Chambers and Montgomery counties will be the first to use "shadow tolls."
Alternate route to road financing
Chambers County opts to pay up front for new project, then seek reimbursement
Oct. 9, 2005,
By PATRICK KURP
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
A rural county east of Houston is the second in the area to adopt a new — and some say risky — way to pay for road projects.
Known as pass-through tolls (or, less flatteringly, "shadow tolls"), a county or municipality pays up front for road projects and gets reimbursed by the state based on the number of vehicles using the road.
In other words, they are not tolls at all, in the customary sense.
The funding mechanism, approved by the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003, has been used in Europe but less in the United States.
Last month, the commission authorized its executive director to negotiate a pass-through toll agreement with Chambers County.
The projected work includes extending FM 1409 from FM 565 north of Interstate 10 to FM 565 south of I-10, as well as improvements to Fisher Road, totaling about five miles of roadway.
"The county population is 26,000, but about two-thirds of those people live in the western one-third of the county. A lot of those people are commuters, going to work in Houston and ... Liberty County. This is a real necessity for us," said Don Brandon, Chambers County engineer.
Montgomery County, north of Houston, also is one of 14 counties or communities that have applied to the state for pass-through funding, according to James Bass, chief financial officer for the Texas Department of Transportation. Three applications have been approved, including Montgomery and Chambers counties.
Linda Stall, co-founder of Corridor Watch, a watchdog group monitoring development of the state's transportation system, urged communities to proceed cautiously when entering into pass-through toll agreements.
"The first time for anything is risky. We'd like to know if the citizens of Montgomery County and Chambers County were fully informed about how they'll be paid back, especially if TxDOT falls short of revenues," Stall said.
Officials in Montgomery County, the 36th fastest-growing county in the U.S., say the funding program is needed because of traffic congestion.
"This is something we should have done a long time ago. We have miles and miles of gridlock every day," said Montgomery County Judge Alan B. Sadler, who estimated that between 40 percent and 45 percent of his county's population of 293,768 commutes to Harris County daily.
In September, Montgomery County voters overwhelmingly approved a $160-million road bond measure, allowing the county to become the first to take advantage of the pass-through toll program.
The measure included $100 million to expand FM 1488, FM 1485, FM 1484 and FM 1314 from two lanes to four, and to build a direct connection between Texas 242 and Interstate 45. The remaining $60 million is earmarked for local roads.
Sadler expects the roadwork to begin by the end of this year and to be completed in about four years. County officials have said taxpayers can expect to see a 2-cent increase in the tax rate of 49.63 cents per $100 assessed valuation. For the owner of a $100,000 home, the tax bill would increase by $20 annually.
"This is just the first step in a long process," Sadler said. "We don't like adding to our debts, but this was almost a desperate act to get the job done."
Less sanguine about the funding method is David Crossley, president of the Gulf Coast Institute, a Houston-based think tank for urban issues.
"I'm deeply suspicious of so-called pass-through tolls. It looks to me like taking money from the future and spending it now, without any land-use considerations," Crossley said.
Bass said the pass-through toll idea involves potential risk for both the state and the local government.
"How much of this benefit will accrue to the state overall and how much to local interests? Ideally, both parties benefit," Bass said.
Stall wondered about the long-range planning that goes into building more and larger highways in Texas.
"How do we envision our state? Are we simply serving unlimited growth? We're changing the face of Texas so fast, maybe more than we want," she said.
traffic@chron.com
Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com
Chambers County opts to pay up front for new project, then seek reimbursement
Oct. 9, 2005,
By PATRICK KURP
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
A rural county east of Houston is the second in the area to adopt a new — and some say risky — way to pay for road projects.
Known as pass-through tolls (or, less flatteringly, "shadow tolls"), a county or municipality pays up front for road projects and gets reimbursed by the state based on the number of vehicles using the road.
In other words, they are not tolls at all, in the customary sense.
The funding mechanism, approved by the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003, has been used in Europe but less in the United States.
Last month, the commission authorized its executive director to negotiate a pass-through toll agreement with Chambers County.
The projected work includes extending FM 1409 from FM 565 north of Interstate 10 to FM 565 south of I-10, as well as improvements to Fisher Road, totaling about five miles of roadway.
"The county population is 26,000, but about two-thirds of those people live in the western one-third of the county. A lot of those people are commuters, going to work in Houston and ... Liberty County. This is a real necessity for us," said Don Brandon, Chambers County engineer.
Montgomery County, north of Houston, also is one of 14 counties or communities that have applied to the state for pass-through funding, according to James Bass, chief financial officer for the Texas Department of Transportation. Three applications have been approved, including Montgomery and Chambers counties.
Linda Stall, co-founder of Corridor Watch, a watchdog group monitoring development of the state's transportation system, urged communities to proceed cautiously when entering into pass-through toll agreements.
"The first time for anything is risky. We'd like to know if the citizens of Montgomery County and Chambers County were fully informed about how they'll be paid back, especially if TxDOT falls short of revenues," Stall said.
Officials in Montgomery County, the 36th fastest-growing county in the U.S., say the funding program is needed because of traffic congestion.
"This is something we should have done a long time ago. We have miles and miles of gridlock every day," said Montgomery County Judge Alan B. Sadler, who estimated that between 40 percent and 45 percent of his county's population of 293,768 commutes to Harris County daily.
In September, Montgomery County voters overwhelmingly approved a $160-million road bond measure, allowing the county to become the first to take advantage of the pass-through toll program.
The measure included $100 million to expand FM 1488, FM 1485, FM 1484 and FM 1314 from two lanes to four, and to build a direct connection between Texas 242 and Interstate 45. The remaining $60 million is earmarked for local roads.
Sadler expects the roadwork to begin by the end of this year and to be completed in about four years. County officials have said taxpayers can expect to see a 2-cent increase in the tax rate of 49.63 cents per $100 assessed valuation. For the owner of a $100,000 home, the tax bill would increase by $20 annually.
"This is just the first step in a long process," Sadler said. "We don't like adding to our debts, but this was almost a desperate act to get the job done."
Less sanguine about the funding method is David Crossley, president of the Gulf Coast Institute, a Houston-based think tank for urban issues.
"I'm deeply suspicious of so-called pass-through tolls. It looks to me like taking money from the future and spending it now, without any land-use considerations," Crossley said.
Bass said the pass-through toll idea involves potential risk for both the state and the local government.
"How much of this benefit will accrue to the state overall and how much to local interests? Ideally, both parties benefit," Bass said.
Stall wondered about the long-range planning that goes into building more and larger highways in Texas.
"How do we envision our state? Are we simply serving unlimited growth? We're changing the face of Texas so fast, maybe more than we want," she said.
traffic@chron.com
Houston Chronicle:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Sunday, October 09, 2005
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