Smithey will continue to serve on the Trans-Texas Corridor "Advisory Committee"

Seat on transportation board opens

Dallas County: Member's election loss means he's no longer eligible


May 26, 2006
By HERB BOOTH
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2006

The mayors of a few southwest Dallas County cities are meeting this morning to decide who should replace Grady Smithey on the powerful Regional Transportation Council after his narrow defeat in the Duncanville City Council race.

The transportation council is a conduit for state and federal highway funding for government entities in 16 North Texas counties.

Mr. Smithey – who had served on the RTC for more than a decade – lost to Deborah Hodge by three votes in the May 13 District 4 contest. RTC bylaws say that the person who represents the cities in southwest Dallas County – Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Duncanville, Lancaster and Glenn Heights – must be an elected official.

Lancaster council member Carol Strain-Burk and Duncanville council member Dorothy Burton have expressed interest in the position.

Ms. Strain-Burk said she thinks transportation affects everything in communities, including economic development and quality-of-life issues, like the environment.

"I would put my record up against anyone," said Ms. Strain-Burk, who added that she has hosted a few conferences and meetings concerning transportation and "green" development in the southern sector. "I feel I have the leadership qualities to be effective."

Ms. Burton said the mayors have a difficult decision to make and that she will support their choice.

"I believe it would be inappropriate and premature at this point for me to make any comments," Ms. Burton said.

Three of the mayors wouldn't say whom they might prefer for the spot. But Lancaster Mayor Joe Tillotson said he would push hard for Ms. Strain-Burk.

"She wants to serve and has indicated she has the time to put in. She's highly interested in transportation," Mr. Tillotson said. "I'm going to plug her. We will have to get a hard worker to replace Grady because anyone we appoint will pale in significance as an influential member of the council – at least immediately."

All the mayors agree that it will be difficult to replace Mr. Smithey and the wealth of institutional knowledge he carried about highway funding.

A passionate advocate for transportation projects in southern Dallas County, Mr. Smithey regularly quoted statistics to rail against inequities of transportation spending in the region. The mayors also say that Mr. Smithey's replacement will face a steep learning curve in trying to master the voluminous material needed to represent the region at the negotiations table.

Mr. Smithey said he wouldn't presume to tell the mayors who should follow him, but he said his longevity and work has produced results for southern Dallas County.

"With all due respect, no one has worked on transportation as hard as I have," Mr. Smithey said. "Truth be told, that's the biggest loss for the citizens of Duncanville and this area. Anything TxDOT recommends for this urban area, RTC has to sign off on it."

Mr. Smithey won't completely abdicate his transportation stature. He will continue to serve as a Dallas County appointee to the Dallas Regional Mobility Commission and the Trans-Texas Corridor Advisory Committee, in which he is a gubernatorial appointee.

Those who worked on the RTC with Mr. Smithey praised his abilities.

Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Texas Council of Governments, said Mr. Smithey brought three characteristics to the table that made him a good RTC member: intellectual capacity to understand the issues, passion in what he believed in and a strong work ethic.

"In the 20-something years I've been working here, he's in the top five," Mr. Morris said. "As a staff member, that's all you can ask for."

The southwest mayors agreed that Mr. Smithey's experience and influence would be tough to replace, but some said the longtime RTC member sometimes brushed people the wrong way, too.

"We have to find out who will be willing to go to the mat for the region's needs," DeSoto Mayor Michael Hurtt said. He added that Mr. Smithey has been influential, but "Grady has created some hurdles because he's been so straightforward for so long," he said. "At times, this has been a stumbling block, too."

Collin County Judge Ron Harris, who sometimes played Mr. Smithey's adversary on the RTC and the Dallas Regional Mobility Commission, said his Duncanville colleague is a formidable opponent.

"He was passionate. We've had our disagreements. We've had fun," Mr. Harris said.

So much fun that a couple of weeks ago Mr. Harris adjourned a Dallas Regional Mobility Commission meeting when Mr. Smithey offered a lengthy discussion while debating a committee appointment process.

"Look, we had already been there for an hour," Mr. Harris said. "Bottom line is, I think he brought credibility to the table for his area. He's been a good representative for south Dallas County."

E-mail hbooth@dallasnews.com

© 2006 The Dallas Morning News Co www.dallasnews.com

Texas Transportation Commissioner says locals should step aside and let the big dogs eat

State won't push for local route change

May. 26, 2006

Gordon Dickson
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2006

New evidence of the state's move to privatize roads was on display Thursday, when members of the Texas Transportation Commission said they will not pressure the private consortium Cintra Zachry to build the Trans-Texas Corridor closer to Dallas-Fort Worth.

About 100 North Texas elected officials and business leaders had traveled to Austin to ask the commission to force Cintra Zachry to build the highway as a loop around Dallas-Fort Worth. But the commission refused.

"If you aggressively invite the private sector to be your partner, you can't tell them where to build the road," commission Chairman Ric Williamson of Weatherford said.

Cintra Zachry, a combination of companies from Spain and San Antonio hired by the state, plans to have the Trans-Texas toll road bypass the Metroplex to the east of Dallas. Cintra Zachry has said it can build the $6 billion highway with private money -- no gas-tax dollars -- and pay the state a $1.2 billion concession fee for the right to collect tolls for 50 years.

The Dallas portion could be built by 2015. A toll road and freight rail line around the west side of Fort Worth would be added several years later.

But Metroplex officials are concerned that the project would cause leapfrog development outside the Metroplex and drain jobs away from the urban core. The outer loop would make it easier to incorporate the toll road into the region's freeway plans, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

After the exchange with Williamson, North Texas leaders said they plan to meet with Cintra Zachry engineers to share statistics. They say Metroplex freight companies would rather have the toll road follow Interstate 35, 35E and 35W more closely.

Morris' office has proposed that the highway be built in a more or less straight north-south line from San Antonio through Austin and Waco to Mansfield, where it would connect with an outer loop. Those wishing to go through the Metroplex could connect with a proposed Texas 360 toll road in Mansfield.

The proposal could shorten the project by 60 miles and save Cintra Zachry $1.9 billion, Morris said.

"It isn't the public and private sector operating in a vacuum," Morris said during the meeting. "We don't think we're asking the private sector to do something that's foreign to them."

But Cintra Zachry officials have consistently said the most profitable path for a toll road would steer clear of the Metroplex.

Despite the Trans-Texas disagreement, state and local officials agreed to support one another in plans for toll roads, express toll lanes and freight- and passenger-rail lines. The state is expected to experience an $86 billion highway-funding shortfall through 2030.

Those appearing on behalf of the Metroplex included developer Ross Perot Jr.; Pete Rickershauer, vice president of BNSF Railway; and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief. The North Texas group, known informally as Dallas-Fort Worth Partners in Mobility, meets annually with the commission to discuss plans to reduce Metroplex gridlock and build roads, despite a chronic funding shortfall.

The Trans-Texas Corridor will be the subject of more than 50 public hearings statewide this summer, although the Texas Department of Transportation, not Cintra Zachry, is guiding that process.

Also Thursday, the North Texas group called for lawmakers to stop diverting about a quarter of the state's gas-tax revenue to education and instead spend that money on relieving gridlock.

Gordon Dickson, (817) 685-3816 gdickson@star-telegram.com



© 2006 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: www.dfw.com

Ric Williamson: "You can’t tell them where to build the road.”

Search 'Ric Williamson' in TTC News Archives HERE

Route change request rejected

5/25/06

By GORDON DICKSON
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2006

AUSTIN — Companies that are willing to pay for the right to build toll roads in Texas should have wide latitude to decide where they’re built, state officials told Metroplex leaders Thursday.

New evidence of the state’s move to privatize roads was on display Thursday, when members of the Texas Transportation Commission said they will not pressure the private consortium Cintra Zachry to build the Trans-Texas Corridor closer to Dallas-Fort Worth.

About 100 North Texas elected officials and business leaders had traveled to Austin to ask the commission to force Cintra Zachry to build the highway as a loop around Dallas-Fort Worth. But the commission refused.

“If you aggressively invite the private sector to be your partner, you can’t tell them where to build the road,” commission Chairman Ric Williamson of Weatherford said.

Cintra Zachry, a combination of companies from Spain and San Antonio hired by the state, plans to have the Trans-Texas toll road bypass the Metroplex to the east of Dallas. Cintra Zachry has said it can build the $6 billion highway with private money — no gas-tax dollars — and pay the state a $1.2 billion concession fee for the right to collect tolls for 50 years.

The Dallas portion could be built by 2015. A toll road and freight rail line around the west side of Fort Worth would be added several years later.

But Metroplex officials are concerned that the project would cause leapfrog development outside the Metroplex and drain jobs away from the urban core. The outer loop would make it easier to incorporate the toll road into the region’s freeway plans, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

After the exchange with Williamson, North Texas leaders said they plan to meet with Cintra Zachry engineers to share statistics. They say Metroplex freight companies would rather have the toll road follow Interstate 35, 35E and 35W more closely.

Morris’ office has proposed that the highway be built in a more or less straight north-south line from San Antonio through Austin and Waco to Mansfield, where it would connect with an outer loop. Those wishing to go through the Metroplex could connect with a proposed Texas 360 toll road in Mansfield.

The proposal could shorten the project by 60 miles and save Cintra Zachry $1.9 billion, Morris said.

“It isn’t the public and private sector operating in a vacuum,” Morris said during the meeting. “We don’t think we’re asking the private sector to do something that’s foreign to them.”

But Cintra Zachry officials have consistently said the most profitable path for a toll road would steer clear of the Metroplex.

Despite the Trans-Texas disagreement, state and local officials agreed to support one another in plans for toll roads, express toll lanes and freight- and passenger-rail lines. The state is expected to experience an $86 billion highway-funding shortfall through 2030.

Those appearing on behalf of the Metroplex included developer Ross Perot Jr.; Pete Rickershauer, vice president of BNSF Railway; and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief. The North Texas group, known informally as Dallas-Fort Worth Partners in Mobility, meets annually with the commission to discuss plans to reduce Metroplex gridlock and build roads, despite a chronic funding shortfall.

The Trans-Texas Corridor will be the subject of more than 50 public hearings statewide this summer, although the Texas Department of Transportation, not Cintra Zachry, is guiding that process.

Also Thursday, the North Texas group called for lawmakers to stop diverting about a quarter of the state’s gas-tax revenue to education and instead spend that money on relieving gridlock.
Gordon Dickson, (817) 685-3816
gdickson@star-telegram.com

© 2006 Fort Worth Star-Telegram: www.dfw.com

Public Hearing Schedule for TTC-35 Preferred Corridor Alternative Route

CorridorWatch.org BULLETIN

May 25, 2006

TxDOT has released the public hearing schedule focusing on the TTC-35 Preferred Corridor Alternative Route

We now have the list of dates and locations for the next 54 hearing that TxDOT will hold along the TTC-35 route. This series of Public Hearings will begin July 10, 2006 and conclude on August 10, 2006. (see list below)

It is important for the public to participate in this process to provide input and express concerns that they may have. However, it is equally important to understand that this is an environmental process mandated by the federal government. TxDOT has held more than 100 meetings as part of the required environmental process. It is not a process by which the State of Texas will determine whether or not to build the TTC, that decision has already been made (without your input).

There was never as much as a single meeting to solicit public input on the of the Trans-Texas Corridor concept or plan before it was made policy. Proceeding with the TTC was the unilateral decision of Governor Perry and has been faithfully implemented by the Texas Transportation Commission.

Your comments on this project are not limited to wildlife, endangered species and pollution (air, water, ground, noise, etc.). While all of those are important and certainly a part of the process the scope of a highway environmental impact study is much broader.

Here are just a few of the other issues of concern:

• Impact on local communities (jobs, effect on local traffic routes, etc.).

• Cemeteries and historical sites (including unmarked and private family plots).

• Social impact (cost of tolls, disruption of communities, etc.).

• Economic impact (competition with local commerce, loss of traffic associated business, etc.).

• Community objection to project.

PUBLIC HEARING SCHEDULE

All meetings open at 5:00pm with presentations beginning at 6:30pm.

Date City - Location - Address

July 10
Ennis: Knights of Columbus Hall 850 S. Interstate 45
Gainesville: Gainesville Civic Center 311 S. Weaver St.
Sherman: Municipal Ballroom 405 N. Rusk St.

July 11
Bonham: Bonham High School Cafeteria 1002 Warpath Dr.
Decatur: Decatur Civic Center 2010 W. US 380
Denton: Univ. of North Texas Gateway Ctr. Ballroom 801 N. Texas Blvd.

July 12
Cleburne: Cleburne Civic Center 1501 W.Henderson St.
Paris: Love Civic Center 2025 S. Collegiate Dr.
Waxahachie: Waxahachie Civic Center Ballroom 2000 Civic Center Ln.

July 13
Hillsboro: Hill College Performing Arts Center Auditorium 112 Lamar Dr.
McKinney: McKinney High School Cafeteria 1400 Wilson Creek Pkwy.
Weatherford: Weatherford College Marjorie Black Alkek Fine Arts Center 225 College Park Dr.

July 17
Fort Worth: Will Rogers Memorial Center, Exhibits Hall, Round Up Inn 3400 Burnett-Tandy Dr.
Greenville: Fletcher Warren Civic Center 5501 S. Bus. Hwy. 69
McGregor: McGregor High School Auditorium 903 Bluebonnet Pkwy.

July 18
Cameron: Cameron ISD Performing Arts Center 303 E. 12th St.
Granbury: GISD Pearl Street Conference Center 205 E.Pearl St.
Mesquite: Poteet High School Auditorium 3300 Poteet Dr.

July 19
Clifton: Clifton High School Cafeteria 1101 N. Avenue Q
Hearne: Hearne Junior High School Aud. 401 Wheelock St.
Terrell: Terrell ISD Performing Arts Center 400 Poetry Rd.

July 20
Caldwell: Caldwell High School Auditorium 550 County Road 307
Corsicana: Drane Intermediate School Auditorium 100 S. 18th St.
Groesbeck: Groesbeck High School Auditorium 1202 N. Ellis St.

July 24
Georgetown: Georgetown High School Klett Center for the Performing Arts 2211 N. Austin Ave.
Waco: Waco Convention Cntr, Brazos Room 100 Washington Ave.

July 25
Marlin: Marlin High School Auditorium 1400 Capps
Taylor: Taylor High School Auditorium 3101 N. Main St.

July 26
Giddings: Sons of Hermann Hall 1031 County Road 223
Temple: Frank W. Mayborn Civic & Convention Center, Main Hall 3303 N. 3rd St.

July 27
Dallas: Grauwyler Community Center 7780 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rockdale: Knights of Columbus Hall 655 Highway 79 E

July 31
Beeville: Beeville Community Center 111 E. Corpus Christi St.
Flatonia: Flatonia ISD Cafeteria 400 E. 4th St.
Lockhart: Lockhart High School Cafeteria #1 Lion Country Dr.

August 1
Gonzales: Gonzales High School Cafeteria 1801 Sarah DeWitt Dr.
Kingsville: King Ranch Museum 405 N. 6th St.
Manor: Manor High School Cafeteria 12700 Gregg Manor Rd.

August 2
Bastrop: Bastrop Middle School Cafeteria 709 Old Austin Hwy.
Calallen: Calallen High School Cafeteria 4001 Wildcat Dr.
Pleasanton: Pleasanton High School Cafeteria 1100 W. Adams St.

August 3
Floresville: Floresville High School Gymnasium 1832 Highway 97 East
Smithville: Smithville High School Cafeteria 285 Highway 95

August 7
Falfurrias: Sacred Heart Parish Hall 201 W. Blucher
Laredo: TAMIU Events Center Western Hemispheric Trade Center, Rm. 111 5201 University Blvd.
Pearsall: Pearsall High School Cafeteria 1990 Maverick Dr.

August 8
Alice: Knights of Columbus Hall 1050 Cecilia St.
McAllen: McAllen Convention Center 1300 S. 10th St.
San Antonio: East Central High School Cafeteria 7173 FM 1628

August 9
George West: George West High School Cafeteria 913 Houston St.
Harlingen: Casa de Amistad 1204 Fair Park Blvd.
Seguin: Seguin-Guadalupe County Coliseum 810 S. Guadalupe St.

August 10
Brownsville: City of Brownsville Events Center 1 Event Ctr. Blvd.
Yorktown: Yorktown Community Mess Hall 60 Community Hall Rd.

© 2006 CorridorWatch: www.corridorwatch.org

"Legislators are selling off their responsibility to provide for public safety."

Editorial/Opinion

The real cost of toll roads could be American lives

5/24/2006

By Jim Hall
USA Today
Copyright 2006

As you hit the roads this Memorial Day weekend, you might notice that you're paying more to drive. And no, I don't mean for gas.

All over the country, state governments are building new toll roads and privatizing existing ones. What's the driving force? Two factors: worsening traffic congestion and the unwillingness of elected officials to raise taxes to address those transportation infrastructure problems.

Indiana recently auctioned off its Toll Road for nearly $4 billion. In the Washington, D.C., area, lawmakers are considering adding express toll lanes on the Capital Beltway, which has no tolls, in hopes of reducing the gridlock that is paralyzing the loop around the city.

I have heard a lot of public debate over the effect these roads will have on the people who use them. But I have yet to hear elected officials address the very first question that should be answered: How does the movement toward toll roads affect the safety of citizens who, for economic reasons, will be forced onto secondary roads?

Lost in the joy over the prospect of shorter commutes is the plain fact that legislators are selling off their responsibility to provide for public safety. That is inexcusable, for, as Thomas Jefferson once said, the first obligation of government is to provide for the safety of the people. Common sense tells us that those who cannot afford to drive on toll roads will, in many cases, opt to travel on two-lane undivided highways, which are the most unsafe roads in the USA. In fact, less than half as many crashes causing fatality or injury occur on divided roads (a category into which toll roads fall almost by definition) as compared with undivided highways.

As states reap the profits generated by selling roads, and as private corporations recoup their billions one fare at a time, the losers are, as usual, the poor, the young, the elderly, the small-business owner, and the independent trucker. These folks will not be scooting along in the express toll roads; they will be dodging oncoming traffic and fighting to stay in their lane on the undivided and unsafe — but no-cost — highways.

I refuse to belittle the frustration and inconvenience of a bumper-to-bumper commute. If toll roads can help solve that problem, hooray, but I am afraid all we are doing in effect is moving the congestion to roads that are less safe. Not only is this bad news for drivers, it is bad news for the economy. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study showed that the cost to the U.S. economy from motor vehicle crashes in 2000 was more than $230 billion. Legislators enamored with the dollars that toll roads can provide must not forget the costs that come when more drivers are relegated to unsafe roads.

Therefore, governments that profit from toll roads — and some states take in more than $1 billion in toll road revenue each year — have an obligation to the people they serve to improve the safety of undivided highways.

Barriers to divide highways, aluminum rails to prevent drivers from running off the road, and rumble strips to alert drowsy drivers are just a few of the relatively simple improvements that could significantly improve safety.

As citizens, we cannot allow our elected officials to continue the "triple threat" in which they are engaged: ridding themselves of their responsibility to provide safe highways, raking in profits from toll roads, and doing nothing to make secondary roads safer.

Now is the time for leadership at the federal and state levels to require a percentage of toll road profits to be used to improve the safety of secondary roads. Otherwise, we will be traveling down a very dangerous road, indeed, creating two classes of safety: safe highways for drivers with money, and unsafe roads for the rest.

Jim Hall was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1994-2001. He now heads Hall & Associates LLC, a safety and security consulting and government relations firm in Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.: www.usatoday.com

"We're in favor of TxDOT living in their budget like the rest of us."

Toll road plans under scrutiny

05/24/2006

Lety Laurel
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006

LEON VALLEY — A standing-room-only crowd packed the Leon Valley Community Center last Wednesday to hear about the possible construction of toll roads over Bandera Road.

Before an audience made up of Leon Valley and San Antonio residents, officials from the Texas Department of Transportation and the Alamo Regional Mobility Authority knocked heads with representatives from the San Antonio Toll Party in a forum that allowed all sides to give 10-to 15- minute presentations before a heated 30-minute question-and-answer session with rebuttals.

"I think it went well," said state Rep. Joaquin Castro, who organized the meeting along with San Antonio District 7 Councilwoman Elena Guajardo. "Both sides of the argument were expressed, and also I think the RMA and TxDOT had the opportunity to lay out some of their ideas."

Guajardo said the turnout was impressive, especially on a Spurs game night.

"It was between the Spurs and the Idol show was on. That was the joke," she said. "But it was over 300 people, standing room only."

The RMA is studying relieving congestion on Bandera Road from Loop 410 to Loop 1604 by adding toll lanes along the 7.5-mile route.

According to the authority, the study area sees 31,000 to 53,000 vehicles each day, and that number is projected to increase to 68,300 to 106,900 daily by 2030.

In her presentation, RMA executive director Terry Brechtel told the audience that officials predict an $8.4 billion shortfall over the next 25 years to fund transportation projects in Bexar County. One way to fund projects now would be through a tolling mechanism, she said.

"We're facing a significant increase in population, and with that increase in population we're going to see a significant increase in our demand for infrastructure, particularly in local streets, highways and major corridors," she said.

"And we're going to continue to see a funding shortfall because ... around the state, gas tax does not truly pay for even the maintenance of our roadways."

What everyone can agree on, she said, is that congestion is bad.

"It's going to get worse unless we as a community do something about it now," she said.

Terri Hall, regional director and founder of San Antonio Toll Party, an organization opposed to tolls on roads or rights of way already paid for with tax dollars, and transportation consultant Bill Barker stressed that the issue goes beyond Bandera Road.

"This is about a statewide shift to tolling existing freeways — and, yes, Bandera Road is an existing road and an existing right of way, and whether it's up in the sky in an elevated toll way or down on the ground, it's still taking our existing right of way purchased with your gas tax dollars and trying to put a toll on it and charging twice to use it," Hall said.

As for making transportation improvements with a budget shortfall, Barker said: "We're in favor of TxDOT living in their budget like the rest of us."

In the audience made up mostly of Leon Valley residents, there was support for both sides of the issue.

Leon Valley resident Ernest Medellin, who has lived in the city for 28 years, said he is against tolling.

"It's bad enough we have to pay the gas (prices) we're paying, but to pay 25 cents to a dollar to go to H-E-B because we forgot the eggs ... I want to discourage the whole idea, but I don't think we will win this deal," he said. "I think it's a done deal because somebody's for it, and I don't know who they are."

But Mike Villyard, who lives in Stone Oak, said he doesn't see much of a choice other than to add toll lanes.

"I have seen congestion grow remarkably," he said. "I don't like to pay tolls, but I'd like congestion to lessen. I don't like to pay taxes, but it's the price you pay for the convenience and joy of living in a great country."

llaurel@express-news.net

© 2006 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com

Will rising gas prices bust the toll road boom in Texas?

Gas-price impact on toll roads feared

05/24/2006

Patrick Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006

Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson doesn't care much for toll roads anyway, but now he has a new worry.

Perennially high gas prices could prove to be a sure damper for growing traffic congestion as motorists flee to buses, double up more often in their cars and move closer to jobs.

And without congested streets, toll lanes are money losers. Drivers won't pay toll fees if they can get somewhere just as fast on free roads.

So with gas prices expected to remain high through next year and global production of conventional oil projected to peak in two to four decades, if not sooner, what could toll-road planners be thinking, says Adkisson, who sits on the Metropolitan Planning Organization board.

The board has approved plans for 75 miles of toll roads in San Antonio, and those projects could each have bond paybacks of 40 years or so — plenty of time for high gas prices to sabotage good intentions.

"Come on, it's just a matter of time before it goes to $4," Adkisson said.

And if that time comes, many toll projects could be doomed.

Adkisson is trying to get the planning board to plan now for those impacts. This week, he asked the rest of the board to consider doing a study on how gas prices could change driving habits and what the implications would be for upcoming highway projects.

"The more we sweat right now, the less we'll bleed later," he said. "I don't think we should immerse ourselves in the more grandiose forms for infrastructure. I think toll roads are pretty grandiose."

The matter is at least worthy to discuss, said City Councilman Richard Perez, who chairs the planning board. The issue could be on next month's agenda.

"I'm open to whatever the policy board is interested in discussing," he said.

Adkisson isn't just culling numbers off the Internet to feed his fears.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts production of conventional oil could peak in 2037, while a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report last September said that could be happening now — or about to.

It will take more than a decade to mitigate increasingly short oil supplies, says a study sponsored by the U.S. Energy Department.

Toss in insatiable growth in China and India, tensions in the Middle East and lack of refining capacity and gas prices — now averaging $2.88 a gallon nationwide for regular unleaded, according to AAA — could continue to soar, some say.

"There is good reason to believe that we are at the start of a long, steady climb in the price of gasoline," said local transportation consultant Bill Barker, who arms toll critics with data. "In fact, we seem to be right on track with a prediction by CIBC World Markets for $100-per-barrel oil by 2010, which should put gasoline at $3.50 per gallon in the near future."

The Energy Information Administration, which is notorious for low-balling its estimates, is much more positive. Officials project prices will stay high through next year, drop and then end up at $2.19 a gallon by 2030 — in 2004 dollars.

"I wouldn't bet on it," one agency official confided.

A better bet, the official said, would be to go with the agency's high-price scenario, which puts gas at more than $3 a gallon by 2030 — also in 2004 dollars.

That could jeopardize toll revenues needed to pay off bonds for two Austin-area toll projects — Texas 130 and Highway 183A, both slated to open next year.

Bond statements by Vollmer Associates assume gas prices won't top the U.S. peak set in 1980, which, when adjusted for inflation, would be more than $3 a gallon in 2005. Average daily prices last September reached $2.92 in Austin and $3.06 nationwide, AAA said.

Vollmer officials didn't return phone calls.

Nevertheless, Cherian George, head of transportation at Fitch Ratings, which rates the creditworthiness of bonds, said he isn't alarmed.

When gas prices spike, as they did after hurricanes Katrina and Rita smashed Gulf Coast oil rigs and refineries last year, motorists will drive less, but price upswings would have to be much more significant to put toll roads at risk, he said.

That's because people will cut vacations and other side trips before doing away with their commutes, George said.

"People have to get to work," he said. "Other discretionary or less essential choices will have to be done away with."

Results last fall were mixed for toll roads.

Two New Jersey toll roads lost millions of dollars in toll collections because of rising gas prices coupled with a winter storm, the Asbury Park Press reported. But Harris County Toll Road Authority officials said that, aside from a dip in September when Houston was evacuated, toll-road use has grown unabated.

Nearly nine of 10 Americans changed their behavior when gas prices were rising last fall, according to a survey done for the Urban Land Institute.

The most common change was combining stops into one trip, followed by eliminating non-commute trips, buying a fuel-efficient car, bicycling and walking more, considering moving closer to work, sharing more rides and riding buses or trains more.

In San Antonio, people flocked to the buses. From October through March, ridership jumped 12.9 percent compared with the same time the year before, VIA Metropolitan Transit officials said.


pdriscoll@express-news.net

© 2006 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com

"This is potentially quite a large sideswipe on their profits."

Petrol prices hit car sales

May 23, 2006

By John Garnaut and Jordan Baker
The Sydney Morning Herald
Copyright 2006

Record petrol prices are forcing Sydney motorists to drive less, buy fewer cars and switch away from four-wheel-drive vehicles.

New figures also show traffic volumes appear to have fallen, raising questions about the profitability of privately owned motorways.

Fewer 4WDs were sold in NSW last month than in any month for three years, while car sales continued a slide that began early last year.

Traffic fell on the Eastern Distributor, M4 and M5 toll roads in the year to April, says Macquarie Infrastructure Group's monthly report to the stock exchange, the first annual decline since 2001.

"Houston, we have a problem," said the director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney, Professor Stuart White.

"This is potentially quite a large sideswipe on their profits."

High petrol prices have caused a public backlash. A Herald/ACNielsen poll yesterday showed 45 per cent of voters would have preferred the Federal Government to cut petrol excise than income tax in the budget.

But today the NRMA will tell the Government to ignore the pressure and spend the money on roads instead. Australia's 38 cents a litre excise is less than half the average 84 cents in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the fourth lowest among the 30 OECD countries. The president of NRMA Motoring and Services, Alan Evans, said he would tell the federal Minister fo Transport, Warren Truss, that trimming the price of petrol would do little to help motorists. He will ask the Government to direct 50 per cent of the excise to roads.

"Motorists want that money spent on roads and alternative fuels, making us less dependent on overseas oil supplies," Mr Evans said.

Bureau of Statistics figures show NSW 4WD sales have slipped 21 per cent since February last year and car sales peaked early last year but have since dropped to the levels of two years ago. National 4WD sales slipped for four consecutive months for the first time since records began in 1994.

"Drivers have clearly altered their behaviour, especially in NSW," said Craig James, an economist at CommSec. His counterpart at ABN Amro, Kieran Davies, said motorists were holding their petrol budget constant despite higher prices - thus consuming less. A taxi driver, Bashi Barry, said: "In 10 years of driving cabs I've never seen traffic this quiet outside of holiday times."

The chief executive of advertising agency BMF, Matthew Melhuish, said car makers "could go back to pushing the good old fashioned station wagon".

Macquarie Infrastructure Group, which has stakes in the Eastern Distributor, M4, M5 and M7, played down the impact of higher petrol prices and sluggish traffic volumes on its bottom line. It said last month's results were skewed by the timing of Easter.

The toll price for the unpopular Cross City Tunnel was halved for three months from early March to lure more traffic. The Premier, Morris Iemma, yesterday said that he hoped the half-price period would continue until the final toll was set.

A Lane Cove Tunnel spokesman said he was sure it would prove popular when it opened late this year or early next year. The opening toll would be capped at $2.60 for the tunnel or $1.30 for the Falcon Street ramps.

Copyright © 2006. The Sydney Morning Herald: www.smh.com.au

"Right now what I hear them saying is, they do not want this toll road."

Leon Valley battles on tolls

5/22/2006

Patrick Driscoll
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2006

Now that toll road fever has shifted to proposed elevated toll lanes over Bandera Road, Leon Valley residents are getting their dose of the numbing data and shocking rhetoric that puff the debate.

A debate last week at the Leon Valley Community Center has left city officials scratching their heads as they try to untangle the mountain of information, collected over months and even years, that spewed for more than an hour and a half.

"Cognitive overload is what I call it," Mayor Chris Riley said. "One person would say this, and then (another) would say no, so I'm like — get me those (studies) and let me read it for myself."

Riley, along with state Rep. Joaquín Castro and San Antonio City Councilwoman Elena Guajardo, held the debate to inform and perhaps assuage concerned residents. More than 250 people showed up and clapped liberally for both sides, though a little louder for toll critics.

So far, the community is decidedly against both tolls and the elevated lanes.

Just over a week ago, Leon Valley City Council candidate Arthur Reyna Jr. trounced an incumbent by more than a 2-to-1 ratio after targeting a city resolution from September that asks the Texas Department of Transportation to study flyover lanes.

Most Leon Valley Area Chamber of Commerce members, polled twice in recent months, said businesses would do poorly in the shadow of flyover toll lanes. The organization would rather see Bandera widened to eight lanes, beautified and made easier for walking.

"Personally, I think it would be a horrible thing for the city," Reyna said. "From the other side, I'll do whatever the citizens want me to do, and right now what I hear them saying is, they do not want this toll road. So it's my job to try and do whatever I can to stop it."

That's the crowd that David Casteel, TxDOT's head engineer in San Antonio, and Terry Brechtel, Alamo Regional Mobility Authority director, faced Wednesday when they debated San Antonio Toll Party members.

TxDOT has laid out plans for 75 miles of toll roads on the North Side — along U.S. 281, Loop 1604, Interstate 35, Bandera Road and a Wurzbach Parkway interchange at U.S. 281 — and is studying additional toll lanes on I-10 outside Loop 1604.

The mobility authority recently took over the 28 miles of toll projects for I-35, Wurzbach and Bandera and is helping TxDOT pick a private consortium to operate 47 miles of planned toll lanes on U.S. 281 and Loop 1604.

Pitch for tolls

Casteel and Brechtel argue that there's not enough tax money to solve traffic congestion — it's not even close.

Over the past 25 years in Texas, the population grew 57 percent and the amount of driving almost doubled while miles of highway lanes increased just 8 percent. Much of the same is expected over the next quarter-century, except that driving is projected to triple.

Planners say $188 billion worth of traffic projects are needed by 2030, but the state is short by $86 billion, a tenth of it in San Antonio. Gas taxes — which are the same 38.4 cents a gallon that they were more than a decade ago — would have to be raised by $1.20 a gallon to cover the bill.

Inflation has whittled purchasing power of the state's 20-cent gas tax — per road-mile driven — to early 1980s levels.

But the Legislature has refused to raise the tax in recent years, opting instead to go with tolls. As of late last year, planned toll roads in Texas cities were expected to rake in $5 billion in construction money over 25 years, which is equivalent to a 2-cent gas tax.

Together with gas taxes, tolls can fund projects decades sooner, officials say. And as toll roads are paid off, excess revenues could be used to help pay for other projects. Motorists would choose whether to drive on congested non-tolled lanes, such as existing Bandera Road, where traffic is projected to double in 25 years, or pay fees to save time.

Otherwise, San Antonio's traffic will soon look like Houston's today, torturing drivers even more, increasing costs to do business and scaring companies thinking about locating here.

"It doesn't take too much in-depth analysis, it doesn't take a Texas A&M engineering degree, to say that if you don't like congestion today, you're really not going to like it in the future," Casteel said.

Ditch the tolls

Terri Hall, founder and director of San Antonio Toll Party, and locally based transportation consultant Bill Barker say something smells funny.

For one thing, tolls do not solve traffic congestion. And congestion is needed on competing roads to make tolls viable because motorists won't pay a fee if they can get somewhere just as quickly on free roads.

Toll lanes will benefit only those who can afford them, while everybody else will still help pay, they said. Gas taxes are eyed for many toll projects because tolls can't always do it all; rights of way bought with public money would also be used, and businesses using toll lanes would pass on the costs to customers.

Also, they said, the state's $86 billion worth of road needs are probably more of a wish list when one considers that gas taxes would have to more than triple to get the money. A better idea is to tighten spending and prioritize better.

It's even arguable that more highway lanes will just spread sprawling development faster and induce more driving, as in the past.

San Antonio already has more miles of freeway lanes per person than 45 of the 50 largest U.S. cities, and when mileage per capita here increased between 1990 to 2000, commute times still went up.

The strategy should focus on decreasing how much people drive, such as more carpooling and telecommuting, better public transit, and building neighborhoods where it's easy to walk to bus stops and other places, they said.

Other solutions include developing a network of city streets that connect better, requiring developers to provide for those streets, using the latest technologies to coordinate traffic signals and using reversible lanes.

Smoke hasn't cleared

Work on the first three miles of toll lanes in San Antonio was scheduled for U.S. 281 in January, but federal officials pulled the environmental clearances after a lawsuit was filed that says impacts hadn't been studied enough. TxDOT is redoing the evaluations.
Meanwhile, the mobility authority is starting an environmental assessment for the seven miles of toll lanes that might be built over Bandera Road. The assessment could be completed within two years and the tollway opened in five.

Many residents in Leon Valley will be watching closely.

"If 50 percent of what San Antonio Toll Party presented is indeed true, TxDOT has some problems," said Phillip Manea, president of the Leon Valley chamber.

pdriscoll@express-news.net

© 2006 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com