If her answer to the 9/11 question on the Glenn Beck show a few weeks ago didn’t make her appear either out on the fringe or, at the very least, not able to concisely take a single, identifiable stand on an issue, then reading her transportation issues page will.  Her plan is long and byzantine, so pardon the length of my review of it.

She starts her policy sheet by discussing the plight of a small business owner who complained to her that they lost a contract to TxDOT to install security cameras for the North Texas Toll Authority (NTTA).  The contract was instead awarded to a large company with some foreign offices and many subsidiaries, and one of the subcontractors listed on the project is a well-known, mega-company with “many national and international Dept. of Defense contracts” and from whose staff Perry had appointed members of the Texas Aerospace board.  She goes on to label this– indirectly, anyway– as a “clandestine global corporate pork project”.

Predictably, this ”everybody in government is crooked, so there’s gotta be a scam here somewhere” mindset just undermines Medina’s own credibility.  First of all, she makes the huge leap that just because Perry appointed some employees of one of the subcontractors to one his most obscure boards, that that somehow influenced to whom TxDOT awarded the contract to install a few security cameras for NTTA.  Now I don’t know for a fact that any of this is not true, but the number of moving parts between one end of that logic train and the other is enough that it’s simply implausible that her cronyism accusation would beget her assumed outcome without some kind of actual evidence of such.  But, like 9/11 truthers, if you’re looking for a conspiracy, you can connect all sorts of dots, even if the likelihood of the supposition actually being true is less than me winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning on the same day.

The far more likely truth in this story is very simple: the security camera contact, like most others in government, was a low-bid contract.  The company that won it has the resources to outbid a small company because of the simple matter of their sheer size; it’s the economic law of scale.  I know it’s hard for folks who truly hate Perry and/or TxDOT to imagine, but not everything that happens with either is devious.

Once you can get past that, her actual transportation plan is all over the map.  The core is essentially the “no build” option considered by planners when they look at a proposed project.  The gist of her plan is that congestion is self-limiting– in other words, once a road gets so badly congested, people will find other routes or just not drive.  To wit, she rails against the “biased” opinions of TxDOT and Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) engineers and the computer modeling used by traffic planners that she claims doesn’t take into account the self-limiting nature of congestion.  Although she attacks foreign companies, she says we should look into foreign research on traffic issues (specifically Canada’s), which questions TTI’s annual congestion report.

Beyond that, she throws-in the populist complaint that TxDOT has no transparency in funding and no accountability for project completion, and she would solve that with the requisite audit and unspecified “reform” of TxDOT.  I welcome an audit of TxDOT—besides finally eradicating this constant battle cry, I don’t think it would find anything significant, and we could finally put all these accusations of fraud and waste to rest.  There’s also the usual “no toll roads” and “get rid of the Trans-Texas Corridor once-and-for-all” pledges, including specifically banning any project known as the North American Super Corridor.  She thinks that TxDOT has gotten “too big for its britches” because it has “gone far beyond road building and ventured into every area of transportation in which the federal government has grant money to offer”.  (Let’s see, last time I checked, they are the Texas Department of Transportation, not the Texas Department of Highways, but I digress.)  She labels the Texas Enterprise Fund “Perry’s slush fund” and says it should be redirected to transportation.  I guess she meant to say “highways”; in any case, I think the Enterprise Fund, besides making such a little dent in the transpo funding shortfall, actually serves a valid purpose.  And, enigmatically, she makes mention a couple of times that the public should know how much road building is done by the private sector, including requiring MPOs to specifically track that, but I have no idea where she was going with that, and she proffers no explanation.

She wraps-up by citing Terri Hall, of all people, who reports that the Texas Transportation Commission “has agreed to pledge the State’s credit… for two (NTTA) toll projects in north Texas”.  Finally, something I actually agree with– I am opposed to the state essentially co-signing on NTTA’s loans, although I do appreciate the strings they did include to help protect the state.  She also laments that the state is using credit to build roads, a point I also agree with.  But her solution to that, besides the do-nothing-and-just-let-congestion-limit-itself approach, appears to be to thumb our noses at the federal government by keeping all gas taxes collected in Texas and rejecting “interference in transportation by federal agencies such as the EPA and insure that Texas agencies enforce only state law.”  Wow, I’m not even sure where to start on that one, so I’ll just let it speak for itself.

There was one sensible, albeit minor, solution that she proposes that I strongly agree with: “Place a stronger emphasis on incident management, including minimizing irregularities in traffic flow that are the major irritants to road users”.  I think that transportation and police agencies statewide can do a much better job of incident management.  And, I also agree with prohibiting TxDOT from lobbying the Leg or Congress—no state agency should be in the business of lobbying.

Democrats

Bill White
Mr. White lacks a comprehensive plan on transpo, at least one that I could find.  His issues page on the topic is a mere two bullet points: end the Trans-Texas Corridor (my position on which I’ve already discussed), and decentralize TxDOT and allow local governments to set regional priorities.  This approach neglects the fact that the Federal Highway Administration warned the legislature during its last session that reorganizing TxDOT in such a way would jeopardize federal funding, which requires a strong centralized and statewide transportation department to accept, allocate, and spend such funds.  Having numerous transportation fiefdoms across the state is more scary to the feds because it diminishes control and oversight and increases administrative costs.

Farouk Shami
Mr. Shami is the only candidate to suggest raising the gas tax.  In his plan, he would raise the gas tax eight cents, then index it to the Highway Cost Index (HCI) going forward, limiting annual increases to 4% and allowing any requisite increase in excess of that to be postponed to the following year.  In years of a negative HCI, the tax would not go down, but the “excess” revenue generated would be using to pay-off bond debt.  As I have mentioned many times, I fully support increasing the gas tax, so I give him a big thumbs-up on this.

Mr. Shami would also allow the Transportation Commission to issue bonds backed by future gas tax revenues, a point I disagree with.  The state has already issued enough debt for roads; it’s time to get back to a pay-as-you-go system.

He also supports no taxes on alternative fuel vehicles to encourage their adoption in order to improve air quality.  I also disagree with this– those vehicles still use our roads and therefore should pay something; maybe not as much as gasoline or diesel vehicles, but they shouldn’t get a free ride.

Other points of his plan are to increase the Texas Transportation Commission to 14 members who would be elected, with their districts coinciding with the state Board of Education districts.  I’m OK with this idea, as I was when KBH proposed it.  He also says he would require all bidders of TxDOT contracts to disclosed their political contributions (that’s OK with me; the more transparency, the better), ban TxDOT from lobbying (again, I’m on-board with that), adjust senior management of TxDOT by having the elected Transportation Commission appoint a CFO and IG (essentially the same idea as KBH’s “transportation CEO”, which I like), and improve TxDOT’s interaction with the public and local governments (which as far as I’m concerned is the typical political lip-service.)

He also has the requisite “kill-the-Trans-Texas-Corridor” and “no-toll-roads” pledges, a proposal to change TxDOT’s focus to concentrate on repair and replacement of existing roads (thumbs-down from me on that; maintenance, repairs, and capacity improvements all require equal attention IMO).  He accuses TxDOT of “artificially and fraudulently” lowering the estimates of road life “to overstate maintenance costs” (not sure what his basis on that is, so I can’t give an opinion.)  He wants to focus on “real mass transit solutions”, but doesn’t elaborate any more (I’m fine with the concept, but want to see more details on what he believes to be “real solutions”.)  Lastly, he wants to end eminent domain “abuse” with a six-point plan and to focus on expanding roads within existing rights-of-way, both of which I agree with where reasonable.

So, if you’re a single-issue voter and transportation is that issue, my impression is that Mr. Shami is probably the best of the bunch just based on his published policy ideas.  However, few voters are single-issue voters (myself included), and given a recent poll that showed that Texas voters would cut highway funding first to balance the budget, transportation frankly isn’t as big an issue as it probably should be.

Congress has yet to approve a new, comprehensive surface transportation bill to replace the previous legislation (known as “SAFETEA-LU”) that expired last year, instead opting to keep it on life-support through a series of short-term extensions.  The resulting lack of certainty over future funding– as well as limited funding in those extensions– is severely crippling the construction industry, that according to several speakers at a noontime rally outside San Antonio’s convention center yesterday that attracted about 100 people.

The rally, held in conjunction with the Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) convention here, included remarks by local and national construction and equipment industry leaders as well as local state representative Jeff Wentworth and was intended to draw attention to the fact that the depression in the construction industry is a huge drag on the national economy, not to mention the fact that it is delaying needed infrastructure improvements across the country.  Despite lofty claims, the federal economic stimulus program has actually resulted in minimal transportation infrastructure spending– just 6% of stimulus funding has gone to transportation programs, about the equivalent of half of one year’s typical expenditures, and it was spread over two years.  The result is a nearly 23% unemployment rate in the construction industry.  In fact, although construction workers comprise only 5% of the US workforce, they represented 20% of layoffs last year.  Furthermore, the scarcity of funding has meant that heavy machinery sales are down about 50%, resulting in layoffs of 37% of the workers who manufacture that equipment.  Overall, the industry has essentially been decimated with over 2.5 million jobs lost.

The message of the rally was clear– Congress’ plate is full with a variety of high-profile issues these days, but they need to find time to get a new transportation bill enacted quickly, and that bill needs to find a way to adequately fund our nation’s increasingly decaying infrastructure.  Now obviously the folks who organized this rally have a direct fiduciary interest in getting transportation funding committed and increased, but in reality, we all do.  Not only is the current funding dearth causing a demonstrable drag on the economy, it’s also causing billions of dollars worth of needed transportation improvements as well as basic maintenance to go unfunded.  This certainly affects each and every one of us on a daily basis and has resulted in officials having to resort to other means to get projects built– namely tolling.

The one benefit to all this is that construction costs have plummeted in the past year, meaning that what projects are able to be funded are coming in cheaper than expected, which means there’s leftover money to do more work.  However, this is a short-term benefit and ultimately balance needs to be restored.

This was the fourth such rally nationally and it concluded with a loud parade of construction equipment down Commerce Street.

Links:

• http://www.startusupusa.com/

When reading her transportation policy page, there are a lot of good ideas.  For instance, the idea of expanding the Transportation Commission is a good one as is reducing their direct oversight of project decisions and instead appointing a ”transportation CEO” to run TxDOT.  I’m on-board (pun intended) with advancing high-speed and commuter passenger rail, and I like the idea of following-up on projects to see what demonstrable benefit they provided.  I also like the fact that both on her website and during her recent debate, she was careful to specifically applaud the efforts of TxDOT’s rank-and-file employees and separate them from the agency’s executives.  Now while I don’t believe TxDOT’s leadership is “out-of-control” or “arrogant”, there have been some missteps at the top and some tweaking of things is probably in order.

That said, KBH’s transportation vision still shows a lot of nearsightedness.  The biggest flaw remains her lack of backbone to support raising the gas tax.  Like all the politicos that have come before her, she is kowtowing to voters who don’t want their taxes raised.  But those same voters want their roads fixed and congestion reduced, and her plan doesn’t define where the money to do that will come from.  (To be fair, neither do the other candidates.)  In short, it’s the same thing we’ve been dealing with in this state for the past two decades.  Instead, she wants to appoint yet another committee to study the problem to see if there really is a need for additional funding, essentially sidelining that issue until after the election, despite several legislative and independent studies that already show the need is there, a growing chorus of newspaper editorial boards and trade groups endorsing an update to the gas tax, and despite plain old common sense and an understanding of basic economics.

She also says she will kill the Trans Texas Corridor once and for all.  I guess living in Washington, she’s not aware of the fact that it’s already dead.  Yes, the legal language authorizing it remains in the Transportation Code, but there’s still language in the TC authorizing emergency roadside callboxes, and I don’t see any of those around.

Her platform calls for ending diversions from the Highway Fund (except for the 25% that goes to public education), a position also supported by Rick Perry and pretty much every other politician.  That’s a great idea, but that’s something only the legislature can do, and from where the money will come for the programs that the current Peter Pan plan is backfilling is not discussed.

In her transportation plan, she mentions TxDOT’s 2008 $1 billion budget error, but then says, “We must restore our taxpayers’ trust that their transportation dollars are being efficiently and properly spent.”  This demonstrates that she doesn’t even understand what the issue was, a little disconcerting for someone who wants to be governor.

Lastly, her vision on toll roads is quite vague, and intentionally so I believe.  She supports tolling new roads and even public-private partnerships (PPPs), but has been mum about whether she supports PPPs that include foreign entities.  She’s really stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one– if she shows support for foreign companies operating Texas toll roads, she risks angering folks like Terri Hall and lots of other toll opponents around the state, but if she shows opposition to the foreign companies, she risks angering lots of voters in the DFW area who are quite content with Cintra coming-in and building two bigtime congestion-busting projects there.  The folks at the Dallas Morning News have been trying to get her to take a side for nearly two weeks now without any success.

So in the end, while I think some of her ideas are good ones, I think that overall it’s the same-old song-and-dance we’ve seen from politicians, one that offers some crumbs to folks looking to lambast the current administration over the state of transportation but doesn’t offer any real solutions.

I’ll take a look at the other candidate’s transportation plans in future posts.

First of all, let’s discuss what prompted their latest tirade.  On Monday, the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO) policy board will vote to approve the MPO’s 25 year long-range plan, known as “Mobility 2035“.  This plan, which is updated every five years and is required under federal law in order to receive federal transportation funds, defines the future transportation needs of the area and then consolidates and prioritizes all the planned transportation projects from the various local agencies.  Lots of computer modeling and simulations are done to determine the greatest needs and the impacts the various planned projects will have in order to make the best use of limited resources.  The plan then attempts to prognosticate future funding sources, something that, given the current transportation funding situation, is as much about guesswork as picking lottery numbers: 

Traditionally, financing future transportation projects would begin with an examination of historical state and federal funding levels.  To estimate future federal and state funding for the region, a forecast based on previous authorizations would be made.  However, the insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund, federal funding rescissions, the current economic recession, and periods of high gas prices that reduced the overall amount of driving coupled with more efficient vehicles, make estimating the future funding levels based on historical data, a challenge.  Simply projecting current revenues over the past several years for the future is no longer a viable methodology for revenue forecasting.  (Source: Mobility 2035 plan)

To assist MPOs with forecasting future funding, the Texas Transportation Institute developed a statewide transportation revenue forecasting model called TRENDS.  The MPO ran several “what-if” scenarios and found that only one, which used the all the “high-revenue assumptions” possible, produced any revenue for capacity improvement projects, and even then it only produced a “small amount” according to the MPO.  Therefore, the assumptions of the Mobility 2035 plan are that there essentially will be no traditional gas-tax funding available for congestion relief projects during the plan’s timeframe other than what is already budgeted.  That leaves rather paltry amounts of bond funds and other miscellaneous revenue streams available for mobility projects.  Those include Texas Mobility Funds, Prop 12 and Prop 14 (just a little more than $400 million total for the 25 year plan period, of which over $130 million has already been committed.)  In addition, there will be about $425 million in local Advanced Transportation District (ATD) revenue, $92 million in federal stimulus funds (already committed), and $87 million in pass-through financing, most or all of which is also already committed.  The plan assumes no local-option gas tax or other highly-variable funding, such as demonstration project or air quality mitigation funding, since there is no reliable means to forecast those amounts.

So that brings us to the reason why so many projects are listed as projected toll and CDA projects.  Since the assumption is that there will be no gas tax funds and minimal bond funding available for future mega-projects (including expansions of Loop 1604 and I-35, along with numerous interchanges, just to name a few), some other source of funding has to be assigned to them in order for the planning process for them to continue.  If no funding source is identified, then planning on those projects must cease, and that will delay them even longer.  So the MPO chose the only funding option that was still reasonable: tolling.

It is important to note that just because a project is listed as a projected toll project in the plan does not mean that it’s set in stone.  This is a point that TURF and the average citizen doesn’t understand.  But we have a great local example that proves this and also proves that authorities are absolutely willing to find non-toll alternatives: the Loop 1604/US 281 interchange project.  The entire interchange project was listed in previous MPO and ARMA plans as a toll project.  However, the unexpected availability of federal stimulus funds allowed at least half of that project to proceed as toll-free instead.  I would have hoped that TURF learned something from this and from the discussions resulting from their failed bid to remove the tolling option from 281 and 1604 recently– that leaving the toll option on the table makes sense because it keeps projects in the pipeline and gives planners the most flexibility to find funding for them.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on some specific deceptive statements and propaganda in TURF’s article.  First, they opine about how CDAs are now illegal and that the MPO is just “following TxDOT’s playbook of using it as a means to get CDAs re-authorized.”  Yes, the legislature did not re-authorize CDAs during their last regular session and subsequent special session, but they also did not ban them outright, and there is every possibility that they may re-authorize them sometime in the future.  One analyst at the Reason Foundation summed it up thusly:

As for Texas, it (CDAs) could go either way over the next few years.  The optimistic case would be that already-authorized CDA projects get completed or are well along in construction by the time of the next legislative session in 2011 while the funding gap widens even further.  The demonstration value of billion-dollar-scale PPP (public-private partnerships) toll roads being built while other needed highway projects languish for want of funding could be powerful.  And if large new public-private partnership investments are occurring in California, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, and Virginia by then, cooler heads may be able to argue that Texas should be getting its share of this investment.  That could bring back a CDA program, hopefully reformed along the lines of our 2008 committee’s recommendations.

So using CDAs as a possible future funding source is a valid mechanism to keep projects alive in the long-range plan.

Another false allegation by TURF is that CDAs would hand control of Texas roads over to foreign corporations.  This is a frequent scare-tactic used by TURF.  While it is certainly possible that a foreign company or consortium could bid to build and operate a toll project here, there is just as much likelihood that a US or Texas company or consortium would.  And, as mentioned before, listing a project as a projected CDA-funded project does not guarantee that it will be developed as a CDA.  It might be developed by a local toll authority or even be built as a toll-free project if funding becomes available.

Then they use another bit of rhetoric in their bag– that being that toll rates could be 75 cents per mile.  That is the maximum possible peak-hour toll rate that can be charged in North Texas on managed lanes (special express lanes in the middle of an existing toll-free freeway.)  For now, the two such projects in that area are expected to have a toll rate of 50-53 cents during peak periods and a non-peak toll of just nine cents per mile.  Again, these are tolls for optional express lanes adjacent to toll-free expressway lanes.  By comparison, the new Katy Freeway managed lanes in Houston have a peak toll rate of about 22 cents per mile by my calculations, so what’s happening in North Texas is by no means indicative of what can or will happen elsewhere in the state (including here.)  (Oops, I omitted one toll plaza from my calculations.  With that third plaza, it looks like the Katy managed lanes are also about 50 cents per mile during peak periods.)

Then there’s a whole laundry list of TURF’s perceived evils of CDAs that I won’t even spend the time trying to refute other than to say that, like the other examples I discussed, they are mostly inflated, misinterpreted, or are not automatically applicable to every CDA.

So in summary, what TURF and even sincerely concerned citizens need to understand is this: at present, there is no expectation of gas tax funds for future transportation expansion projects.  In order for planning for probable future projects to continue, they must be pigeon-holed with a reasonable funding source in the long-range plan.  Otherwise, development on those projects must stop and that will delay them even more.  CDAs, while not currently authorized, are still a possible and therefore viable future funding source, so classifying the big, long-range projects as CDAs now allows basic planning work to continue on them.  But classifying them as CDAs in no way guarantees that’s how they’ll eventually come to fruition.

Sorry for the verbose post, but this issue really needed a thorough explanation.

Late last week, state Senator John Carona (R-Dallas), who chairs the Senate’s Transportation and Homeland Security committee, proposed a 10 cent increase in the state’s gas tax to bolster dwindling funding for roads. (Express-News story)

This, my friends, shows real courage and a real understanding of the transportation funding crisis that has lead to the plethora of toll road projects around the state.

As I wrote in a pair of previous posts (starting here), the underlying issue that is driving TxDOT and local agencies to toll roads (no pun intended) is that the gas tax has not been increased since 1991.  As a flat tax, its value has been whittled away by inflation and improved MPG over the past two decades.  Therefore, TxDOT simply no longer has the income required to build projects at today’s costs.

Increasing the gas tax is the logical first step.  Mr. Carona also takes the important second step, which is to index the gas tax to inflation going forward.  This at least helps it tread water as its value will be fixed to real world economics.

As I discussed earlier, the necessary solution is a tripod of fixes, the first two legs being those strategies mentioned above.  The third leg of the tripod is to end diversions of the gas tax to non-transportation uses.  I know Mr. Carona also supports that, although he didn’t specifically mention it in his latest proposal.

And it’s not just Mr. Carona who “gets it”.  Local state Sentator Jeff Wentworth also does, and sadly took a beating when he tried to explain this to the mob at the recent MPO vote on dropping toll proposals for 281 and 1604.

As expected, Governor Perry immediately came out against Carona’s proposal.  I typically agree with Perry on most issues, but his hard-line no-new-taxes stance is the absolutely wrong position to take here.  Hopefully he’ll see the light if it passes the Leg in 2011 and he’s still in office.

Now, while I’m all for Carona’s fixes, let me add a new caveat: these really are only temporary measures.  With fuel-economy set to improve substantially over the next decade, the gas tax will simply become obsolete, or will have to be increased to unsustainable levels.  The ultimate solution is going to have to be some sort of mileage-based tax.  Testing on several such systems is already underway.  However, because these systems typically track the vehicle’s location in order to determine distance traveled, there are privacy concerns despite the fact that the systems reportedly don’t actually store that tracking information, just the accrued distances.  But proving that to the legion of government cynics and even just the average Joe who is sincerely concerned about Big Brother will be pretty much impossible.  However, I will tell you that, from what I’ve read, you have more to worry about from Google than you do the currently proposed mileage-tax tracking systems.  But that’s a discussion for another time.

My wife and I have had this conversation several times.  She understands the problem, but is of the mind that tolls should be the option of absolute last resort—they need to fix the gas tax problems first.  In essence, she thinks that the current toll paradigm is getting the cart before the horse.

While she has a point, my view is that the horse is dead and that we need to quit beating it and instead hitch our carts up to a different horse that’s going somewhere.  That horse may be mangy and carrying equine flu, but I’m not going to look in its mouth just yet because it’s the only hope right now of getting me where I need to go.  That said, if a nice thoroughbred trots up, I’ll happily send my nag to the glue factory. 

If you had a hard time following the horse metaphors and clichés, let me put it like this: tolls are the best solution we have at the moment and for the foreseeable future.  Because the Legislature has not fixed the gas tax in nearly two decades and has shown no obvious signs of being willing to do so anytime soon*, we can’t afford to sit around with our heads in the sand hoping they’ll see the light someday soon.  We’ve been left to fend for ourselves, and tolls are the only mechanism available at the moment that has the horsepower (sorry for another horse reference) to get the job done.  The Legislature even shot-down a bill in their last session that would have allowed local areas to tax themselves for road improvements—that’s how stubborn they are about this.

Now, if by some miracle-of-miracles the Legislature does fix the gas tax problem (I’ll talk about what that means in a minute), or at least gives local areas the option to increase their own tax (and we approve it here), then I believe that resolves and supersedes the need for tolling.   

Now here is the caveat: “fixing the gas tax” means three things:

1. Increasing it to make-up for the loss of value due to inflation since 1991.  Depending on which formula you use, this means a 12 to 15 cent increase.
2. Automatically indexing it to inflation going forward.  Either the CPI or HCI (Highway Cost Index) will suffice in my eyes.
3. Cease all diversions from the highway fund.  I’m on the fence about the 25% of gas tax revenues that go to public education since the likely scenario to make-up that money is higher property taxes.  But all other pilfering (e.g. DPS) must cease.

Not doing all three of the above only fixes part of the problem, which by definition does not solve the problem.  Many folks think that just doing #3 is the magic answer, but it’s not, for reasons I explained in Wednesday’s post.

So, for the record: I support fixing the gas tax as I have described above.  Alternatively, I support the so-called “local-option” tax, where we could vote to increase the gas taxes here in San Antonio to fix our own problems.  In a shock of all shocks, toll opponent Terri Hall and I see eye-to-eye on this.

Do either of the above, and I agree that the need for tolling most new projects becomes moot.  Until then, I believe that tolling is the best—and pretty much only—option on the table.  As “Steve” said in a reply to Wednesday’s post, nobody wants toll roads, but it’s all that we’re left with right now.  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  (A horse in the hand… oh, never mind.)

Which leads to the question as to whether the current tolling plans just allow the Legislature to perpetuate the status quo.  Answer: maybe.  Yes, I can see why some would think that (including my wife.)  But I can also see that toll roads have ticked a lot of people off to the point that they’re pushing back on our elected officials and thus making transportation policy a central issue.  I don’t think that would have happened without the impetus of toll roads to ruffle people’s feathers.  People were obviously content with (or unaware of) what was happening and only got involved when the direct result of that apathy started to rear its head.  So, in a bit of irony, maybe the whole toll road brouhaha is what gets the gas tax problem fixed once and for all.

What do you think?

(* I just discovered that legislators are crafting a bill for the 2011 session that would fix the gas tax.  Read more about it here and keep your fingers crossed that it survives the inevitable infighting that will ensue.  I’m not holding my breath though.)

The core problem that has lead us to the current mess is the gas tax.  Here in Texas, we pay 20 cents per gallon in state motor fuel taxes each time we buy gas or diesel.  That amount has been fixed since 1991 and the Legislature, in a self-serving and shortsighted effort to placate an anti-tax constituency, has not shown any interest in increasing it.  If you stayed awake during your high school economics class, then you probably remember learning about the concept of inflation.  What 20 cents could purchase in 1991 is considerably more than it can purchase in 2009 because the value of the dollar has decreased over those years.  In fact, based purely on the Consumer Price Index, something that cost 20 cents in 1991 costs 32 cents today, a 60% increase!  And highway construction costs have escalated at rates substantially higher than the CPI.  So while TxDOT has to pay 2009 prices for the work it needs done, it’s having to do so with revenue fixed at 1991 rates.  It would be like you or me having to pay today’s bills while earning what our job paid in 1991.

On top of that, better fuel economy since 1991 has meant that most drivers pay less tax per mile now than they did in 1991.  So while it is true that there are more vehicles on the road traveling more miles than in 1991, the state has to build and maintain more roads to support those increases while motorists are paying less per mile of use.  The cost of building and maintaining each mile of road has gone up; what drivers pay for each mile of road has gone down—I think it’s pretty simple to see the Catch-22 there.  And with the recent hubbub about making substantial improvements to MPG, this is a problem that will only get worse.

As if that weren’t bad enough, not all that we pay in gas taxes even goes to pay for our roads and other transportation systems.  The state’s constitution, since 1946, has directed that 25% of motor fuel tax revenues go to public education.  After collection costs, the rest goes into the state’s highway fund, where the Legislature has taken 10% or more for as long as I can remember to pay for ancillary things including DPS, TxDOT employee benefits, and matching funds for Medicare/Medicaid ambulance rides, all items that should be paid for from other pots of money, including the General Fund.

To summarize, roads and transportation are getting shortchanged by our elected officials.  Since the Legislature has refused to fix the gas tax problem (and actually adds to it every biennium), and the governor has threatened to veto any tax increases anyway, TxDOT has been left to find other ways to pay for big-ticket projects.  So in 2003, at the direction of the Texas Transportation Commission, the executive committee appointed by the governor that oversees TxDOT, all expressway projects in the state were studied for toll viability and converted to toll projects if they were deemed to be feasible.  In a sense, TxDOT is simply doing what they’ve been told to do by their bosses, although some would argue that they’re doing it too well.  Regardless, they’re playing the hand they’ve been dealt.

It’s important to understand that tolls themselves are not intended to be a congestion-relief tool like congestion pricing is.  Rather, it’s the improvements paid for by tolls that will relieve congestion.

Hopefully now you see why tolls are being proposed and implemented to the extent that they are.  Now whether tolls are the right answer, and how to fix things without tolls, leads us to a huge chicken-and-egg question that I’ll hash out in my next post.