With great fanfare
Thursday (05.29.08) the Texas Transportation Commission passed a Minute
Order proclaiming their "Toll Road Principles." Sadly many media outlets
went along with the TxDOT public relations effort and publicized their
action as if they had actually done something new. Worse yet, some
lawmakers appear to be taking comfort that this signals a change in
direction.
Unfortunately for
Texans last week's action by the Commission is meaningless arm waving
that provides no new commitment, relief, or public protection from toll
road abuses and the Trans Texas Corridor. Their much ballyhooed Minute
Order is as binding as any other flashy political campaign material. The
only statement they made that we can wholly agree with is that of
Chairman Delisi when she said, "Texans deserve a clear, straightforward
explanation of what we are doing to solve our transportation challenges
. . ." We agree and are still waiting for that day to come.
The Commission
identified five key issues:
1. State
ownership of highways and facilities. We don't know of any
credible assertion otherwise. It's a non-issue that provides an
opportunity to give an easy answer and distract the public from the
'real' issues.
2. Inclusion of
buy back provisions. That's the easy part, what Texas needs is
meaningful protection from excessively high (cost prohibitive) buy
back costs. Failure to contain the buy back costs will make that
provision useless.
3. Approval of
initial toll rates and toll increase methodology. The devil is
in the details. All 'approvals' of the Commission occur at a public
meeting. That's quite different than having public involvement. Long
before the initial rate is set and the increase methodology is
established, a contract is negotiated in secret and the financial
structure is put in place that will drive the toll requirements.
Texans will have already contracted for the project and that will
force the toll rates.
4. Only new
lanes to be tolled. Okay, that is a shift from 2005. But, it
continues to imply what TxDOT has said before (about TTC-35), that
they do not intend to expand the existing free (competing) highways
(IH-35) beyond the current expansion plans. In fact that might even
be stipulated in the Facility Agreement. If so, it will leave
motorists with fewer options in the future as traffic continues to
increase and only toll lanes are available to accommodate that
increased demand.
5. No
non-compete clauses. When non-compete clauses became a hot topic
TxDOT switched to compete penalties. This replaces "prohibited" with
"financially prohibitive." The effect is the same. If we can't
afford to build roads we certainly won't be able to afford building
roads that have the added cost of a compete penalty. We must also
wonder if TxDOT is intentionally playing more word games by
specifically referencing Comprehensive Development Agreements and
not Facility Agreements. It was that very legal detail that TxDOT
used to tell the legislature (after the session ended) that their
two-year moratorium on the TTC would not apply to TTC-35. If so,
this minute order won't apply to TTC-35 either.
They identified two
principles:
1. Consider use
of existing right-of-way. Considering is about as low on the
scale of commitment as is possible. Whenever TxDOT is required to
comply with the National Environmental Protection Act consideration
of existing right-of-way is required. However, in the case of TTC-35
that consideration didn't even make the list of possible
alternatives. How about committing to use existing right-of-way?
2. Planning
effort to preserve property original property tracts. Again the
devil is in the details, in this case determining to what extent is
practical. Projects like the TTC have financial constraints
introduced by a "private partner" and exceptional engineering
requirements that will assure that moving the alignment (placement)
of the project is likely to never be practical.
CorridorWatch takes no
comfort in this most recent action by the Commission. However, we are
always willing to participate in the process and encourage the
Transportation Commission and Texas Legislature to make meaningful
improvements in transportation planning and implementation processes.
Our goal is to ensure that Texans can have improved, safe and reliable
transportation systems that are developed through a transparent process
and managed in a way that is accountable to the citizens and taxpayers.
