Gov. Perry insisted that MARKET VALUATION be inserted into Texas Senate Bill 792. This is a long bill. They did not open this bill to public testimony. They rushed it through the Senate, suspending the rules so that they could take all three reading in one day and vote it out of the Senate untouched. It became known as Perry's compromise transportation bill and was seen as the last chance to get the 2 year moratorium on toll roads passed and signed into law by the Governor.Read more
Fortunately on the floor of the Texas House there were a few people with more spine than the lap dogs in the Senate who red stamped Perry’s dictates. Some DFW area reps argued against application of Market Valuation on SH 161. They didn't touch the real problem but only complained that it might slow down the projects. The big problem in that adding market valuation turns all toll projects into CDAs requiring rates high enough to generate billions of dollars of surplus toll revenue to be paid as concession payments to the RTCs and TxDOT!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
TX - Action Alert - Tic Tic Tic the Clock is tickin' - TTC bomb buried in legislation
by Faith Chatham - Daily Kos and Texas Kaos -Wed May 23, 2007
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Mr. 39% is a crook. He seeks to take and toll our freeways and push forward his unpopular TTC land grab.
Sal "The Muckraker" Costello
http://salcostello.blogspot.com/
Today buried in the last paragraph of a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article about transportation plans for the 2011 Super Bowl game was this tidbit:
"Interstate 30 is getting a facelift, including median TollTag lanes stretching from Dallas to the stadium, and new bridges at Arlington’s entertainment district. On Texas 360, the Division Street overpass will be rebuilt, providing a southern stadium entrance. The project includes a new railroad bridge, which will have room for a commuter rail line."
There is nothing in the 2030 Mobility plan about tolling I-30. It isn't in the TIP (Transportation Plan - a document of over 400 pages!)
How many times to taxpayers have to pay for a corridor? Where do these bums stop!
I stand corrected. Gordon Dickson told me that "they got a special act of Congress to allow a pilot program on valuation so that the center lane of I-30 can be a tolled HOV lane!" Gordon said that when they were presenting the concept of the Cowboy Stadium there was an animated view of cars going along I-30 in the center lane of I-30 on the City of Arlington website. He says it wasn't labeled toll but was an HOV lane.
The 2030 Moblity Plan shows 675 miles of toll lanes, but those are the state highway projects which TxDot is working to get built with this surplus toll revenue money raising/er citizen fleecing scheme.
They have managed to put it out there enough to say they shared it with the people yet not enough for it to resonate with the people enough for most folks to realize what is coming down the pike... and this time it is literally the old tollroad turnpike.
The one project folks up here think happened right was the DFW Turnpike becoming I-30 when enough tolls had been collected to pay off the bonds. These folks just don't know when to stop.
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