Bill to Hold Comprehensive Development Agreements for 2-Years Can Stop the

Trans Texas Corridor

Passing this bill will provide enough time to expose the bad public policy of the TTC and high-cost and adverse impact of public-private toll roads.

The public-private deals negotiated by TxDOT and the Transportation Commission behind closed doors are not in the best interest of any region of Texas. Whether it's TTC-35 or SH-121, these projects will have long-term costs to our State and citizens that cannot be fully calculated from the information available today.

Regions like DFW should not be coerced into a bad deal because it looks like the only deal. It's not.

Enormous financial decisions are being made in the rush to cash in on public-private partnership development agreements; and, it's happening without adequate information, disclosure, debate, analysis, study or review. The immediate benefits are attractive but the long-term risks and liabilities are virtually unknown.

The people of Texas are at tremendous risk. Regardless of the source of funds, the entire cost including design, construction, maintenance, operation, financing, and return on investment will be paid almost exclusively by Texas consumers.

Franchise fees collected by the concessionaire and passed back to the State will become a new Shadow Tax. 

Average and low income motorists may be unable to afford tolls. The cost of goods, services and utilities will increase to everyone as tolls and fees are passed along to the consumer. By design free alternatives will remain choked with the congestion necessary to ensure profitable toll roads, or we will be forced to pay the toll road operator for the privilege of building additional free road capacity or other competing transportation systems.

It's difficult to see what risk our private will assume since they will pick only the most profitable routes, control every aspect of development, set tolls at whatever level they desire, own all toll revenue, use the state to collect their tolls, have the tax advantages of ownership, adjust payment to the state downward for variables such as inflation, and even increased construction costs. Plus they will be compensated for revenue losses created by new or expanded highways that adversely effect their for-profit road.

TxDOT assures us that the pending TTC-35 agreement will not interfere with the 20-year expansion plan for I-35. The fact is I-35's improvement plan is insufficient on its face or we would not need the additional capacity and accelerated construction schedule promised by TTC-35.

If traffic volumes continue to increase at the rates projected, we will find that on whatever day the 20-year plan is completed we will still need greater capacity.

If so, we will find ourselves bound by 30 or more years of competitive restrictions that limit our ability to expand highways within the corridor zone. Such restriction is particularly ominous because, as TxDOT touts, 45% of the state's population lives with that zone.

If highway construction costs are prohibitively high today, what's the impact of adding a non-compete penalty cost to the acquisition and construction cost of every future project?

Don't count on a buyout provision to provide meaningful protection. Under the current scheme the cost of buying out any element of the TTC will be unimaginably unaffordable.

We are on the verge of relinquishing control of vital public infrastructure in ways that cannot be fully appreciated today.

Transportation has changed dramatically over the last 50 years and will certainly change dramatically over the next 50.

Imagine having a state transportation system today that is still limited for two more years by the restrictions, terms and conditions of a CDA that was signed in 1959.

I hope that we can stop and give proper consideration to these CDAs now so that Texas does not have to wait for the 106th Legislature in 2058 to correct the bad deals we initiate during the next two years.