Senate avoids Perry veto, OKs compromise bill on toll roads

Measure extends some local control, brakes on privately operated roads

May 15, 2007

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – The Senate swerved to avoid a governor's veto and possible special session by unanimously approving a compromise bill on toll roads that will extend some local control and tap the brakes on privately operated roads, supporters said Monday.

The new proposal will have regional mobility groups working with the Texas Department of Transportation to establish a market value of proposed toll roads and then give the local entities 90 days to opt-in to developing the project.

The House and Senate had overwhelmingly passed a bill that transferred much of TxDOT's authority to local entities and placed a moratorium – albeit one with numerous exceptions for planned projects – on new toll road developments.

Gov. Rick Perry, who has made transportation development a chief goal of his administration, vowed to fight the bill as an unworkable mish-mash that would cost federal highway dollars and do nothing to alleviate traffic.

Regardless, lawmakers liked the old bill but recognized the uphill fight against the governor.

"I believe that was a good bill," the author, Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said Monday. "This makes it better."

He said the new compromise also "avoids us from having to become involved in an exhaustive veto override fight."

Lawmakers have openly rebelled against a transportation statute enacted four years ago that opened the door for competitive development agreements. The so-called CDAs were imagined as public entities working with TxDOT to create roadways through creative financing, such as toll roads.

But TxDOT used the provision to aggressively involve private companies in building highways and then leasing them for up to 70 years, which gives the state up-front money. Lawmakers decried the push as the sale of state roadways to the highest bidder, which would cost commuters for decades.

Under the new bill, which still must pass the House with only two weeks left in the session, private toll road contracts could last no more than 50 years.

It also allows the state to buy back a profitable road based on the original projections of toll revenue over the life of the project.

Under the compromise, local authorities would work with TxDOT or a third party to establish the market value of a toll road. If the local entities agreed to the market projection, they would have the first right of refusal to develop the roadway. If they passed on development, TxDOT could do the work itself or contract it out to a private company.

Local entities also would have some ability to stop the development if it was unwarranted by the market study.

"Ultimately when you compare what this does with where we were before we got here in January, it does a lot," said Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, a former TxDOT commissioner who led the push for a moratorium.

"It does put a cooler and a damper on some of these runaway projects," he said.

Mr. Perry praised the compromise as a good effort that "allows projects important to local communities to go forward, recognizing that Texas is a fast-growing state with real congestion concerns that cannot be put on hold."

But CorridorWatch, a grass-roots group opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor and other private tollway projects, said it is concerned that the new compromise has "loopholes big enough to drive any TTC CDA through."

CorridorWatch co-founder Linda Stall said she was unimpressed with the governor's veto threats.

"Special session? Bring it on. If any one issue deserves more study and more of a thorough look, it's transportation," she said.