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Toll roads shouldn't be only state option

10/01/2007

By The Enterprise [Beaumont, TX]

It shouldn't come to this bleak choice in Texas: more toll roads or no new roads. Unfortunately, that's what one member of the Texas Transportation Commission suggested last week. Ned Holmes of Houston said that without major changes in state policy, Texans won't see any new highway projects started soon.

Holmes and others say that by 2011, the state will have only enough money to maintain existing highways and pay debt on bonds sold in recent years that are backed by gasoline tax money. This year, the Legislature banned most new private toll road projects while refusing to increase the state's gas tax.

The pessimism seems unfounded. State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said: "It's always gloom-and-doom. There's a move in Congress to look at other sources of funding."

State officials must fix this problem now. There has to a better choice than more toll roads or no new roads. Texans pay too much money in fees and taxes to be faced with those grim and limited options.

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